Every little thing.
You think that you need Every little thing.
You think that you need Every little thing that's just feeding your greed.
Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.
Hello, simpletons.
Welcome to the Minimalist Podcast, where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less.
My name is Joshua Fields Milburn, and joining me here at Earthing Studios is my good friend T.K.
Coleman.
Hey, hey, hey, goodness gracious.
Today we're joined by one of our most compelling guests.
He's a New York Times bestselling author and a gifted public speaker.
His newest book, which he co-wrote with his therapist.
Can you believe that?
What a concept.
It's called Bad Thoughts.
Please welcome back to the show our returning champion, Judith Smith-Sear.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to be here.
Judah, welcome back.
Thank you.
A year ago you were here and it was a different world for us.
We were taking a break from social media at the time.
We're going to talk about that coming up here in a bit.
But first I thought we'd get into our callers here in a moment, because we're talking about how other people's perception of us can be upsetting.
We're going to talk about some of the biggest things that send people into a mental spiral.
We've got some advice for minimizing when you're stressed out and much, much more.
Also on page three we'll hear some experts what they have to say about how to organize all the boomer junk you've inherited.
Let's start with our callers.
If you have a question or comment for our show, we'd love to hear from you.
Our phone number, 406-219-7839.
Or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to podcast at theminimalists.com.
Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber so we can prioritize your message.
By the way, big thanks to our patrons.
Your support keeps our podcast 100% advertisement free because sing along at home, y'all.
Advertisements suck.
Yes, indeed.
Our first question today is from Miri.
Hi, Minimalists.
This is Miri and I'm a Patreon subscriber from Berlin, Germany.
A few days ago, I realized that I don't want to read my mom's diaries.
Should there be any and should I be the one to inherit them?
I don't know if my mom keeps a diary at the moment.
We had an argument during which it became clear that I don't live up to her expectations at certain times.
I think I don't want to ever read any of her personal documents.
I don't want to discover what kind of thoughts or disappointments she said concerning me.
I think it would be really upsetting to discover anything that we didn't discuss when we were both alive.
She's a person with her own life, and I have to admit that there are vast areas in her life that I really don't want to know about, unless she tells me.
Maybe it's very selfish to feel.
Still, it amazes me how people can bear to write their own family's history because they could never do that.
Of course, it's not a given that children will outlive their parents.
I think we should all have a definite plan for our diaries and other written stuff.
Who do we want to read what we wrote?
Personally, I think I'd be more comfortable to let my writing go to a museum than to any family members.
I believe that anything non-fictional that we have to say to other people needs to be out while we are still alive.
But also we should not put other people in a position where they have to guess whether it's okay to read our personal documents.
I think that Kafka knew exactly what he was doing when he told his best friend to burn all his manuscripts after his death, of course.
I'm also glad that his friend did not respect Kafka's wishes.
Thank you for everything that you do.
Bye.
Oh Judah, I thought this was the perfect question to start because when I was reading your book, I love the way that you talk about the.
It's not like bad thoughts necessarily, it's the toxic thoughts.
And so there's a value judgment there in the sense that, like if I put a bunch of poison in the iced coffee that's in front of you, it makes the whole thing toxic.
And it's these toxic thoughts and you identify five of them in the book with Les, your therapist that you wrote it with.
And I thought this was the perfect question because it sort of embodies all five categories in a way.
You talk about the unworthy talk that we have, the needy talk, the insecure talk, the entitled talk.
The unlovable talk, and I could see elements of all of that here.
So if you were talking to Miri, where would you start?
Because she doesn't want to read her mother's diaries, but also she feels the tug to do it after she passes.
Yeah.
First of all, man, there's so much to extrapolate from her statements and phrases.
I really liked how she ended.
I thought that was really sweet and provocative.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that we never want to know about each other and about our friendships and relationships and family dynamics.
Um, i recently this is bizarre that this is happening we recovered some of my dad's journals and my 16 year old daughter sat down for two and a half hours and started reading them.
I'm talking like judah did not like forrest gump tonight and said he was grieved, and so we prayed together and talked about like weird, bizarre stuff when i was like you know her age and it brought up all, all kinds of emotions, i think, what i would say and i feel so unqualified to speak to such a kind of personal, intimate thing that our caller is speaking to.
But it's a risk worth taking.
So, if I'm, if I'm responding directly to her question, I think journals are a profound gift.
I'm working on an audio journal on my phone, just like trying to record my days.
I just started it guys, like you know, 30 minutes ago, but that that's my thought.
But I man uh, mike and the mechanics had that song in the living years.
Uh, if you remember that song, it's pretty wild.
It's one of my favorites because it's like there's all these things we don't say uh in the living years and then when someone passes, we kind of sit in it and we talk about it.
Now obviously, the goal is to sit with each other and talk about it in the living years, but ultimately i have been provoked, quite literally and personally, to put a journal together so that my kids and grandkids someday can learn and grow, not so much about me but about what life was, what life is and what life's gonna be.
And so I don't know if this is what our friend is seeking, but I just applaud her careful, sacred approach.
Most people I talk to about diaries and journals are like, yeah, whatever.
Like, no, it's not a yeah, whatever.
Like it's everything we're about and it's everything we went through and it's super sacred.
And so I'm impacted by the caller and what she was sharing, because it is, in fact, as sacred as she's treating it.
You know, what's interesting is this sounds like a tautology, but difficult conversations are difficult.
And what you're bringing up in me right now is sometimes reading those journals is like having a difficult conversation posthumously, because you're like oh, I didn't know, you thought that way.
Or I didn't know that you struggled with that.
Or I didn't know you were suffering in that way.
And wow, I wish I could have been there for you better.
And so I think part of the lesson and I think Mary's already beginning to understand this is like now's a great time to have the difficult conversations, because there's never gonna be the perfect time for the difficult conversations.
