The Three-Week System Reset
I used to be skeptical of cleanses, both food and juicing. Kale, nutritional yeast, salads, decaf coffee, diets, and health food trends were not my thing.
Meditation, yoga, weightlifting, and or any fill-in-the-blank exercise regime all seemed too trendy to me. As a runner, all I needed was a good pair of shoes and my thoughts.
Gratitude journals? I thought they were nonsense.
Despite being a “crunchy” Californian, I was cautious of anything that felt too healthy or like a passing trend without long-term benefits.
Of course, though, life has a way of challenging our beliefs.
About 15 years ago, I stopped pooh-poohing meditation. The daily ritual became a lifesaver. Soon after, I embraced more varied forms of exercise and movement and found a way to integrate body, mind, and spirit. A few years later, I started a daily gratitude practice, shifting my focus from “wrong-spotting” to “right-spotting.” All these changes created new habits and neural networks that have made me a more strengths-based leader and coach, happier in my work, and more intentional in my words and actions. This past spring, I even embarked on a three-week food cleanse (including kale, nutritional yeast, and even decaf coffee) to address digestive problems that had been exacerbated by stress and challenging life experiences. The results were humbling.
These practices—mindfulness, exercise, gratitude, and better eating—came into my life when I hit breaking points. Mindfulness helped with depression; exercise alleviated pain from a weakening frame; gratitude countered burnout and cynicism; and the food cleanse was a response to daily dietary struggles.
I found the most success when I challenged my Western, capitalist mindset that demands efficiency and speed, ignoring root causes and treating only symptoms with superficial fixes, perpetuating ongoing suffering under the surface. This mindset tells us to push through pain, to be relentlessly productive, and to prioritize short-term gains over long-term well-being. It's a mentality that celebrates busyness and hustle, often at the expense of our mental, physical, and emotional health. This mindset is pervasive in our schools and workplaces, even more so since coming out of the pandemic.
When I finally stepped back and questioned these ingrained beliefs, I discovered the value of slowing down and being patient with change, being present and reflecting on what was underneath my struggles, and addressing the deeper issues at hand. This shift allowed me to embrace practices that nourish and sustain me rather than just patch up problems temporarily or power through difficulty. These practices taught me the importance of holistic well-being and the need to proactively balance productivity with intention and reflection.
So yeah, I was wrong to scoff.
While I am not a health or fitness expert, I am well versed in the accumulated impact that being an educator—and the system of education—has on one’s overall well-being. Lately, I have been researching the key elements of well-being that are essential for living well within and outside the workplace. I also know that anything that is worth doing takes time, and building new habits requires sustained effort through tiny tweaks rather than major overhauls.
When it comes to prioritizing well-being, many of us desire making changes, but sometimes find it hard to begin. Or, we’re transitioning between seasons or entering into breaks, and we want practices that help us slow down, reflect, and take more intentional actions.
In collaboration with my colleague Tamisha Williams—someone who is a model for what it looks like to live well and sustainably—we developed a Three-Week System Reset that incorporates mindfulness, “tea breaks,” gratitude practices, and body scans/somatic work that will allow people to center well-being, build new habits, and determine the practices that will best serve them at any time of year.
Perhaps you once scoffed at these practices, too, but are interested in trying something out. Or perhaps you always knew these practices were good for you and are excited to get replenished. Or, perhaps, you know someone (or a group of people) who might want to engage in these practices in community. May this Three-Week System Reset provide you with whatever it is you needed to live well and stay well.
Click here to get the Three-Week System Reset
