Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - Do you have Emotional Clutter?! Find out with T.K. Coleman from The Minimalists Podcast | Clutterbug Podcast # 238

Episode Date: August 26, 2024

Join me for an enlightening conversation with the incredible T.K. Coleman, co-host of The Minimalists Podcast, as we dive deep into the concepts from his new e-book, Emotional Clutter. In this impactful episode, we talk about how decluttering your spaces is transformative but decluttering your mind is just as impactful. T.K. shares invaluable insights on how to release emotional clutter and redirect energies toward what truly matters in life. This episode is filled with wisdom and practical advice - you won't want to miss it! Learn more about The Minimalists here: https://www.theminimalists.com/ Download T.K. Coleman's FREE e-book here: https://www.theminimalists.com/emotionalclutter/     You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast #theminimalists #tkcoleman     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I thought this podcast was going to be about minimalism and emotional clutter and kind of the same things I often talk about. But shockingly, it was one of the most impactful conversations I've ever had. And in fact, I got emotional and teary-eyed near the end. I'm hoping you have the same reaction. Hey, clutterbugs. Welcome back to the clutterbug podcast. Today, I am interviewing T.K. Coleman. He is a speaker, a teacher, and one of the co-hosts of The Minimalists. He's also an author of his

brand new e-book and audiobook called Emotional Clutter. Buckle up because he is probably one of the wisest human beings I've ever spoke with and I am so excited for you to get to know him. So welcome TK2B clutterbug podcast. I am so excited to have you here. Me too, me too. I love the work that you're doing. I love the way you engage this space. So I've been looking forward to this conversation. I'm really looking forward to you. I interviewed Joshua maybe last week or the week before. So I've been watching the minimalist podcast and I just love your take on everything. So thrilled to have you here. We talk a lot about decluttering physical stuff. And the thing that's so amazing about the minimalist podcast is you go a step further, not just

minimalism with the physical objects, but just like life, simplifying your entire life. And I downloaded your ebook, Emotional Clutter. And I love to talk about that. All right. Yeah. This is something that I rarely talk about. So I'm curious, like, how do you define emotional clutter? I define emotional clutter as the thoughts, judgment. and practices that get in the way of establishing a healthy relationship to the entirety of the emotional spectrum. And that is in contrast to treating emotions themselves as a kind of clutter, which I think is the easy thing to do. If I feel sad, if I feel jealous, if I feel angry, I immediately invoke some kind of judgment about what that says about my worthiness,

my value, my integrity. And if I were a more enlightened person, if I were a more mature person, if I were a better human being, I simply wouldn't feel the way that I feel now. And that becomes the first instance of emotional clutter, whereas emotional freedom, emotional declutter, emotional simplicity is when we can simply be present to those feelings and say, hey, something's coming up for me now. And it may not be a pleasant feeling. It may not be the filling. I expect it to have, but I can be present with this in the absence of self-condemnation, similar to the old Buddhist phrase, I can observe with a spirit of non-judgmental compassion. That's good. I'm not there yet, T.K., listen, I am an emotional roller coaster, and here's the thing

I'm noticing in my life, okay? My emotions are driving the bus, and I'm not sure where they're going, And I'm not even aware of them most of the time. So this is the thing. I think when you're looking at minimalism, it's about simplifying so that you can really focus on what matters. And I need help with the emotional clutter aspect because I'm not even, like, I'm angry. I don't even know why.

Am I even really angry or am I scared? Or am I tired? Maybe I'm hungry. Like I have no real emotional intelligence there. I said it. So I'm struggling with this. I'm doing really good. I'm not a minimalist, but I'm really good at decluttering physical items.

But I definitely want to delve deeper into this emotional. And I know my listeners need this too. Because we're being run. And chapter three of your book, unpacking the positivity and pessimism, that one hit me like a punch in the gut because I was a negative. person for a very long time and I was stuck in this negativity loop. So to combat that, what did I do? I became toxicly positive. I faked my way. I'm like, it's okay. Right before you joined this call, you spilled coffee all over your computer. You were like having all these disasters.

