My Income, Tattoos + Self-Care Thoughts: Radical Honesty June Q+A
I LOVE an honest money question.
Welcome to another edition of Radical Honesty Q+A! I’m challenging myself to answer your nosiest questions so I can practice talking about hard things — and, of course, encourage all of us to keep talking about hard things.
(In case you missed the first Q+A post, you can read it here, where we talk about divorce, outdoor jobs, and period pain. 👀)
Today, I’m answering these 3 Q’s:
💰“How much money do you make working for yourself?” (Bold, love it!)
💖 “What tattoos do you have and do you regret any?” (Fun!)
😌 “How do you prioritize self-care in your daily routine?” (Oh, the ongoing journey.)
As a reminder, you can submit your Q’s for this monthly-ish column here. Let’s go.
Q1: “How do you prioritize self-care in your daily routine?” 😌
A: It feels important to start by noting that for me, self-care often changes with the seasons (of both Earth and of life). 5 years ago, yoga and stretching felt like an important part of my daily self-care, but today it doesn’t. 3 years ago, I practiced daily “creative time” to give my brain some fun outside of work, but that habit just doesn’t help me these days. Self-care is fluid, IMO. 🤷♀️
That said, I have a few principles that help me feel happy and healthy on the day-to-day, even when life looks like chaos swirling around me:
Daily Self-Care Principle 1: Build my schedule around my highest values.
One example: My health matters more to me than nearly anything else. Especially since my life-threatening experience with birth control in 2017, it’s felt non-negotiable to me that my physical and mental health be bigger decision filters than things like work and money. That means that even on my busiest days, I virtually always find time to get outdoors and move my body (even if that means billing fewer hours or having to shift plans with a friend to later).
The practical application of that for “daily self-care” means:
I aim to get “outdoors by 11AM” so the day doesn’t get away from me.
I block morning meetings from my scheduling system so I always have flexibility for me time.
I know that something is better than nothing, so even if I’m traveling or on the road, fitting in a 20 minute jog can feel like honoring my values, too.
NEW! For over a month now, I’ve been making sure I sit outside for a few minutes when I wake up before looking at a screen.
When it comes down to it, I tend to choose time and freedom over money and stability/structure, and I’m happy and privileged to be able to make that trade-off. It’s what makes me happy in every other area of my life.
Daily Self-Care Principle 2: Tune into where I am in my menstrual cycle.
What feels good for “self-care” shifts throughout my own cycle! Some weeks (especially in my follicular phase), self-care actually does mean a full social schedule (I’m an extrovert and love having plans most days of the week!). Others (like in my late premenstrual phase), it means staying home and batching a bunch of grains and veggies so I don’t have to cook later that week.
The key for me is being proactive about knowing where I’ll be in my cycle when, so I can plan in advance for what’s going to feel the best each day. My book is literally about just that. 📖
Daily Self-Care Principle 3: Adjust my habits once I have evidence of what does/doesn’t feel great in that season.
This is evident in my monthly recaps (which I share on Substack!) including my Core 4/Future Self reflections. Honestly, after a few months of a habit/self-care practice, it tends to feel stale and less helpful to me. I thrive on novelty and on assessing what would be most helpful in each specific season of life (or, again, the menstrual cycle). So, each monthly and each quarterly (and annual!) reflection and planning sesh gives me the opportunity to shift and try new self-care techniques.
Q2: “What tattoos do you have and do you regret any?” 💖
A: I have 3 tattoos! Let’s take a tour…
First tattoo: Coordinates on my ribs (classic sign of the times). 🗺️
My whole dad’s side of the family shares a property in north-central Massachusetts that we’ve called “The Farm” for generations. The mostly wooded 120 acres is where I spent countless weekends as a kid exploring outdoors, plus holiday gatherings, weddings, and more. It’s hard to put into words how special of a place it is, yet I hardly get to visit now since I live… let’s see… 3,009 miles away by car.
24ish year old me got the coordinates of the Farm as a way to remember where I come from, even when I’m very far away. 32 year old me shudders to think about how much I didn’t like the weird tattoo artist’s design yet I got it anyway since he charged for design time and also I didn’t want to offend him LOL. While I don’t regret it, it’s not my style now, hasn’t aged great (the other artist I’ve worked with has more skills), and is kinda big for my preference. But I don’t put much weight on things like tattoos when life is so short, you know?
Second tattoo: A pinecone on my forearm. 🌲
I still adore this one and get compliments on it all the time! Sometime after I moved to the PNW from Utah, I wanted a tattoo to honor those two places (since I had my MA-related one). I’ve always loved pinecones (nothing better than finding the perfect cone on a trail!) and ponderosa pine trees are one of my faves. But ponderosa pine needles didn’t have the vibe I wanted for a tattoo, so instead of going botanically accurate, I combined a ponderosa cone with coastal redwood needles. No big meaning to this tattoo; I just love botanicals and fine lines.
Third tattoo: A wildflower bunch on my neck. 🌷
No big meaning here either, but getting this tattoo felt like a nod to my own freedom, especially after getting a divorce and moving and going self-employed and continually shaking things up. Lupine and California poppies are just the best so I thought it’d be fun to show them as a little surprise when my hair is up! It’s bigger than what I’d planned for, but again, I just don’t feel regrets about things like this; they feel as perfectly imperfect as my million freckles.
Future tattoo?!: I’ve always thought I’d love a botanical spread spanning my collarbone/shoulder/upper arm! And I’ll probably eventually get some iteration of that, but I’m also aware that with how much time I spend outdoors, sun exposure could get in the way of it.
And, to be “radically honest,” my partner isn’t a big fan of tattoos. That, of course, is not going to prevent me from doing what I actually want to do, but I do care about his preferences enough that I’m not going to just get a giant tat on a whim when he’d actually be staring at it more than I would. I’ll make him get his first tattoo to start, then we’ll see what comes next. ;)
Q3: “How much money do you make working for yourself?” 💰
A: YESSS this is the type of question I always end up asking people! I’m going to have this one be special for my handful of paid subscribers (love you) but feel free to join for a month if you’re into this one! I’d be happy to share more often about everything MONEY but I want to know what people are most interested about.