How do I approach time and money seasonally? A conversation on adaptability with Lauren Gerber-Fleury

In this episode, I’m joined by Lauren Gerber-Fleury, financial coach, longtime hospitality worker, and Holistic Time Practitioner who shares what it’s meant to approach both money and time through the lens of seasonal self-trust.

We talk about how traditional productivity and budgeting systems often reinforce shame, and what shifts when you create money and time systems rooted in agency, compassion, and honesty.

Inside the certification, Lauren began shifting from urgency and over-responsibility into seasonal trust and self-honesty. She started naming what she wanted and letting that shape how she planned, saved, and showed up.

We talk about:

• how to work with fluctuating energy and income

• the sneaky ways shame keeps us from even looking at our time or money

• why gentle honesty matters more than perfect consistency

• how learning to name what you want can be both scary and liberating

• and what it means to build systems that make space for change

Whether you're navigating inconsistent income, fluctuating energy, or old stories of being “bad with money” or “bad with time,” this conversation is a deeply honest reflection on how to build rhythms and systems that work with you.

Connect with Lauren

IG: @savoryourmoney

Website: savoryourmoney.com

Want to help your clients build flexible, shame-free relationships with time and money?

The Holistic Time Practitioner Certification is a 12-week live training for coaches, service providers, and space holders who want to guide their clients through time-related challenges with care, not control.

Inside, you’ll learn trauma-aware, anti-capitalist tools for helping clients navigate urgency, shame, and capacity with more self-trust and sustainability.

Enrollment is open now. Learn more and sign up here.

How to navigate fluctuating capacity? A conversation on honesty with Magy Ortiz

In this episode, I’m joined by Magy Ortiz, systems strategist, creative, project manager, and Holistic Time Practitioner, who shares what it’s like to navigate business, care work, and client commitments while honoring a body and energy that doesn’t always stay consistent.

Magy came into the Holistic Time Practitioner Certification already aware of her tendency to say yes too often, to push through, to carry more than she could sustain. What shifted for her inside the program was a deepening of trust—not just in her intentions, but in her fluctuations.

We talk about:

• how to recognize when capacity has changed

• letting go of internalized pressure to “push through”

• honoring sick days and real-life disruptions with less guilt

• how grief, presence, and truth shape our relationship to time

• being honest with clients without abandoning care

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was just doing too much.”

“I can still serve—but I’m not abandoning myself to do it anymore.”

If you’ve ever felt pulled between being of service and being honest with your energy, this episode will remind you: your fluctuations are not a failure. They’re part of being alive.

Connect with Magy

https://www.mrdaisystudio.com/

Want to help others build time practices that honor their capacity—even when it changes?

The Holistic Time Practitioner Certification is a 12-week live training for coaches, creatives, and space holders who want to guide others through time-related struggles without replicating hustle, rigidity, or shame.

You’ll leave with trauma-aware, anti-capitalist frameworks to help your clients (and yourself) relate to time with more care, consent, and honesty.

Enrollment is open now. Learn more here.

How do I trust myself to sign up for another program?

You’ve bought the courses. Started the books. Signed up for free workshops. Maybe you have replay links gathering dust in your inbox. (Same.)

So when you see another program, even one that feels aligned, you hesitate. That hesitation makes total sense. And it’s important to listen to.

But there’s more to the story. Starting with the culture and fact that many programs don’t do us justice.

As consumers and creators, we can do better by ourselves and each other.

In this piece, I’m digging into the culture of overconsumption, offering thoughts on what it means to seek out programs that center integration, and sharing some of the questions I use to practice discernment in my own buying process.

A tendency towards overconsumption

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn more. Or with dreaming big.

However, when we’re feeling stretched thin, overwhelmed, and under-resourced, and we still feel pressure to buy more? That’s when overconsumption becomes a problem.

It’s not solely on us.

We’re surrounded by programs marketed as the thing that will change everything, often using urgency or FOMO to get us to act fast. It’s easy to feel like you’re just one program away from your business taking off, or from finally feeling like you know enough.

This even extends into the personal development and self-help space.

A lot of creators, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, reinforce this pattern by constantly encouraging people to sign up for more, without offering space to pause, integrate, or trust what’s already unfolding.

This is how capitalism trains us to keep going, keep buying, and never feel like we’ve done enough.

I’ve contributed to this dynamic before. It’s what I was taught, as it’s the default script in this industry. I’m actively doing my best to unlearn it.

When shame takes over

After months or years of feeling the quiet weight of half-finished logins, unopened workbooks, and ‘yet another thing we didn’t follow through on’… Eventually, we turn that disappointment inward.

We start to tell ourselves: Maybe I’m just not someone who finishes things.

That heavy shame sticks and says: “Don’t try again, you’ll fail again,” “You’re not disciplined enough,” “You’ll waste your money.”

That’s painful.

If you’ve ever told yourself, “I’m not buying another program until I finish all of the ones I already have,” you’re not wrong for wanting to be discerning.

The question I’d be curious to ask is: How much of that is punishment? Shame? A lack of self-trust?