And I'm thinking, there's got to be a silver lining here. Like, this is my brain. I'm right into like, you know? And this chapter was basically like that's not good either. Yeah, yeah. The toxic positivity. Do you want to talk more about that? You break it down like forcing yourself to smile, forcing yourself to speak triumphantly.

Are you really talking about this kind of like manifesting culture that's going on in there? Like you fake it till you make the happiness. Is this what you're kind of. getting at, which I see a lot. I'll say, I'll say yes and no. So here's what I'll say about that. You know, if emotional clutter is anything that gets in the way of a healthy relationship to the spectrum of a filling, then that can take a so-called positive form as well as a so-called negative form. There are lots of ways that we can get in our own way. Some of those ways look very noble and socially acceptable.

And some of those ways look very embarrassing or shameful, and they will receive a lot of finger wagging from society in return. But, you know, when you look at the space of addiction, for example, in the world of addiction, you have some addictions that look so bad that the people in your life will call you out on. But some of the more dangerous forms of addiction are the ones that are so socially acceptable that no one will even recognize it as an addiction because maybe we're all doing it, or maybe because you look good or succeed when you do it.

And it's the same way with emotional clutter. Sometimes because positive thinking sounds more noble, and maybe it feels more inspiring to hear someone talk that way, we overlook it as a candidate for something that can create or be a source of emotional clutter in our lives. But if the goal is radical self-honesty, then it doesn't really matter if what's getting in the way of that is positive or negative. What matters is that it's getting in the way.

And so if I'm if I'm grieving a loss, for instance, and I say, you know, ever since that friend stopped talking to me or ever since I got laid off from that job or ever since that person told me that they didn't want to be with me or ever since that loved one died, I just haven't been the same. And if I immediately superimpose a philosophy of, you know what, I'm just going to fake it until I make it. I feel great. I'm doing great. That doesn't even really matter. I'm just going to go do my job and slap on a smile.

Well, the people who don't know what's going on internally, they may say, wow, that TK guy is really inspiring. It feels good to be around him. And maybe that will result in social feedback that further reinforces I'm doing the right thing. But the healthy thing is to slow down and say, hey, well, wait a minute. I'm not under any moral obligation to get over my grief. in 30 seconds or 30 minutes and in some cases 30 days. The question is, what is the best way for me to be present with myself and the life that I have while also preserving the humanity of being someone who is grieved? And it is in that radical self-honesty that I am free, even if in that freedom I'm not feeling

emotions that express themselves in outward exuberance. And when you talk about manifestation culture, I think there is something wonderful about saying, I'm going to focus on what I do want more than what I don't want. I'm going to focus not only on what's irritating me, but also on the results I want to create. That's a very powerful way to think and a very powerful way to live. But what's also important, this is true not only of positive thinking, but it's true of minimalism itself. There is a legalistic and self-defeating way to literally practice anything in life. No matter what it is, if you get obsessed with decluttering to the point where you're starting to feel like you're a terrible person because you only have 10 things and the minimalist over there has eight things and they're being a better minimalist than you, now minimalism is being practiced in a way that's legalistic and self. defeating. So the solution can never be in the technique itself. It can never be in the strategy itself.

It has to be in the energetic quality of how we engage it, how we relate to it, and how we treat ourselves in the process. Does that make sense? Yeah, and that's so good. It really is. I find, just from my own personal, the emotional side is a lot harder, like the psychological side than the physical. So I knew my house was messy because I had evidence that it was a disaster. I could see it with my eyes. I was tripping over things. And as I started getting rid of things, it was like, okay, well, things have to just, I have to physically remove things from my home. This is, I'm not saying it's easy like it's, it's emotionally easy. It's easy as like it's really obvious. Things have to go. And I'm putting things in bags. And then I'm noticing, wow, my life's getting easier as I'm letting