Like, oh yeah, I'm gonna ease into this perfect moment where the difficult conversation could be had.
And I think that's why we put them off forever, TK.
That's right.
Do you think there are any situations where a person would be better off just not reading it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, I think it depends on the constitution of the individual person, right?
Because I was going through just a moment ago those five different toxic thoughts, which are really toxic thought patterns when you think about it, and we tend to stack them all on top of each other.
If for the longest time I felt unloved by my mother and then I found some journals that ended up expressing some resentment toward me, I think that could just amplify those negative thoughts in a way.
And so it does depend.
Yes, there won't be a perfect time to have a difficult conversation, but there are a lot of terrible times to have a difficult conversation.
Imagine if the studio is on fire right now.
I'm like, TK, I need to talk to you about your tardiness.
Yeah.
It wouldn't make any sense.
Like we need to have a difficult conversation right now, but there's something that is much more important going on in the moment.
That's exactly right.
One thing I would say is, if you're going to read a journal, there are a couple of things that are worth keeping in mind about context.
The first is that many people write journals primarily for catharsis or self-awareness, as a kind of spiritual practice.
It is not necessarily the case that when a person documents something in a journal that they are thinking to themselves at that time.
One day my family is going to come along and read this.
One day I'm going to have children.
They're going to come along and read this.
They may know that's a possibility, but they may not have a plan for what they want done with those journals.
They may not have a sense of who's going to read it.
And not everyone has the hope that their thoughts will be interesting enough to the world to go to a museum or to get published or to have anybody care about right.
And so what we say about people to ourselves without the expectation of an audience is very different than what we say about people when we have a sense that they're going to hear it or it's going to get back to them.
And so if you read it and you read her thoughts about you, please keep that bit of context in mind that these are not necessarily things that she is saying to you, but that these were things that she was saying to herself as part of a process of working through it and wrestling with it.
And so take everything with a grain of salt.
The second thing I would say is that feelings are valid, but they do not have a monopoly on the truth.
You are not defined by what another person was feeling at a particular moment, as they were reacting to something you did and did not do.
And so if you're reading some entry where she's like my daughter really disappointed me today or I just didn't like her attitude today, all you can know from that is that's how she was processing it.
That's how she was interpreting it.
You can't even know what she would say about that today.
I'm.
The way he feels about the movie today may be very different than the way he felt at the time it was documented.
But you don't always come back and say, hey, April 27, 2005, I wrote this entry.
I just want to follow up today and, you know, let people know how I feel about it 20 years later.
Yes, I've updated my beliefs, right?
And oh, by the way, you may not make it to that part, right?
You just read the thing that is devastating and then you shut the book.
I'm wondering, Judah, when you went through your father's journals.
Did it magnify any of these toxic thoughts for you at all?
Oh, man.
So this book that I put together with my therapist, it's all of my bad thoughts.
So it's not my favorite book, that's for sure.
It's my least favorite title because it's a tell-all from my end.
But yeah, I mean, my disease is to please.
It's my ultimate addiction in life is to be a pleaser.
And yeah, I have to admit and it wasn't my dad's fault that I felt this way, but hearing my daughter, my 16-year-old daughter, read kind of my dad's writings and there was a lot of that emotion again.
Uh, obviously missing him, all that, but a lot of emotion of man.
I was trying so hard every day as his youth pastor to make him happy and and I've changed.
And and so I ultimately.
I guess there was a bit of an encouragement, but yes, my disease to please is so pervasive.
My father who passed 16 years ago, I'm still inclined to try to please him, you know?
So it's, uh, it goes that deep for me for sure.
Wow.
You know you, you have a whole chapter about people pleasing in the book and the disease of people pleasing.
And one thing that really stood out to me is you talked about how selfish people pleasing is deeply selfish and self-serving and arrogant.
So in my tradition though, in my kind of Christian tradition and the nuance in the way that I was raised, this idea of being of service and serving and being gregarious and being generous, you get a lot of accolades.
You get a lot of recognition in my tradition if you're kind of one of the people that's like I'm here for you.
And so I learned real quick in the kind of the space in which I was raised and the dogma and the doctrine.
It was like whoa, not only is the disease to please alive and well in me, but it actually plays really well in my environment.
And so if I'm honest, not that I'm blaming the environment, but I learned very, very young.
I was a mama's boy.
I'm a people pleaser.
And I grew up in a tradition that was like the servant is the greatest of all.
And so I learned really quick, like, man, you can make people feel really, really good serving them.
But oh, the irony, I was doing it thinking about myself.
And as weird as it sounds, I'm on this whole thing thinking about humility recently.
And humility is not acting humble.
Humility is not really thinking about yourself at all.
It's thinking about others.
And I think this disease to please, I was on the outside.
I was perceived, I think, as this really young servant of But man, I was doing it to myself.
And so what I mean is the disease to please can be very misleading.
And it has caused deep detours in my spiritual growth and spiritual journey, as I've taken inventory that if these people are pleased with me, I must be good.
Well, because the other side of that is I don't want to upset anyone ever.
I don't want to disappoint you.
And the thing that Les talks about in the book is the courage to be disliked.
He said the courage to disappoint other people, which I found to be fascinating because, of course, I don't want to disappoint you.
But then you also realize, like, I don't actually have the power to disappoint TK.
He has the power to give an expectation or have an expectation of me that he then disappoints himself of.
And so in a way, no one has the power to upset you. unless you give them that power to do so.
You give them the keys to your heart to disappoint you in a way.
In the book, you also talk about the difference between sort of people pleasing.
Later on, you talk about generosity.
And so I think we might conflate the two quite a bit, like the desire to contribute beyond myself.
Well, the best way for me to do that is just to make sure everyone around me is happy.
