BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 175: You’re Not Lazy. You’re Exhausted From Proving Yourself.

Episode Date: July 26, 2026

Busy is not a badge of honour. It is a trap. And if you are reading this while doing three other things, this episode is specifically for you.In this episode, Margarita makes a full unapologetic case for laziness. Why the pressure on women to be endlessly productive is not ambition. It is performance. And it is running you into the ground.We talk about why your body is not a machine, why the 9 to 5 was literally built around male hormones and not yours, why productivity can become a sneaky way of avoiding yourself, and why the women who are actually winning are the ones who know when to stop.In this episode:Why a busy woman is not always a good womanWhy laziness and efficiency are a lot closer than you thinkWhy productivity can become a way of avoiding yourselfWhy your 28 day cycle means the 9 to 5 was never built for youWhy nature does not rush and neither should youWhy women carry two shifts and still get called lazyThe difference between performative busyness and productive ambitionWhy slower is not smaller and your ambition is yours to defineIf you have ever felt guilty for resting, constantly busy but not actually going anywhere, or like you are performing productivityrather than actually creating, this one is for you. Lazy cow.Being Her is your no filter space for woman empowerment, relationship advice, confidence, feminine energy, and living life completely on your own terms.Love you lots like jelly tots xxSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You lazy, low-functioning, a waste of space, human. How dare you? How dare you not be productive and not work for society and not be a girl boss and not get the best job and not be the best mom and not do every soccer and sport and not do all of it? How dare you? You absolute disgrace. Women have been taught that a busy one. woman is a good woman. Like you've got to be busy. You've got to be everywhere. Business is in fact a virtue, as they say, but not today. Because remember, if you're sitting down, you probably should

be folding laundry. And if you've finished your work, you probably should answer some emails because you have to have like a side hustle, you know. And if you've made enough money, you should probably make a bit more because there is no such thing as enough, right? You can always make more money. You could always buy a private jet. Okay, Jessica, where's your jet? And if the children are asleep, you should probably, you know, cut up some apples and grate them and then do-d-d-d-d-d-do in the processor and then maybe make some like popsicles from that. A modern woman is praised for being continuously preoccupied and in tune with productivity for the world and not for the happiness of herself and having moments of management of magic.

that only the feminine knows how to create. So today we're taking the word lazy, which is what we get labeled. It's one of the first things a little girl gets labeled in order to put shame in you. Because if you're not productive and you're not doing homework and you're not doing gymnastics and you're not doing ballet and you're not doing this one, that one, that's clearly my story, isn't it? Then you're lazy. Nobody wants to grow up being called lazy. but like the yin and yang that exists there's a spectrum of every angle of life right so is the buddha lazy when he's meditating under the tree or is it a perception of laziness because the word just a mom exists doesn't it anything that is to do with timing slow life my mom taught me about the beauty of enjoying a beautiful meal and not eating out of the frying pan which i'm still guilty of doing and putting down a

a beautiful, you know, napkin with a plate, with a setting, that is the beauty of life, right? But if you slow down, you're lazy. If you slow down, you're like preoccupied in the minutia of what doesn't matter because you need to be productive. And even looking after your own children in the home is not productive. You've got to get a side job and a side hustle. Nobody wanted to grow up being called lazy because we go in the school. system and if you're not productive 24-7 you are lazy so we learn to instead of really understand

what laziness is and what productivity is and what being in the moment is we learn to fill every moment of our living waking life every empty space with something and being a human animal that is impossible to do so what do we do we start scrolling guilty of it right here right we start filling everything up Everything needs to have an answer straight away. Everything needs to have a reason. We apologize for resting before we've even rested. Like, the only way that women rest is if they develop an autoimmune or they get sick. What if rest wasn't something you had to earn from some metaphysical being, right?

