The Lifelong Student: Navigating Graduation, Somatic Leadership, and What Comes Next

Reflecting on these first few weeks after graduation, I am still buzzing with an immense sense of gratitude and accomplishment. The dust has settled from the last couple of years, and in the quiet that followed, I realized something fundamental about myself: I absolutely love being a student.

Stepping out of the structured routine of a graduate program hasn’t stopped my momentum; instead, it has redirected it. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve eagerly returned to reading for fun, devouring books out of pure curiosity. But as I read, new seeds are already being planted.

The Next Horizon: Somatic Leadership & Co-Regulation

The idea of pursuing a PhD or EdD program is firmly rooted in my brain. I am increasingly drawn to studying and teaching the mechanics of self-regulation, co-regulation, and somatic leadership in education.

Specifically, I want to explore a core question:

If teachers are genuinely regulated, and they explicitly teach those regulation strategies to their students, what happens to actual learning and classroom management?

From Theory to the Classroom

I’ve personally found that my best, most impactful teaching happens when my own nervous system is regulated. It changes the entire energy of the room.

Lately, I’ve been bringing this philosophy directly to my current students. We’ve been practicing how to simply pause, observe, and breathe. Watching them learn to navigate their own internal states has been incredibly rewarding, and it only reinforces my desire to take this research further.

I’m not sure exactly when or where the doctoral journey will begin, but the framework is taking shape. For now, I'm enjoying the reading, practicing what I preach in the classroom, and staying open to where this curiosity leads next.