And that seems to be a failure.
Yeah.
Yeah, that seems to be, by the way.
I want to go on record to say Les has no problem pleasing people.
And so it's real convenient for Les.
I wish Les was here right now.
Yeah, he loves, you know, pissing people off.
Is that okay?
Am I allowed to say that?
You can say whatever the hell you want.
Okay, great.
He loves to piss people off.
So this is a really you know bad cocktail, him and I.
Sometimes he's like you need to get set free.
And I'm like, well, you need to be nicer and actually more considerate.
So how about that?
Yeah, so maybe like the opposite of people pleasing isn't being a jerk.
I think that's what you're alluding to.
That's right.
Okay.
The opposite of people pleasing is actually, in my case, pleasing the one who created you and put you here in the first place, this idea of something bigger than yourself.
And yeah, I think so much of life is, I think generosity is not thinking of yourself at all.
It's the first generous act.
It's like thinking of others before yourself.
And personally, I don't wake up like that.
But I have a relationship with a divine being that I feel leads me in and invites me every day into that life.
I am so exhausted with how much I think about myself.
That's just the bottom line.
Yeah, well, I mean, it's a solipsistic world, right?
And it can't be otherwise, right?
I'm speaking to you through my microphone.
I'm looking at you through my eyes.
I hear you with my ears.
I watch my television on my couch in my living room.
It's me, me, me, me, me, me.
And one of the things you talk about is like that causes this spiral of thoughts about the self.
And there are several quotes in here about, like you know I think, therefore I am, but I am my thoughts essentially.
And to me the main takeaway from this, from the whole book, is like yeah yeah, I am what I think about, but also I get to focus on what I think about.
And if I don't focus on what I'm thinking about, then there's the pattern of these sort of toxic thoughts.
Yeah, you know, when we talk a lot about minimalism and the struggle people have with clinging to things, we usually focus on possessions and we don't think of virtues as something that we can cling to.
But I think there is such a thing as peace clinging.
We can cling so strong to being at peace with everyone that we fail to say the things we need to say.
Take the steps we need to take because we don't want to lose that peace.
And we know that by taking certain actions, we might create a little disruption.
People might feel some tension and they may not like us or they may not be pleased with us.
And I think something that can be very helpful to sort of adopt as a spiritual practice is an opinion fast, a feedback fast.
To have periods in your life where you say, for this amount of time, I'm just not gonna read the YouTube comments.
I'm not gonna pay attention to the feedback.
If I have to be aware of that stuff for professional purposes, I'll let someone else be over that for a time, but I'm not gonna take it in the good and the bad.
I'm not going to take in all of this changed my life.
Thank you so much for showing up as the person you are.
And I'm not going to take in the tear me downs either and just sort of like, allow myself to let go of the peace clinging.
And when I can do that, I can find a more substantial form of peace, a peace that is able to be present even when people are not pleased with my process and my results.
I think that's key.
Yes, yes.
The peace of not needing to please.
Here's the irony of that.
So good.
The people, I mean, you talked about like Jesus in the book was not a people pleaser at all, right?
But ironically, like I think more people are pleased with the way that he lived his life.
And I saw this post on, I think it was Instagram a few months ago or so.
Oh, so you call yourself a people pleaser.
Name the people who were pleased with you.
It was like, oh, oh, that hurts, right?
The more I try to please other people, the less pleased they actually are.
Mary, I would love to send you a copy of TK's book.
You've been dealing with a lot of emotional clutter and there's a free download on our website.
Just go to theminimalists.com, click on the resources page.
He has a book called Emotional Clutter.
And it really helps unpack a lot of the emotions that are behind the physical clutter but also all of the other clutter in our lives the mental clutter, spiritual clutter, psychological clutter, calendar clutter, career clutter.
It creates a lot of emotions in us that feel all jumbled up and tangled.
And so I would encourage you to download that e-book for free over at TheMinimalistscom, or if you want the audio book version, we'll be happy to send that to you as well.
Before we get back to our callers Judah, it is time for the lightning round, where we answer the Patreon community chats.
Question of the week.
Now, we attempt to answer questions with a short, shareable, minimal maxim, but not really.
We just maunder on a bunch.
But we do tie it up with a pithy bow at the end here.
We call them minimal maxims.
You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at TheMinimalists.com slash podcast.
And every minimal maxim ever, thousands of them at this point, at MinimalMaxims.com.
We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox, including seven new maxims every Monday for free, if you sign up for our email newsletter at TheMinimalistscom.
We'll never send you spam or junk news or advertisements, but we will start your week off with a dose of simplicity.
All right, the question of the week this week, this one is just for you, Judah.
We reached out to our audience and said, what sends you into a mental spiral?
Now, before we get to our pithy answers, let's hear what some of our listeners had to say.
What sends you into a mental spiral?
Casey said, you know what sends me into a spiral?
Not having enough time for all the things that need to be done.
Judah, what kind of bad thoughts are created by our perception of, I don't have enough time?
Well, first of all, the illusion of control.
We feel like, if we don't have enough time, as if we had enough time, everything would work out, which I think is a bit of a misnomer.
Do you want to know what sends me into an absolute tailspin?
Please tell me.
Uh, first of all, when my wife's not happy, and that's a fact and it could be the smallest little thing.
So two nights ago, we're in oklahoma city and i get back to the hotel and she told me to stay and hang with the guys because we were smoking cigars by the fire and i was like okay, i'm gonna meet you back there, but she hates how i smell when i get back from the.
You know the cigar smoke.
And i get back to the hotel and she's watching mr and mrs smith, the prime show um, which we've just fallen in love with all over again.
Shout out to the childish gambino Yeah.
And we're watching it.
Ojai native as well.
Oh, that's right.
Yes.
He goes to the farmer's market with his short shorts on.
