system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How do you regain your passion for a subject after a stressful grad school experience?

I am fortunate to have a full time teaching job in my field after earning my Masters. The trouble is I had some bad experiences with my PI and my whole thesis experience being very stressful and not getting the support he promised when he asked to be my PI. I graduated, but never felt confident in my learning. On top of that, my husband died the year after I graduated and I suddenly became a single mom with all the household duties my husband used to do.

 Now it's 2 years later and I have a very flexible teaching schedule and the luxury to learn my subject more in depth at a leisurely pace and I find the whole idea of digging into a new project to get better at it just makes me feel stressed out and avoidant. I have undergrad students who are passionate and doing amazing projects while I have imposter syndrome and wanting to do cool things, but lack motivation to roll up my sleeves and dig in to the difficult intellectual work. I feel like I'm just phoning it in.

How can I learn to love my subject again and put aside all the anxiety and avoiding behaviors? I really want to fall in love again with my work!
gpt
Hey OP, probably not the advice you're looking for but you're doing great. Keep focusing on your and the kid's well being.

As far as enjoying the subject again, i went and bought the books i wanted to read but never had the time to during grad school. Try different mediums too: podcasts for instance. Don't necessarily try to go deep as far as you were before, don't take notes reading or try to remember, just focus on enjoying what you're listening to or reading.