Title: Pivot - A Spotlight on Your Restorative Well-Being
Presenter(s):
Natalie Walters (she/her)
Room: Pyon Su 2108
Session Block(s): Session III
Time: 1:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m.
Duration: 60 minutes
Program Abstract:
“PIVOT – A Spotlight on Your Restorative Well-Being” explores how small but intentional shifts in one's mindset through restorative practices towards a more sustainable personal resilience. This presentation highlights practical strategies for identifying and recognizing habitual negative idling, recalibrating through an "emotional caffeine" and restoring balance in an increasingly demanding world. Participants will leave with actionable tools to realign their energy, enhance self-awareness, and cultivate long-term well-being.
Program Description:
Restorative practitioners give endlessly—holding space, facilitating healing, and tending to the emotional ecosystems of schools and communities. Yet this work can quietly deplete even the most committed among us. PIVOT – A Spotlight on Your Restorative Well-Being is an immersive, reflective session designed to interrupt that cycle by guiding participants back to themselves. Presented at the IIRP World Conference, this workshop invites attendees to intentionally “pivot” toward practices that strengthen inner balance, emotional clarity, and resilience.
A key component of this session is the exploration of how negative mindsets take hold—through stress, overextension, and the cumulative weight of others’ stories. Left unaddressed, these patterns dull our presence and diminish our restorative capacity. PIVOT utilizes the concept of “emotional caffeine” as a powerful antidote: simple, intentional practices that act as quick but meaningful refuelers for the spirit. These micro-moments of restoration energize practitioners in the same way a cup of coffee might awaken the body—the stimulation comes from intentional shifts in the neuro-receptors follwed by a joy-triggering engagement to reboot emotional well-being.
Participants will examine how emotional caffeine can be strategically used to counter self-doubt, fatigue, and the subtle drift into deficit thinking. Through interactive exercises, guided reflection, and embodied activities, attendees will explore how personal wellness directly shapes their capacity to co-regulate, to lead with empathy, and to model the restorative values they ask others to live by.
This session also creates space to name and release the impacts of role overload, compassion fatigue, and institutional pressures. By shining a spotlight on these realities, PIVOT empowers practitioners to build sustainable habits that protect their energy and enhance the quality of their restorative work.