Dr. Jen Clifden
Relationship Researcher | Educator | Burnout Preventionist
The Light You Cast™
"After learning ​TLYC practices, I now go home after work tired, but happy and grateful.​ There is a big difference between being tired and being burnt out."
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Hight School Counselor
The Light You Cast™
Transforming the energy that feeds burnout into
positive impact that energizes us and those in our care.
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Making an impact on those in our care while preventing states of energetic depletion that harm a caregiver (burnout, compassion fatigue, moral injury, and secondary traumatic stress) is based on two fundamental scientific truths:
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The law of conservation of energy demonstrates that energy is neither created nor destroyed; rather can only change from one form to another.
All relationships are a sharing of energy and information.
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We have decades worth of research on what produces the negative cycle of burnout and what its harmful manifestations are.
Since we know that energy is neither created nor destroyed, I wanted to know what produced the opposite cycle to burning out. As a mother and public school teacher, I had experienced the detrimental impact that the cycle of burning out had on my mind, my body, my connection to my soul, and on all my relationships.
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I wanted to know what produced the cycle of burning clean. So I headed back to graduate school to explore what strategies, mindsets, practices, and processes produced feeling healthy and more (not less) like one's self in care-based callings.
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I researched and created a systematic process of integrative mind, body, and soul practices and perspectives that create a positive energy cycle that counteracts the manifestations of burning out by magnifying the caregiver's innate gifts of purpose, presence, and unconditional positive regard for the self and others through strategically metabolizing the stress of one's calling as a source of fuel instead of a source that feeds fatigue.​
The Light You Cast™ Cycle
The Light You Cast™ illuminates a cyclical process of trauma-informed, mindfulness-based practices that creates a cumulative effect of stable and sustainable energy over time for how to thrive, grow, and become more of ourselves while in the process of serving others.
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When your mindbodysoul system is “fine,” you can see and sense another with a refined perspective that allows you to naturally embody caring dispositions of curiosity, compassion, and concern without taking another’s behavior personally.
Feel centered, stable, light, and calm. Bring more of your self/soul into your role with effortless ease.
Revitalize your energy reserves from the psychic rewards of feeling valued, valuable, purposeful, and impactful.
Build intrinsic balance and healthy boundaries that fuel and protect your core worth instead of feeding core wounds of lack of enoughness.
Re-fine your energy and reinforce stable, safe, resilient relationship with the self when you are in the midst of stress.
Health | Healing
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Health is a on-going process of relating to chaos, uncertainty, stress, and change with the ability to 1) assess the situation, 2) manage the stress with asset-based internal resources, and 3) make meaning from the inevitable sources of stress one encounters in their service-oriented calling.​
The quickest and most effective way to undo and reverse the energy cycle of burnout is to get back into the body. Burnout has an anesthetizing effect; it causes a sense of numbness and separation from both the self and others.
We reconstitute the connection with the self through mindfulness-based somatic experiences for the body and cognitive-behavioral reframing practices for the mind that metabolize stuck stress that feeds burnout into fuel that grows self-awareness & actualization, stress-resilience, and deeper social connections.
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​The Light You Cast™ is a healing-centered curriculum of systematic restorative, protective, and preventative practices designed to "re-fine" the mind, body, and soul of the caregiver through experiential and interactive experiences that teach them how to re-connect with body everyday quickly, re-frame stress-producing situations into opportunities to act in alignment with their core strengths of character, and maintain a balance between sharing their energy with those in their care without losing themselves in the process.
