It's Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature (or Yourself)

This is a Nudge with a twist — because last week, my friend Kim Turcotte (you'll remember her from our very first Play Date) sent an email that got me thinking, and I immediately texted her: "We need to talk about this on the podcast."

So we did. Kim and I dig into the phrase "the lazy days of summer" and why so many of us feel the pull to slow down right now — and why that pull isn't laziness, it's wisdom. We talk about the difference between stillness and rest, why summer's fallow time feels so different from winter's, and what Kim calls "untraining" ourselves out of a culture that only knows how to go, go, go.

If you've ever stood over your own to-do list demanding it hurry up and grow, this one's for you.

Kim shares more about living in seasonal rhythm through her Sacred Rhythms offering HERE.

www.annmarieboyle.com

Music from Uppbeat (https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/to-the-top), License code BC9SEN3G6PMABOA

Transcript

Annmarie 0:03

Welcome to I Used to be Fun, the podcast about remembering who you were before life got so serious. I'm Annmarie Boyle, author, creativity instigator, and recovering overachiever. And each week, we explore how reconnecting to creativity and play helps us feel more alive, inspired, and like ourselves again. So set down the to-do list, grab a cup of coffee, and let's go find some fun.

Annmarie 0:32

Welcome back to I Used to be Fun. I hope you've enjoyed the last couple of Play Date episodes. Maybe you're now thinking about your own Grandma Project, or maybe you've dusted off a journal that's just been waiting for you to pay attention to it, or maybe you've just started paying a little more attention to the things that make you feel like you.

Annmarie 0:58

Today is a Nudge episode, but with a little bit of a twist. Normally, a Nudge episode is just me chatting to you about an idea or an experience that's been bouncing around in my head. But today's episode is more like Nudge+ or maybe a Nudge with a cameo. Because last week, my friend Kim, and the very first ever Play Date here, sent an email to her subscribers. I read it, and then I immediately texted her. I didn't text, "Hey, beautiful email," or, "Loved this." it was more like, "Okay, I think we need to talk about this on the podcast." And apparently, because I'm very persuasive, or maybe she just knows I'm relentless, she said yes. So welcome back to I Used to be Fun, Kim

Kim 1:47

Thank you for having me again. I'm excited to be back.

Annmarie 1:51

So in your email, you wrote about the phrase, "The lazy days of summer." And there were a couple of lines that caught my attention. You wrote, "So this is why so many of us are feeling the pull to slow down right now, to do less, to spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing productive and feel, for perhaps the first time in a long time, completely at peace with that. That is not laziness. That is honoring the innate wisdom that lives within us, that slowing down is part of the work we have been doing, even if it feels like just the opposite."

Annmarie 2:27

And then a little later in the email, you posed this question: "What would it feel like to give yourself full, unconditional permission to slow down, not as a reward for finishing everything on your list, but as a sacred act of tending the growth that is already quietly taking root within you?" Now, I'd love to tell you that I read that and thought, "Ah, yes, I'm going to lean into this season," but I did not. My first thought was, "Well, that's lovely, but my podcast doesn't care what season I'm in, and my manuscript doesn't care what season I'm in, I'm pretty sure the algorithm has never once looked outside to see if it's summer." So apparently, even the person with the podcast about creativity, play, wonder, and permission still has some work to do, which is why I wanted to have this conversation. Because I know I'm not the only one who wants a slower, softer summer, who wants to find the patience to let the seeds that we sown in spring actually grow into plants. So that's where I'd like to start today, with this question: What do you think the natural world understands that we've forgotten?

