The Live FAB Life Podcast Episode 319: "I Thought I Was Lazy" — Reclaiming Energy Outside the Hustle

So many women secretly carry the shame of feeling "lazy."

This episode breaks down how Human Design helps reframe what laziness really is (hint: it’s not what you think).

We explore:

How we came to form our beliefs around laziness, productivity, work ethic
What's really at the root of these beliefs
What it looks like through the lens of Human Design
And how to find sustainable energy that has nothing to do with pushing harder

Listen to the Episode:

Mentioned in the Episode:

Connect with Naomi:

“Because every time you override your cues – what your body is telling you and you keep pushing beyond your capacity, contrary to popular belief - it’s not you being strong — it’s you being disconnected. And every time you honor the rhythms of your energy? It’s not lazy. It’s wisdom in action.”

— Naomi Nakamura

Read the Transcript:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Live FAB Life Podcast!

This episode is the second installment of a three-part mini-series. Episode 318 was Part 1 on why certain wellness advice might not work for you.

Today we're talking about the perception of laziness and how to let go of hustle culture to reclaim your energy.

But before we get to that, if you’re new here, or if you haven't listened in a while, I now start the episode with my three things. Every evening, I write down in my journal three things that were fun from the day – things that brought me some joy, three acts of kindness - either shown to me or that I showed to someone else, and then three things that I did well, or three things that I like about myself.

So, for this episode, three things that were fun. One, I dined twice in the span of just a few days at my favorite restaurant called Teleferic Barcelona. It's originally from Barcelona, so the food is very authentic, and I can’t get enough of it - it's so good!

My favorites are the Sangria mocktail, the grilled octopus, and I always get some variety of the paella.

Two, I watched both the women’s and men’s finals of the French Open. The men's match didn’t disappoint. They played for 5 ½ hours and I watched every single minute of it. I rooted for both players and it was such a joy to watch tennis played at its highest level.

And then thirdly, over the weekend, I took a complete rest day -- no chores, didn’t do my usual eight loads of laundry, no podcast or client work – nothing. It was glorious and very much needed. We’ll come back to this shortly.

As for three acts of kindness -- One -- I take Coco Pop, my puppy girl, out for walks three times a day. One thing that I really love is that I know my neighbors. I've lived in my neighborhood for almost two decades, and a lot of my neighbors have too.

We know each other and I love that when I’m out on a dog walk and run into a neighbor we can stop and have a chat for 20-30 minutes to catch up. Now that it's summer and people are spending more time outdoors, it’s been happening almost daily, and I really like it. I think it's important to have that kind of camaraderie where you live. Your community isn’t just your family, it isn’t just your friends, it's the actual community that you live in. So, I'm happy that I have this.

Secondly, I’ve been working on being kinder to myself, because I haven't always been. So, the complete rest days, long walks, and more recently sending myself flowers are how I've been doing that. This past week the dozen buttercup roses I ordered were delivered and I love seeing it every day – it’s a bright spot in my home.

Thirdly, a friend sent me a text for no reason other than to say, “Hey, I've been thinking about you, and thought I'd say, Hi.” That was it. I can’t think of a nicer thing than someone telling you that you’ve been on their mind. It made my day, and I’ve been trying to pay it forward too.

Lastly, three things that I did well, or like about myself…

This will come as no surprise, but I often reflect on my Human Design, and I love that my Profile Lines are 1 / 3. It explains so much about me and it's just the nature of who I am.

Before I knew about my design, I always felt apologetic for asking so many questions, for knowing so many random facts. I’d hide or minimize that part of me. But now that I know what the 1 / 3 Profile Lines mean, I love that I'm a curious experimenter.

Two, I like that when I’m asked, i.e., when an invitation is extended to me, I give honest answers. Honest thoughts and opinions. This is on my mind right now because I’ve had several feedback surveys to complete and I didn’t hold back in sharing my honest opinion on things -- always given kindly with the best intentions but also -- if you're going to ask me for my opinion, I'm going to give it to you.

I wasn't always like this, so this feels like coming into alignment with my Defined Throat Center while following my Projector Strategy of waiting for the invitation – the ask.

