These Fukken Feelings Podcast© - Breaking Free in 2024: The Minimalists Makeover | Season 3 Episode 308

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Send us a Text Message.Get ready to kick-start your 2024 with some fresh vitality and insights on the "These Fukken Feelings" podcast! In episode 308, we're ecstatic to welcome the dynamic duo of minimalism - The indomitable Joshua (definitively not Jonathan) Fields Millburn of "The Minimalists" and the vivacious philosopher extraordinaire, T.K. Coleman. These two powerhouses take us on a deep dive into the intriguing world of minimalism, challenging us to declutter more than just our spaces....

you don't have to be positive all the time it's perfectly okay to feel sad angry annoyed frustrated scared and anxious having feelings doesn't make you a negative person it doesn't even make you weak it makes you human and we are here to talk through it all we welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast a safe space for all who needs it. Grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now. What is up, guys? Welcome to these fucking feelings podcast. I am Micah. As you know, Rebecca is here. I mean, Crystal's here. Sorry, I'm used to being with Rebecca, but Crystal's here filling in for Rebecca because she decided to leave California which I'm still a little bitter about but she is

joining us virtually and our guests today are the minimalists we have TK and Jonathan Joshua that's alright though oh my god I've been called worse I bet look by better people but um

I gotta tell you guys a funny story. Thanks, Michael. See, we've been talking for 30 seconds and shade is already being thrown across the air. Well, you know, I'm gonna quote Candy from Real Housewives of Atlanta. I could turn a shade tree into a money tree, you know?

I wanted to tell you guys already into that real housewives of atlanta micah really this is a record okay i'm trying to be the first male see you guys about the minimal stuff right the minimalist see i need it all i was just talking to them i said look at our look at our background and look at theirs and then they got on black t-shirts what this guy let me tell you so look rebecca so crystal comes last night i guess she's watching you guys and she says a text and she's like oh my god their background is black no his background is dark dark he said the background is dark their background is dark was the phrase she used i'm over here like now thinking oh my god they must have been through some crazy shit if she's

saying it's dark and they probably come up with some trauma stories but no she she meant the actual background was dark i could tell you though it's a it's a metaphor i and the background is is pretty dark i grew up really poor and like was on food stamps and government assistance and like there's a lot of alcohol abuse and drug abuse and physical abuse in the house. So it's a dark background, but also there's a dark background. Oh,

I guess I'm always thinking mental health these days. That's what happened when you start healing. Hey, amen. Healing. You want everybody to heal? Yeah. Amen to that.

But really quickly, just, we always get our guests introduce themselves so tell us a little our audience a little bit about yourself but you have to include something that no one else knows about you that's a little spin i didn't know he was gonna do that well yeah something that no one else knows uh let's see so uh I'm TK Coleman. I'm not going to give you some boring bio, but I love showing up and having conversations about meaning and simplicity, something that a lot of people know because I talk about it on the show. But a lot of people don't know is that I listen to Christmas music every single day of the year, 365, 24 seven. I represent Christmas music. So it's Christmas music all year

round. And so when there's another holiday, I just Christmas fire it. You know, it's like, Hey, we can do a Christmas theme, Halloween, the Christmas theme, July 4th, Christmas theme, Thanksgiving, Christmas theme, birthday, everything. So I represent Christmas. Uh, and it's because I believe that Christmas music is undefeatable. Check this out real fast. You watch a horror movie. What do we do? We take any kind of music and you can make it creepy by putting it in a horror movie, right? Children's songs. Those aren't creepy, but you put it in the horror movie. One, two, Freddy's coming for you. Right? You could take you could take religious music chant. That's

reverent. It's transcendent. It's supposed to make you feel spiritual. You put that in the omen. Right. And it's like all of a sudden, oh, those chats creep you out. But you can do it to Christmas music. If you try to put Christmas music into a horror movie, it's going to make you stop taking a horror movie seriously. It's going to make you laugh. It's going to make you say, oh, my gosh, what am I watching? Because the Christmas music vibration is so light and so free that whatever you put into it, it's just going to make it light and one song all i want for christmas is you that's all you want no that's so scary and i'm not gonna end up in nobody's basement right okay you know i always thought that he listened to christmas music every day because he was just a psychopath it turns out there's an actual story behind it all right i want i don't know are you after the mariah thing after the mariah thing, that might be,

I never looked at it that way. Maybe that's what's wrong with Kelsey. I know. So Crystal's daughter is going to be like an ax murderer. So at least you get to say that you knew her before. Yeah. She loves Chris House music. Before she was famous.

Right. Right. I got to tell you a story about that too before we get inside my we go to a pool party and i bring my little cousin with me and she tells him you're gonna pretend you're drowning and i'm gonna save you and he's like okay like are we not gonna think about your life for a moment she saved him what come on nowend you're drowning? Stereo kill. Aren't all kids, though? All kids are pretty much psychopaths, right?

I've got a 10-year-old daughter. And I remember the first time we brought her on stage at one of the Minimalists live events. She asked to come up there. I'm like, okay, it's fine. What do you want to do? She just looks at me dead in the eye. She goes, I don't know. I just want attention.

Okay. Oh, my God. I know. She's got to figure it out. But all children, they have no regard. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at least she admitted it. Like, we're all on TikTok and Instagram now pretending we're being altruistic or something.

