Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Researcher | Burnout Preventionist
Serving Those Who Serve Others
Hi! My name is Jen, and I am an educator, mother, and burnout survivor turned professional burnout preventionist and mental health researcher, educator, and advocate.
I serve individuals called to human-service work to PROMOTE well-being, PROTECT their mental health, and PREVENT debilitating chronic stress and resilience fatigue we call burnout from dimming their light and diminishing their impact in
Education | Public Health | Healthcare | Leadership
18,000+
Hours of engagement
in The Light You Cast™
ON-DEMAND curriculum
"There's no doubt in my mind that we've had healthier educators working with our students, which really impacts the overall student experience and also helps those employees."
- District Curriculum Director
Those who care the most are the most susceptible to burning out.
Premier
Mental Health, Adult Social Emotional Well-Being, and Stress Management Education
in the Workplace
Flexible, choice-based, in-person and on-demand mental health professional learning experiences for those called to human-service professions.
Human science research demonstrates that the best predictor of our RELATIONAL HEALTH is our
MENTAL HEALTH.
For those of us who work in relationship-based professional callings, our capacity to create healthy relationships foundational to the work we do is deeply connected to our mental health and emotional well-being.
Core dispositions necessary for healthy relationships like CARE, COMPASSION, and CALM are by-products of maintaining our mental health and well-being. We must recognize that invisible, yet palpable dispositions of CARE, COMPASSION, and CALM are at the core of human-service work, and that these states of being in relationship to another require a high level of emotional labor that is sourced from the core of who we are.
So how do we maintain our mental health and emotional well-being in professions that have a disproportionately higher rate of resilience fatigue, burnout, and compassion fatigue than other professions?
I created the The Light You Cast™ to be an innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum of science-based, trauma-responsive mind-body approaches designed to heal, treat, and prevent complex stress fatigue - what we call burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury - by making visible simple practices that strengthen the (5) innate capacities of one's MENTAL HEALTH
while in service to others
PHYSICAL | COGNITIVE | EMOTIONAL | SPIRITUAL | RELATIONAL
The Light You Cast™
is professional development that provides preventative care that positively impacts personal mental health and collective well-being at the same time.
The light you cast -- your Presence -- is not only your most invaluable personal asset; it is the single most significant variable of your professional impact. For those called to relationship-based callings, your healthy Presence IS the intervention; it is the instrument of impact that positively transforms relationships and creates spaces where others can thrive.
Burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary-traumatic stress primarily impact those who care and care the most, thus strategic mental health education, social emotional support, and stress and resilience fatigue awareness, prevention, and protection are a professional necessity.
The Light You Cast™ professional development experiences are evidence-backed and based on a salutogenic, asset-based healing-centered approach that braids together
Stress Resilience
Interventions
Social Emotional Learning
Competencies
Mindful Body
Practices
Trauma-Responsive
Approaches
designed to train your mind and nervous system to integrate stress; not dis-integrate as a result of it. Dis-integration --- feeling numb, disconnected, anxious, unable to care, and simply "not yourself" -- are protective symptoms that indicate stress fatigue is causing an untenable internal imbalance of caring energy going out faster than it is being restored.
Our inner, invisible states of well-being have outer, visible impacts of positive influence.
Individual mental health is a positive determinant of communal health.
Investment in individual mental health and well-being education and support in the workplace is simultaneously a direct investment in ensuring positive, authentic connections relationships that create a climate of safety and support.
The Light You Cast™ curriculum is designed to enhance one's "toolkit" of concrete, trauma-responsive REST, RESTORATION, and REVITALIZATION practices proven promote social emotional well-being, prevent burnout, promote mental health, strengthen resonant relationships, and sustainably develop a secure and balanced sense of self to protect the individual from the detrimental impact of chronic stress, uncertainty, conflict, and perpetual change that are hallmarks of human-service work.
REST, regulate, and "re-fine" the nervous system to a set-point of safety and regenerate inner energy reserves efficiently and effectively.
RESTORE cognitive clarity, asset-based perspective-taking, and emotional resilience to keep mental composure during times of stress and compression.
REVITALIZE safe connections, resonant relationships, and a climate of care so one can give of themselves without losing one's self in the process.
"In the Spring of 2022, I almost left the profession. This training helped launch me into a healthier school year of setting firm boundaries that created more balance for me. It allowed me to fight for positive perspectives and an inner peace throughout my day-to-day."
School Counselor
Mental Health & Stress Management
ON-DEMAND
Burnout is complex.
The remedy must be simple, sustainable, and strategic.
Stress is unavoidable; but chronic stress fatigue can be. Chronic stress fatigue - what we call burnout - is so alarming and named as current public health crisis by the U.S. Surgeon General because if gone untreated and unacknowledged, it quietly corrodes the individual's mental health, emotional vitality, and sense of self.
We can stop the invisible, insidious cycle of burnout by raising awareness of the complex nature of chronic stress fatigue (what is happening around us) and increasing education that reconnects individuals with their innate mental health capacities to counteract the corrosive effect of toxic stress (where our power lies within us). We begin by remembering:
1) No single stressful EVENT causes burnout,
2) The ENVIRONMENT one experiences stress (at work or at home) can either cause more harm or help the individual cope,
3) Everyone EXPERIENCES stressors differently based on their individual internal stress response/resilience system,
4) The EFFECT a stressor leaves on the individual depends on how they metabolize the experience and make meaning from it.