What if it's something your body just required and you honor it like the damn goddess that you are? What if you are not an ant and you're not. just here to produce things for the hive, right? What if you are more beautiful and useful as the creative goddess that you are when you are rested? We often replace one standard with another. Women used to be judged on not being excellent homemakers, right? You've got to be a homemaker, that 1950s mentality of being a homemaker, being ready when the husband comes home with the food and the children, just, pip, hello, father, we've missed you, but be quiet,

don't be heard and all this stuff. And that was said to be feminine. That was femininity at its peak in terms of what a feminine woman is with an apron and always happy. Contrary to popular belief, that is very masculine energy. To never rest, to always be high performing in terms of, yes, being a wife, having everything set, everything done, and not having moments of something else.

is a masculine mentality. Hence all the pill-popping that they had to do in order to suppress their emotions. And now we've said, no, I don't want to do that. Emancipate the woman in the workforce, rah, rah, rah. And now we are very, very forceful in terms of how much we've got to achieve at work. Do you think the purpose for a human being is to be a 1950s housewife or an ultimate girl boss worker like it cannot be it cannot be neither of those things can be a reality being an ultimate housewife or being an ultimate girl boss is still a scoreboard that we try and metaphysically

kind of pin ourselves on if either woman feels like she's resting or she's replenishing or living in a more attuned lifestyle she feels that she is failing it's like you're still trying to play someone else's game and win. This idea of being an ultimate housewife and mom or this idea of being an ultimate girl boss is a script not written by you. You haven't listened to yourself. You haven't really been a tune with what it is you want. Because there's going to be a small percentage of you that are definitely girl bosses

and a small percentage of you that are 1950s housewives and it works for you. But most of us were somewhere in the middle. And here is my case for laziness that if you, you do deploy laziness as a tool and not as something you have to be ashamed of, something you have to run away from, that there is space to think, there is space to do something. I went for a 10K walk. Well, it wasn't 10K. It was a bit less because my left bum cheeks started to hurt too much.

But I, do you know what it feels like walking again for distances after you've had kids? You feel like you're defrosting. I felt like a defrosted chicken walking because you kind of walk once. sided when you carry a child a lot. My child, my baby child is 18 kilos, so that's a hefty little heifer. So when I carry said child, I'm like twisted and contorted, right? So even in that moment, just going for a walk and looking around and having ideas and thoughts where this podcast came from is that walk, it makes you feel like, oh, I'm being self-indulgent, I'm being lazy, I should go home and work. I also had an experience of I hire someone two or three days a week in order to

to help me with my children so that I can work. Even the way I say it is a justifiable kind of tone, right? Like, oh, I have to do it for work. And why do I say it in that way? It's because there has been days where she comes over and all I want to do is not necessarily rot on the couch, but watch a show that I used to enjoy watching or something. And I don't do it because productive,

because someone's going to win a medal for being productive. My case for laziness is I think women can have these indulgent moments of a walk, of, you know, having a beautiful lunch, of relaxing with their friends. We replenish from being with our friends, from having conversations, from that walk, from that space where creativity comes from, and therefore you can actually be more productive. The other thing you have to remember is your body has its own timing. not everyone has the same energy every day. Some days you're creative, some days you're super social, some days you need to recover,

and your nervous system doesn't care about your stupid little Google calendar. I've said this before and I'll say it again till I'm blue in the face ever since I've started coming on here and talking to you about femininity and feminine energy is if you buy into the 95 mentality of men and male podcasters and men in business, you will burn out and you will fail. You will fail to do the thing that you were here to do and that has become the ultimate version of you as a being. There's no productive Google calendar that can master that for you. You've booked in to see all your friends, but you're feeling introverted. Cycle, my friend, is 28 to 30 days when you're a woman. It is not a peak of hormones

like men have every morning, hence a 9 to 5 works really well for them because their hormones. dip every day after five o'clock, and they spike in the morning. So that works for them, but it doesn't work for us. And we measure ourselves in the male society to be like shit versions of men. Why shit versions of men? Not because we can't do the thing that they can do. Sure, we can push ourselves if I want something done or give it to a woman, but because it's built for them.

It's like putting a man on a woman's timing and cycle. It would not be productive. It would not be the same. It would not be optimized, would it? You also need to remember to give yourself permission to flow with that cycle, learn your cycle, understand that when you are in peak hormones for ovulation, you are ready to do everything. The week before your period, hide your kids, hide your wife, right? You need to be in tune with that and do research around that and honor it because you were born as an organism in this world. that is female, hello.

Also, you need to remember, productivity is addictive. You no longer know how to sit still because you are masking with your productivity, something that you are running from. And sometimes you wonder, do I like my marriage? Why am I snapping at my children? Do I even like my career? But there is no silence to feel uncomfortable in to make the decisions with the most important person that you have in your life and that is you.