Kim 3:41

Oh, it's such a beautiful question, and I think that the natural world understands that there is never any rush. I think that that's one of the greatest gifts that we have to learn from nature. Everything happens in cycles, from planting a seed to the little shoots coming out of the ground, to that fruit coming to bear, harvesting, then the plant dies away, and then the soil is fallow for a period of time while it rests, and then the cycle starts all over again. And nature is never worried or never feels guilty that fallow time exists, right? Or that there's this time where underneath the surface of things, in the roots, the nutrients are being absorbed so that the plant can actually grow. These are things that just happen, and they've been happening for millions of years. And so we have so much to learn. I think we've been taught by our culture that you always have to keep going, or else you can't be successful. But I would argue, having practiced this now for many years... Believe me, I still have my own thoughts like you do, like, "Oh my God, my to-do list." But if I'm really honest, in the moments when I honor that call to be still or to take a rest, even if it's a 20-minute walk down to the beach near my house and to sit in the grass for five minutes, I come back so refreshed, so energized. Often, I have an innovative way to approach something that I wouldn't have thought of when I was in that deep I gotta do, I gotta do, I gotta do mode. And so as challenging as it is, and it is challenging even for me, and like I said, I have been walking the wheel of the year for almost 30 years now. And I still struggle because our world is so hyper-focused on productivity and killing it and keeping it going and working hard and doing all the things. And I hope that if you're listening to this that you can really just take a breath and even just be curious about what it might feel like to let yourself pause, and what new insights, opportunities, or energy might come from that stillness. Because that, to me, is where the magic really happens. You don't know what's going to come of it until you give yourself the space.

Annmarie 6:28

So there's a lot I want to unpack there, but the first thing I want to do is to go back to something else that was in that email that you sent, which was a realization that you had that winter isn't the only fallow time. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Kim 6:45

Anyone who lives in a climate where it gets colder in the wintertime, there's that sense of the Earth being still and being in sleep mode. We've learned that, okay, it's a little bit quieter in winter. And I've always lived by that. And then when this thought came to me, I'm like, wait a minute, we're also being called to be still in summer as well, but the energy is completely different. In the winter, there is that fallow time where the Earth is in repair mode, basically. She's asleep. She's regenerating from all her growth that had happened in the summer and all the harvesting that happened in the fall. But in summer, it's a different energy because in spring and early summer, there's a lot of action, right? It's planting. It's getting ready for this growth period. But once the seeds are planted and all the initial tending is done, there's a period of waiting, and that's where that stillness comes in. It feels to me a little bit, I want to say the word patience, and, allowance is another word that comes to me. And so it's a very different energy. It's more of a open, expecting energy, but it's still a stillness, if that makes sense. I'm not sure if you can feel the difference in the energy as I'm describing it, but in winter, it's really a going inward of I'm going in, and I'm going to be completely still, and nothing is happening. Whereas in summer, it's, oh, I've done all the work. Now I'm going to be still, and I'm going to live with expectation of what's growing beneath the surface, and then, see that come to fruition. But there's not really a lot that I have to do. I just need to give it space to grow. It's the same process, but it's two very, very different energies

Annmarie 8:46

So when you were speaking, I wrote down summer equals patience, and winter equals recuperation. That's the flavor that I got from it. And that doesn't mean that you're not telling anybody to not work

Kim 9:01

Right

Annmarie 9:02

play or interact in these fallow times. Just be aware that you did plant the seeds, and it will take some time for them to grow,

Kim 9:13

Right.

Annmarie 9:13

for somebody who has minus number on the patience scale, and that somebody is me, yes, it's me, it's a really, really good reminder. Like, "Hey, I planted the seeds. I'll give them time to grow." And I've done a lot of gardening in my life, and I would never imagine that I'm going to put that seed in the dirt and tomorrow I'm going to have tomatoes.

Kim 9:35

Right, and you're also not going to be standing over the plant saying, "Come on, come on." Like, "When are you going to grow?"

Annmarie 9:41

Maybe I would

Kim 9:44

Well, maybe, but, you get my point, right? I think that's the thing, where we live in a culture, not only do we live in a hustle culture where we're always told that we need to be more productive, but we also live in a culture of instant gratification, I mean, people want something, they don't even go to the store to get it anymore. They order it online for same day or next day delivery. People aren't even patient enough to wait till the weekend to go run their errands and get the thing that they're thinking of, we've literally been trained to expect and want everything now, and I think we're really losing something really important because nature doesn't lie, and she is the ruler of this planet, whether, people want to see that or not. She's going to be here long after we are, and she lives in rhythm, and she sets the tone for us, and I think we'd be a whole lot better off if we could learn to really live in that same space.

Annmarie 10:51

You've definitely brought that to my attention over the years that we've been friends, is to feel into that rhythm and to acknowledge that going all the time doesn't work.

Kim 11:05

No.

Annmarie 11:06

I mean, we've all experienced it. Our bodies shut down, we get sick, you know, whatever it may be. But we still don't seem to learn the lesson as clearly as we should, so this is a great way to do it.