It's really great.
All the cool guys live in Ojai.
We get it.
We get it.
Oh, and the Orange County.
But.
And she's laying there and I'm feeling the vibes.
And, and I gotta tell you, I was, I was so excited.
We'd had such a brilliant conversation.
It was actually really transparent, really honest.
And my friend Wes was there, whatever.
And so I'm just like getting back in a kiss or good night, take a bath, which is my ritual every night before I go to sleep.
And I'm there.
And she like, she's like, I was like, are you okay?
She's like, fine, fine.
And she's doing the fine thing.
And I'm like, and I just get in the bath, and it's so weird.
When I say spiral, what I mean is everything is suddenly not okay.
That's spiral for me.
It's not like one thing's a problem, like TK's kinda mad at me.
It's like now, everything is tainted, everything is shaded, everything is bleak And all of a sudden I went from literally 100 to zero and I'm in the bathtub because when things are not right between her and it sounds like I'm so committed to marriage and it's incredible.
But I mean, that is like, she's like been my truest best friend since I was, like you know, 10 years old.
So that sends me in a spiral, which obviously gets back to to to. pleasing people.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean that is clearly because I can't be happy unless some external factor is happy, because there are also moments.
I mean, there's a lot of uh, a hubris in that as well, where it's like well, her happiness depends on me and it is my duty to make her happy.
And, of course, as soon as we we, we think that, like you realize, like well, I can't make someone else happy.
It's not my responsibility.
Now I can, be kind, right?
And they can choose to react in kind, but they may not always, right?
Or they may be going through something completely different.
It might have nothing to do with you.
Yeah.
And that's just love, right?
It's so hard to not micromanage love.
When you've got somebody in your life that you care about and you just see their happiness just go down a little bit.
You want to be able to do something about it.
And you have to just respect the process of letting them grieve or letting them move through it.
And you've been with them enough to know that they will move through it.
And they're not about to do anything to you.
You're not scared of them.
You just care about them.
And it's tough to be present with yourself and just say, I have to give this up.
I have to offer this up.
And I have to just take this tension and transform it into prayer and love them by allowing them to be.
That's tough, man.
That's tough.
Judah, the last chapter in your book's about love.
And I love how you talk about that it's not transactional.
And we often talk about this.
I mean the tagline for the minimalist is love people and use things, because the opposite never works.
And when we treat love like a transaction, then it thinks I need to earn this love.
It's like I have a punch card for love.
If I do all of the right things, then I will be loved.
I will be accepted.
But The way you talk about it in the book is it's a gift.
Love is a gift and gifts you don't have to earn.
A gift that is earned isn't a gift at all, right?
It becomes a transaction.
And that's one of the problems I have with holiday gift giving.
I don't think it's inherently bad or evil, but like when it becomes obligatory and it's like oh, I got you this.
What did you get me, Judah?
And it's like, oh, doesn't that ruin the gift?
The exchange part ruins the gift, like the need, the demand actually.
And so that's the neediness part that you talk about quite a bit is like the neediness.
I did this, so now I deserve this.
Now I'm entitled as well, right?
Yeah.
Let's get back to our audience here.
Kristen said overstimulation can really make my mind run wild.
Do you have any stories about how overstimulation can run to that mental clutter?
Yes.
Yesterday in Oklahoma City, I went to an antique shop called Dead People's Stuff.
By the way, it's unbelievable.
And I walked in.
And I was so overstimulated because I love old antiques.
I'm talking like knobs.
I'm talking about door knockers.
I'm talking about hinges.
I'm talking about stained glass.
I'm talking about stairs.
They're selling stairs, bro.
They're selling stairs from somebody's old house.
And I literally just stopped.
And this is so indicative of how often an afternoon or a morning can feel for me.
And I was like, I just, Chelsea goes, where do we start?
And I was like, I just don't even know.
Like I'm literally so overstimulated, I'm overwhelmed.
And so for me becoming overstimulated or overwhelmed or overcome, paralysis starts to set in and all of a sudden I don't wanna do anything or go anywhere.
And by definition, I think we call that stuck.
And so, yes, that happened to me yesterday at an antique shop.
And it actually became a great parallel for some stuff I'm feeling emotionally.
And what gets you unstuck in those situations?
Saying I'm stuck, admitting it, saying I'm human, I'm not superhuman, and admitting that I'm not sure how I'm going to get unstuck this time.
And then looking to friends and saying, what do you see?
What do you say?
What do you feel?
Sit with me.
What do you think it is?
And that starts with my best friend, Chels.
And I think one of the reasons that I wanted to come on here is I feel like the two of you and your dynamic I really mean this like it's I'm already happening to me again, like like last year.
Listening to you both is like man.
That's really going to help me.
I really needed that.
I was going to ask you guys, what do you do when you're in a spiral?
And TK kind of already answered it, you know, right there.
So I was like, OK, I got that one.
And so I think relationships like this genuine, authentic relationships where we all put our stuff on the table is one of the most unstuck thing I can do.
Yeah.
And you only get to that authenticity when you stop the people pleasing as well.
That's right.
Yeah.
TK, any words on overstimulation for us?
No, man.
All right, let's go on.
I'm so overstimulated.
It's happening right now.
We got Priscilla here.
This one I really identify with.
She said, OCD can be haunting.
I don't want to have it, but it's always that worry in the back of my mind that's like Is that cord in a place where it might start a fire?
Did I remember to lock the door?
Does my hair look funny?
It's like this constant worry.
I'm trying to get to the root of it so I can let it go.
I want to talk a bit about worry.
I often say to worry is to pray for something bad to happen.
It's a way to punish yourself twice in a way, right?
Because like, let's say, I'm really really worried that I'm not going to be able to pay rent next month.
Okay.