Yeah, yeah. But we're just on there because we all want attention. Putting it out there. Yeah. I don't know. It sounds like you're giving her daddy issues already. I try. Oh, that's great. So now I guess we should get into a little bit

about the minimalist podcast. Yeah, sure. Let's talk about it. We talk about living a meaningful life with less. And that doesn't mean less stuff necessarily, but I think it starts there. Did you know the average American household has 300,000 items in it? We're all hoarders these days, right? Now, it's not like the people on TV,

you see the TV show hoarders and it's easier for us to laugh and say, oh, that's funny. You've got a dead cat in your freezer. Oh, you've got pet poop all over your living room or whatever. Like, dead cat, man, we really sticking with this psychopath thing. You just open the freezer Christmas music store for life. It makes it all fine. And then you hear me behind you say, hey, go ahead and pretend

like you're trying to make me sick. And so we own a whole lot of stuff, right? We have like hundreds of thousands of items in our homes. It'd be great if it was making us happier, more joyous. But let's face it, most of the stuff that we buy and we own, we buy those things to make us happy.

And the things that we buy aren't doing their job. They're not making us happy. They're putting us in debt. They're stressing us out. They're tethering us to a lifestyle or to a job that we absolutely hate. And now we're doing all these things just to maintain a bunch of things we never ended up wanting in the first place. We thought we wanted it when we saw that shirt on the mannequin. When I got it home and looked at it on me, it didn't look nearly as good as the mannequin with the eight pack abs. That part. Yeah. I feel like minimalism is one of those things. It's kind of funny because at the level of the headlines, everybody thinks minimalism is about counting the amount of things that you own and then flagellating yourself

as if you are some kind of evil sinner for owning more than 10 things. And like it's some sort of religious club where it's like, hey, the definition of righteousness is to have less than eight things and the fewer things you have, the better off you are. And it's like, no, you can have a small amount of stuff, still be a total jerk to everyone in your life, still be living in complete misery, still be hiding from the real issues in your life, still be a victim of your shadows and have all other kinds of clutter in your life, even if the physical stuff isn't even there. And so minimalism is really about getting to the essence of things. What are the experiences that matter most to me? What are the relationships and the experiences that matter most to me? What are the relationships and the results

that matter most to me? And then how can I simplify by minimizing the things that get in the way of that, which is essential for me? So it's not about the quantity of things that you own. It's more about the quality of your life and being willing to let go of anything that gets in the way of that. Good answer.

I'm over here like, does fruit roll-ups count? I get called my fruit roll-ups. I always ask, does something add value to my life? And it sounds to me like, Micah, these fruit roll-ups, they really add value to your life. Yeah, they are. Okay, so I sleep with a box. Yeah, I sleep with a box on my pillow next to me. It has its own pillow.

And then I change and I kiss the box goodnight every night. Yeah, I sleep with a box on my pillow next to me. It has its own pillow. And then I change and I kiss the box goodnight every night. Goodnight, baby. You know, so, yeah. I got a family pack. Yeah, I don't have no family. You know, it's one of those situations. What do you call a parasocial relationship? You follow Fruit Roll-Ups on Twitter, maybe?

Yeah. He was like, do I want to bring that forth at this time like i might email the ceo a little bit about flavor changes he could make but you know what's your favorite flavor of the fruit roll-up uh i'm gonna be typical i say the red one because hey seriously red and purple are flavors right and i think blue so i think blue kind of becoming a favorite flavor Because, hey, seriously, red and purple are flavors. Right. And I think blue, I think blue kind of becoming a favorite. So I am on my healing journey. And when I think of the minimalist and I think about being inside, because when I thought about it, of course, I took it as a, you know, like a inside journey, you know, to like get rid of things and be as minimal inside as i possibly can but when i look at these skeletons in these closets we gonna hire some people from the hoarder

show so they can come and get the cat they can't i'm not freezing i'm listening to mariah carey all i want for christmas is you well i have a question if we could, you know, maybe get on track a little bit and not try to dig out the gravy from my good life. Let's do it. We can do both. I was wondering if you guys could share a personal story of how minimalism has directly contributed to more fulfillment in your life? You know, I started simplifying because I had achieved everything I wanted in the real world. Throughout my 20s, I climbed the corporate ladder. I grew up really poor and said, oh, I must be so unhappy growing up because we don't have any money. You know how I can fix that? I go out and make some money. And so I did. I climbed the corporate ladder throughout my 20s. By age 30, I had everything I ever wanted. The big house in the

suburbs with more toilets than people. I had a cold closet full of fruit roll-ups. You should have seen that walk-in closet. And I had, speaking of closets, I had closets full of like designer clothes, excess stuff. I like the average American who has 300,000 items in their house. I had a basement full of stuff, an attic full of stuff, a first living room full of stuff, a second living room full of stuff, a kitchen, a garage, et cetera, et cetera. When I filled up all that space, I got a storage locker to keep all of my stuff. It's like a mausoleum for things. I had all of the things that were supposed to make me happy. But of course, those things did the opposite. They made me stressed out. I spent a ton of money, more money than I made, even though I was making really good money. I spent even better money.

And so what happened? I was in tremendous amounts of debt. And I was working a job 70, 80 hours a week, every week. And two things happened. My mom died. My marriage ended both in the same month. And as age 30, I look around and I realized I was focused on all of the things that weren't actually that important to me. I looked at all the stuff and said, why did I give meaning to all these material possessions?

What is truly important in my life? Who is the person I want to become? How am I going to define success? Because this version of success isn't working for me. I don't feel like a success. I feel like a failure. I feel overworked and overwhelmed and underslept. And so I realized I wasn't going to get happy.

I wasn't going to become complete by getting more. That's what the ideology of consumerism tells us. If I just acquire more, then I'll be complete or I'll be happy. More, more, more, more, more. We never stop to consider what is enough. And so I said, in order to get what I want, it's not going to be about getting more. It's going to be about letting go of the things that are in the way. It's not about adding. It's about subtracting because I'm already happy. I'm already complete, but it's hidden. It's covered up by all of the excess stuff that I've acquired. So I spent about eight months getting rid of about 90% of my material possessions. Now it's the average person that sounds pretty dramatic, but I think if you came to my house today, you wouldn't walk in and say, oh, my God, this guy's a minimalist.