things go. The other side, now that I've decluttered, the emotional side is I don't find self-awareness easy. It's not obvious like piles of clutter to me. So I'm having a really hard time like identifying emotions and identifying toxic traits I have or I know that obviously I'm not perfect. My family tells me so. But I am having a really hard time. with that self-awareness of realizing where I need to focus my energy or where I need to emotionally declutter in my life. Now, does this make sense? And do you have suggestions? It's probably going to be meditate, isn't it? It's probably going to be be quiet and meditate. Dang it. Well, it's funny because we do live in a culture that has somewhat conditioned us to

focus so much on embrace the suck that we kind of feel like we shouldn't be taken seriously if we're not willing to do hard things. I mean, isn't that the definition of adulthood for many of us, the willingness to show up and do something difficult no matter how hard it is? And while there is certainly some merit to that, that idea has lasted for a good reason, it is also true that sometimes the experience of difficulty is a clue that there might be an easier way to get started. And one of the most important lessons I've learned in life is to not despise that which feels easy. Because sometimes it's the easy that gets us into the position where we can do things that other people look at and say, wow, you're a superhero. That's so incredibly difficult.

And you're thinking to yourself, oh, you should have saw me two to three years ago. When before I could even write or do that thing, I had to go read the book that was written for fifth graders about it because that's where my starting point. it was, right? And so, but sometimes because we don't want to embrace that easy starting point, we never get to the point where we can embrace the difficulty. And so it's just like with, let's take working out or eating healthy, there are so many people, not according to my judgment, but if you ask them, if you just took a random survey and said, hey, do you exercise as much as you want to exercise? Do you eat in the way that you want to eat? I think a large number of people would say, you know, I think I could be eating a little healthier. I think I could be exercising a little more.

But when it's time to execute those plans, we often all do the same things. We spend money on exercise equipment that we don't really want to use. We force ourselves to sign up for workout classes that we really don't enjoy, but that we feel some sort of moral duty to sign up for. We buy memberships to a gym that we really don't like being at. And all the while, there is this invitation from ease saying, hey, is there a way to just maybe get outside a little bit more that you enjoy? Well, I can't do that. God forbid that something so responsible and healthy should be pursued in a way that prioritizes what feels enjoyable to me.

But maybe the reason you hate working out is because you've equated working out with doing all of these noble exercises that all of the physically fit people do, and you refuse to take yourself seriously if you do something other than that. But maybe in this world of thousands of exercises, there are one or two that don't feel like exercise to you, but they're objectively good for your body and mind. And maybe that can be the starting point that allows you to build momentum in your life. Maybe meditation is so hard because you're trying to sit in the lotus position and your body's like, I don't like this. And you're forcing your body to like it and you're telling your body, no, there is one right way to meditate, and if you don't go Lotus, you're not to be taken seriously.

And maybe there are millions of ways to approach meditation that could actually be fun. And this comes back again to that same thing where what's blocking the solutions or what's blocking our access to the solutions are these judgments we are making about ourselves. If I were sufficiently mature, if I were sufficiently good, it would never feel complicated for me. I would just do all the things I say that I want to do. And that makes it very difficult to learn the things we need to know about ourselves to make it more feasible for us. Oh my gosh. This is so true. Stop it right now. Listen, all the things in my life I want to do. I overcomplicate because I see people doing it well. And I think it's like, and I say, I say don't have this all or nothing mentality. And yet here I am having this all or nothing mentality. And I like can. and I sit cross-legged and I try to like chant or whatever. And I'm like, what am I do? This is ridiculous and I hate this and this isn't me.

And I'm never going to be this person. And I just have this really negative mindset about it. I do. I have this preconceived notion of what this is supposed to look like, whether that's working out or eating healthy or meditating or all the other big girl grown up things I'm supposed to be doing that I'm ethically failing it. Yeah. You know, and that's so true for so many of us.

I remember years ago I discovered a wonderful book by Gene Houston called The Possible Human. And most of the exercises are meditative in an unconventional way. There's a laughing exercise. There's a music meditation exercise. Every single chapter is a different kind of meditative exercise that's unlike a lot of what we call the conventional methods. Or there was a book by Anthony DeMello called Sadhana. And in the first chapter, he says, my number one premise is that prayer and meditation should be fun. Whenever I go into any spiritual religious circle and say this, everyone immediately feels scandalized because somewhere along the way, even though no one would admit to having taught it to them, we've all inherited the idea that it should be boring.