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CALLING AWARENESS |
Expand caregiver's awareness of their core assets, strengths, purpose, core value/values, and core belief system as the source of the energy they bring into their calling
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BURNOUT AWARENESS |
Increase caregiver awareness of the early (and not so early) warning signs and manifestations of burnout, compassion fatigue, moral injury, and secondary traumatic stress
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STRESS - RESILIENCE AWARENESS |
Deepen caregiver awareness of the the primary stressors that provoke burnout and compassion fatigue and how stress is the necessary catalyst to strengthening mental and behavioral health
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INTEROCEPTION AWARENESS |
Increase caregiver's energy awareness of their inner, personal stress appraisal system (e.g., the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system) through exploring a repertoire of restorative and preventative strategies and mental and emotional health practices to "re-fine" the way their mind, body, and soul metabolizes the energy embedded in stress to harmonize the system vs. cause inner harm
SOCIAL AWARENESS |
Strengthen a caregivers protective boundaries by becoming aware of the power of healing one's self while helping others. Learn how to help others when they are in pain without allowing their pain to cause your own trauma/toxic reactions to their behaviors
Core Practices
REST
Healing Pillar
Regulate the Nervous System
Engage trauma-informed, mindfulness-based body-centered practices that harmonize, soothe, and regulate the mindbodysoul system.
RESTORATION
Healing Pillar
Making Meaning | Integration
Consciously metabolize
mental and emotional stress through our signature cognitive - behavioral Burn Clean Process to build resilience, self-confidence, mental health, emotional literacy, and positive behavioral patterns that align with core worth and values.
REVITALIZATION
Healing Pillar
Connection with Others
Cultivate social intelligence and relationship skills to see, sense and respond to another's behavioral cues without taking it personally while creating resonate relationship patterns where others feel visible and valued.
The Light You Cast™ is specifically designed for those in relationship-based professions to:
* Become a relationship researcher *
* Reverse the cycle of burnout *
* Nurture and enhance mental and behavioral health *
* Protect the self against compassion fatigue and moral injury *
* Detox the toxic stress response *
* Heal and soothe the nervous system *
* Develop and deepen self-sense (mental health, emotional intelligence, soul health) *
* Cultivate people-sense (social intelligence, compassion, empathy, resonance) *
Curriculum
The Light You Cast™
teaches the science of relationships and is based on:
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Healing-Centered Design
Mindfulness
Social and Emotional Learning Theory
Restorative Practice
Interpersonal Neurobiology
Trauma-Responsive Care
Somatic Practice
Attachment Theory
What We Know About Burnout
Burnout is not an indicator of lack of capacity or lack of resilience of the caregiver.
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It is an adaptive response of the mind, body, and soul to protect itself from emotional and psychological injury or harm when experiencing dwindling energy reserves.
When the caregiver's innate mind, body, and psychological protective system conserves energy for survival, less energy is available to flow out to those in their care and to themselves.
This light-dimming cycle of energy conservation manifests as cynicism, blame, lack of patience, and loss of tolerance and perspective in one's relationships as well as lack of capacity to care for the mind, body, and soul of the self.
The mental, emotional, and soul health of the caregiver in a relationship-based profession is not a luxury – it is a professional, and deeply personal, necessity.
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Relationship-based callings have unavoidable stressors that can cause harm to the soul of the caregiver if not acknowledged and strategically metabolized.
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Systemic and structural stress not only exacerbate burnout, theses unique toxic stressors exacerbate racial, socioeconomic, gender and language injustices in the systems in which our caregivers serve.
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Burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury are very real "costs of caring" that not only cost systems over $3 billion dollars a year, there are incalculable costs on the caregiver's mind, body, soul, family, and social systems.
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We know that caregiver dispositions that fuel their innate capacity for health and well-being are dynamic and cultivatable. With a growing body of data-driven mindfulness-based interventions, we can effectively support the cultivation of self-awareness, equity consciousness, persistence, curiosity, compassion, positive attitude, and empathy.
Grow Your Vision
"Because of this training, I have now proclaimed that I am in my age of restoration—
professionally, personally, and spiritually.
You have helped me more than you will ever know. You helped me get back to myself."
