This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - Gentleness: Cultivating Compassion for Yourself and Others with Courtney Carver | 282

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

In our fast-paced world, we often equate success with relentless effort, sharpening our edges to navigate life's challenges. But what if embracing gentleness could lead to a different kind of strength—one that fosters rest, compassion, and grace? In this episode, we explore the transformative power of gentleness toward ourselves and others. Our guest, Courtney Carver, is a renowned advocate for simplicity and minimalism. She is the creator of Be More with Less and the innovative Project 333, a minimalist fashion challenge that has inspired many to declutter their lives. Her latest book, Gentle: Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want, serves as a permission slip to stop pushing so hard and start embracing a gentler approach to life. Courtney has been featured in publications like O, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and The New York Times. She also co-hosts the Soul & Wit Podcast with her daughter, Bailey, highlighting that gentleness can indeed be a family affair. In this conversation, Courtney shares insights on how softening our approach doesn't equate to weakness but rather leads to wisdom, resilience, and deeper connections with what truly matters. She discusses practical steps to incorporate gentleness into daily life, emphasizing that being tough may have gotten us here, but being gentle might be what leads us to where we truly want to go. Connect with Our Guest Courtney Carver Website: https://bemorewithless.com/    Book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/courtney-carver/gentle/9781538765210/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/bemorewithless/  Related Podcast Episodes: Abundance: Secrets to Prosperity and Ease with Cathy Heller | 260 How To Breathe: Breathwork, Intuition and Flow State with Francesca Sipma | 267 139 / Well-Rested with Jolene Hart Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

Hi, I'm Nicole Kalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast where together we're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing woman's work in the world today. Which sounds like a simple thing, right? But friend, it ain't easy to be true to yourself, to show up authentically, to decide for yourself in the face of all the shoulds and the supposed tos, to set aside expectations and truly listen to yourself. It takes courage, strength, and some confidence. It seems like, though, that we're told that we need to be tough in order to do it,

which aligns with my perception that everywhere we look, we're being told that being tough is necessary. It's how you survive, thrive and get ahead. But being gentle? Well, that's a muscle we barely flex. And my fear is that in our quest to be more thick skinned, we're losing many of our soft skills, which ironically are some of the most powerful

and impactful tools that we have. Even the term soft skills triggers dismissiveness, as if these skills are somehow optional or less important. But in my experience, the so-called soft skills are often the hardest to develop and the most crucial to call on when it matters most. For example, when my head trash kicks in and I'm spiraling into a full-blown beat-up session, my go-to mantra is often gentle, gentle, gentle.

Not exactly groundbreaking, but hey, when I'm mid-spin, my creative affirmation game is pretty weak. Still, it's just enough to remind me to be gentle with myself as I would be with someone else that I love. So here's my question, and here's where I'm getting to. How often are you gentle with yourself? I'm guessing not that often, because in an effort to succeed,

we've sharpened our edges, spiked our heels, perfected our what the fuck face in order to power through life. But maybe, and hear me out on this one because I know it feels contradictory, maybe it's time to soften up and to round out some of those edges. Not to lose our strength, but to discover a different kind of strength. The kind that makes space for rest, compassion, and grace. So today we're gonna explore what it means to embrace gentleness,

not as a weakness, but as a way forward. I'm joined by a guest who knows a thing or two about simplifying life and inviting more gentleness into it. Courtney Carver is the brilliant mind behind Soulful Simplicity and Project 333 in her new book, Gentle. Rest more, stress less, and live the life you actually want is basically a permission slip

to stop pushing so damn hard all of the time. Courtney has been featured in O Magazine, Vogue, and the New York Times. You name it, she's been there. She also co-hosts the Soul and Wit podcast with her daughter, proving that gentleness can be a family affair. So Courtney, thank you so much for being here. And let me dive right into my first question, which is why do you think being gentle with ourselves and with others is so important?

