Kendra Adachi (8:14)

This episode is sponsored by Better Help. Every January feels like a blank page, but in my experience with therapy, I know that a blank page doesn't mean I get to create a shiny new version of myself. Instead, I want to honor everything that makes me who I am while working toward what matters most to me right now. If you're considering therapy, BetterHelp makes it easy to start. BetterHelp is entirely online so you don't have to overthink how to fit therapy into your life. You fill out a short questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and can switch anytime at no extra cost. Therapy isn't just for big, heavy things. It's for learning skills that help you be you in all the best ways. Write your story with better help. Visit betterhelp.com TheLazyGenius today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com TheLazyGenius this episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace has been the online home of the Lazy Genius collective since day one and for good reason. It's the all in one platform that helps creators and entrepreneurs not just stand out, but find thrive online. Recently we launched a new product in our store and Squarespace made the whole process so simple. Thanks to their fluid engine, we could set up gorgeous functional pages with ease. I am no tech wizard, but with Squarespace's drag and drop editor I do not have to be. Squarespace also has flexible payment tools which means our customers can use everything from Apple pay to afterpay. We want it to be easy for you to be a lazy genius and Squarespace makes that happen. Plus their built in analytics are truly great offering information that's truly helpful right there. Clear as day. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to Launch, go to squarespace.com lazygenius to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This episode is sponsored by ThirdLove. Think you can't find a bra that is sexy and comfortable? Well, think again. Thanks to thirdlove you can have both. Third Love was started to take all the frustration out of bra shopping. That's why they make solutions for every bra problem, AKA problems. They even have half cups for people who are stuck between two sizes. I love my perfect coverage 24.7Classic bra by Third Love I have several in multiple colors and I reach for it every day. Third Love puts every style through hours of wear testing on real women, including themselves, before it's given the stamp of approval. Comfort and support are guaranteed with their perfect fit promise and an easy 60 day return policy. Plus you can visit their virtual fitting room to find your perfect fit fast. It's time to get your problems solved. Use code PODCAST15 for $15 off your first order at thirdlove.com.