And if it's not boring, we clearly aren't in doing it right. By the way, this is another variation of something that comes up a lot that Josh and I see with not. just physical stuff, but with engaging in the creative practices that our heart yearns for. So one example of this is you take writing. There are so many people who want to write and they know they want to write because viscerally they can sense it. And they've managed to convince themselves that they really don't want to write. Why?

Because they have a story that says, if I really want it to write, it would never be difficult for me and I would have already done it. Therefore, since it's difficult for me and I haven't already done it, I must, by logic, not be someone who really wants to write. Therefore, whatever my heart's telling me, that can be damned. My logic is telling me that if I were a serious writer, I would have already found a way to do it. Maybe, but how about this? How about you really love what you say you love? How about you're not deceiving yourself when you say you're attracted to something or that something tastes good to you or that something feels good to you or that something is enjoyable to you?

How about you're not lying to yourself? How about you really mean it when you say those things? And how about you just haven't found a way that works for you? How about you just haven't found a way to make it easy? How about you just haven't met the kind of person who can support you or explain it to you in a way that's right for you? What if greatness were less about being great in a way that conforms to all the people who've come before us, but the secret of greatness in any area of life that all the people who've come before us have discovered is it's about finding a way that resonates with the rhythm of you. your true self, finding a way that can be integrated into the particularities and the peculiarities

of your individual life because your life isn't like anyone else's. And it shouldn't be that much of a surprise is if you try to use someone else's life as a script, there are some parts of it that just don't quite work for you. That's not evidence that you're a screw up or that you're hopeless. That's evidence that you have a unique story and some aspects of it have to be figured out for you. I hope you listening at home. felt that because whether it's you saying, I really want to have a clean and tidy and organized home, but I just obviously I'm not good at it. It's never going to happen for me. Look at my house is a mess. Or I wish I was healthy and could work out, but obviously I'm not the person. I'm not that person

because look at me and I haven't done it up until now. So obviously I feel that at my core. And I know I was a slob. I mean, there is not one aspect of my life that I had together. Let me tell you that. I was a disaster in every way. And the things that I've found, and even success feels weird saying because what? You'll be an imposter forever. That's how I feel. But things that I've got sorted to a good enough degree, I really did just cheat my way there. And even me saying cheat, look at me, saying I didn't do it the right way because I did it the easy way. What felt easy for me. And I do in my brain still feel lazy and like I cheated and it didn't really count, whether it was my weight loss, whether it was getting my house organized under control. Everything.

Listen, TK, everything that I've found success in, it doesn't even feel real because the only way I was able to make that happen was doing it shitty. Yeah. Isn't that great? I tell my students this all the time that everything that you want to become requires you to be willing to look and sound like you're the opposite on the way to becoming there. So let's imagine that I want to become physically fit and I walk into the gym and I see all of these really good looking guys who are just like really built and they're lifting weights. And I know that for me, my first time, I'm going to have to take all the weights off that pole. And I'm going to have to lift up that empty bar. And so I walk out of the gym and I say, well, these guys, they have all those weights on that bar.

And they're really strong. And, you know, if I pick up that empty bar, I'm going to look weak compared to those guys. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to do this because I don't want to look weak. But if I can't embrace that reality and accept that in a way that's non-self-condemming, then I don't get to be strong. Or let's take getting smart. What's the fastest way to get smart? It's to say, hey, I have a question.

Can you explain that in another way? I'm trying to get it, but I don't quite understand. Hey, what does that word mean? Or let me pick up a dictionary and look it up myself. Or, hey, can you give it a different illustration for that? Or can you explain that again? In order to look smart, you have to, in order to become smart, you've got to expose yourself as the person who doesn't know what's going on.