That's a, it could be a fair concern.
I need to make sure I have enough money, but if I'm doing nothing but worrying about it, I'm punishing myself now.
And then if the bad thing actually happens, I'm punishing myself again.
And so it's like a double punishment.
The problem with that is usually we worry about things that don't come to fruition.
And I think that's ultimately what bad thoughts is about.
It's a different kinds of worries or you boil it down to fear in a way.
And all of these things are types of fear.
I'm not enough.
I'm not loved.
I'm not lovable.
I'm not secure.
And so fear manifests and it has different voices.
And sometimes it's sad.
Sometimes it's angry.
Sometimes it's confident.
Sometimes it is terrified.
Fear has all of these different masks that it wears.
And OCD, which I have been diagnosed with OCD when I was a kid, I totally get it.
But I also recontextualize it as a superpower in a way.
Wow.
Obsessive compulsive disorder just means that I'm able to obsess about things and I'm able to use that obsession.
It's been great for writing.
It's been great for this podcast.
I mean, it's great because like if a guest comes on here, I actually read their book.
Yeah.
I was shocked.
It's not because I like you.
I'm just OCD, right?
Exactly.
I could not read it.
I don't.
I wondered if there's anything you could tell Priscilla about this worry that she constantly has.
And often it's irrational.
It is irrational.
And the more you think about worry, oftentimes the more it grows.
And so it's self-defeating that way.
Ultimately, I think from the sacred text, which is in so many ways kind of my guide through the nuance of life, is the opposite of worry in Scripture is worship.
It's this idea that there is this being outside of me that is the source of me and that is the inventor of me and the creator of me.
And I'm going to thank that being.
And suddenly what begins to happen is you realize you're not the captain of the ship.
You're not the controller and the operator.
You're not the CEO of your life.
And then things like one of my favorite things to say is like you didn't even choose your birth date.
You didn't choose your family.
You didn't choose the age and era in which you are alive.
And suddenly this thing begins to relieve.
For me, that practice is is daily.
It's literally every day to clean a bathtub, which is TMI, but where I'm just going again to that place of like.
I did not invent me, i was not my own idea, i did not choose the area in which you you put me here um, and so i'm just relinquishing, i'm surrendering, i'm yielding, i'm settling, i'm trusting.
Okay, now let's go face this wild life uh, in the in the modern age.
But for me, i don't know what i would do without those worshipful moments um, every day.
Yeah, that bit of gratitude, I think is really important TK, because I often frame it of how can I be more grateful?
Because when you frame it that way, it assumes that there's already gratitude there.
I have the capacity for gratitude, at least.
And there's at least a tiny sliver, a speck of gratitude here.
But how can I be more grateful?
Even for the OCD, what has it gotten me?
Obsessiveness isn't necessarily a bad thing.
The question is, what am I obsessed about?
When you see someone who's pursuing their dream relentlessly, we say oh, Kobe was obsessed about basketball.
We don't say, poor guy suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, right?
No, I mean, that's one of the things he was most grateful for.
Yeah.
Hey, I'm with Carl on the worship, man.
There's an author, I believe the name is Dietrich Hildebrand, a book called Liturgy and Personality.
And he talks about that very concept, how our worship is, inevitably transforms us.
And it is the primary means by which we become a new kind of creature, when we give God what is due to him.
It substantially transforms who we are.
I think one thing I'll add to it is this isn't like a magic formula that always works, but I think it can be very helpful when you have some kind of fear.
To just name it, to state it explicitly
Fear is the kind of thing that thrives when it can dwell in the darkness, when it can be under the surface and not talked about.
And fear is so great at surviving that it will sometimes deceive us into believing that if we call it out, if we name it, that it'll take over our lives.
I can't admit that I'm afraid because then that's going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But sometimes when you're in your car and you're an hour away from home, you know you can't go back.
You've got to go to this meeting you agreed to be at.
And that fear comes up.
Uh-oh.
I didn't close the refrigerator door.
Right?
In a moment like that, just state it out loud.
I am afraid because I am not sure that I closed the refrigerator door.
Just state it out loud.
And then state what you're going to do about it because you know what you're going to do about it.
You know what you have to do about it, but it needs to be framed as a choice, because that's where your agency lies.
I choose to let it be.
I choose not to go back because my priority is to be on time for this meeting and to keep my word.
If I left it open, I will figure out how to deal with the consequences when I'm able to tend to it.
But for now, I choose to be present for the thing that I choose to do.
If you make a practice out of that, what will happen is that a sense of agency will begin to replace this sense of I'm not in control, because I can't control everything.
You're practicing what you can control, and you're practicing control over the most important thing the setting forth of your intentions.
Yeah, beautiful.
In the book, Les talks about, it's not about removing fear, which I think is what we want to do.
How do I get rid of this fear?
How can I become fearless?
Well, if you were fearless, you'd be dead.
Literally.
That's one thing to think about.
If you didn't have any fears, I'm just going to run into traffic real quick.
Well, why don't you run into traffic?
Because I'm afraid I'm going to get hit by a car.
Some fears are totally rational.
The problem is 99.99% of the fears are either irrational or they're so overblown.
I often the exercise I use with the.
If I forgot to shut the refrigerator door is okay.
What's the worst thing that could happen?
And then I couple that with what's the best thing that could happen?
Because the worst thing that could happen is like, I guess all the perishables spoil.
And that sucks because now I'm out $200 and man, that's frustrating.
I'm not going to have dinner to eat tonight.
I'm going to have to figure all of that out.
Okay.
That's the worst thing that could happen?
All right.
What was I catastrophizing in my mind that, oh, my God, like, I'm not going to have anything to eat.
Therefore, what, I'm going to die if I don't go back and shut the refrigerator door right now?
Okay, but what's the best thing that could happen if I...