High School Teacher
Our Process of Support
RECOGNITION
Validate the caregivers experience of being called to a relationship-based profession that is intimately connected to the core of who they are and acknowledge the need need for sustained and systematic support in monitoring and assessing their physical, emotional, mental, and soul health.
EDUCATION & AWARENESS
Learn the 3 R's of caregiver mindbodysoul healing and energetic health -
REST, RESTORATION, REVITALIZATION; raise awareness of the primary sources of toxic stress in relationship-based professions and of the stages and manifestations burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury.
AWAKENING
Discover and engage trauma-responsive principles, somatic body-based movement practices, and cognitive-behavioral based perspective expansion to REGULATE and soothe the nervous system so to RELATE to stress in a healthy way in order to cultivate REASON and wisdom from pain, uncertainty, stress, and anxiety.
EMBODIMENT
Experience slow and gentle body-based movement designed to melt tension while providing moderate amounts of healthy stress to boost mental and emotional energy, improve balance and body-awareness, and help to reduce inflammation that leads to disease; cultivate brain-health through mindfulness-based visualizations that activate the self-regulatory part of the brain to soothe stress, alleviate anxiety, and over-ride overwhelm.
RESTORATION
Learn how to engage The Infinite Well-Being ModuleTM, our signature practice for metabolizing stress into conscious care and awareness, mental strength and agility, emotional intelligence and vitality, and value-based self-agency and action.
SUSTAINED SUPPORT
Engage in strategic school-based support and peer networking so to continually manage and mitigate the onset of burnout, secondary trauma, and moral injury while magnifying collective healing and individual restoration and rejuvenation.
Where to Start
The Light You Cast Curriculum™ is designed to suit the varying needs of organizations and institutions. Start with a single talk or workshop, deepen your learning with more immersive, targeted programs, and sustain & broaden organizational impact with online courses
Self-Paced & Sustaining
(on-demand, online)
Introductory Options
(in person or online)
Deeper, Multi-Session Work
(in person)
The entire (8) module signature Light You Cast™ curriculum fully online and self-paced can be licensed for just you or your entire organization or staff either on its own or to deepen and extend any in-person offerings.
Includes single keynote, booster sessions, half-day, full day professional development sessions, and/or in-person yoga/mindful movement classes for your entire organization or staff.
Includes more targeted, multi-session systematic development trainings for specific groups, roles, and cohorts. Also includes a "train the trainer" course for site-sustained burnout prevention cohorts.
Evidence of Impact
Qualitative data collected from participants who completed
The Light You Cast™curriculum demonstrates their capacity to metabolize the stress of their profession into a catalyst for growth, self-actualization, and social and emotional intelligence.
I believe...
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“I can re-story a threat to be a challenge.”
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“My perception of a situation creates my feelings in that present moment. What I am feeling directly influences what I say and do. I should go into each moment knowing that I have a deep well of kindness, calmness and caring to bring to that next moment or next interaction with students.”
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“My joy comes from seeing the beauty of each child when they are learning and feeling successful!! I also feel joy when children come to see me with such love and excitement!!!"
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“If I am feeling stressed, just taking a few moments to focus on my breathing will help reset my body.”
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“How important gratitude is. Asking how I want to be today and recognizing my breath.”
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“That we have to be intentional about creating opportunities to connect with and show compassion for students.”
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“Creating micro moments in the day to stop the fast pace and connect with those in my care - miracles are more like changes in perspective, so I realized I have more control than I thought."
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“In order to truly affirm others, I need to affirm myself first.”
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“I am naturally resilient, and that resilience within is cultivated in relationships with others, and hence as a teacher I am critical in building resiliency in my students. Embracing and honoring trauma is at the heart of allowing fear to turn into love.”
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"I am enough."
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"This training, while it addresses the very personal needs of avoiding burnout and coping with stress, finds its way into improving our relationships with everyone we encounter on our mission of care. Self-love as the cornerstone of racial justice seems simple, cutting edge, and essential all at once. "
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