How can you talk to you if you're avoiding you? you. Why are you avoiding you? Sometimes being productive becomes a way of avoiding yourself. What are you running away from? What are you running away? Okay, I've been wearing skim's cotton on repeat lately and I genuinely cannot go back. You guys know, if you listen to this podcast, that's all I wear. I'm very particular about basics. I want them to feel good, hold their shape and actually look put together. The cotton jersey scoop neck cammy has become my non-negotiable. It is soft. It is flattering and it's just the right amount of stretch without feeling super tight, which makes me feel yuck. And it holds its shape wash after wash that is genuinely rare. I've got little kids so they're always getting things dirty.

Whether I'm at home, running errands or layering it under something, I just feel like it works every time. It's such a no-brainer. I feel like I can wear it and not think too much about it, right? It's not taking up my brain power, guys. Skims Cotton has solved the basic problem for me completely. It's just done, okay? Shop skims cotton and all my favorite pieces at skims.com. After you place your order, though, be sure to let them know I sent you. Select podcast in the survey and be sure to select my show in the drop down menu that follows.

Thank you so much. And let's get back into the show. From number five, a point I need to make. It's always a point system with me. nature doesn't rush. Trees don't apologize for winter. Fields aren't productive every month. Pregnancy has trimesters.

Healing has seasons. Bodies have cycles. But we expect ourselves to operate like a machine. And we make AI and we make machines in order to operate in our fantasized human imagination of how one should live in this world and how productive one should be. You are not a machine. Sorry. You have machines to assist you, but you are not a machine.

And they are tools. But you, my sweet summer child, are not one. The main compromise is to not completely stop because then you become a bog and anything that freezes, dies in nature, like a swamp. Animals don't touch water that is still because it is dangerous. Life is always moving, but it is not always growing upwards and it's not always moving fast.

There's always just an evolution and a death and a life and an evolving nature, right? If you feel that you've just got to be on this same rigid cycle of productivity and production, you, my friend, are fighting against nature and I think we all know who's going to win that one, don't we? You might have made busyness, your personality, and that is very dangerous. How are you? How are you? How have you been busy, busy? But what do you mean busy?

Busy what? Busy who? What does that mean? It's a social currency of how busy you are. Success is measured by busy. Women talk to each other. Busy. Men, busy.

Everyone busy. What about we just get lazy? What if we just live a soft life for a minute? What if we actually stay in tune with ourselves? Being exhausted is starting to sound really impressive. Were you busy doing bullshit or were you busy actually doing something like saving orangutans? I don't know. Imagine answering, how are you? Just, you know, taking space at the moment. Just being lazy. People would not know what to do. Like, what do you mean? You're not productive for the hive.

Throw her off the bridge quick. The next thing you really need to understand in the modern society is that women carry two shifts. They carry the paid shift and they carry the unpaid shift. Women work, let's say on average. It's research, right? the average amount the same as a man when they work in the same office, for example. But then they do five more hours of unpaid work at home. So your idea of lazy and how productive men are and what they're achieving, you're not measuring the same scale with unpaid work and paid work. It makes it uneven. We are not the same, but equal, we should be, right?

And so if you're in a relationship and you feel you should meet his requirements, months of 50-50, or you're at home and you're doing all of the work, 80% of the time women do most of the housework, not 80% of the time, they do 80% of the housework. You need to understand that just because it's not measured in monetary reward, it does not mean that it has not occurred. You are still doing that work. You need to really see how much you're doing and give yourself permission to not do all of that and ask others for assistance, aka dear husband, who works and then comes home and relaxes. Men really know how to say they've done enough or they've had enough.

If you work predominantly in the home and you're the main home person, you need to understand that that is a huge contribution and you also need rest time. Otherwise, you will burn yourself out and no one needs a burnt out. Human, mom, whoever you are in the house, you're not going to want to. win medals on it, okay? Do you know what my favorite thing about lazy people is and what I think we should be inspired by if we are called lazy? Just take on these labels, whatever.

Lazy people are very, very protective of their energy. They're too lazy to go out with the friend group that everyone wants to keep up with. They're too lazy to do the thing. But the thing about it is get a lazy person to do a job and they will optimize it amazingly. They automate, they delegate, they simplify systems, they say no, they refuse unnecessary drama. And that is the energy I want you to take from this podcast, right? Sometimes what is called lazy is actually efficient. Do you know what's really funny?

My son called me a lazy cow the other day. He has no context of the fact that that's a sentence. Like a cow being lazy. And then I said, why a cow? He said, no, I meant lazy fox because I don't know. He thought maybe I looked like that animal. And I was like, why do you call me lazy? He's like, oh, because you sit and you do this or you do that and then you order that.

