1. Allowing myself a break from making a monthly post.
I’ve started to accept when I need to take breaks from doing things, even things I love, like writing two posts a month for this website. Instead, I spent time traveling, with friends and family I hadn’t seen in 18 months, and letting ideas incubate for later posts.
2. Trying to be okay (but not too okay) with spending money
Something I’ve been trying to attend to more consciously in the past couple years is the scarcity mindset I’d developed with money. I’m lucky and grateful to be in a better financial situation than I have been previously, but then on the other side of my worry about not having enough money lives my growing realization that I can be okay with spending more money (that I used to be able to). Being aware that I oscillate between both of these extremes has been helpful, and a privilege. It’s also something that I think relates to my executive functioning difficulties.
Thinking about the reasons it’s important to me to spend money helps to center my decisions. I like spending money to go out and try new restaurants, to spend time with friends and family, to get some new clothes that make me happy wearing them, and to give gifts to people I love. I also know I need to keep an adequate emergency fund.
That I can even talk about balancing my spending and saving in this way feels like a recent privilege that I’m not fully comfortable with. I may write more on this, I may not.
3. Laziness Does Not Exist by Dr. Devon Price
I have a blog about trying to be actively lazy (is that oxymoronic?) because my default, like many of us, is to embrace constant work, constant movement, and to feel guilty if I’m not doing “enough.”
In their book, Dr. Devon Price details the “Laziness Lie,” which tells us that we should be constantly working and that we’re really never doing “enough.” The lie gets in the way of the deep rest needed for creative thought, personal growth, and our well-being. Check it out from your local library here.
The Lazy PhD 