Three – Other than dining out at Teleferic Barcelona, I'm quite proud that I’ve gone a whole week without ordering takeout from Door Dash.

A couple years ago, I did a New Years episode and said I was only going to order DoorDash once a month. Yeah, that never happened; I order DoorDash like every other day.

And then when payday comes around and I balance my checkbook, I always have sticker shock in disbelief about how much money I spent on DoorDash over the previous two weeks. So, I’m proud to have refrained for a whole week and made home-cooked meals.

If you have one, two, or three things from any of these categories, I’d love to them – come and share with me what you found fun or what brought you joy, acts of kindness that you extended or that was extended to you, and what you like about yourself. My inbox and DMs are open to you!

Now, let’s get to today's episode.

If you’ve ever collapsed on your couch after a full day, and yet you still feel guilty thinking that you didn't do enough because there's still more to do, then my friend, this episode is for you.

For a long time, and this is especially true when I was in my 20’s and 30’s, I thought that I was lazy, and I’d berate myself for it. I’m aging myself here, but I live by my color-coded Franklin planner, and I loved it! my Franklin planner. Every hour of my day was account for with appointments, my to-do list, various obligations. Yet, I still thought that I was lazy, that I didn’t use my time efficiently.

Even though I worked full time, had side hustles (fun fact, my very first side hustle was back in 2001 at Crate and Barrel – I worked two nights a week, and on the weekends), treated my workouts like a third job, found time to be social with my friends and family, and on top of all of that, I was meal planning and prepping, doing all the things that, in hindsight, made me feel like I was a wellness robot.

And still, I carried guilt because I felt like I wasn’t being productive enough and that I could be doing more.

Does this sound familiar? Can you relate to it?

I was exhausted, bone-tired, falling on the couch at the end of the day, but I was still willing myself to push through. In fact, I remember I’d commute to my full-time job, then drive to Crate and Barrel and put in my hours there, and then commute home, and then get up and do it all over again.

I spent more time away from home. I would be home for less than 12 hours at a time – sleep time included. No wonder I was so tired, and yet I still pushed myself, operating with the ridiculous belief that, “I can rest when I'm dead.”

If I paused to take a breath, I thought that I was flawed, that I needed to be fixed. Somehow, I just had to find a way to push through because I had to keep pace with everyone else. I was so afraid of falling behind.

That lifestyle is only sustainable for so long and slowly, over the years, little by little, I involuntarily slowed down, and I just felt more and more like a failure.

Now that I know that I'm a Projector, I understand now that I’d spent my whole life trying to live as a Generator / Manifesting Generator. Turns out, I was the lone Projector in my family, surrounded by Generators and Manifesting Generators. So, it's no wonder that I had these deeply rooted beliefs about productivity and how I had to keep pushing and had to keep up with everyone else.

No wonder I was exhausted all the time and no wonder I fought so hard to battle the stigma of being labeled as lazy. Because all I saw was how many things my parents were involved in – full-time jobs, church obligations, volunteer work, coaching, and never seemed to be tired doing any of these things.

I thought that I should be able to do the same, but I couldn’t sustain it without getting fried out.

So, let’s dig into why. Let’s look at how the stories that you’ve been fed, that you’ve been telling yourself, the perspectives and beliefs that you’ve picked up over the years about “laziness” might actually be the reason you’re not feeling like yourself. Perhaps you perceive laziness to be a character flaw when, in fact, it’s not.

Where did I get the idea that if every minute of my calendar wasn’t scheduled I wasn’t using my time efficiently?

Or, if my to-do list didn't have 20 things or more on it, that I was lazy?

These are the questions that I started asking myself in my 40’s, while in the depths of recovery from burnout, exhaustion and adrenal dysfunction.

Then Human Design came into my life, and I investigated this deeper, peeled back the layers to get to the root of these perceptions; it was an intense exercise in self-observation.

But the answer was simple -- societal expectations, conditioning from external influences which I now understand as being a Projector surrounded by Generators and Manifesting Generators during my formative years.