You'd walk in and say, wow, he and his family are pretty tidy and they don't own a whole lot of things, but it looks really organized. It looks clutter free, but they own a lot of things that add value to their lives. And I think that is the paradox of minimalism. As a minimalist, I actually get far more value from the few material possessions that I own than if I were to water them down with tens of thousands of things that just got in the way. So minimalism has helped me identify what enough is and then make room for what's truly important. I think of the metaphor of a museum. When you walk into a museum, it's beautiful. Well, why is it beautiful? Because it's intentional. You walk into a gallery and there might be eight paintings in that gallery and they're hung, even intervals, and you walk throughout the gallery and you say, wow, this is

stunning. Well, you know what you don't say? You don't walk in there and say, wow, this would be 10 times as good if there were 80 paintings in here. In fact, the opposite would be true. Those 80 paintings would get in the way of the experience. And what happens with our lives is we accumulate a bunch of things that get in the way of our experience of life. I'm not against stuff. I really like the things that I own. Nothing wrong with owning things. Consumption is not the problem. Consumerism is the problem. Thinking that things are going to make me happy, they're not. But things will amplify my life. They'll enhance my experience of life. They'll allow me to enjoy life in ways that aren't possible without those things. But things,

when overdone, when we have a super abundance of stuff, they'll actually get in the way of those same very experiences that make us feel alive oh man yeah well before i dive in y'all y'all want to say something to that look i was gonna say my friend pam wait who who is pam and why is she gonna hate him because pam is my best friend and she has a purse. She got one of them Harry Potter purses that got everything in it. Oh, she probably got 300,000 items in her purse. Okay. Wait,

seriously. Yes. Is her purse like spilling over all the time or she got it packed in it? Yes. And she can't even zipper it closed because it got so much stuff in it. Like I need a screwdriver and we in the middle of nowhere. And she's like, I got you. Hold this. Hold it. Like, I need a screwdriver. And we in the middle of nowhere. And she's like, I got you.

Hold this. Hold this. But she got the screwdriver. Micah, here's what I'll say. Here's what I'll say to Pam. I don't judge. I only identify. I totally get having a bunch of things that get in the way.

However, if it's not a problem for her, we're not out here telling anyone to get rid of their stuff. That's a common misconception. I don't care what anyone owns to be honest with you what i've learned is that when we started sharing these ideas of minimalism whether it's with the minimalist podcast or with our netflix films or with the minimalist.com it's our blog or youtube videos or whatever whatever we're sharing this it's because it resonates with people we're not telling them here's what you should do we're saying here's a recipe that you might get some value from. It doesn't even mean

follow my exact recipe. It might mean like, hey, I like a few ingredients in that recipe. If you're making a beef stew, I want some beef here. I need some bone broth here. I need a handful of fruit roll-ups. Whatever your recipe is for that, you get to decide, right? But if I'm like, you know what? I don't like fruit roll-ups. I'll just, I'll set that to the side. It doesn't mean that the recipe won't be delicious. It just means adjusted for taste. And so if Pam has a purse that's full of a bunch of things that she gets value from, who the hell am I to tell her to get rid of anything? But if it's stressing her out and she's like, oh, I hate this. Well, then maybe there's some room for letting go.

But I do think that she's pretty content. And she's actually the most together person I know. So I always think that that, too, is a paradox because it's like her purse is junky. But the rest of her life is pretty important. You know, and that's the paradox. I was just going to say she'd be a great investment on Let's Make a Deal or Wayne Brady would just love her. You know, Micah, you refer a lot to being on the healing journey and you talked about how it's

tricky because when you're on that journey and you can see the benefits it's given you, you want to enlist everybody else in that journey. And sometimes people aren't ready to go. And one of the tricky things about being on a healing journey and being passionate about potential and self-actualization is that sometimes we can look at other people as not fulfilling their potential according to our own ideas of what their potential is rather than according to their ideal regarding who they want to be. And so clutter is relative. What gets in the way isn't based on my opinions and my ideals, but it's based on what's holding you back from being the healthiest version of yourself. And so Josh could, I could go over his place and I could see some things and I go, oh, that's

clutter. But if that is what gives him peace, then it's not clutter to him, even if it's clutter to me and vice versa. And so it's not about how unhappy we are with another person having things spilling out of their purse, but it's how happy or unhappy are they are with themselves. And if they're happy, we celebrate them. We encourage them to keep going in the direction of what gives them life. And if they're not happy, and a lot of our callers who reach out to us dealing with things like that, they say, I'm not happy with my purse spilling out like this, but I don't know how to change. Then we can say, all right, let's step back and explore the story that you're telling yourself about that makes change impossible.

And that leads to my answer to your question about how it has helped me personally. I think philosophical clutter has been a big thing in my life and being able to unpack my conceptual baggage in terms of the assumptions that I make about other people, about the world, about my own self and my possibilities in life, and being able to take a minimalist approach to looking at those things and saying, how can I position myself to let go of that belief or to let go of that opinion or the need to express my opinion in this moment? And my gosh, the amount of peace and joy and play that begins to characterize relationships when you can be present with someone who says something and you say, I got an opinion. My opinion differs from yours, but I can let go in this moment of my need to express that opinion or get you to accept my opinion. dance with you in a way that explores more possibility than what would only be on the table if I were being opinionated about it. So maybe an example of this for me of philosophical clutter is the idea that I will never understand. There are fewer feelings in the world that are

more righteous than looking at someone who says something or does something that you don't get and saying, I will never understand. I will never understand how a person could vote that way. I will never understand how a person could talk to another human being that way. It's almost impossible not to feel good about yourself when you say, I will never understand how someone could do something like that. But when you say that, you limit yourself from developing the kinds of understandings that can help you empathize with people, that can help you influence them, that can even help you protect yourself from them. Can you imagine if a detective said, I will never understand how someone could commit a crime? I mean, that might feel righteous, but I don't want you working on the case. I want someone who can say, I would never commit that crime, but I can

