But What If You Could Breathe Again?
By Andrew Murray | Educational Consultant | Lumina
Yes, we understand what burnout is.
We’ve seen it in our staffrooms. We’ve felt it in our calendars, our shoulders, and our sighs at the end of a long week. That creeping exhaustion that no long weekend can fix. The feeling of caring deeply and still wondering if it’s enough. We’re not short on effort. We’re short on air.
The teaching profession is full of people who are good. Good at showing up. Good at carrying the weight. Good at pushing through.
But what if we could move from good to great, not in terms of academic outcomes or audit trails, but in the quality of our energy, our culture, and our lives?
What if you could wake up with energy instead of dread? Lead with calm and clarity instead of reacting from overload? Be present with your students and colleagues rather than rushing to the next task? Finish the week with something left in the tank?
This isn’t wishful thinking. It’s the shift from surviving to flourishing. And it’s long overdue.
Flourishing isn’t about pretending everything is fine. It’s not an after-school yoga class while the same systems quietly wear us down. It’s about having oxygen in the system. Tyler VanderWeele, from the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, offers a definition that’s refreshingly whole: flourishing is a state in which all aspects of a person’s life are good. Not perfect, but stable. Not constant, but real.
He identifies six key domains that underpin a flourishing life: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, close social relationships, and spirituality or faith. These aren’t luxuries. They’re the deep structures that sustain us in work and life. In schools, they’re not bonus extras for those who can manage their time better. They’re what the work demands of us—and what the work must return to us if we’re to last.
If you’re a principal holding together a stretched team, a teacher looking for renewal, or a system leader rethinking how we support the people who make our schools run, this conversation is for you. The real question is no longer how to do more. The question is: how do we build a culture that lets people breathe?
I’ve seen what this can look like when schools get intentional. One principal moved senior leadership meetings outdoors once a week. That small change created space for clearer thinking, better dialogue, and a sense of perspective. A teacher I worked with carved out ten minutes of quiet before the bell—not for planning, but simply to gather herself. Her tone with students changed. So did their responses. Another school embedded wellbeing into their professional learning structures, measuring staff flourishing alongside student outcomes. It didn’t solve every problem, but it sent a clear message: people matter here.
The challenge is making that real in our timetables, leadership meetings, and school rituals. Flourishing becomes visible when we align our daily decisions with the deeper values we claim. That’s why we use tools like the Flourishing Index and frameworks like Te Whare Tapa Whā. Not because they’re trendy, but because they help us turn intention into impact.
If you’re joining us at the National Education Summit, you’re already part of this conversation. You know that wellbeing can’t be something we bolt on after the work is done. It has to be built in. Together we’ll explore what it looks like to embed flourishing in the heart of school life—not just for students, but for the adults who lead and teach them. We’ll ask what systems need to change, what assumptions need to be let go, and what new practices can help us breathe again.
You don’t have to change everything at once. But what if you chose just one thing this term that brought breath back into your day? What if your school became a place where people didn’t just survive, but truly flourished?
Because flourishing isn’t about adding oxygen at the end of the week. It’s about designing schools that help us breathe all the way through.
If you’re a teacher who’s ready to explore the concept of flourishing—for yourself, your classroom, or your school—I’d love to invite you to the Wellbeing for Future Focused Schools Conference. I’ll be sharing practical tools, lived insights, and reflections to help you protect your energy, sustain your passion, and create a culture of care in your everyday practice.
Brisbane: 31 July – 1 August 2025 | Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre
Melbourne: 28 – 29 August 2025 | Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre
Please feel free to send me a message—I’d love to have a chat with you.