Mostly because what we've been doing all along hasn't been working. And that is we try to push through, go big or go home, buckle down, and all of these other get down to business actions that typically leave us feeling pretty depleted and exhausted and uninspired. And I think that we're forgetting in all of that, as we're trying to prove who we are by what we accomplish, that we have to take care of ourselves. And one of the very best ways to do that is simply being gentle with yourself. Not that it's easy, but it is a pretty simple and logical next step. I think we all know the buck up, grind it out, toughen up. We hear that a lot. You said being gentle. I said it too. It sounds simple, but I got to tell you, I said it too, sounds simple, but I gotta tell you,

I think it's something we haven't practiced very much. So my question is around, what does that even look like? When you say being gentle, can you give us a few examples? Sure, well, I'm thinking about all the times that I am talking to people who are going through a really hard time and saying, like we all say to each other, be gentle with yourself.

And then we really don't know to your point what that actually means or what it actually looks like. But it's really an invitation to step back, assess how you're approaching the things you're approaching and see if it resonates with you, see if it's working for you, see if the things you're trying to approach are even the things you care about. I mean, I feel like the opposite of being gentle is kind of being on autopilot

and just trying to crank out as much as humanly possible. Over the years, we've built all of these new tools and productivity avenues and ways to do more faster. We could say, oh great, now we have all of this support, we can get our work done and have more time and energy for other things. But instead, we just keep doing more and more and more. And it's no wonder that burnout is in every conversation. So I think that the way to do this, and I detail this in the book in gentle, is to take kind of a three season approach. And yes, you can be gentle on the spot and take a few deep breaths, something

like that. But I think this needs to be more of a holistic shift where we're changing how we connect with ourselves. And I think the answer is number one, rest, number two, less, and then number three, rise. And this is just a really practical approach that we often save rest until we've earned it, until we deserve it, until we have time for it. And that means we never get it, or at least we don't get an appropriate amount. So prioritizing rest is crucial

because then you can start to really hear yourself. And when you're asking questions like, is this what I want? You're not so busy that you can't hear and connect. And then the next season of Gentle is, I call it less, and it's about simplifying your life and really getting rid of the things that are standing between you and how you want to feel, what you want to do, who you want to spend time with. And then last is rise. And this isn't a, you know, one time I'm going to rest and then get rid of a bunch of stuff, and then I'm going to

rise up and rise and rise and rise. It's a cycle of seasons that we go through. And I think kind of knowing where we are and where we want to be guides us to which season we're in. Okay. I love the three seasons and I love that breakdown and the reminder that it is cyclical. It's not a one and done type thing, just like seasons are. You mentioned the opposite of gentle was being on autopilot.

I appreciate that you said that. I was trying to really think about what is the opposite and that was like tough, strong, pushing your way through type thing. But you're right. It's not so much making things or ourselves hard. It's defaulting. It's not doing anything on purpose at all.

It's just more busyness, which sucks when you're in it. So I wanna go back to rest. You talked through some things. What do you think is the biggest barrier for people at this season of rest? What typically gets in our way? What do you think is the biggest barrier for people at this season of rest? What typically gets in our way? Well, I know for me, I have been resisting rest

since I was five years old and had like mandatory nap time. And I carried that with me into adulthood for a lot of reasons. I mean, one is that it's this kind of pressure to prove yourself by getting more done. And as women, we have to push harder. There's just no way around that in terms of if we're trying to achieve that similar type of success that we often leave really loosely defined, it's just about more like getting more climbing that

ladder more money, more stuff, more freedom, more whatever, but it never is really our own individual definition. So that certainly gets in the way. We're also taking care of many more things in our lives, typically than just our work and our career and our passions. We also are taking care sometimes of kids, of other family members, of a house, of other people. And that expectation also gets in the way of resting. We forget that when we sacrifice rest, we don't get more productivity. We don't get more of anything. We just get tired.

So I often say, do it, because we think it makes us better to do more things. The more things we check off of our to-do list or the more accomplishments or rewards or recognitions. But in my experience, doing more things doesn't make us better people. It just makes us tired people. And if we rest, we don't have to effort through as much when we come back to the work, to the rising. It's less effort because we are arrested, because we've taken care of ourselves and because we've gotten off that autopilot and we understand why we're after what

we're after. Okay. And then the less part, I think a lot of what you just said applies to that too, this idea, this belief that we're supposed to have unlimited capacity and we're always supposed to do more and more is better. What would be some good starting points to consider in this less category? What should we be taking off our plate? Everything. Everything you can. I started simplifying my life back in 2006 after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And I wasn't out to simplify my life. All I wanted to do was reduce stress. I heard that less stress had better outcomes with MS and other autoimmune conditions. And my life was just jam packed with stress. Like

