Dear reader,

For the month of May I have been going hard. Packing work in to every weekeday, spending the the last weekend of April and first two weekends of May in a Pilates teacher training, the third weekend teaching a quilt retreat, this past weekend teaching a writing class, and every Sunday for the past seven weeks facilitating The Practice of Attention book study. On top of that I brought back Landscapes and hosted a guest teacher, office hours, and admin hours. I finished my thesis for grad school, have written my newsletter every Monday, made a podcast mini series, and sent numerous sales emails. This week I start my last semester of grad school.

I have seen a handful of creative advising clients and am due to meet with three more this week. I’ll continue to dedicate my free time to service, mutual aid, two twelve step programs, my partnership, dog parenting, and friendships.

When talking to a friend yesterday I knew I needed to wipe today’s schedule clean, to have a holiday. Today I celebrate my forever friendship with one of my most beloved friends, the one I married and divorced on the same date three years apart. The one I moved back in with three years after that to run an artist residency. My own personal holiday. Christmas in May.

And it is also a holiday where people with traditional 9-5 jobs often have the day off. This friend suggested that perhaps I too take the day off of even my newsletter.

Because I sell classified ads for my newsletter that wasn’t an option, so I started brainstorming how could this be an option in the future. What I am missing? Why am I so over scheduled? I value my job, my students, and my clients so deeply — I don’t want to show up from a place of burn out or just barely hanging on. I want to be resourced and well.

This brings me to the nested goals system I’ve been working with, mostly on the weekly and daily level. The monthly and seasonal levels are places I can look ahead to say : hey, that is a holiday, maybe I will take that Monday off of the newsletter. Or hey - I am teaching that entire weekend, I should make sure to give myself two days during the week off (gasp)

I admit dear reader, I, the author of How to Not Always Be Working, often work seven days a week. Not the whole day, not an eight hour day. But every day my hands touch in with my job. And it’s not serving me anymore.

It’s depleting me beyond measure. And while I don’t feel shy in sharing that some of that is money scarcity, I also know a lot of it is a lack of planning and looking ahead.

This is why I am building out Time Horizons, a class I am teaching in June to bring us all in closer alignment to our planning rituals and nested goal setting systems. I built out my own planner system in Google docs yesterday during the class I taught and printed it out neatly to go in a binder. I’ve also been working with a digital system in Notion.

I want more days off, I want to spend a lot of time at the beach this summer, I want to coordinate my days off with Katy’s days off. I want to teach on the weekdays sometimes instead of just on the weekends. I’d love to bring back A Quilt is Something Human - my four week online class where we make an improvisational quilt in a month. If you’re interested join the waitlist so I can see how much interest there is.

Taking a day off requires planning. It requires looking ahead. It involves fiercly protecting days where you don’t plan anything (this is the hardest for me). Even on days with no external meetings I’ll still pack in other tasks (see above Notion document). I’m slowly pulling together an understanding of how to do this. But it is much easier said than done for me.

Especially being neurodivergent, I often want to follow my interest based leanings. Go where the momentum is. As an artist, I cannot always plan for this. I cannot plan when the muse shows up and when it is my turn to sweep the steps of the temple.

But I can loosen my grip on filling my calendar, on always doing. I know that in the end it just depletes me to a point of serious mental health decline. Something I would call beyond burn out. Where the thoughts grow beyond my capacity to sit with them alone.

I am grateful to be catching it in the early stages, to get to pivot. My week is easeful and I have two full days off of meetings and client work before I leave for grad school in Boulder for two weeks.

Plus : The roadside stand is happening! Consider this a soft launch. It has served me well as a mini mat pilates shed, but its time to shine as a quilt and bookshop on the way to the beach is near. Katy will build out the inside, my new friend Claire from quilt class will paint the signs, I’ll work on some quilt inventory, and our experiment will begin at the end of June.

I hope you’re reading this on your beautiful day off. Or better yet I hope you’re not reading this because you didn’t open your computer today and you’re catching up on a Tuesday.

→ Emily Mohn-Slate interviewed me for her newsletter and I talk about my new running practice. This week I’ll shift from five minute intervals, to eight, to a full twenty minute run. Pray for me.

→ Support Alex’s Journey in Somatics Coaching

→ Rani Ban has a new book out : This is Terrible, This is WOnderful : Dispateches from the Postpartum Universe

→ The June issue of PROMPTS goes out this weekened and it is about the body - subscribe here to get it in your mailbox, it is a delight to send over 150 of these a month all around the world $11/mo (plus shipping)

Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media! You know it & friend of the newsletter Amelia Hruby wrote the book on it. This week only, get $10 off the book with code MONDAY.

Want help building stronger local community? Join The Neighborhood, a biweekly support group to build stronger networks with neighbors, friends, family, and more!

A substack about transcending separateness through art 💖

The Integral OCD Guide:: trauma-informed and neuroscience-based, helping you shift your relationship to your inner world with mindfulness and care.

Less sugar drama. More “f*ck around and find out.” Join The Sweet Spot: a 3-week sugar experiment with science, pleasure + real life. CODY20 for $20 off. 

Want to book a classified ad for June ? Read all about it here.

If you have an art raffle or mutual aid effort you’d like included for free in Monday Monday you can email it to info@codycookparrott.com

→ info@codycookparrott.com
→ www.codycookparrott.com
→ Follow along on Are.na
→ Follow along on YouTube