understand how someone, if the right buttons are pushed, if the right temptations are present, if the right opportunity comes up, I can understand how they would do it. Let me explain it to you and put the pieces together. That's the person that's going to influence the world in a positive direction. And so this way of working with philosophical clutter has allowed me to let go of ideas like that and say, you know what? I can understand even if I don't condone. And I can do that by letting go of my need to be righteous, letting go of my need to be seen as virtuous. And instead I can simply be human and I can show up and I can engage my world with curiosity so that I can learn the things I need to learn in order to help facilitate the kind of

world I want to help create. Okay. It's kind of crazy because in listening to you guys and doing research over the last couple of days, to me, I realized that my clutter is yes. My ability to say yes is my biggest bug. If I remove yes and replace it with no, I will get rid of 300,000 things. I would say all clutter is the result of saying yes at some point. Yeah. And now there are two types of yeses there. We'll say yes to something that adds value to our lives, but then we keep saying yes to it even after it's obsolete. And so it's like eating the box of fruit roll-ups, fine. But now if you hold onto the box after the fact, it's like,

why am I still saying yes to holding onto this? I no longer find this to be useful. And I think that is true with not just material possessions. It's easy to see with the material possessions because our material possessions are just a physical manifestation of what's going on inside us. But you just alluded to all of these other types of clutter. It's mental clutter, it's emotional clutter, it's spiritual clutter, and then something I call calendar clutter. You're saying yes to all of these different commitments. And I know because that was also my particular type of clutter. My busyness, busy is the worst four letter word in the English language. We use it as a status symbol to be like,

oh, what have you been up to lately, TK? Oh, I've just been so busy. Look how important I am, right? But the only reason we get busy is because everyone else's emergency has become urgent to us. I said yes to your emergency. I said yes to your emergency.

Yes to your emergency. Yes to yours. And now I can't say yes to the things that are actually important to me because I'm saying yes to the things that are important to everyone else except me. And so now I'm accidentally saying no, no, no to whatever is important to me because I've said yes to a bunch of things that in isolation, it made sense to say yes to. But when you pan out for a moment, you realize I wouldn't have said yes to those things because I have a limited resource. It's called time and it's called attention. And so if it's not a hell yes for me, if I can't say hell yeah to something, then I'm going to say no to it because it's going to end up being cluttered. Can you imagine if there was like a credit card we had to swipe every time we say yes that just deducted money from our bank account

i feel like there is a money there is hey micah i'm curious about um why yes is a form of clutter for you what is it that makes you say yes you know what it's actually guilt right and it's funny because we had a a guest on a few episodes ago and she said that, well, if you have guilt, that means you're ashamed of something. And I'm like, people watch my podcast. I pretty much put it all out there. I really don't think there's anything that I'm really ashamed of, you know? So it's like it's not that. But I don't know.

I feel guilty about having success and being happy and finding peace. And a lot of people around me don't. They're not there yet, you know? And so I say yes, because I feel like, you know, we're going to use money as an example, because I feel like that's one of the biggest way people hit me up. But it's like, hey, can I have $200? You know, to me, I just say yes, because if I don't give it to you, I'm still going to clutter my closet with some Louis Vuitton. So I'm just going to spend it on something that I don't need. So I'm going to give it to you because I feel bad that I left you without the $200 that you probably really needed. And I'm over here with a brand new pair of sneakers that I don't need.

I'm ashamed of my happiness hurting you in some kind of way, my success leaving you behind in some kind of way, my prosperity and my abundance making you feel small in some kind of way. And I'm empathic. So as I also feel everything, because I'm like one of those people, there is no judgment when it comes to me. I legit love everybody. I know that I was a monster at parts of my life. I know I was a victim at parts of my life. But one thing that I do know is that I was always my best version of myself at that time. And I feel like whoever I'm meeting is the best version of themselves at this time. And who am I to take away from that? So that is all accepting with me. And sometimes I feel like maybe I over accept. But to me, it's just like, who am I to judge? Who am I to, you know, say something about it? Because I've been there. I've done it. guilt is there is a sense of throwing something away or depriving someone of something else

without a sense of letting go being an act of generosity right so uh we had a question where someone received this really nice blazer as a gift and the expiration date on wearing that blazer and getting joy out of it was gone, man. This person just wanted to get rid of the blazer. But every time they got ready to do it, their friends would be like, you can't give that away. That's a nice blazer. That's a gift to you. Like it's people that would kill to have something that nice.

And for you to just give it away, like you can't do that. And one of the things we talked about when we addressed that was, but wait a minute, if you hang on to this thing out of guilt, in what way are you depriving the world of this beautiful gift that becomes when you can give it away? letting go and minimalizing, including saying no more often, can actually create opportunities for you to be even more abundant and for you to be even more helpful to other people. And giving people things when they need it, it's a beautiful, powerful thing. And we all receive our greatest joy when we can be there for people and we can share the fruits of our success in a way that brings healing and wholeness into their lives. But when we learn to put boundaries around that and we start strategically saying no and being a little bit more intentional about the why behind our giving, what happens is we start to show up for people with something that is oftentimes more valuable than just giving them our time or our money. We're able to give them the experience of a human being

who is fully present when they're in the role, fully present without resentment, fully present without being exhausted and drained and depleted, fully present without the shame and the guilt. And I think that's one of the most powerful and rarest things in the world. A human being that walks in