I know for me, I said it because I didn’t trust myself, and I never made it back through those old programs that didn’t serve me in the present.

What to look for: Programs that prioritize completion and integration

A lot of programs were built to sell, not to help people finish.

If you’ve struggled to complete something, it might be that the program didn’t honor your pace, your capacity, or your lived experience. That doesn’t make you the problem.

Here’s how I’ve tried to design the Holistic Time Practitioner Certification to prioritize follow-through. And I’d love to hear how you’re navigating it in your own programs or as a consumer:

• Digestible training. Each live session includes 30 minutes max of focused teaching, followed by practice, integration, and conversation. Spread over 12 weeks.

• Biweekly integration space. Every other week, students get support, can ask questions, and keep working with the material in a non-urgent way.

• Asynchronous community. I host a WhatsApp group for students to be able to ask questions at any time.

• Gentle deadline. There’s a 3-month window for students to watch any missed sessions and receive their certification. This soft deadline has helped past students finish!

• Lifetime access. Students will still have lifetime access to go back and revisit any of the resources.

• We assume life will happen. We build in breaks and talk about and support folks who feel like they’re falling behind. We don’t pretend consistency is real or push rigid, unrealistic expectations.

• Follow Through is part of the curriculum. The program itself includes a liberating practice where students will learn how to gently follow through themselves.

• Early momentum. I prioritize quick results and transformation so folks feel the impact, which makes continuing feel energizing.

• Honors different learning styles. We ask students what their learning style is and honor them. We provide video, audio, worksheets, co-working, etc.

This is the kind of space I wish more programs and courses created: one that trusts the learner, builds in integration, and doesn’t punish people for being human.

How to know if you’re ready to say yes

Discernment is about checking in with your body, your energy, and your season of life. Learning how to discern, not from shame, but from trust, is a practice.

When I’m looking at a program, I want to…

• feel curious, not panicked.

• connected to the teacher and the material of the program.

• read the program details and feel something light up.

• know the transformation is realistic and possible for me.

If I feel a quiet yes, and the tangible support is there, I move forward from trust. If not, I give myself permission to let it go.

Questions to reflect on when deciding to invest

• What happens in my body when I’m deciding whether to invest?

• What am I afraid will happen if I say yes? If I say no?

• Who am I trying to become through this program? Is that aligned with my values?

• Does this offer build in integration, support, and space?

• What would supportive follow-through, not perfect, but resourced, look like for me?

If you're a coach, space holder, or program creator…

Your clients are likely navigating the same patterns of overconsumption, shame, and fear of “falling behind.” They want to believe they’ll follow through, and they want to feel supported along the way.

This is why we need more business models and programs that prioritize completion, not just conversion.

That’s a big part of what we’ll discuss in the business portion of the certification. Because liberatory time work doesn’t stop at your calendar. It’s also how we design our programs, price our offers, and build in care for our people.

Become a certified Holistic Time Practitioner

Whether or not this is your season to join us, I hope you give yourself and your clients the gift of moving toward self-trust. There are lots of ideas that you can implement right now from this post.

If you're feeling a quiet yes, or even a curious maybe, you can read more about the certification here.

How do you care for others without abandoning yourself? A conversation on boundaries with SJ McIntyre

In this episode, I’m joined by SJ McIntyre, postpartum doula, virtual assistant, project manager, and Holistic Time Practitioner, who shares what it’s like to support others in times of deep transition while learning to tend to their own needs and pace.

When SJ joined the Holistic Time Practitioner Certification, they were in Greece, struggling to disconnect from work.

They described feeling like “I need to respond to this message,” even while on vacation—stuck in a pattern of always being available, always being productive, even when they didn’t want to be.

Through the program, SJ began to notice the depth of that urgency and internalized pressure. What shifted wasn’t just mindset—it was embodiment. They started to feel that it was actually safe to slow down, to rest, to say no.

We talk about:

• why it felt impossible to rest, even on vacation

• the guilt and fear of not doing “enough”

• learning to set boundaries with love, not shutdown

• how SJ now coaches and teaches from a more regulated place

• and why making spaciousness for yourself is possible

“I was so used to pushing through. Doing it anyway.”

“Now I understand how to show up without betraying myself.”

“It felt safe to soften.”

If you’ve ever wondered how to be in service without self-erasure, this conversation is a lived reflection of that process.

Connect with SJ

https://www.instagram.com/bigwidetable/

Want to support your clients without overextending yourself?

The Holistic Time Practitioner Certification is a 12-week live training for space holders, coaches, and care workers who are ready to shift from survival-time to spacious-time—for themselves and those they support.

You’ll learn trauma-aware, anti-capitalist time tools to help you and your clients navigate burnout, overgiving, and inner pressure—without replicating grind logic in your work.

The next cohort is enrolling now. Learn more here.

What time management exercises should we stop giving our clients?

Most productivity advice ignores our lived reality and assumes our time is fully ours to control.

They imply you aren’t navigating caregiving, chronic illness, or survival. They don’t account for interruptions, fluctuating capacities, being under-resourced, or juggling ten invisible things at once.