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The third thing to remember about living in the season is that we need to be honest when we wish things were different. Resentment totally shows up when we're not telling ourselves the truth about where we are. This is a little different from the previous point because that involves comparison to another person. This is comparison to yourself. Maybe you're in a tough season and you miss the one that came before. Maybe you don't see any end in sight and you wish your life looked different now instead of way on the other side of wherever you are. It's so good to be honest about how you might wish things were different. Be specific. If you can let someone else into those feelings, I would suggest maybe first someone who isn't directly impacted by them. Now, that's not a hard and fast rule, but let's say I'm struggling with something in my marriage. I think that when I'm tender and I'm trying to figure out like what I really think, and I'm needing to be completely unfilling filtered, it's better for me to take that energy to my therapist or to a dear friend, not directly to my husband. It's not that he can't handle it or he doesn't deserve the truth about How I'm feeling, I'm just raw with resentment. I am wishing that something was different. And in my verbal processing, which can sometimes be weird and even inaccurate and maybe hurtful as I try to figure out what I really think I could hurt. Cause in the process, I don't want to do that. So honesty is important. Being unfiltered in how you're feeling is important. That is why therapy is so great. You can just say stuff without any consequences and you can get out the initial resentment without hurting the person involved. You can still take your feelings to them later. But that initial kind of release of your frustrations, you need to be honest with yourself about what you wish was different. The fourth thing that comes right out of this is it's less about changing your season to make it match what you wish was different. That's really not what we're doing here in the naming of what you wish was different. It's not so that you can change it. In fact, I think it's the opposite. Most of the time, we can't change change the season we're in. You can't change the ages or needs of your kids or parents. You can't change the demands of your job unless you quit it. And then you're left with a ton of other challenges. Most, if not all of the time, our seasons cannot and will not change. So trying to force them into a box they're not made to fit is a futile endeavor. So what do we do? Just accept that things are gross and plow through? No, not at all. And this is my favorite thing about living in your season. It's my favorite practice and my favorite little mental health discovery that has changed my life. And it is, see, the good that is here right now. Good is here right now. No matter what hard season you're in, there is good always. I am convinced of this. I have gone through some tremendously hard seasons in my life. Sometimes when I think about them, I'm like a little paralyzed. How in the world world did I get through that? How in the world am I still standing after that? And yet I can see the good that was there. The person who cared for me. The text that came at just the right time. The chickadee, my favorite bird that kept coming to my bird feeder way more than usual. The newfound ability to be kind to myself when I can't get out of bed. Sometimes the good is so tiny, so seemingly inconsequential that you might miss it. And that's why the practice of noticing is so beloved. And so prized for me, seeing the good where you are, whether it's just a regular day or one of the hardest days of your life, is a spiritual practice that changes everything. It does not change the difficulty of your situation. It's also not forcing toxic positivity onto something impossible. It's not even a distraction. It's a reminder that no matter what, how hard things are good exists there too. Both can be together. There is hope. There's always hope. Sometimes it's barely visible. But looking for it, noticing it, and naming it is one of the greatest gifts I think you can give yourself as you live in your season. And the final thing to remember about living in your season, plus it's one of those good things to notice, is that every season, whether ordinary, amazing, or incredibly hard, is making you more of who you already are. Every season has something to teach us, not because of some, like, cosmic lesson we need to learn. Or else. I prefer to use garden language. You know, sometimes there are weeds and they make the plant stronger. There's winter and death and then spring again. You know, in some ways, growth is beautiful because it's hard. Think about someone in your life, maybe, maybe your kid who went through something really tough. Maybe it was a year of school with no friends or a scary medical diagnosis or a broken arm that made her miss basketball season. Maybe it was struggling so hard with math and then getting a tutor and working really hard and then passing the class you never thought he would. Even if you don't have a kid who's done that or have kids at all, I think even thinking about that kind of thing, it makes us all kind of swell with pride and hope. What a beautiful thing it is to overcome, to not give up, to see how a hard season makes someone a truer, stronger version of themselves. It's genuinely beautiful. And that's what our seasons do for us, whether they're ordinary or impossible. Your seasons of life teach you, and they make you more of who you already are, especially if you pay attention, if you see the good, if you give yourself permission to name what matters about where you are and you stop comparing your season to someone else's. When we can live in our season with honesty, compassion, and hope, we will absolutely grow as people without question. What a lovely part of being human, living in your season. It went from like, top three most challenging principles to me to maybe my favorite and the most important of them all. It is crucial and so impactful when remembered and practiced more and more regularly. Now, how did that happen for me? How did this principle become such an integral part of my life? We'll close on that. Like I said, Covid really galvanized this principle for me in the beginning of the lockdown. My concern for the world and the fear of what was happening, it kind of tempered my, like, hissy fit frustration of online school and being stuck at home. But only a little bit. Like I still felt the hissy fit. I was pouting and whiny on the inside, and I didn't like feeling that way. I didn't like it. So I started examining why I felt that way at all. And I think it was because I was trying to push through this strange season. I was trying to make it fit in the box of regular, non pandemic life. My expectations were all out of whack, and therefore I struggled to stay present and not get super resentful again. I didn't want to feel that way. I didn't want to be resentful of my life. So I made a choice and I started noticing the good. I paid attention on purpose, like it was a box on my to do list, even though I wasn't really making those at the time because there was nothing to do. I noticed the good like it was water in the desert, reading on the front porch swing. The quiet in the neighborhood because there were no cars. The way my kids suddenly started playing with each other, breaking out board games again. The weird, precious beauty of driving to a friend's house with the family and all of us standing across the yard from each other to, like, chat for a bit, drive by parade, birthday parties, baking bread, the generosity of strangers, sitting with my friend who lost her husband during the first month of COVID in rocking chairs on our porch, six feet across from each other and bearing witness to her grief, crying because I missed people and not just stuffing it down. Good isn't necessarily like positive or even happy. It's good. And even in such an impossible season, like Covid, or in an impossible season you might be in right now, there is so much good. And for me, learning to look for it, it made me always see it, which in turn made me want to keep seeing it. And now I'm like a treasure hunter for the good in every situation. I'm not saying I'm like a silver lining girl or toxic positivity girl. I'm not. I don't even often share the good that I'm seeing because it's not meant to make other people feel better. It's my hope. It's my anchor in the season that I'm in. In the place that I'm in, good is here right now. There are other things that have helped me live in my season. Therapy, friends who don't try to fix it. A husband who listens to me rant and whine and is wildly unaffected by it. The regular practice of naming my season when I do my analog planning. But the most impactful thing that I do to help me live in my season is to see the good that is here right now. It makes my toes kind of metaphorically dig deeper into the dirt of exactly where I am. Or like the sand on the beach, it's grounding and hopeful and necessary. And after several years of making it a regular part of my life, it's prized. It's prized. So whatever season you're in, whatever struggles you're facing within it, whatever level of resentment you're experiencing, remember that to live in your season, it's transformative. It doesn't really transform your circumstances, but it slowly deepens and transforms your character. You stop comparing your situation to someone else's or to something that used to be your own. You find relief and hope in honesty and sharing how you're really feeling about where you are. And you practice seeing the good where you are, no matter how small it might be. When these things happen, even sometimes, even occasionally, even just once more than when they usually do, you start becoming more of who you are at your core. Your character shines through your resilience, strengthens your perspective. It has more empathy. Your posture towards yourself becomes more compassionate. And I think that's how to live in your season without resenting it. Like I already mentioned, living your season is one of the 13 lazy genius principles in the lazy genius way. And so if you want to dig deeper into it, maybe it would be a great time to grab that book. Or if you're unfamiliar with all the principles or you just would like a refresher, you want a little, you know, brushing up on. Decide once, start small, ask the magic question, live in the season, build the right routines, set house rules, put everything in its place, let people in batch it, essentialize, go in the right order, schedule, rest, and be kind to yourself. Those are the 13. Then the lazy genius way is your next book to pick up. For sure, she is your trusty little lazy genius companion. So you can grab her at your local bookstore, your library, or you can order it online. It's one of those books that people often say, I am so sad I waited so long to read this. So if you pick it up, I Hope you enjoy it. All right, before we go, let's celebrate the Lazy Genius of the Week. This week, it's Ricky Harry.

