Reflections from the Nourished SELF Coaching
By Jenna Augustine, Cohort 7
This season of Nourished SELF unfolded during a time of unexpected transitions and deep uncertainty for many leaders across our network. Through coaching circles and individual sessions, a shared truth emerged: burnout is real, and leaders need spaces where they can simply be, not perform.
Month after month, leaders arrived running on empty. Together, we began replacing quick fixes with nourishment that could actually restore. We named what felt heavy. We experimented with small, manageable shifts. We traded vending machine snacks for well-cooked meals, both literally and metaphorically.
Food as Care, Connection, and Equity
This season, we deepened our work by incorporating food boxes from GrowHaus. Some participants chose to donate their box back to the Northeast Denver community as an act of reciprocity.
The boxes showed up in different ways: warm dinners after exhausting days, shared snacks during coaching circles that opened honest conversations, small gestures that helped level the playing field when time and money were tight.
One leader shared that the box became an anchor during a stretch of unemployment in her household. Having fresh, beautiful food arrive at her door eased the quiet panic about groceries and meant her family could still gather for a shared meal. In a season where so much felt uncertain, that delivery was a tangible reminder that they were still held in community.
Food became more than curriculum. It became practice.
During virtual sessions, we made space to explore what nourishment looks like in real life, especially during stress and transition. Participants reflected on how food shows up in their homes, as comfort, as culture, as convenience, and sometimes simply as survival.
Leaders spoke candidly about how burnout shifts eating patterns, how financial strain shapes grocery decisions, and the emotional weight food can carry, particularly for women in leadership roles.
The fresh food boxes grounded these conversations. Nourishment isn’t abstract. It’s practical and relational, deeply tied to access and equity.
For leaders navigating layoffs, role changes, and exhaustion, preparing a meal from locally grown ingredients became a quiet act of self-trust.
From Performative to True Self-Care
As conversations deepened, we named an important distinction: the difference between performative self-care and true self-care.
Performative self-care says: Take a bath. Light a candle. Push through.
True self-care asks: What do I actually need right now? Is this exhaustion physical, emotional, or systemic? What boundary is waiting to be honored?
We created space to talk openly about stress eating without shame, financial anxiety, feeling othered in professional environments, reclaiming identity and belonging, and simplifying wellness practices instead of layering on more expectations.
For one leader, true self-care looked less like another task and more like a Pocket Practice: turning on a song and dancing in her living room with her daughter for no reason. It didn’t erase the workload, but it shifted the energy for three minutes and reminded her that joy still counts.
We practiced capacity checks: “Am I at 50 percent or 100 percent today?” and adjusted accordingly.
This work was never about optimizing productivity. It was about protecting wholeness while the work continues.
Leaders began naming their own Pocket Practices: small, doable acts of true self-care that fit inside real life:
- Stepping outside between meetings and taking five slow breaths before walking back in
- Blocking one calendar hold each week labeled: Do Not Reschedule
- Eating lunch away from a screen, even for ten minutes
- Choosing a protein-forward snack instead of skipping food altogether
- Beginning a team meeting with, “What capacity are we bringing into the room today?”
- Taking a short walk and noticing one item in nature
- Letting a child interrupt without rushing them away
None of these practices erased systemic stress. But each one interrupted the cycle of depletion, even briefly. Pocket Practices became reminders that true self-care doesn’t have to be elaborate or indulgent. It needs to be responsive and honest, proportionate to the moment.
Belonging as Leadership Work
Belonging is part of leadership work.
When leaders are met with welcome instead of dismissal, they stop spending energy on perfection and begin solving problems together. We witness courage when leaders choose authenticity over polish, mentor through curiosity, and treat transitions not as failure but as part of growth. This is where belonging takes root.
That kind of culture requires practice, not platitudes.
One leader arrived carrying the quiet weight of not belonging. She loved her students, but worked in a school where she felt like an outsider in nearly every meeting, always a little too much or not enough.
In our sessions, she began naming that out loud and tracing how it shaped her leadership identity: how often she started silent, how much energy she spent proving she deserved to be there instead of actually leading.
Together, we coached toward what belonging might look like in practice. She identified one or two “safe enough” colleagues. She experimented with mentoring through curiosity, even when the broader culture felt rigid. She began reframing the question of staying or leaving — not as personal failure, but as a choice about where her leadership could root and grow.
Community as Capacity
Perhaps the greatest impact of this cohort was relational.
At a time when many leaders felt isolated, politically strained, or professionally uncertain, coaching became a steady container. There was room for tears and laughter. For hard conversations. For silence. For resource sharing. For honest reflection.
Leadership can feel lonely. Nourished SELF reminded us it does not have to be.
That community did not end when the cohort did. Participants carried that steadiness back into their schools and teams. Leaders shared that they began starting staff meetings with capacity check-ins, bringing food to difficult staff moments, and leaning more intentionally into peer mentorship when systems felt unsafe.
Those small shifts moved coaching from a contained space into everyday practice — gradually shifting workplaces from survival mode toward repair and possibility.
What We Learned
When we nourish leaders, we strengthen systems.
Grounded leaders create safer classrooms. Seen leaders foster more connected teams. Leaders who practice boundaries loosen burnout’s grip — not overnight, but meaningfully.
This season reinforced a simple truth: wellness is not a luxury in early childhood systems. It is part of the infrastructure that allows them to function.
As we move forward, we remain committed to building leadership spaces that honor nourishment, belonging, and sustainable practice — not as add-ons, but as essential to the work.
Because when leaders are nourished, communities thrive.
Food for Thought
As you read this, pause and notice:
What might nourishment, belonging, and sustainable practice look like in your own leadership this season?
What is one small shift you are willing to try next?