most people I worked with and hung out with and knew it was just stress all the time and busyness and just nonstop go, go, go. And so when I started to look at simplifying my life, even though I didn't call it that then, I asked myself, what is causing the most stress? And I looked at things like debt. I was in a tremendous amount of debt. That's kind of where I started. I looked at some other health issues first, but debt was kind of the next tangible thing that I could work on that was adding a lot of stress to my life. And while I was paying that debt off, I wasn't shopping, I wasn't bringing things in. And I started to notice the stress that lied in

the stuff in my house. It was like this constant reminder of debt, of discontent, of always looking for that thing that's going to make me a better person or make me enjoy life more or make me happier. And I mean, we all know that stuff doesn't really do that for very long. So I would say, look at what stresses you the most and think about having less of that. And then if you're not really sure, think about what's most interesting to you. If decluttering is appealing to you right now, start there. If paying down debt is appealing, start there. If simplifying your work schedule, whatever it is, because eventually you'll likely get to all of it if you enjoy a little bit the first part of it.

So I think it's either what stresses you or what interests you. Okay. And then rise, at least to me, feels like a call back to action. How do we rise? And I get that there are seasons and there's nothing we can do to eliminate all stress or challenge or the need to be gentle with ourselves again. But in order to not create us going right back to the place where we immediately need more rest, any tips on this rise element, this rise season that we can be gentle with ourselves even during that. Sure. Well, I thought it was really important to have this component in the book because being

gentle, being soft, being kind to yourself doesn't mean you stop caring about things that are important to you. It doesn't mean that you don't have goals. It doesn't mean that you don't wanna take action and contribute to the world in a positive way. And knowing how things may have worked for you in the past during these kind of take action times, I think has you really reflecting

on the rest and less portion. So you're really setting yourself up for this time to rise. And then when you're in that rise season, you may still be dipping into rest. You may be kinder to yourself along the way. You may be questioning your actions. Like what is actually making a difference and what is just keeping you busy and keeping you like looking like you're proving to yourself or others that you're taking action. And I don't say that you're doing that in a malicious way. I think we all, to a certain extent, look for that internal or external validation when

we're doing things. And that can be misguiding when it comes to the actions we are taking. And so it is about coming back to the gentle you time and time again as you're rising up and just checking in and giving yourself that space to do it. One of the things I thought about before we hit record is like, where am I gentle? Or where do I see us being gentle? And more often than not, it's when kids are involved. We tend to be more gentle with the kids that we love, whether they be our own or other

people's. What can we carry forward? Or what do we have to learn about applying that same level of gentleness to ourselves and the adults in our lives? Well, I think it's watching how we talk to them for starters. And I think it goes for kids and pets. My daughter has two dogs. And when they come to my house, they can do nothing wrong. And if they just finished their dinner, I'm like, oh my gosh, you're such a good boy. Look what you did.

You finished your dinner. Let me rub your belly and give you a treat. And like, when do we ever talk to ourselves like that? Not that we need to bring the whole baby talk thing to our friends and family. I'm sure they don't want that. But it's just this feeling of like, why can't we be a little more lighthearted when we're talking to ourselves and have some humor around our shortcomings or whatever you want to call them when things don't work out,

instead of going straight to like, you're such a loser and a failure, and I can't believe you did it this way again, and you're never going to make anything of yourself and etc. etc. Like give yourself a treat. Start there. Like what is the kindness that you can do for yourself? I mean, maybe you can't come up with the words to say to yourself that are so gentle and kind. So give yourself a simple pleasure, that are so gentle and kind. So give yourself a simple pleasure. Enjoy a coffee. Call someone who makes you smile. These little tiny things that again, kind of like rest, we decide we're going to save them to enjoy when we deserve them. You just deserve them for being a human in this world. I mean, this shit is hard. Give yourself a treat. Yeah, I love the idea of like how we talk to our pets. I mean, just the way that we recognize and celebrate and I'm just going to put an air quotes good behavior, but it's the

smallest things and we don't do that for ourselves. You know, we beat ourselves up even if we're near perfect, right? So just this sort of shift and the recognition, the celebration, the kindness, I love that. That actually helped me wrap my brain around this a little bit more because I know how I am with my child and with my dog even more so. Right. I can't even imagine what that would look like for me. In your book, you talk about tiny steps as the key. What does that mean? One of the things that we all have to consider as we're reconnecting with the gentle you,