That's all I knew, and I didn't know how to be any different because I’d never seen anyone be any different.

Layered on that was my 20+ year career in the tech industry where the pressure to innovate and be first-to-market with the latest technology is intense. The pace of work is brutal, especially when you're just your career and trying to establish yourself.

So, my perceptions on laziness came from external influences and societal expectations, but let's be honest, a little bit even came from the wellness culture that's described as “hustle” like 20-step morning routines.

We're praised for pushing through, yet we're shamed, and sometimes we're even punished for slowing down. We don't get the promotion or salary because you physically could only work 12 hours days instead of the 16 that your colleague did. To what end and at what cost, do you try to keep this pace?

Because the body doesn't lie. If you’re pushing the pace but you're irritable, you're shutting down, you can’t sleep because you can’t shut off racing thoughts – it’s not a badge of honor. And slowing down isn’t laziness.

When you reach the point where you're battling, you're operating beyond your capacity, and you're in survival mode, and that is a sure path to burnout -- if you're not already there.

Then, once you're there in complete burnout with adrenal dysfunction and you’re forced to slow down and figure out how to deal with the situation, you also face internalized guilt because the rest that your body now is demanding doesn’t feel earned.

And perhaps that's when you start questioning everything that you've ever believed about rest.

Why do I feel that I need to earn rest? Then, if you peel back the layers far enough, and you end up questioning everything you ever thought or believed about productivity, about work ethic, ethic, and ultimately, about your self-worth. I’m speaking from first-hand experience.

So, can you think of any burnout signs that you’ve overridden because you thought that if you stopped you were lazy? Or have you written off any burnout symptoms because you figured, “it’s normal – everyone struggles with this too?” And then tell yourself to suck it up and keep pushing.

If any of this sounds familiar, ask yourself, “How did I come to form this belief? How did I come to believe that all these things that are clearly red flags are normal, and that just because everyone else has them, they’re not a big deal?”

How did you come to form those beliefs?

Your answers may not be a mystery, but they do require honesty -- honesty with yourself about what are the things that you’re doing that’s draining your energy, and what is it that you are doing, or want to be doing, that sustains and nourishes you – that refills your cup?

And please don’t answer these questions with the typical, “expected” answers, or how you think everyone else answers them. Remember, you’re answering to yourself so let it be what's true for you.

I suspect that your answers about what’s draining you aren't likely to be surprising, but I think what might be surprising is the cause of it.

Consider the notion of energy leaks. I know I’ve talked about energy leaks before. In a nutshell, energy leaks happen when you expend energy needlessly. Unnecessarily.

Through the lens of Human Design, energy leaks are a lot more than, “Oh, I'm a Projector, so I need to rest.”

It looks like the Manifestor who’s angry because she's made a decision without informing anyone of it and now must deal with resistance because people feel blindsided by it. The energy spent having to deal with backlash is wasted energy that could have been spent elsewhere – an energy leak.

It's the Projector who gave unsolicited advice now feels bitter, because she knows that her advice is the best solution for the problem, but it didn’t land because no one asked for it – there wasn’t an invitation, so the energy she’s expending on feeling bitter is an energy leak.

It's the Reflector who hasn’t given herself alone time or space and instead, she's constantly exposed to other people's energy. She’s overwhelmed and it’s left her feeling exhausted. That's an energy leak.

It's dealing with the results, ramifications, and sometimes the consequences of not following your Authority. That's an energy leak.

It's having an Active, left arrow pointing brain, but pushing through long bouts of intermittent fasting, which deprives your body of the fuel that it needs to sustain the constant processing that your Active brain is doing. That is an energy leak.

All of these things are draining your energy unnecessarily so no wonder you’re tired all the time. No wonder you need to rest more often than you perceive to. It’s not laziness, it’s a misuse of your energy.

This is why Human Design is the flashlight that helps you find the cracks, where the leaks are, how you’re unnecessarily expending energy.

And when you're tuned into your Human Design, and practicing self-observation always with non-judgment, you're going to steadily start to align your everyday life to it, and then you’ll start to slowly and subtly notice your energy start to rebuild itself.