Not only that, mainstream time management tools aren’t neutral. They’re violent in origin, reflecting a long history of enslavement, colonization, and industrial control. Time is weaponized to regulate bodies and extract labor.

Most popular hacks teach us to override our bodies, punish our rhythms, and measure our worth by output, because that’s what they were designed to do.

And for many of our clients, they’re actively harmful. In this piece, I’m reflecting on some of the popular “time hacks” out there. I’ll share about their historical origins, folks that these hacks often fail, and what we can do instead.

Popular time hacks to be careful when sharing with clients

Time blocking (traditional approach)

Time blocking has roots in plantation and factory systems, where bells, overseers, and time sheets were used to control and extract labor. These systems were designed to enforce discipline, regulate productivity, and surveil human bodies for profit.

For a single mom without consistent childcare, her toddler’s nap schedule shifts daily. She’s juggling school forms, work emails, and unexpected meltdowns. Telling her to “block her time” in the traditional way will easily crumble under the weight of real life.

5 AM Club / Miracle Morning

This idea of early rising as virtuous is deeply tied to the Protestant work ethic and industrial values of discipline and moral superiority. Waking early has always been about being useful to the system.

For a chronically ill person with insomnia who finally gets to sleep at 3 a.m., getting up just two hours later is a fast track to flare-ups. What’s framed as a “success habit” will quickly become a recipe for illness and shame.

Pomodoro method (25-minute work sprints)

The structure of Pomodoro mimics the rhythms of industrial shift work: punch in, punch out, like gears in a machine. This method echoes assembly line logic, where people are treated as parts in a productivity engine, not as cyclical, varied, or embodied beings.

For a neurodivergent artist with executive dysfunction and bursts of hyperfocus, the Pomodoro method can create more friction than flow. Stopping every 25 minutes can feel like yanking your brain out of deep water, right when you were beginning to swim.

Plus who actually takes the 5 minute break? 🤣

Eat the frog (Do the hardest things first)

This push to prioritize labor over softness is again rooted in Puritan, abelist, and capitalist ideals, where rest must be earned through suffering and value comes through productivity. It’s a legacy of moral discipline: suppress your needs, start with struggle, prove your worth.

For someone with complex PTSD, mornings are tender. There is a real need to re-enter the world slowly and gently. Being told to “do the hardest thing first” is not motivating; it’s jolting and destabilizing. It can tank someone’s entire day before it really begins.

Batch your tasks

Batching has historical echoes in industrial production lines, where repetition and monotony were optimized for speed and output. These systems assume controlled environments and consistent capacity…something the vast majority of humans don’t have.

For a parent working from home, batching might sound good in theory, but in practice, it collapses with the unpredictability of life and constant context-switching. Just when they get into a groove, the school calls or the dog needs to be taken out.

Time Tracking

This practice mirrors how enslavers and factory owners monitored labor, using ledgers and time sheets to measure productivity. Their goal was to control and commodify.

For a Black creative who’s healing from productivity trauma, minute-by-minute time tracking can feel like surveillance. They’ve spent years believing their worth must be proven through constant output, shaped by white supremacy and internalized capitalism. Tracking becomes just another tool that creates mind, body, soul harm.

Start of the week: Sunday

This norm is rooted in Christianized, colonial time structures that imposed a seven-day week starting Sunday, erasing Indigenous and seasonal ways of moving through time. When we hear “start your week right,” it actually means “start your week our way.”

For a bartender whose workweek starts on a Thursday, being told to “reset” every Sunday feels out of sync, irrelevant, and isolating. It disconnects them from their reality and reinforces a dominant cultural clock that isn’t theirs.

Design your ideal week

Ideal-week planning emerged from corporate productivity models meant to shape workers into efficient tools. But “ideal” often ends up meaning unrealistic and optimistic in order to please our bosses (internal or otherwise).

For a neurodivergent caregiver, no week is ideal. Their capacity shifts daily. Their responsibilities shift hourly. Trying to map out an “ideal” only highlights what they can’t predict or control, and what they wish were different. It often leaves them feeling like they’ve failed before they’ve even begun.

What can we do instead?

If you’ve shared (or tried) any of the hacks above, or other time hacks, you’re not alone.

Most of us Westerners have inherited these time systems. They’re all we know.

However, when we don’t know or ignore the histories behind the tools we teach, we risk replicating the same systems we and our clients are trying to heal from and move beyond.

Time isn’t just a schedule. It’s how we move, relate to one another, survive, and hopefully thrive. You don’t have to pass the harm on by minimizing time to hacks.

You can help your clients experience time liberation.

You can offer time practices rooted in:

• Compassion, not compliance

• Honest pacing, not punishment

• Awareness, curiosity, and care, not control

The Holistic Time Practitioner Certification is a 12-week training for coaches, therapists, healers, and space holders who are ready to unlearn harmful time narratives and guide folks into a more liberatory, life-giving relationship with time.

You’ll learn how to:

• Support clients in navigating procrastination, capacity, and follow-through with care

• Rebuild your own relationship to time, beyond grind and guilt

• Integrate liberative pacing and structures into your own practice

Learn more + enroll here.