the gentle me, the gentle us, is changing the way we change. Whether it's a habit change or a change to our push through approach or whatever it's going to be to bring a little love and kindness into our lives, we really have to think about how we changed, try to change before and how we might change now. And so before I would like to suggest that we're always trying to make these big strides

and accomplish these things, not exactly overnight, but so it looks like overnight or it feels like overnight. We want fast results. But what happens is we get those fast results and then we're so burnt out from getting them that we slide back to wherever we were and then we have to do the same thing again. And so that could happen when you're decluttering your house. It could happen when you're working on something in your, your job. It could happen when you're trying to bring a new habit into your life.

And we just try to do too much. Every big change we make in our lives is really just a bunch of tiny steps. And I'm sure you could look at almost any change and break it down like that. But because we try to take it down all at once, it's harder for it to be sustainable. So if we take tiny steps, so figure out what the goal is that is really exciting to us, that is meaningful to us, that we want to do for very specific reasons that make sense to us, doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, then break that down into these tiny steps and then break those tiny steps into tinier steps because we never break them down

tiny enough at first. And then give each one the time it takes instead of putting a deadline on it. Why invite more stress into this thing that you're trying to shift for potentially the rest of your life? I just remember making the same changes over and over and over again, and never really getting it until I was too tired to do it any other way than one tiny step at a time and removing all the pressure. And one thing that helps me to do that, to remove the pressure of a change or of a transition in life or anything at all is to frame it as a practice. And that goes for all of gentle, all of being gentle, all of navigating life. It's a practice and that means that there's no perfection in this game and you really can't win or lose with a practice.

You're just learning and growing and noticing and enjoying. Okay. There were so many good things and that so many things popped into my head. First, I love the, even just the verbiage of changing the way we change, because you're right. I think we try to muscle our way through everything and we think speed is the answer. And even just being gentle with ourselves, with our timeframes, and with what we, and

I put in our quotes, what we count. Because I think as women, we have a tendency to only count something if it's big or jump into the deep end of the pool. And we tend to discount the little, small, tiny steps that we make as if it's not enough as opposed to, well, that's the way we accomplish anything and everything is through practice and these tiny steps. And I'm so tired of the 10 minutes to success courses and all that stuff. I think what a great opportunity to practice being gentle with ourselves is

to focus on the tiny and to give herself time and space to do it in. As you can tell, I have not practiced being gentle all that often. I do have that mantra, gentle, gentle, gentle, that goes through my brain when I'm beating myself up. But this is very much something I get to put into practice. So in the book, you refer to the gentle you. Who is that? So the gentle you is you.

It's the you that you have probably disconnected with in the name of busyness, in the name of too much, in the name of trying to rise, rise, rise instead of rest first. It's the you who you can really trust. I think you connect with her when you really begin to trust yourself and you can't trust yourself if you cannot hear yourself. And I think what happens is, and I'm not in the medical field, I'm not a therapist, I really don't know, this is just what I feel, is that from my experience, the gentle you has no five-year plan for you.

She's not interested in how fast you accomplish things or that you accomplish things. She just wants you to figure out what you want and support that. And that really comes from a lot of listening, a lot of checking in and reflecting and noticing when, because as I said, this is a practice. So there are going to be days when you're not gentle, when you completely lose your mind over the smallest thing. And that's okay. That is another invitation to reconnect and to step back. And the more you do it, the more you practice it,

the more you catch yourself. Like, wait, I don't have to say all these nasty things to myself. And I have finished my to-do list. So I'm not going to add 50 more things for the day or the week. Now I'm going to go and sit in my backyard and read a book in the middle of the day. Okay, my next question is around the irony of what I know my brain does. So I have to imagine other people listening and their brain is doing the same thing is we is telling ourselves that we don't have time to do this, that we don't have time to take care of ourselves. How would you respond?

I'd say you're probably right that you don't have time. At least that was my experience when I first started trying to take care of myself. I was like, I don't have time to be sick. I don't have time to go to the doctor. I don't have time for any of this. And what I had to do is make some pretty big cuts in how I was spending my time. And perhaps it was a little easier because I knew I would just feel worse if I didn't and potentially have more progression within my MS.