And how many times do we fail to get the information, the insight, the answers that we need, because we're the person in the meeting or in the classroom and we're listening to something. And we don't know what they're talking about, but we look around and everyone else seems like they understand. Half of them don't. But everyone seems like they understand. And God forbid that I be one of the people who doesn't. And so in my effort to make sure that I don't look like I don't know, I solidify myself in a state of not knowing. And there are so many things in life that are like that, where we don't want to do things in that way that requires us to be honest with where we are.

So a personal example, I've become really interested because of some friends that I have and some other side interest that I have in information technology and computer science. If you knew me, you would probably laugh when I tell you that. I have never been good at math. And I don't know how I managed to make it past any of my math classes because I wasn't really a great student, but I somehow follow instructions well enough to get out of there alive, right? But in order for me to understand some of these things, there are two books I had to get. One is a book called You Are Not Stupid. And it explains information technology from a really, really basic level. Like it starts with, we're not starting with code.

We're not going to start with Python or anything like that. We're going to start with what is a machine. These are the kinds of things that I had to go read. What is a machine? What is technology? Okay. And I had to go get a book. When I used that fifth grade example, I really meant this. There was a book on mathematics that was written for fifth graders. It was an illustrated guide to math. And it was for the fifth grade audience. And it talks about the basics. And it explains. It starts with numbers, right? Now, this is the kind of thing where it's very risky because that little grimlin in the back of my head says, hey, you should know that by now. You should know that by now. You better not pick up a book like

that or let anybody see you reading a fifth grade math book because you should know that right now. And the fact that you don't know it means you're a very bad person because you went through fifth grade. Your parents worked very hard to send you through school. Your teachers taught you and you are such a horrible human being that you frauded your way out of fifth grade class without learning the math. You should go back and apologize. You should put that book down

and go apologize for your existence and then get back to work. But then you got to talk back and say, no, I know who you are. And I know why you're saying those things to me. It's because you're afraid. It's because you're scared. And I want you to know we don't have to be scared.

we're going to be all right. No one's going to laugh at me for reading this book. In fact, they're going to respect me more someday. And even if they do laugh, that's only because they're afraid too. But we're going to be all right. We're going to go and we're going to read this fifth grade book. And once we get this knowledge, it won't matter how we got there. It won't matter what we had to do to get there because then it will be internalized and it will be mine.

And it will be mine today. So that's what we're going to do. And that's how we have to speak to ourselves when it comes to so many other things. You're not good at meditation. You're not good at self-awareness. You're not good at self-control. You're not good at keeping your cool. You are where you are.

And you will never cross the finish line or make any progress towards the finish line if you're spending all of your time resenting the fact that you have to have a starting point. Oh, God, yes. Oh, that hurts. It hurts and it's so true. It hurts a little bit. I mean, it is the fear of failure. And it also has this, I have this mindset. I've tried a toxic positivity out of me. But I've always been the person who's like, you're probably, it's probably not going to work out. So prepare yourself for failure. So you're less disappointed. And then when you start thinking that way, you're like, well, you're going to screw up. Like, I used to think this way about my house. It's just going to get a mess again anyways. Like you're never going to be able to keep it clean. So why bother in the first place? And then I never tackled my house. I never decluttered.

I never had any routines because I was convinced of failure. And I knew it would hurt so bad to try and fail. It hurts less to just embrace the failure rate and never try. And I think that's what I'm doing with all the other things I really want to work on, like meditation. I feel like you're too ADHD. You're never going to sit still. You can't shut off your mind. You're going to fail.

Why would you even waste your time trying? And so I, and so I, I stop. How can we, TK, how can we turn our brain off? Is it really like, is it just, I need step-by-step instructions here, man. I need a full tutorial. I need concrete steps. But maybe that's part of the problem too. I'm always looking for a system.

I'm always looking to copy what someone else has done or somebody else tell me how to exactly how to do it. And you're right. Everybody's so different. I have to take a quick second to thank today's podcast sponsor, ORA Frames. I think this is one of my favorite sponsors of all time because this is one of my favorite products of all time. Seriously, I have an ORA frame in multiple rooms in my home and this is a gift that I have given to every single mother, mother-in-law, and grandma in my life because it's incredible. It is a digital. It is a digital photo frame that you can instantly add photos or videos to from anywhere in the world. And you do this through an app on your phone and this beautiful frame instantly uploads everything.