Now, you may have heard Human Design described as “a way to live with less friction and more flow” -- that's what this means.

The friction creates energy leaks. It creates resistance that you have to fight through that you're wasting energy on. The flow happens when you're following your energetic rhythms, aligning your everyday life to your design.

When that happens, you're no longer the salmon fighting the current trying to swim upstream.

So, alignment with your Human Design is your path to least resistance, and without resistance, you're in flow. This is how you let go of the perception that you’re “lazy,” and reclaim your energy outside of hustle culture. But it may require a complete shift in thinking and how you operate.

Like I said, I'm a Projector who grew up in a family of Generators and Manifesting Generators. I’ll link to Episode 189 in the show notes where I went more into this.

While I was learning that I was a Projector and what it meant, was very validating, because I finally felt seen, and quite frankly, it was a huge relief because it gave me context for why I am the way I am, it also -- and I'm using this in present tense, because this is a fluid process -- it also requires ongoing deconditioning to let go of the beliefs that I had formed – beliefs like in order for me to be successful, I have to hustle, that every minute of my Franklin planner, now my Google calendar has to be accounted for.

I’m learning, because I’m a work in progress, to let go of those narratives and the one where, if I don’t keep up or live up to those faux standards that I’m lazy. That it’s not lazy if I need to take a day to sit on the couch and do nothing.

So, you may need to reprogram your thinking, shift the way you operate, and redefine what productivity means to you and what it can look like. It may mean thinking of productivity as a presence versus an output of things.

It definitely means embracing the belief that rest isn't a form of quitting. You're not a quitter, nor are you lazy when you rest. Think of rest as a necessity, a time to recalibrate so you can be ready for what's next to come.

Energy doesn't have to be a constant thing, but it does have to be respected, and it’s something to constantly check in on and honor, because every time you override your cues, meaning you ignore what your body is telling you – “Hey, we need a rest day here!” --everytime those cues are ignored, you're pushing yourself beyond your capacity.

And contrary to popular belief, it’s not a badge of honor. Pushing beyond your capacity is not “being strong,” it's actually being disconnected from yourself. But every time you listen to your body and honor the rhythms of your energy, it's wisdom in action.

So, as I shared in open in the start of the episode, one of the things was fun from the past week was taking a complete rest day of doing nothing -- no chores, not doing any of my eight loads of laundry that I do every week (true story, don't ask), not doing any work -- it wasn't a lazy day, it was a necessity in order for me to show up as my best self.

Past me would’ve felt guilty about taking a day like that. In fact, my friends and I used to call those days “Fat Dog Days”, when we’d lie on the couch and watch Law and Order marathons all day. We felt like wholly unproductive slobs that wasted the day away, when really, we were resting, recalibrating, and we were in community with each other.

So, my friend, if something from this episode lands with you, I want you to know, and this is the takeaway that I want you to take from this episode, you're not lazy. You're likely over stimulated and under supported, and you're trying to live in a rhythm that was never yours to begin with.

It’s like we said in the last episode, Episode 318, you’ve been trying to live by someone else’s design, a productivity plan, wellness plan – a plan designed for someone else’s system that’s not meant for yours.

There's nothing wrong with doing life slower, softer and on your own timeline. You don't need to keep outsourcing your energy to societal systems or frameworks that don't see you, that don't match your energetic makeup, your design.

What you need is a system that's reflective of you, and that's what Human Design, when it's grounded, your design can be that for you.

So, my friend, if you’re new here, I want you to check out my guide, “Designed to Thrive.” It's my gentle guide to Human Design that keeps things clear, not ambiguous or clinical.

If you want to dive into how your energy and digestion is connected, my masterclass, “Food, Mood, Design: Decode Your Body's Signals”, is open for enrollment.

Or you can come and hang out with me on Instagram, where I talk and share about all of this in real time -- most often while I'm resting on my couch.

Next week, we’re going to be talking about outsourcing your wellness and what that actually means.

Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your time, your energy and your attention with me, and I'll see you right back here again next time. Bye for now!