Welcome to Doug’s Newsletter. Every Thursday, I share a theme from my journey to provide you insight along your spiritual path.

I Am Lazy, and That's Wonderful.

Exactly one year ago, I completed a three-month course designed to rewrite my "money story"—how I relate to money.

The course, offered by Conscious-U, absolutely succeeded.

Although I can't distill a three-month program into three paragraphs, I will share the exercise that has resonated with me most over the past year and how you can explore it yourself.

To do so, I’m going to start with a story from the course.

At the time of the course, I was still managing the first community I built, Empathic.Health (EH). EH was a success in all the ways it helped so many people so deeply.

It was not a success is bringing in money to sustain itself.

Flash forward to a live call during the course.

During each live call, Nadja, the course leader, would work through money projections with one student in front of everyone. I always jumped at the opportunity, looking to get my money’s worth for the course (and my 7am zoom call).

On that day, I wanted to confront my belief that constant hard work was necessary to make an impact and my fear that taking any rest meant I was lazy.

The projection work went as follows:

1. What is your projection on money? People with money work hard for it.

2. What is the negation? People without money are lazy.

3. Turn the projection from money to yourself. I am lazy.

4. Add a comma followed by "and that's okay/good/great/wonderful," depending on what feels most true for you. I am lazy, and that’s wonderful.

5. Flip it and reverse it. I am impactful, with and without working hard.

6. Embody it.

I repeated these two statements multiple times in front of all the other students on the call, letting them land and seeing how they felt in my body.

It was a HUGE release.

Because both statements were absolutely true.

Sometimes, I am lazy, and it truly is wonderful. My most impactful ideas come when I’m doing nothing. These ideas, along with the restoration of my lazy time, reignite my passion to work hard.

Sometimes, I am impactful, with and without truly working hard. I’ve impacted people’s lives with a 10 second text just as deeply as I have with months of challenging labor. I’ve had impactful work that feels like play, and impactful work that feels hard.

As shown in the drawing, these two polarities are just that — polarities on a spectrum. We spend our time in the spectrum between the two.

Understanding that neither polarity is bad — just different — allows us to accept and move forward with wherever we are in the moment.

Here are a few other projections I have been working with to help paint the picture. Sorry about my handwriting:

A way to see the upside in your “negative” parts:

1. What is your projection on (money/person/thing)?

2. What is the negation?

3. Turn the projection to yourself.

4. Add a comma followed by "and that's okay/good/great/wonderful," depending on what feels right for you.

5. Flip it and reverse it.

6. Embody it.

I highly recommend the money course, especially if you want to improve your relationship with money. The next one is in the Fall.

😄 Funny Business

📊 Community Poll

Results for last week’s question: Do you talk to yourself?

“I knew it!” I say to myself internally as the sole in-my-head person.

I do sometimes drop a “what the fuck" or “are you fucking kidding me” out loud to myself with a hearty emphasis on the “ffff”…

On to this week’s question!

“Knife” is one of those words that looks strange after writing it a bunch of times.

"You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength." - Marcus Aureli