Kendra Adachi (24:52)

Hi, Ricky.

Unknown (24:52)

I know your name from Instagram. Ricky writes, we only have two adults, no kids in our household. We really only use milk for the very occasional bowl of cereal and for fancy coffee drinks I make with my espresso machine. I was so sick of either running out of milk when I wanted it when I only bought a pint at a time, or it going bad too fast and having to dump it when I would buy a quart. Enter organic milk. I have no idea why it lasts so much longer than regular, but the carton I bought yesterday is good for almost two months compared to only two weeks of the stuff I used to buy. It costs a little more, but I always have it when I want it and I never have to just throw it away anymore. I even buy organic chocolate milk to make mochas as a little treat for us on extra sleepy mornings. This one small change has made all the difference for me in the morning. This is such a great example of naming what matters and then making it happen. I also love when technically spending more, it actually saves you something, whether it's money from throwing stuff away or even just your sanity. Like how I have hairbrushes and scissors in every room. Sometimes the cheapest is the best thing, and sometimes for whatever matters to you it's not. Maybe this is a good reminder for you to notice that in your own life. So thank you for sharing, Ricky, and congratulations on being the Lazy Genius of the Week. This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, an executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fisher, and Angela Kinsey. The Lazy Genius podcast is enthusiastically part of the Office Ladies Network. Special thanks to Leah Jarvis for weekly production. Thanks y'all for listening. And until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that that don't. I'm Kendra and I'll see you next week.