a robe and says, hey, look, I ain't got a whole lot of money to give you, but I'm going to show up fully present. And I think when we show up like that, we have the power to be abundant and generous in ways that are just unimaginable that can be measured by a check. But hey, man, that's my two cents for what it's worth. But I'm not here to ask the questions. I'm here to- It was worth a lot. Now it's like, okay, you don't open Pandora's box because I really think it comes from when I was three and my mama had left me in my pan for too long. No, but it really made me think about being younger and needing help or needed someone to rescue me and not having that. And the situations I kind of went up and for about 10 years, I was like sexually assaulted. And I feel like the clues was there and no one picked up on the clues. And it ended up where, you know, at the time people were threatening my family. Like, if you don't do this, I'm gonna kill your mama.. So it's like, I got to protect you, closely protect me. I'm by myself. And so now it's like, I kind of trying to, yeah, I've been able to kind of move past the sexual assault. You know, it's always going to be there, but I've moved past it where it doesn't hurt me as much. But I still go through

wanting to, like, what if I'm that one person that can be that kind of help? How can I say no to that? And that's what I think my biggest issue is. I don, and helpful things that we can do with questions like that is to be honest about their complexity. I mean, it would make us all feel good if we just had the one definitive prescription for questions like that. But that's a hard question. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of experience and a lot of trial and error and a lot of discernment to sharpen your ability to know when helping someone is actually helpful and when helping someone is actually harmful,

because it can go in either direction. And that's not an easy thing, but hey, shout out to you for giving as a gift to the world, the transparency and openness about your own suffering, your own experience and how you're working through it. Because I know there are a lot of, I know many people personally who are trying to work through those things. And every time they hear someone like you in your position with your platform, working it out, out loud, it gives them a little bit more permission to say, all right, I can,

I think I can work on mine. I think one of the greatest gifts I had was I wrote about a traumatic incident that occurred to me. And I had someone send me a private message saying, I'm going to go home tonight and have a talk with my spouse about something that happened to me many years ago. And what you said gave me permission to do it. So we don't always receive a letter from everybody about the impact that we have. But I know when you share things like that and you you learn out loud and you wrestle out loud, I know that it has an impact. So, man, thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. And it's you guys,

really, because you got me over here thinking that I'm thinking like, how much stuff can I get rid of for real? Like the clutter. So, you know, it's just making me think about this stuff. But everything I think about is always emotional. You know, I feel like I don't have a lot of physical. Well, it's only clutter if it feels like clutter. Pretty minimal when it comes to that as well. Yeah. So I just wrote a booklet, which I don't have to sell because we've given it away for free, called Emotional Clutter. And I talk about exactly those kinds of things, the conversation often begins around physical clutter, but we're

only attached to things or agonized by things because of the stories that we tell about those things. Oh, to throw this away would be to throw my future away. To get rid of this or give this away would be to tell this person who did so much for me that I don't love them, appreciate them or respect them. And so, so much of letting go of things or recycling them or gifting them involves telling ourselves a new story. Makes me think about, what's this movie? I think it's the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus where the devil visits this monastery and he just sees a whole bunch of monks with these children's books and they're just reading this story together. And he talks to the abbot of the monastery and he says, what are these people doing? And he says, well, they're telling the

story that keeps the entire universe in existence. And he says, you mean to tell me if they stop telling this story, the world will cease to exist? And he says, that's right. And there are so many things in our lives about which that's true. There's so many things that only exist because of the story that we're telling. And if we stop telling that story and told a different story, we could create a new experiential reality for ourselves. And so I talk a little bit about some of these things and emotional clutter, but I find that that's one of the biggest types of clutter. Once you get past the, what do I do with this box? I definitely have that emotional clutter. My son, he was moving out and there was a dresser that his father so his great-grandfather had gave him

I'm like you can't throw that out your great-great-father gave that to you or you know my daughter she had um a kitchen set and I'm like you can't throw that out your grandmother gave it to you so I literally have my older daughter go in and throw it out i can't see it if i see it get tossed it upsets me so i literally have her go in the room and throw stuff in the trash bag and she takes it out to the trash but the dresser is actually on a ledge right now i will not let her toss it out but nobody's using it yeah i had a friend who did this when they started simplifying their life. He had a bunch of things he knew he wanted to get rid of because he was going to start traveling the world and he couldn't fit a dresser in the overhead bin on the airplane

and he didn't want to pay for a storage locker. So he started getting rid of everything that wouldn't fit into a suitcase suitcase basically. But he had the same problem where he knew that he had a bunch of things he wanted to let go of, but it was hard when he looked at the individual item and said, oh, I can't part with this. So he did something. He created a friend's yard sale room. It was the front room in his house and he put all the things in there that he wanted to get rid of. It could be a dresser. It could be a couch. It could be an old shirt, a pair of shoes, whatever it was, old plates, cups, mugs, utensils, blankets, all the stuff in that room. And he

invited a bunch of friends over and he goes, Hey, if there's anything in there that you want, that you'll truly get value from, you're welcome to take anything that's in that room. I just have one condition. You don't show me the thing you're welcome to take anything that's in that room. I just have one condition. You don't show me the thing you're taking out of the house because I will have trouble letting go of it. But I know as in a giant amorphous blob of things, it's okay, I can let go of the whole blob. But if you show me one individual item,

I'm gonna cling to it with all of my life. But of course, what happens when we cling to stuff? We can't move on. I think about my daughter getting on the monkey bars. When she climbs the monkey bars, there's two steps involved. It's holding on and then letting go, and then holding on and then letting go. If you can only do one of those things, if you can only let go, you're not going to get anywhere. And if you only hold on, you're not going to get anywhere either because you're going to be stuck exactly where you are. Well, I think I'm passing it on to my 16-year-old because she can't even let go of a gum pack. Wait, wait, what do you mean?