The Light You Cast™ ON-DEMAND is the entire comprehensive 8 module (16 video) 4.5 hour curriculum designed for easy, immediate, and on-going access to concrete brain-based education and mind-body experiences that prioritizes preventative care practices that promote mental health, emotional well-being, stress metabolization, a resilient nervous system, work-life integration, and resonant relationships within professions where exhaustion, stress fatigue, burnout, and compassion fatigue are profoundly prevalent.
6,000 +
human-service professionals
served
26,000 +
views of modules
17,000 +
hours of engagement
Where to Start
Start by creating and holding SPACE.
Mental, emotional, physical, and self/psychological health are innate conditions within each of us all the time. Burnout is not an indicator that these internal capacities are lacking or that we are not resilient enough. It is the opposite, in fact. Unrelenting demands, too much to chronically do, and unrealistic expectations coupled with reduced agency, support, and respect suppress the expression of these innate health capacities. Burnout is a sophisticated, protective signal that let's us know when, and to what extent, our individual system is out of balance with our innate mental health capacities and psychological well-being. Not feeling there is any time to invest in being mentally and emotionally well is a core symptom of burnout.
Whether you are an individual looking for immediate, self-paced mental health and stress metabolization education or a leader within an organization looking to enhance your mental health offerings and provide comprehensive on-going and sustained adult social emotional well-being experiences and education for your staff, there are many different offerings and options to start.
Self-Paced & Sustaining Support
[ON-DEMAND, Online]
Introductory
Support
[IN-PERSON, On-site]
Deeper, Sustained Support
[IN-PERSON, On-site]
The entire (8) module (4.5 hour)
The Light You Cast™ ON-DEMAND curriculum fully online and self-paced can be licensed for just you, a cohort or team, or your entire organization/staff either on its own or to deepen and extend any in-person offerings.
Invigorate and inspire your staff with a keynote, 60 minute, 2 hour, half-day, or full day professional learning experience, and be sure to check out our signature TLYC | Mindful Movement experiences you can bring to your organization or staff to support their holistic health.
Includes on-site, The Light You Cast™ IN-PERSON signature experience and our more casual TLYC | Communities of Practice as well as targeted, multi-session trainings for specific groups, roles, cohorts, and for leaders looking to create systemic change and a culture of well-being in the workplace.
the Burnout Prevention
Collaborative
The Light We Cast is potent.
Burnout is not the primary problem; it is the symptom of a system that has become unrooted and disconnected from honoring core human values that are vitally necessary for health and well-being:
Reverence | Trust | Respect | Agency | Recognition
The Burnout Prevention Collaborative is designed to create space and provide support, training, and educational opportunities for leaders within the education, public health, and healthcare systems to nurture and care for their own mental health and well-being while providing them with resources to support the mental health of the caregivers within their care.
We must collectively respond the burnout crisis in systematic ways that promote communal wellbeing, interdependence, and healing-centered care for our human-service professionals.
Coming this summer
For me, healing from and preventing burnout and compassion fatigue is both professional and deeply personal.
Burnout does not discriminate; it occurs in any context (work-related or not) where one's capacity and (internal and external) resources to cope are out of balance with the stress and pressure coming one's way. I also learned that burnout is not the problem; it is a sophisticated, protective, trauma-response that the mind, body, and psyche/soul send as smoke signals to alert you to the fact that your system is being over taxed to the point of exhaustion. These were two unexpected discoveries of my doctoral research on how to heal from burnout and prevent it from even beginning in the first place.
As a former elementary reading interventionist and middle school reading teacher, I assumed that feeling burnt out, professionally, meant I was a good teacher. I had little to no awareness about the phenomenon of burnout, so I just assumed that I was the only one who was incapable of coping. Worse yet, I blamed myself and my high-sensitivity to stress and other people's emotions and moods as the reason for my inability to cope. For a long time, I thought I was wired wrong and that was the reason I felt overwhelmed, anxious, and burnt out as a teacher even though I loved what I did.
Then reality forced me to face the depths of burnout to an extent I was definitely not prepared for. I became a mother to three infants in the span of 17 months.
Burnout and compassion fatigue set in hard and fast as a mom. I had never felt a caregiving force like I felt caring for my children, so before I even knew what hit me, I was mothering from stage three burnout and coping with postpartum depression (PPD) while attempting to care for three infants. *See the 2024 Surgeon General's Advisory on Parents' Mental Health and Well-Being.
The unrelenting and chronic demands on me as a mother disabled my capacity to care for my three girls and myself. The chronic stress was frying my nervous system and clouding my capacity to think or see clearly.
The most severe impact the chronic stress had was that it negatively impaired my ability to create healthy attachment bonds with my babies, and I fell into a self-neglect spiral that atrophied my relationship to myself. The more disconnected I felt from my very self, the less I could feel, sense, and respond to the needs of my kids. And the more I disconnect from myself, the more stress and anxiety grew exponentially. It was a vicious cycle that overtook my capacity to cope with calm, compassion, and clarity.
Every day, I felt less and less like myself. The less I felt like myself, the more I felt guilt, shame, anxiety, and fear. Burnout was a sophisticated signal that let me know that my heart and soul were sore. I was no longer able to love or care about the things that mattered to me most. Compassion fatigue was a very real force that co-existed with feeling completely burnt out.
Then one sunny morning at 7am (with no sleep the night before because twin babies don't always sleep at exactly the same time), I broke. All I had the energy to think was -- "No one is coming to save you."
That one thought was the most terrifying and freeing thought that ever crossed my mind.