And then I was like, damn, that's a compliment, you know. I will be lazy cow until the cows come home because I automate things. I order things in. I do things in systems so that I can, my friend, my son, if you ever listen to this podcast when you grow up, I doubt you will. Because why would you? But that is a lesson for you. And then in the same day, he said to me, why are we so calm? because he wanted me to react to something.

Like he spilled something and I was like, yeah, don't worry about it. And he said, why are always so calm? And in that day, I knew I got two compliments. I got called a lazy cow. And I got told, why am I always so calm? Because my understanding of women and adults growing up was that they freak out about over everything because they are stretched so thin.

Like, what did you do that? What happened there? Ror, rah, rah. And the second is they're always rushing around doing too much. Me and my son, we go skateboarding. We go this one, we go that one, I take him everywhere. We go to the movies. And I'm not saying I'm a great parent.

I've got many deficits and many minuses. I'm just deeply human. But the fact that the imprint on him is that I'm a lazy cow who is calm about everything is just a win to me. I don't care. I'm just going to spin it that way. And that is that. You know what I mean?

You've got to also remember that slower isn't smaller. I feel like I'm about to say slow and steady wins the race and pop little turtles everywhere here. One woman might want a million dollar, billion dollar company. Another might want to work three days a week and pick up her kids from school, right? Neither ambition is morally superior. Another woman might just want to be a stay-at-home mom. See, I said just. Stop saying just. The question isn't, what life is bigger, more bombastic, more like, let's tell all our friends about it. The question is, what life am I trying to build? Because you being busy and running around is not going to score points. So if you want to pick up your kids three days a week and also have a side

business, you don't need to hustle like a billion dollar CEO. You see when you sneeze in Russia, that means that what you're saying is true. You don't need to keep up with the Joneses and act like a busy, be, you can be a lazy cow with me. And you can still have a very successful business. In fact, I feel like sometimes when I've tried to do busy work and made myself busy and have systems and all these things, my actual business and money making potential isn't as high as when it is when I'm in flow. I don't always like to do every aspect of the business that I'm doing. Sometimes it's annoying. Sometimes I have to look at documents. Sometimes I've got to like wrap my mind around things.

But I like the process of creation, right? And I find that when I am not trying to rush or do things just because people think it's a good idea, I'm actually more poignant. I create better things. At the end of it, the goal is not to be lazy. The goal is to become so secure you no longer are trying to prove your worth and your value with the act of busyness through constant output, which gets you nowhere. You can work incredibly hard, and I do. And you can also spend an afternoon reading a book. or watching real housewives. Neither determines your value because you are the one who gives yourself

value. Not that guy over there, not your boss, nobody. At the end of the day, you are yours to look after. You are a beautiful magical creature who deserves love from you. The underpinning idea is performative busyness and productive ambition are different. I am very ambitious. performative busyness is like oh i'm still on my emails at 10 p.m i remember idolizing women who were like i've just had a baby i'm on my emails why you own your emails why are you on your emails what a core experience it is to have a baby for example or climb mount everest it's like a one in a lifetime opportunity right i know some people do it a lot but usually for our cohort of people's like once twice three times in your lifetime right and you're checking emails why why it's like a

enjoy the experience of the thing. I climb Mount Everest. I'm doing my emails to Clive. Clive wants to know if we're doing a deck. Stop it. If you say yes to everything, just to fit in with every group. If you never sit down,

you're always running around. My mom does this all the time. It's really painful to watch. If you're posting about your hustle, I'm hustling. I get up at 3 a.m. And I get my kids, lunch is ready. Stop.

filling every hour, that's performative busyness, okay? Productive ambition is doing important work, protecting your energy and saying no to things, knowing when to stop, allowing space to actually hear your thoughts when I walked for the 10K. Yes, I listened to some podcasts. Yes, I did a call, but I also thought about things, right? I want you to be ambitious. I want you to make bombastic amounts of money. But I also want you to do it for you and in your way and listen to yourself.

Listen with your heart you will understand, as Pocahunterhunters will say. Not listen to the busyness that men have told you to have, and society has, in order to be shit little versions of men. Go forth and be ambitious. Do your thing. Be a lazy cow. And you'll see how feminine energy rewards you. Love you lots like jelly tots. Bye.