Well, now she just, I'll go in her room and I'll be like, you have to pick up your room. And she'll have piles of gum packs. And I be like, you have to pick up your room. And she'll have piles of like gum packs. And I'm like, you have to toss them in the trash. Like double mint packs. Like half the plastic. That comes in, the five sticks come, yeah. Yeah. And she's like, well, I can use it as a wallet.

And I'm like, that's why you have a wallet. Yeah. Or soda cans. Well, it's a knickknack. Your story is hurting his heart. I can get rid of stuff like that but as dressers or i don't know yours is more emotional yeah mine's more emotional then now i'm scared she's gonna like become a hoarder where on the tv yeah she's gonna have a dead cat freezer that's it no but, the sister would have put it there.

That's the only difference. The thing is, she's already a hoarder, and that's not a judgment. It's merely a statement of fact. When we hold on to clutter, so a stage one hoarder is just someone who has light clutter and two or more rooms. And so when we hold on to things that are no longer useful, that is clutter. And it's not that you're a bad person for doing that. It's simply recognizing this is no longer serving me. Maybe it did at one point. Maybe it never did. Maybe there was a story I told myself and

I'm going to hold on to this because it eventually will, but then it doesn't. And so being a hoarder, most of us are, and that is okay. It's okay to be broke or broken, but not having a plan at all to get out of that, that's where we stay stuck. And as parents, I mean, it's different if we're parenting kids. We are there not to dictate how they live their lives, but we are there to set up boundaries that keep them safe and sane. And so my daughter, same thing. She loves collecting little sticks and rocks and bringing them into her room. But at some point it's, hey, this is not appropriate. You'll understand you can collect as much stuff as you want when you're 18. But in this house, I'm going to set up some boundaries, not so I can be punitive towards you, but just so that I can show you what is appropriate. Now, of course, her tastes are always going to be different from mine. Her room is the most cluttered room in the house. Although I think of most kids,

in fact, I know most kids that come over and they're like, why is your room so clean? And she doesn't even realize it because she just has these boundaries set up that it's an everyday thing. You know, one thing I want to say, because I want to be an angel's advocate for your daughter here, because there may be another possibility worth exploring. I think hoarding is about disrupting the natural, healthy relationship between consumption and creativity. Life is a cycle that involves both of those elements. In order to create, in order to express ourselves in the world.

We have to consume. We've got to take up space. We've got to breathe in air using up oxygen. We have to consume food. We got to consume. But at the same time, we're not just here to consume. We consume so that we can have the energy that we need to go forth and to be creative. And when you take one of those things out, just like the holding on and the letting go

of the monkey bars, you get an incomplete, disconnected life. And so hoarding is when people collect without a sense of creativity. If I own a museum, to go back to that analogy, and I collect a bunch of things so that I can create these beautiful experiences for other people where they can come in and learn about history, well, yeah, that's collecting, but that's not hoarding because my process of collecting is connected to some kind of context that gives it meaning. So when the daughter says, hey, I want to hang on to this soda can because it can be like a rocket or it can be a pencil holder. I want to hold on to this pack of gum because I may be able to use it as a wallet.

Well, hey, she might be an artist. She might be an innovator. She might be the type of person who can see things that other people look at as junk and say, ooh, I see utility where other people see garbage. And so one challenge I would give to her or one game I might play with her is to say, all right, you say you're gonna use that? Here's what we're gonna do. First, I wanna see an actual use for it by this day, or I'm throwing it out.

And also, you only get to use three things and everything else has got to go. So I'm teaching you how to economize and prioritize. You've got 20 things in here. You get to keep any five of these things you want, and I want to see you use it. Don't just tell me a story about how it was going to be a wallet. I want to see some money in there, and I want to see you actually use it. Don't just tell me a story about how it was going to be a wallet. I want to see some money in there and I want to see you actually use that. And then she has the opportunity to either say, all right, I'm going to show mom how creative I can be or be honest with herself and be like, yeah, I don't think I really want to do anything with that. I guess. She is an artist. Yeah. So maybe she has, he's right. Maybe she is looking at things way differently than we are.

Yeah. Y'all pretty good at this. But I was thinking I don't have a problem. I give away anything. I get a shirt off my back, the shoes off my feet. I mean, I still got jeans that I know I'm never fitting in and they're still on my dresser. I have no problem giving them away. It's funny. I had someone like something today on my desk. She was like, oh, I got to give you one of these. And I'm like, thank you. That's yours. But Joshua, I actually had a question for you. Right. Go for it. Because two words that I kind of hear, I have heard you say multiple times is intentional and boundaries. And I wanted to just for you to explain why you incorporate that so much in what you say. I think boundaries are healthy. We overdo it now. It's almost become this word that we overuse because it's about setting up boundaries with everyone and everything. And boundaries can actually get in the way as well. And so if you build a house, for example,

like if I go to my daughter's room, she has four boundaries there. Every wall is a boundary. There's also a door that gets through those boundaries into her room. And that's useful. That separates her space from the living space, from my wife's and my space. And so it'd actually be a problem though if I put a giant wall down the middle of her room. Here's another wall. At some point, boundaries become obstacles.

The ideal boundary actually increases your freedom because if you don't have any boundaries, then it's just a free-for-all. You can go anywhere, anywhere you want all the time, do anything you want. We often think freedom is doing what you want whenever you want. Well, that's a type of tyranny in a way. Because what happens, if I can do anything I want whenever I want, there's no boundary there. I actually don't know what I want to do because it was called the paradox of choice. But ultimately what happens is now I'm bouncing around from all the different ideas that I might have. There's this great analogy.

You want to play the game of freedom. Actually, we could try this together. Would you like to play the game of freedom with me, Micah? Sure. All right, you go first. to play the game of freedom with me, Micah? Sure. All right, you go first. It's the game of freedom. The point is that we haven't established any rules or boundaries, right? If you play the game of Monopoly, the boundaries are the set of rules that you have.