So my brother in Nova Scotia and we have family all over the world can share incredible photos and memories instantly. It is a great way to stay connected. It's a great way to cut down clutter. and I think it makes honestly the most incredible gift for anyone on your list. And right now, ORA is having their first friends and family sale ever. And we have an exclusive offer just for listeners. For a limited time, you can get $35 off their best selling frame by visitingoraFrames.com

and using the promo code Clutterbug at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com and use that promo code. code clutterbug. You're like, how am I going to solve your, I'm trying to make you solve my problems here. TK, I'm sorry. Fix me. Fix me in this 40 minute podcast. Well, here's a meditation exercise of practice next time you're on your walk.

So maybe imagine that you are another person. Imagine you're two people. You're the person that wants to do what you want to do. But then you're also that other person that's telling you all the arguments for why you shouldn't do it. And imagine how you might respond if that other person was a sister, a daughter, a good friend of yours. I think about when I was little, yeah, I was doing really bad in school. And my father's talking to me because the teacher called and just talked about my struggles. And at one point, I say so sincerely and just so exhausted, I said, I can't do it,

dad, I'm just not smart. And my dad said to me, he goes, I don't accept that. He says, I don't accept that, not just because you're my son, but because you talk my ear off all day about baseball statistics. And if I were to ask you who's leading the National League and RBI right now, you'd know it. If I were to ask you who has the record for the most home runs in a year, you'd know it. If I were to ask you for the ERA of the top five pitchers in the American League, you'd know. it. He's like, kid, you're smart when you're interested and when you're engaged. And so we just got to

figure out a way to help connect your interests to some of the things you have to do because that's all it's about. I have a lot of things I have to do that I don't really enjoy and that I think are boring, but I have to connect it to something else that I care about. I've got days where I have to remind myself that there are other people that are affected by it or that I'm going to lose something else that I really love. And it's that ability to connect it. And I think about that conversation because it's a conversation or a kind of conversation that we're capable of having with ourselves so many times.

You know, when, again, I use addiction as an example because I think one of the areas where some of the most honest conversations are happening are in those spaces, where you just have to be radically self-honest. And one of the most important insights of struggling with an addiction is the recognition that whatever you are addicted to, as unhealthy as it might be, you're only addicted to it because you have a legitimate need and you have found something that satiates that need temporarily. And you're never going to overcome that addiction by focusing only on how do I stop doing that so much. you've got to start with what's right about this. Yes, the ultimate goal is to replace that with something positive, but what's right about this? Well, what's right about this is that I do have a genuine need for companionship and validation. What's right about this is I do have a genuine need to feel like I belong. I do have a genuine need to feel like I'm expressing my creative energy in a positive direction. I do have a genuine need for love. I do have a genuine need to soothe my pain. I when I have a difficult day. And you know what?

It does make sense. Like, this thing that I'm addicted to does a pretty good job of meeting that need. Unfortunately, it's got some other poisonous elements that harm me in the long term. And now I can begin to think, well, what are some other activities? What are some other resources and relationships that I can replace that with so that I can start to overcome it, not by making the end goal, stop. doing X, but by making the end goal to live a flourishing life that brings forth the very best of myself. And so when it comes to what you're asking me about, we look at these struggles and we say,

see, look at this, I'm such a screw up. Here's evidence that I'm against myself and we become the prosecuting attorney of our own lives. Like, here's the evidence that I am fundamentally against myself. And you have to shift over to the defense attorney and says, no, no, no, I'm not against myself at all. I'm for myself. And even when I behave in a way that is unhealthy, it's only because I am for myself in a way that is unformed, uninformed, or for myself in a way that is easy and convenient and accessible for me. But I can learn to be for myself in a different way. And so the question I ask is, hey, that jealousy that you feel, that anger that you feel, that addiction that you have, that clutter that you keep recreating every time you get rid of the stuff, what's right about

that? Because if you just deal with it at the level of the symptom, the underlying condition will continue to manifest in a different sort of way. But what's right about that? Because that's the foundation upon which we have to build. That's so good. And I'm thinking of my own, all my issues. I used to have a shopping problem. What's right about that? It was the, it was the, it was. It It was the you deserve this. You're good. It was really me just, you know, you deserve a little pick me up in excitement and you deserve that pat on the back.