Kim 11:16

Yeah

Annmarie 11:17

And since we're keeping this short today, I'm going to follow up with just a couple of questions I wrote down stillness versus rest.

Kim 11:25

Yes

Annmarie 11:26

Do you see a distinction?

Kim 11:28

I think the energetic difference for me is stillness is just that. It's being still, but it's still being very aware and connected to what's going on around you. So it's more of a coming into the present moment. And rest, to me, in its truest form, is complete disengagement from everything so that you can really recuperate. You know, like your body can regenerate itself and, your energy systems can come back online. And so to me, stillness can, help you feel rested, but it's different because there is an awareness to it.

Annmarie 12:18

Stillness feels more active to me than rest, because when you said you go to the beach and you sit in the grass and you get still, that is an allowing, as you said, where rest to me might be sleep, it might be zoning out in some other way, it might be a super deep meditative state, some place where you're actually regenerating your physical form along with other things.

Kim 12:42

Yes. And, look, I definitely feel rested in a way when I come back from those moments, but I honestly think that's more about being present because, we're always either, I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think our culture, again, we're either living in the past or we're living in the future. We very rarely are in the moment, and I can say that from my own life, the more I take time for that stillness, even if it's 10 minutes at a time, once or twice a day, it has changed the way I experience life, and I have an a, an immeasurable amount of joy that I never had before, and I think that's because I've learned to be more present. And look, I'm still human, and I still, you know, go, go, go sometimes, but that's when I know I need more stillness.

Annmarie 13:35

So how do you get there? How do you get to living in the moment or taking those moments of stillness? Do you have any actionable tips for us to get there? Like, let's put this on our to-do list. No, Annmarie

Kim 13:48

No, but I, you know what? In honesty, it does have to go on the to-do list initially. Because in order to build any new habit, you have to be consistent with it, so it has to go on the to-do list. A lot of times I will write sticky notes and put them on my mirror in my bathroom or on the edge of my computer, or I set a timer on my phone. And I think the biggest thing is giving ourselves permission, because getting over the guilt of taking time for ourselves, even if it's 10 minutes... I mean, we can justify hours of time spent for other people, but when it comes to even taking 10 minutes for ourself, again, we've been conditioned to believe that's a bad thing, when that is the thing that is going to just make life so much better. It's going to regenerate energy for you. It's going to help give you new ideas, and it's going to help you to find joy, because in those moments of stillness is when wonder and awe are possible, and I think that those are the two ingredients to joy. So it's really whatever the thing that works for you to get you to stop and pay attention. The key is, though, is making the choice. You have to be willing to say yes to yourself.

Annmarie 15:13

I'm going to use myself as an example here. I have a chair and an ottoman across the other side of my office, and I've started to do something where every couple of hours I get out of this desk chair, which, A, is really good for my body.

Kim 15:27

Yep

Annmarie 15:28

I mean, walking across the office to sit in a different chair, but you know, it's a different shaped

Kim 15:33

But honestly it doesn't matter because it's moving and it's shifting perspective in a way. It's not just physically moving, it's actually shifting your perspective.

Annmarie 15:41

Exactly. And I read fiction for 15 minutes. And some of that is part of my job, right? I need to understand what's happening in the fiction world and in publishing. But I started doing it, because every time I would get up and leave my desk, the gremlins would start to yell.

Kim 15:58

Yes

Annmarie 15:59

And so even if that's all that happens in that moment, is that I go and sit in that chair and I settle in for 15 minutes and read a little bit, I'm starting to train my mind and my body that taking a break is okay.

Kim 16:14

Yes

Annmarie 16:15

That allowing those moments... and I would say reading for me can be a moment of stillness because I get lost in the story, so it takes away the worries I'm thinking about or the projects that are ongoing.

Kim 16:27

I feel the same way. And I do think, it comes down to you need to figure out what's going to work for you. Like, anyone listening to this, if you run into the same resistance that both Annmarie and I have run into or do still run into of that feeling guilty of even taking 10 minutes for yourself, that, I think that's a perfect thing. You're building a new muscle by getting up and going and sitting in a different chair. That taking a break is building a new habit, and eventually that might look like going outside and sitting in the grass or whatever that stillness might look like to you. I can't stress enough how important it is. And coming back to the whole nature thing, she has so much to teach us. That's why for me a lot of my stillness time is spent in nature because I'm also in that observation mode of what can I lear- It's curiosity. That's another key to it, is, being curious. What can I learn from this? How can this nourish me? What am I getting from this? Those are the thoughts that I think on that beach.