Set that down and deal with it later.
I can actually be present for the media I'm going to or the podcast I'm going to be at.
Or maybe you're going to some sort of gathering, or or you just have a.
You have something you know you need to do right now.
You can't deal with the other thing.
I need to be present for this.
The best thing that can happen is I set this down for now.
I can pick it back up if I have to.
That's so good.
All right.
You got a good deal on your perishables, by the way.
I just want to throw that out there.
Well, I'm going to air one for this.
It's going to be much more than $200 later.
$2,000.
How about you, listeners?
What sends you into a mental spiral?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments or in the Patreon community chat.
Okay, I already gave my pithy answer, TK.
To worry is to pray for something bad to happen.
You got something pithy for us?
You know I'm the king of pithy.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Stillness isn't optional.
It's oxygen.
For me, a spiral is the inevitable outcome of procrastinating on the stillness.
If you've ever had trouble breathing before, you know that the body can do a lot of funny things.
You might find yourself flailing your arms.
You might change color.
You might fall and collapse.
And imagine you see someone doing those things and you just address it at the level of the symptom.
Like, get up, man.
You know, like return to your natural color, man.
Quit swinging your arms around.
That person is telling you I need oxygen.
It reminds me of when I was little.
I used to have a bad case of catalepsy, sleep paralysis.
And one night I just can't move.
And my brothers were in the same room and I'm just going.
And I'm like trying to call out for somebody to help me.
And my brother gets mad.
He says, hey, man, shut up.
And he punches me.
But paradoxically, the punch woke me up and it solved the problem.
Look at God.
Look at God.
You meant it for evil, brother.
But he intended it for good.
But for me I find that whenever I'm in a place of just like complaining a ton, being really negative, not thinking about things with the mindset of possibility, it is always the result of deficiencies in my prayer life.
TK, when's the last time you took some time to go for a walk?
Are you using other people's ears as compensation for talks that you don't want to have with God?
When was the last time you went within?
I think for me, whenever I have to think about that and I can't say, oh, I just did that.
I'm already in the spiral.
Yeah.
And the interesting thing is TK is maybe the most contemplative person I know.
He'll go on like five hour beach walks by himself and he's just like he does nothing but like.
But like I don't even know that it's thinking.
I think maybe he's just letting go of thoughts while he's out there or absorbing something from the universe.
I don't know.
I just wonder how rich I'd be if I didn't do all that.
Yeah.
Hey man, you are, you're the richest person I know.
How about that?
Whoa, I love it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How wealthy you might be, but also how miserable you might be along the way, right?
Judah, I'm wondering in terms of cause.
You've got a lot going on.
You run a large organization, you're giving talks, you're giving sermons, you're doing a lot of study, writing books podcasts interviews, all this stuff.
Is there room for stillness?
Man there's, there's not.
Uh, stillness is not an option.
Um, the scripture that really, really means a lot to me, the older i get is is be still and and know that i am god which conversely, is be still and know that you're not god.
But i think when we're not still, We trend towards God in our life.
We trend towards I got to control it.
I got to, you know, the outcome.
I mean, I have outcomes literally on my way to studio today that I'm so annoyed at right now in my life.
So many outcomes.
And what I mean so many is like four or five right now that are just so annoying to me.
I'm like, God, really?
But to be able to say, hey, the outcome ultimately belongs to you.
This is not football.
This is not blocking, tackling, throwing touchdowns.
This is life.
And there is only one who is ultimately in control, and the ability to get still before him every day and go.
It's by you, through you, unto you, for you.
This is last night I read a text in front of an audience that this was not Abraham's story.
This is God's story.
And we're all living kind of within it.
And that just gives me such a such um stillness, but it gives me a settledness in my soul and my soul goes from um i'm overwhelmed to uh, i'm not in control, and the outcome ultimately is in his category and it belongs to him and i'm gonna, i'm gonna, trust him with that.
So that's what tk is probably doing for five hours.
He's just like god, you are in control, i am not in control.
Um, The relinquishing of control, which is it gets back to the whole OCD thing.
Right.
It's like obsessive compulsive disorder is like I need to control everything.
And as soon as I've controlled everything, I'll find other things I also need to control.
Right.
And every speck of dust needs to be in its appropriate place.
And as soon as it is, as soon as everything's in order, then I'll give myself permission to be happy.
Right.
And I think that type of pursuit of happiness, we call it, is the problem.
Now, you can happily pursue.
You can dust and be happy while you're doing it.
But no, the dusting isn't actually going to make you happy.
You're rearranging the furniture.
You can be happy while you do it.
And it can be more aesthetically pleasing, but it's not going to make you happy.
Man, we got so much more to talk about, a whole switchboard of callers on page two.
It's almost the end of page one here, but first real quick for our right here, right now segment, let's talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimalists.
So Judah, last time you were here in the studio it was about a year ago.
We were coming toward the end of our year off social media.
So in 2023, we had, the minimalists had their biggest year ever.
We reached half a billion people, 200 million views and all of these counting stats that seem really impressive.
You probably know this.
The Greeks have a word for this called pleonexia.
It's like the greed for things that can be counted.
And so we get to the end of the most successful year ever.
And the question is, how do we get more?
And I'm like, oh no, this is just digital consumerism in a way.
Like we'd let go of the stuff and we'd simplified our lives, but now I need more.
Instead of sitting back and reflecting with the gratitude of, wow, what an amazing year.
Can you believe how many people we've reached?
That's a measurement of width.
It wasn't a measurement of depth because, let's face it, if half a billion people see you how many of those were?
Eight tenths of a second simply scrolling.
And what we've learned is scrolling is the new smoking.
And that's the name of our new TEDx talk, which just came out, well, yesterday.
And so you can check it out now.
We spent many, many months on it.