But I didn't need to buy things to pat myself on the back. I found other ways to get that sort of self-validation, like good job. You deserve this. Here's a treat for yourself. So I'm going to look at this as like, I know I get really quick to anger. I'm a little bit of a, I just like, jump in emotion. And it usually comes from a place of where I feel taken. advantage of. Even if I'm not being taken advantage of, I think that's the underlying. So when I'm

quick to losing my temper, what's good about that is I'm standing up for myself? And what the truth is, as I don't stand up for myself enough, 99.9% of the time. So when I explode, I'm actually, that's when I'm like, finally I'm standing up for myself. So it isn't really a negative thing, is it? That's exactly right. So anger is typically a manifestation of something about your vision for how the world should work that's being violated or dishonored. And so when you're mad about something, it's usually because you have a positive value and that positive value is being contradicted. and you're experiencing that sense of powerlessness to do something about it as anger. And it happens so quickly that we often don't even know what the positive value is. And what we do is we say, oh, boy, I shouldn't be so angry.

A much more respectable and noble version of myself would be to not be angry. And then so we try techniques to make ourselves react more nicely when what's really valuable is to make that anger your teacher. You know, one of the things I say in the book is that when you resent your feelings, you resist the wisdom that they provide. And so if I treat my anger as if it's just an enemy that I have to chase out of the house, I never get to have a conversation with my anger to tell me what it is I value. So maybe, and by the way, this matters even if we can't do anything about the immediate thing

that's causing our anger. So let's say I'm on a bus. And let's say there's one empty seat. And I get on the bus and I look around me and I say, I'm not going to take that empty seat because I'm young and I'm able-bodied and I don't really need it. Somebody probably needs that more than me. So I stand up. And then I see an old lady get on the bus.

And then I see a young teenager get on the bus. And they're there at the same time. And they both look at the seat. And I see the young teenager speed up a little bit to get in the seat. And now I'm mad. I'm mad too. I'm mad just thinking about it. Yeah, right. And maybe I don't really know I'm mad, but, you know, why I'm mad, but I'm mad. And the bus stops immediately and I get off, right? So this moment is forever lost to me. I can't go do anything about that moment. I can't go save the situation, change it, talk to the teenage or whatever. But if I can be with that and say, well, why am I mad? Because I like a world in which people are able to look at others who are vulnerable in some kind of way. And they're able to.

to consider them. They're able to use whatever power and ability they have to make life a little bit easier for them, to help them out in some sort of way. And that vision of the world really, really matters to me. And I'm mad because I saw something today that didn't reflect that. Okay. All right. That's good, man. That anger is powerful creative energy. How can we use that? How can we harness that creative energy and channel it in a positive direction? Well, one thing I could do, it won't help me to judge that kid and hate him because there's a possibility that he doesn't know any better. He hasn't had a mentor that's taught him that. There's a possibility that he could have had some issue that I don't even know about and I'm being presumptuous. I don't really know

that situation and I don't have the power to influence that one directly. But here's what I can do. Number one, I can hold myself accountable to thinking twice about others on those days and there will be those days where I simply don't feel like it. Number two, I can model that for the young people in my life, right? I can incorporate that into my lessons when I teach. There are other things that I can do to further that vision. And now that energy has a positive direction in which it can be channeled, or rather a creative direction in which it can be channeled. Because that emotion, it's real energy. It's real creative energy. And we can slap a little. label on it for when that creative energy is directed in a way that produces an increased amount

of tension, or we can say, I can harness it and channel it this way. And now I'm involved in the creative process. And by the way, it's all about how you use it. Some of the most beautiful music, some of the most beautiful art, some of the most beautiful changes in the world have happened because someone got mad about something. Someone got fed up. I'm so glad, by the way, that Rosa Parks didn't say, I really shouldn't be mad about having to sit on the back of the bus. And, you know, I should just go with the flow. And I shouldn't let people get to me.