And the actual board game that you have has boundaries. And so you have unlimited freedom within the boundaries of this game. And yet, if I don't set up those boundaries for you, you don't actually have freedom. You don't even know what to do. Yeah, I like to play the game of freedom. What do I do? I don't know. There are no boundaries.

So boundaries actually help keep us free. The other word you mentioned was intentional. Yeah, I just wanted to stop you for a minute and say that I just told you that I always say yes, and that's the reason why I say yes. That'd have been great if you said no. I'm not playing your game. I've been talking about it for a minute. I'm like, I don't know, there's a trick to this, but I can't say no. Yeah. Well, and so like the other thing is about being intentional. Quite often what happens is we say yes to things, to commitments, to calendar entries, whatever it might be.

And there's nothing wrong or immoral with those things. But when we say yes, yes, yes, yes, we're not being intentional about the decisions we are making. We're doing it based on some sort of societal pressure. Either I want someone to like me, or I think I'm going to get something out of this that is greater than if I say no. But I don't think we think about the opportunity costs of saying yes.

Sometimes I'll say yes to this thing, but that means I've had to say no to everything else. There's this word that's really interesting. You hear people talk about priorities a lot. Oh, these are my priorities. United Nations talks about whether they're 163 priorities are, but it's literally nonsensical. Think about this. The word priority did not have a plural until the 20th century. Why is that? Because priority means the first thing. If you give me a list of your 119 priorities, that means you have 119 the first things. It's literally nonsense, right? To say I've got all of these priorities, right? And so what are you focused on right now? What is important to you

right now? That is the priority. Whatever you're doing right now is actually your priority. And if you're scrolling TikTok, no problem with that, but that is your priority. If you're stuck on Instagram, no problem, but that's your priority. And as soon as you say that out loud, you can give yourself permission. Like, oh yeah, I'm going to get on Instagram right now. That is my priority. But if I say that out loud, I'm like, ooh, I kind of cringe a little bit. Like, is Instagram really my priority? Is this the first thing? Is this the number one thing that I want to do with my life right now? Because we only have 5,000 weeks to live. And I'm going to spend how many weeks incessantly scrolling through my Twitter feed? I'm glad that you brought that up. So Crystal, I better never see you on your phone at work again because that is not your priority.

That is not what I pay you for. Don't let me walk past your office and see you on the damn phone. The one that has two phones. He has two phones. They're going all the time. You could go on his TikTok and he's in work it's so easy to find the flaws and the faults and the people around us right i know i also suffer from being perfect so it's really everyone around me i see their imperfections okay so now next question though so what's

the difference between ideal and idea? I guess it's one L. Is this your final answer? I mean, I teach a writing class and I think that's what I would say. Next question. OK, so yeah. Next question. Oh, my God.

That's not very nice. You're a guest. I could have a question about your doctor. No, we'll roll up. Unless Mike is going to talk over me. No, no, sorry. You could look. I'm going to turn off my mic now. Hey, let me ask what where does that question come from? What's the context for that ideal versus idea?

You know what? Honestly, I have my sister. She everything to her is about it being an ideal and not an idea and to me it's just and i hear that you guys say ideal a lot too so i was just wondering like why the preference to me i feel like they're one in the same but i just feel like there's no difference but um but i know like her use of that word is intentional. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I've already answered the question seriously. I just thought you were joking with the question. But like if I'm answering the question seriously, you know, an idea is just a thought that we think will take us somewhere. But an ideal is what we think the optimal outcome would be. Yeah. It's like a thought we venerate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So some of us just don't know you know i'm not the sharpest look i'm not the sharpest crayon in the box okay is it my turn now oh my god it's your turn it's your turn they're like worst interview ever so well at least you got them laughing. I thought they were going to be so serious. No, because you see, she's thinking minimal so far that you can't even laugh. Yeah, right. Like we we are minimalist. We eliminate humor. That's humor is unnecessary. Laughter clutter. No, no. Rebecca, come on. We want to hear from you. Minimalism and Less Is Now have reached large audiences. What impact do both these films have on keyword?

Oh, this is going to sound like I'm joking, but I mean it seriously. I have no hopes of anything. This has all been like a really beautiful accident this whole thing started i remember we started the minimalist.com in like 2010 and 52 people showed up the first month and to me that was like the most amazing thing because i had spent a decade writing and only people who read my stuff were people saying no agents and publishers and now all of a sudden 52 people were reading my stuff and then that turned into 500 and 5000 eventually millions of people were reading the words and we started doing speaking tours and then sharing the message of minimalism and books and, and on social media and via the minimalist podcast. And then

we've done a couple of films on Netflix and it was really awesome to have that opportunity to do it. And yeah, they reached tens of millions of people, but I never really hoped that it would change anyone. If I did have a hope at all was that I could share something that would add value to people's lives. And it turns out that that's what is contagious, really. When someone starts listening to our podcast, it's usually because they're like, oh, my sister or my aunt sent this to me. I found a lot of value in it. Now I'm going to send it to three co-workers. Well, in your next film, can I be like a grocery store clerk? Hell yes. He wants to be famous somehow. I don't want to be the shopper. So that's a fluke.

I don't want to be the main character. I just want to be there. OK, so I got to give this caveat then. If you've been telling other people you want to be the grocery store clerk, we got to have a different role. We don't want people saying, oh, you copy this other documentary. If you listen to the podcast, then you would know that. So we haven't missed an episode, Michael. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't I don't know who you pitch to. She's telling me you pitch this to a lot of people. So I don't know who you pitch to. OK's telling me you pitched this to a lot of people, so I don't know who you pitched to. Okay, sorry.