It was about our whole year off of social media and all the lessons that we learned.
And it wasn't all ponies and rainbows.
It wasn't all great.
There were some downsides to leaving social media for a year. as well.
We have Wes on the couch here.
He's in our studio audience.
And he asked a question beforehand.
I said, let's save this for the podcast.
He said, what did you learn by setting down the devices for that period of time?
Did you better connect with people?
Did you feel disconnected?
And I would say that, well, first off, we didn't completely disconnect from the internet.
We didn't go move into a cabin in the middle of Alaska, right?
In fact, we still had our Patreon community and we interacted with the most fervent supporters of the podcast.
So people who still listen to the podcast, we were still recording the podcast.
We had just set down social media and we had set down the algorithms.
We had set down the impulse to constantly check and refresh and get more and count more and get more views and more likes.
We literally went from half a billion to zero overnight.
And it was a lesson in humility, right?
Yeah, you know, for me the first level of connection started with myself because, you know, before we went on, before we went off social media, I was on fire on Twitter, man.
I would just every thought that comes to mind.
You know I'd be like oh, let's just put that on there.
Talk about bad thoughts.
I'm just using Twitter to just write and you know every thought that inspires me that comes to mind, right.
And then when that's gone, something strange happens.
You have a thought.
And you pick up the phone.
Hey, I like this.
Change is easier said than done, but better done than said.
But it's, oh, I can't tweet that.
Let me tell it to somebody, but oh, nobody's around.
Well, do I call somebody?
Do I run to the man on the street and say hey sir, change is easier said than done, but better done than said.
It's like, oh, well, he doesn't really care about that.
Why do I have this thought?
Why do I even think that's an interesting thought?
What does that mean for me?
Forget about tweeting it.
Forget about having something pithy.
Forget about thinking that's a cool proverb sounding thing.
Why is that in my spirit today?
That's in there.
That's coming from somewhere, man.
Do I have some things going on that need to change in my life?
Am I establishing a relationship to change?
That's purely theoretical, purely philosophical, but I'm not pushing myself pragmatically.
And you sit with that thought.
When you tweet it away, it's gone.
You've done your duty with it.
You've got 20 likes on it.
You've got 12 retweets on it.
You're doing excellent.
But you have to sit with that.
And by the time you get together with somebody that you can tell that thought to, you realize that the change that you needed to make was not even telling them any thoughts.
It was asking them questions about themselves.
So I'm not even going to tell you that thought I had today brother, because that thought has done a work on me.
And what I like to do while we sit here together is know, how's your new job going?
Oh, wow.
My favorite line from the talk was TK toward the end.
He said, scrolling is the new smoking, stimulating, soothing, addictive.
We get irritable without it, hate being lectured about it and still can't stand when others do it right in front of us.
And isn't that what happens?
Like we're addicted to this thing.
But I think that, like if Judy, you and I were having coffee across the street at Blue Bottle and then all of a sudden, like I lit up a cigarette, you'd be like what is going on here.
What's wrong with this guy?
But if I pulled out my phone and just started scrolling, you'd be like that's a little rude, but I see everyone else doing it, so I guess it's okay.
And I think the point of us leaving social media was to realize that a lot of the stuff that we're doing, the patterns that we've habituated, are not okay.
And it is creating all of these bad or toxic thoughts.
I feel like I'm not enough.
I feel like I'm unworthy when I compare myself to everyone on social media.
I feel more needy.
Do I need more followers?
Do I need more likes?
Do I need more people to visit my page?
Do I need more acceptance, right?
I feel insecure because well, my grade on Social Blade isn't as good as someone else's grade, right?
And so now I'm I feel insecure.
Maybe I'll lose everything if we leave social media too.
There's that in the back of our mind.
Let's see what happens here.
And I also think social media has exacerbated how entitled that we feel, right?
We feel entitled to other people's attention.
The most precious resource is.
The reason that we don't do advertisements just thrown into the middle of this podcast, is because I think your attention is sacred.
And I hate interruptions.
When I say advertisements suck, it's not a moral judgment.
It is like, I just don't like being interrupted, man.
Imagine if you're up giving a talk in the middle of it, you're like, let's take a sponsor break.
I mean, I get that people do that and I can't begrudge them for it.
I just know that I don't like it in what we do.
And so walking away from anything, a willingness to walk away from, especially the things that are quote unquote successful, really show you what's adding value.
We did return to it at the beginning of this year.
But we use it so radically differently now.
And that's what the talk's about.
You can check it out right now.
It's called Scrolling is the New Smoking.
If you head on over to theminimalists.com slash smoking, that'll take you right there to the video.
You can watch it for free.
Much more coming up.
But first, here is a minimalist tip from one of our listeners.
Hi, Minimalists.
Jessie here.
I am a 33-year-old mom to two girls and my husband, Harley, who is English.
And I wanted to send you guys a voice note.
I started minimalism about two years ago when I was living in England.
Houses there are small, and you really have to be thoughtful with the things you want to keep.
When I moved to England after getting married to Harley in 2020, I brought with me so much.
I think I brought maybe seven checked bags all full of pretty much clothes and crap, things that didn't matter.
And the last two years, I just really dug into What is life about?
Mostly when I became a mom.
So maybe it's been three years actually because I have a four-year-old.
I realized in motherhood, once I scaled down, it made my workload that much simpler.
So I really started digging into less is more and how much more simple my life became.
So, fast forward to February of this year, on Valentine's Day, my family of four, we moved back to America and all we brought with us is four checked bags.
I felt really proud of ourselves.
That's all we needed.
Those were our things and those are what are important to us.
But the last six months we accumulated so much crap because I missed American thrift stores and I had accumulated just stuff.
Then we got a rent increase and we decided let's move into our truck camper and get rid of everything.