I should just be more enlightened. She got mad. And she got mad in a way to where she did something about it. And she sparked a movement that made it possible for you and me to sit next to each other on a bus and have a cool conversation. How awesome is that? You know, how awesome is that? So there's a lot of good that. can happen from those emotions. If we get out of our own way, we let go of the negative judgments

we make about ourselves, we sit at the feet of those feelings as a humble student asking, what is it that you're trying to teach me? And then we channel that as creative energy in a constructive direction. We can change the world, our own little local spaces. Man, you are so inspiring. I could talk to you all day, man. I could talk to you all day. You, it's crazy. You're so wise. And yet you have obviously struggled for a while feeling very stupid, which is the opposite, obviously. I'm so inspired by you. I can't wait to follow you. And I know everyone listening to this podcast. I'm hoping. I know I is feeling exactly the same way that I am. So please let my listeners know how they can find out more about you, how they can get this book, which is good. Emotional clutter. Please, yeah, share. with my listeners where they can find you. You can find all the things at the minimalist.com. And that includes the book.

And we have two versions of the book. There is the ebook, which is downloadable for free. And then there is the audio book, which has the added element of me reading it. And Joshua and I having a conversation between the sections of the book. And so we kind of do a mini podcast where we both share thoughts about, about that particular section. And so you can find that all on the minimalist.com, the emotional clutter book.

And can I have one parting word to share? One last thing to say. Yes. Okay. I think one of the big challenges when it comes to any form of declutter, emotional declutter, physical declutter,

digital declutter is the ideal of a final state that we should or will get to before we die. and if we are not there yet and we're still striving to get there, then maybe something is wrong with us. And we have a tendency to use the idealized final state as a way to take us out of the present moment. And I think about the words of Alan Watts here when he talked about music. He says that if the goal of music was to finish the song, the best musicians would be those who play the fastest. But the goal of music isn't to finish the song. The goal of music is to dance to it.

The goal of music is to relax to it, to work to it, to converse with it in a background, to be present with it as an audience member who observes it, to get involved with the band and pick up an instrument of your own and play it. There are many goals to playing the music, but the one goal that has never been a part of music is to finish the song as soon as possible. In fact, when you're doing it well, people tend to cry when the fun is finished. when you're doing it well, people want the song to last forever. And so in some ways, our lives are like songs. Our lives are works of art, and we are the artist. And the goal of

life isn't to finish the project as fast as possible, but the goal of life is to learn how to dance to the different ebbs and flows of our life. And the reason why we're never done isn't because something's wrong with us. But the reason why we're never done is because as we move through life, we evolve. And the quality of simplicity that's useful for you today, the rules might change completely in 10 years. I look back on my life 10 years ago, the things that I need then, I don't need a lot of those things anymore. But there are a lot of things I could live without then. I now need to have because my needs have changed. And so we're never done. We're ever done. We're just here and we're being present and we're showing up as our full selves to the

best that we can. And when we can't do that and when we're showing up as our worst selves, we can be present to that too. Oh, God, you're so good. Stop it. I could just talk to you all day. This was absolutely amazing. I'm feeling, I'm feeling motivated to do things badly. If I write a motivational book, can you please quote that? Can you write that on the back as your endorsement? Reading this guy makes me feel motivated to do things badly. Because it's the doing things badly that gets it done, you know, that that moves us forward and before we know it, we're doing things well.

And we've taken all the pressure off ourselves. And we've just made it not about the finish line, but about the fact that we're learning and growing and doing cool things that make us proud. So I'm so inspired. I'm so motivated. Thank you so much for being on the Clutterbug podcast. And thank you everyone at home listening. And I'll see you guys next time.