We're sorry. We're not. Yeah, we got podcast shade clutter. Yeah, now podcast shade, right? You might not even air this episode. And I'm going to film tomorrow and teach it to other people, okay? So, for real, our time is now,

right. Is there anything that you guys wanted to share and say to our audience that we didn't give you a chance to say or share to our audience? TK, you got something, I got something, but I'd like to wrap up with it. Yeah.

You know, I think whether we're talking about minimalism or, or any other kind of ism, I think the name of the game is about using every experience that you can as an excuse to become more fully human. There are so many people in this world who are just kind of like looking for a reason, looking for a reason to get better, looking for a reason to make a change. And I think there's something fundamentally flawed about looking for a reason to make a change. And I think there's something fundamentally flawed about looking for a reason outside of yourself. I think great people are people who give themselves permission to make things up, not as a matter of being arbitrary, but as a matter of owning your power as a creator. What it means to be a creator is that there are some reasons you

don't look for as coming from outside of yourself, but you just make the decision to play, to play and to sing things that have never been sung, to write things that have never been written, to do things that have never been done, and to be permissionless in your approach to making life the way you want it to be. And so when it comes to minimalism or the healing journey, don't be too serious about it. And I think this has been a great episode to end with that point on because we've said a lot of serious things, but we've also laughed about a lot of serious things and we philosophize about a lot of non-serious things. And so keep that element

of playfulness in it. Never lose touch with that part of you that as a child was willing to play make-believe and willing to do something, even though no one was forcing you to do it or no one was taking it seriously. I think that's a huge part of eliminating excess from your life and becoming whole. Man, that's beautiful. I think that for the longest time i thought i could love my material possession that word love is really weird right like uh i love my wife but i also love tacos and it's weird because it was like it we get confused by it i think the core message of what we do at the minimalist we end every podcast episode with this uh on the minimalist podcast is love people and use things because the opposite never works.

And I know because I tried that for many, many years. I loved my thing. Oh, I love my Lexus. And then I used the people around me and it was the opposite of loving. It was convincing or coercing or persuading people to think like me, to be like me. And if they weren't like me, then they were wrong because I had to be right. But that's not loving at all. And then loving my things, nothing wrong with liking the stuff I have, but really loving the things as though it's another human being, man, I think that really diminishes love. So loving the people around us, using the things because the opposite never works. So if you don't want the Lexus, can I have it? I decluttered that a decade ago. I just had to ask. Both of them. Yeah. I met you 10 years ago.

You like Chris Tucker on Money Talks. I'm just playing, unless you're going to give it to me. Oh yeah, I just wanted it free. I mean, if you want to dig clutter, I want to clutter. You hear me? I do want to ask the question before we end, and that was supposed to end, but it made me think about a healing journey. Is there like a stage in a healing journey where looking into minimalist thing, is there a part in the healing journey where this is something that you should consider, like you need to consider decluttering? Yeah, I think quite often it's considering at the start. The question is, how might my life be more with less? And for some people, it's just like, oh, you know, that's really understanding the benefits, right? For some

people, it's like, oh yeah, my house would be less chaotic or it'd be easier to clean my house. That's one type of benefit. For other people like me, it was like, I finally get control of my finances or I'll get out of debt. That's how my life would be more with less. For other people, it's like, oh, you know what? I really want to spend more time with my kids or I really want to work on that passion project. I want to write that book finally. And I'd have more time to do the things that are important to me. I'd have more room for the important things if I get rid of the things that get in the way. And so I think quite often it's for anyone who's starting to heal. And if you're farther than that, that's great.

But for me, minimalism has been a great tool to encourage the healing. It's set up the environment for me to heal. It didn't heal me. It set up the environment in which I had the best chance to be the best version of me and to heal. on subtraction has a way of helping cultivate a sense of agency in a manner that's very distinct from being preoccupied with addition. So when I'm focused on addition, I'm looking at things that exist outside of myself out there and I've got to acquire them, procure them, earn them, or get them. And that tends to reinforce a sense of lack. And that tends to reinforce sometimes a sense of powerlessness because there's a reason that I don't have it and I got to go out there and I got to go get it. But subtraction is when you say, there's something I already have and I have the permission to let it go. And if I let it go, the quality of my life might be improved. And that's something that you

can do right now. You don't need a new job. You don't need a new skill. You don't need new connections. You don't need money that you don't have. Everyone, no matter who you are, has the power to let something go right now. And when you're beginning that journey of emotional clutter, the most important aspect of your first step is having a sense of agency that my life sucks. I hate the way I feel. I am a mess, but I've got the power to begin anew. I've got the power to create a new experience. I've got the power to change something. And when you begin with

subtraction, you put yourself in direct contact with that power. Okay. That was dope. And I think there's nothing else to be said. So we're just going to say, thank you guys for being a part of the show. Thank you guys for watching and we will see you next week. Much love. Thanks, Micah. Thanks, Crystal. Thanks, Rebecca. And with that, we're wrapping up another episode of the Fucking Feelings Podcast. Thank you all for tuning in and engaging in another intense and real discussion on understanding and navigating through our feelings. Don't forget, we're here each Wednesday bringing you brand new episodes filled with stories, advice, and perspectives to help you handle those fucking feelings. So set a reminder on your calendar, grab your headphones and join us every week.

And if you're interested in exploring more ways to deal with life's stresses, make certain to tune in to our sister podcast. Trauma is expensive. Dive deep into discussions on managing trauma, building resilience and fostering healing with new episodes dropping every Monday. Make sure to subscribe, rate, and comment on both podcasts on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, each comment and rating can catapult us further towards reaching those individuals who could really use our discussions. Your feedback is invaluable. Before we close, we want to remind you that discussing feelings is never a sign of weakness, but a display of courage.

Stay brave, stay strong, and keep feeling those fucking feelings. Until next week, take care and keep the conversation going.