Annmarie 17:35

I think this is why it's important that if you're taking a walk, if you're sitting at the beach, if you're communing in nature, that you put down the phone.

Kim 17:43

Yes

Annmarie 17:43

Don't listen to a podcast, don't listen to music. And I know I'm the person who always wants to listen to a podcast when I'm walking,

Kim 17:49

Me too

Annmarie 17:50

But I'm trying harder to not do that so that I can do the noticing. I can see what's happening around me, especially if I am someplace that isn't urban. You know, if I'm walking down a cement sidewalk on my way to my office,

Kim 18:05

Right.

Annmarie 18:06

that's a different experience. But even then, you know, I live in a place with seasons, so you can see the bright green leaves in the spring, you can see the full blossoming in the summer, you can see the beautiful change of colors in the fall. So even in an urban landscape, you can do that kind of noticing of what is happening in nature.

Kim 18:25

Yeah

Annmarie 18:26

But I and maybe this is just my post-menopausal brain, who knows, that I can't listen to the podcast and notice nature, because of course I have all the other thing of what I'm going to do at work as I'm walking.

Kim 18:39

Yes.

Annmarie 18:40

maybe I can only do

Kim 18:40

No, I agree. I'm the same way, and consciously choose when I go out, to not even bring my phone with me because the temptation's real. Let's be honest. It's just there. And, there are times where I have taken it. I don't even think because it's such a habit, that I'll grab it going out the door, and then I get to the beach, and there's this beautiful landscape, the water before me, and, there's the birds and it's just, it's beautiful. And yet there's some part of me that's like, "Oh, I'm going to just check my email." Like I really need to check my email while I'm sitting at the beach. I don't, but again, it's part of our training. So I think the more that we take these moments of stillness, we're almost untraining ourselves versus creating a new habit. To me, it feels more like an untraining or deconditioning process, and there's a huge gift in that. There really is.

Annmarie 19:38

And even if it's not email or texts or social media, I take a lot of photos,

Kim 19:44

Mm-hmm.

Annmarie 19:45

Art and beauty are really important to me.

Kim 19:47

Mm-hmm.

Annmarie 19:48

But you don't experience your surroundings the same way when you're looking through a lens.

Kim 19:53

Agreed

Annmarie 19:54

So a big part of what we talk about here is coming home to yourself,

Kim 19:58

Yes

Annmarie 19:58

and honoring the seasons of the year is a great way to come home to yourself. So how can people, if they want to learn more about this, where can they go to learn more about it?

Kim 20:09

The simplest way, if they're truly interested, is I offer something called Sacred Rhythms, and it's a very simple, truly simple. It's four emails a month that come with audio, so you can listen if you prefer to listen. And it just teaches you to live in rhythm with that cycle, because that cycle is repetitive. And we work with the moon in Sacred Rhythms because the moon phases are the same rhythm as those seasonal phases throughout the year. So it's just learning that rhythm, and with that monthly rhythm, it's easy to notice changes. When you're looking at the year, it's harder to keep it in perspective. But when you look at that month, you can really learn to live in flow, i, I love it. It's how I have lived for so long, and the women that are part of Sacred Rhythms have said so many wonderful things about how it's so simple and that they've really learned to come back home to themselves in a way that they don't feel guilty and that is just simple.

Annmarie 21:16

I am part of Sacred Rhythms, and it is one of the emails that I open right away and for me, it's just a touchstone, a reminder. So where can people find that for themselves?

Kim 21:28

They can find that at kimturcotte.com forward slash sacred rhythms

Annmarie 21:35

Perfect, and I'll put that in the show notes as well.

Kim 21:37

Okay.

Annmarie 21:37

I think that's

Kim 21:38

Thank you

Annmarie 21:38

Thanks so much for being here and talking through this with me.

Kim 21:41

Thank you so much for having me back. It's been a pleasure.

Annmarie 21:45

I hope you enjoyed this Nudge with a Twist episode, and that it has you really thinking about what Kim called "untraining." That living with the seasons, that having some fallow time, that taking a break maybe isn't so much a new habit you're building, but an old one that it's time to let go of. So I'll see you in a week, and until then, you know what I'm gonna say, go play for absolutely no reason at all.