But instead of getting rid of everything we did, but we still had so much stuff.
So we did have to put it into storage, which is something I've for five weeks, and now we are in a fifth wheel rv and let me tell you, life feels simple.
We have minimal stuff in our rv, just what we need.
You know, we have like six plates.
We don't have much and life feels good.
My husband just actually got let go of his job two days ago and i'm not freaking out.
I feel so thankful that our overheads are low and that we have time to figure things out, and it just makes you focus on things that are important, not just all the bs, and i just wanted to say thank.
When you really dig into what matters, it's not stuff.
It's your family.
It's your people.
It's the beauty of life.
And when you take all of the mess away, you start seeing what really matters.
Those slow mornings with your children outside sipping coffee in the sun.
Not all the toys, not all the clothes, not all the nonsense.
And so with that, I just want to say thank you for being so inspiring.
Have a good day, you guys.
Oh, Jesse, thank you so much.
That's a thoughtful and impressive message there.
The letting go, acquiring and letting go again is the rise, the fall, the rise in a way.
And that story arc there, I see it happen all the time.
I went on my honeymoon when I was 22.
And I remember we packed so many freaking bags for like a six day trip.
There's like the big suitcase and then the other roller suitcase.
And then my wife's was so heavy.
She had to take stuff out of hers and put it into mine.
And it was like, what am I doing here?
Like, we're not going to be able to enjoy this vacation because we have hundreds of pounds of stuff.
And it's like the it's a metaphor like this baggage is weighing me down.
But here it was just literal.
Yeah, this baggage is freaking weighing me down.
But it seems to me like Jesse gets it.
There's nothing wrong with things.
We all need some stuff.
But man, it can certainly get in the way.
You know there's a Jesus made this statement that where your money flows the direction of your treasure, that's where you're, that's where you will most want to be.
And that's where you'll end up being.
And I think the biggest takeaway from Jesse, Jesse, that just meant a lot.
And it was very motivating to me because what she just identified for us is that by the relinquishing of actual literal, physical stuff,
Do you see what she got?
She just said at the end, my husband lost his job.
Now I would put that in the top 10 most traumatic, like worrisome, anxious things to happen to anyone.
When your husband loses his job.
And so that's why I kind of lean in.
I think we all kind of lean like, wait, what?
And she goes, and I'm not even worried.
Yeah.
And I think that's where what you guys represent and the messaging behind how you all live and what you represent.
The reason I believe in it so much is because of what Jesse just said.
She now by the relinquishing of of of stuff. her heart and her emotions now have gone to live there.
And where is there?
It's this place where she has identified what she actually needs to be her buoyant self, and everything else is fluff.
And now one of the most traumatic things just happened to her.
And she's like, hey, it's all good.
It's going to work out.
And I'm like, wow, Jesse, that's start your own podcast, Jesse.
I want to play that up really quickly too, because I'm imagining myself coming home getting laid off my job.
And I've got to tell my wife... Well, you don't have to imagine.
We have to have a talk after this.
Oh, here we go.
That's why I'm here today.
You've met your replacement.
That's actually why I brought you here.
He's auditioning.
He doesn't even know it.
This is crazy.
Terrible.
Terrible.
I didn't want to do this on the air, but... No, no problem.
But I tell my wife, like, hey, I lost my job.
And she says i'm not worried, we're gonna be okay.
Man, i would be like come on, you throw me an alley-oop like that.
Let me put on my superman, that's right and be like i'll be right back.
Let me go lock this down because i'm ready for the world now.
So it's not just that capacity to be at peace, but this is the perfect illustration of how, when we let go of our attachment to things, our capacity to give increases.
Because she gave her husband a level of affirmation, validation and encouragement that's far more valuable to him than any Christmas gift she could ever buy.
Oh, that's so good.
One of the things she said at the end there, she said, I'm not worried.
I'm actually grateful.
And she said grateful for the, The fact that we don't have all the extra stuff that's weighing us down.
So even a gratitude in the spaciousness.
I'm really grateful for the spaciousness that is in my life.
Sometimes we can see it as emptiness that's obsessing over why is my life so empty?
Or maybe my life is just spacious.
And it's just a slight perspective shift that changes everything.
For anyone else who has a listener tip or insight about this episode or any other episode.
You can send a voice memo to podcast at theminimalistscom.
So we'll feature your voice on a future episode up next, page two and page three.
But first, let's take a quick pandiculation break.
We'll be right back.
All right, y'all, that's the first 39% of episode 517.
We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Judah Smith.
This is one you won't want to miss.
We had a bunch of deep and meaningful conversations.
We also answered a bunch of your questions.
Questions like, what's the difference between body positivity and delusion?
I talk about my own experience there.
I used to be obese.
And we talk about how you can be really beautiful and still be delusional about your body as well.
How do you deal with people who possess contrary political, religious and ideological beliefs from you?
We had a good conversation about that.
Also, what's your advice for minimizing when you're stressed out and under pressure?
Plus a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon.
The link is in the description.
When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast app.
Plus, you'll gain access to all of our podcast archives, all the way back to the very first episode, which was 10 years ago this month in that little janitor's closet at the University of Montana.
Big thanks to Judah Smith for joining us today.
You can check out his new book.
It is called Bad Thoughts.
We'll put a link to that in the description.
And that is our minimal episode for today.
Big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space.
On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, Post Production, Peter Spire Jeff and Spire Dave Jordan.
No More Tom Cat, Professor Sean Savvy D and our audience of one Wes was on the couch today and the rest of our team.
My name is Joshua Fields Milburn.
If you leave here with just one message, let it be this.
Love people and use things.
Because the opposite never works.
Thanks for listening, y'all.
We'll see you next time.
Peace.
Every little thing that's just feeding your greed.
Oh, I bet that you'd be fine without it.