So I really had a pretty strong reason to do that. But I would say that formal diagnosis or not, we all have that reason. I mean, this is a short life that we're all dealing with. And not to say that if you keep up at your pace, that you'll get sick, but you probably won't feel your best. You certainly won't be super clear on what you want and why you want it. So I think it's just a matter of figuring out where you can make those cuts, knowing that there are seasons in life where it's going to be more challenging. If you have little kids at home, it's going to be harder.

If you are working full time and you get diagnosed with something scary like I did, that's going to be more challenging. And that's why the steps have to be so small. And so instead of, I don't have time for this, it's what do I have time for? Like, what is the smallest thing I could do? Could I lay down for five minutes? Could I put on a playlist for 10 minutes that relaxes me. I think that kind of that moment that you think I need to take care of myself when you think I don't have time to take care of myself is the exact moment you have to take care of yourself. And again, it can be small. That's I think kind of the key is that you don't have to change everything overnight.

That's, I think, kind of the key is that you don't have to change everything overnight, but perhaps starting with one teeny tiny thing will be enough to show yourself you're taking care and then do it again the next day and the next day and the next day. You gave a few examples in there, but my last question was going to be around what are some of those tiny steps that we can all take to invite more gentleness into our lives. I'm trying to even break down to the tiniest. So like drink eight ounces more of water a day than I normally do, or like you said, five minutes. Go outside for five minutes and breathe fresh air. What are some other examples that have either worked for you or others in these tiny steps to practice gentleness? Well, one thing we can do, I mean, you mentioned the

water. It just reminds me that we don't even often give ourselves what we need when we need it. And so when your child is thirsty, you give them something to drink. When you're thirsty, you might continue. Like when I finish this, then I'm going to get a drink of water. Stop and get some water. Like do what you need to do. The tiniest things as you notice you need them. That is part of you responding to the gentle you. She's thirsty. Give her something to drink. She's hungry. eat something. You want to go for a walk, go for a walk. Again, it doesn't have to be an hour walk.

It could be five minutes. But I think kind of especially, you know, so often we want to look at what are the changes we're going to make for the whole year or this, what are we going to do in our business this quarter? I understand we have to do some planning and we have to like roll it back, come back. What about today? What about right now? What are the tiny things we can do today to make us feel a little less stressed, less

pressured and more connected to ourselves? So I think for instance, if you're going to declutter, you want to declutter your whole house, start with a junk drawer or start with a corner in the kitchen, not the whole kitchen, a corner of the kitchen, because if you only have five minutes or 15 minutes, you're going to end up with an unfinished project and that might make you feel even worse. So just look at the corner of your countertop and kind of clean that one area. And once that one area is done, celebrate that you're good. The next day, maybe the next corner or a table. And I know it's not, it doesn't sound like it's as rewarding because it doesn't, you're not like, Oh my gosh, look at my whole kitchen

is clean. But in a month when your whole kitchen is clean and it's actually decluttered and you've noticed the process along the way and you haven't totally stressed yourself and your family out in the process, that's rewarding. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I know I and I'm sure those listening in have more questions. So I'm going to remind people if you want to connect and build your gentle you and practice that, get your hands on the book Gentle. And you can also go to the website, BeMoreWithLess.com. All of Courtney's offerings are available there. And again, get your hands on the book, Gentle, Amazon or your local bookstore. Courtney, thank you so much for being our guest and for reminding us to be gentle with ourselves.

It was my pleasure. Thank you. Okay, here's the thing. I think the idea that women aren't already strong is complete bullshit. I mean, we've been creating life, holding families together, breaking barriers, surviving losses, fighting for rights, and doing it all, often without credit, for centuries. Women are today, and have always been, strong. But gentle?

That's where the real opportunity lies. Being gentle isn't about giving up or giving in. It's about giving yourself the care and the compassion you need to keep showing up for yourself and for others. So, the next time your head trash takes over and life feels like it's demanding more than you can give, try it.

Gentle, gentle, gentle, or even better yet, rest, less, and rise. Because softening the edges doesn't make you weaker, it makes you wiser, more resilient, and more connected to the things that matter most. Being tough is what got us here, but being gentle might be what gets us where we actually want to go.

And you know what that means, right? Be gentle, because that is woman's work.