Everyday Minimalism

  Friends- I’m excited to announce the release of my new book & journal titled: “everyday minimalism, practical ways to live a simpler life.” In this weeks blog post/podcast I’m excited to share chapter one from the book with you! You can purchase everyday minimalism here: http://amzn.to/2cOWSYk   Chapter One Practical, Simple Living You have IT. I have IT. We spend most of our days ignoring IT. What is IT? Life clutter. It shows up in our life in many different shapes and forms. Life clutter is any unhealthy emotional, physical or spiritual attachment. Unhealthy emotional, physical, or spiritual clutter can become our identity when it is not acknowledged and addressed. The healthiest thing we can do is declutter so we can live a simpler life. If decluttering is healthy, why do most of us struggle? Researchers at Yale recently identified two areas of the brain associated with pain, the anterior cingulate cortex, and insula. In a brain scan, they light up when we experience pain. Remarkably, these two areas also light up in response to letting go of items that have a strong sentimental attachment or connection. The brain views the loss of life clutter the same as something that causes physical pain. What’s fascinating is the more committed emotionally, physically or spiritually to something, the stronger the resistance to letting go. Letting go is literally painful! So we end up holding on to our emotional, physical, and spiritual clutter. I read a story about how circus elephants are conditioned not to run away. From a very young age, they take the elephant and tie it to a pole. They tie a rope to the leg of the baby elephant so they can’t walk away. At first, the little elephant pushes and pulls trying to get free. But, in spite of all his efforts, he doesn’t succeed because the pole was too strong for him.The baby elephant wakes up the next day trying again and again, day after day. Then, one day the animal admits to his weakness convinced that he is going to remain in bondage forever and submits to his destiny chained to a pole. This story is a compelling analogy of how life clutter can keep us from living a simpler life. Everyone experiences setbacks. These experiences weaken us, but we get back up and try again. As we age, we experience additional setbacks (along with good experiences), but unless we learn how to reframe our story, every setback becomes more and more life clutter filling up our life. So how can we move towards a simpler life and rid our lives of life clutter? Let me share with you a story. I ran into an old friend one day while having breakfast at a local diner. I walked over to him, gave him big a hug and told him how great it was to see him again. When we first met, he was with his wife who was in a wheelchair. We introduced ourselves and proceeded to talk about our families and careers. He shared how a year and a half ago he was in a severe motorcycle accident with his wife. She was thrown from the bike and paralyzed from the waist down. They shared how they were learning to adjust to this new, unforeseen lifestyle. He didn’t share about his adversity from the standpoint of a victim but owned what life had given him and chose to be in good spirits in the midst of it. This has always been a trait I admired about him and his wife. He proceeded to tell me he was diagnosed with leukemia. He shared how the doctors discovered his cancer, but again, he did not share about his adversity from the standpoint of a victim but owned what life had given him and chose to be in good spirits in the midst of it. Standing there listening to him share about the chemotherapy he was going through, I started thinking about my family. My wife and I have been married for 20 years; I have three children, only one of my kids have chronic non-life threatening health issue, and I am physically healthy. I felt so grateful in that moment and guilty at the same time for feeling grateful. Here he was undergoing chemo with a wife who was at home paralyzed from the waist down from a motorcycle and in the midst of a million thoughts that were running through my mind, this thought came to mind: “When we are grateful, our life clutter loses it’s hold and life become simpler.” That thought brought me back to a place of focus and simplicity reminding me that minimalism is so much more than just getting rid of stuff. It’s structuring our life around what matters most, relationships, family, contribution and learning to be content in the moment having an awareness that each breath is a gift. Practical, simple, living begins on the inside, having a healthy perspective on life. We do not know what life will bring tomorrow. In this life we cling to possessions, career, and opinions of others to find meaning and fulfillment and end up feeling empty with more life clutter. I have found that to live a simpler life and truly learn how to live; I need to die to self. Dying to self is about letting go. Letting go of all the negative life clutter that tries to take over. Are you living a story that someone else has written for you? Have you allowed negative expectations to clutter your life? Have you tried to accumulate stuff to try to fill a chasm inside your soul? You can die to all of it today. Die to: The Need For More Ego Anger Guilt Fear Failure Regret Worry Living someone else’s story Comparing Yourself To Others When we die to the negative stuff, we discover what it means to simply live. You are not a mistake. You are not a failure. You are not the label on your jeans. You are special. You are unique. Hold your head high. Dream again. Declutter the negative expectations. Come alive to the beautiful qualities that make you…you. Take time to sit and just breathe in this moment before continuing to read. Feel your chest expand as you breathe deeply every breath that life has given you as you exhale your negative clutter.

What if more is not the answer? More income. More gross domestic product. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) measures the economic activity based on the goods and services a country produces in a year. More sales More stuff. More, More, More, More Consider these statistics cited by professional organizer Regina Lark: The average U.S. household has 300,000 things, from paper clips to ironing boards. U.S. children make up 3.7% of children on the planet but have 47% of all toys and children’s books. ( LA Times) The average American house size has more than doubled since the 1950s. In the 1950’s the average home size was 950 square feet, it now stands at 2,349 square feet. (npr.org) As of December 15, 2015, the U.S. is $18.8 trillion in debt. Our total outstanding U.S. consumer debt is $3.4 trillion with a total revolving debt of $929 billion. The question is “Why are we trying to accumulate more?” The pursuit of more stuff is usually tied to the pursuit of trying to feel good about ourselves or trying to fit on with a particular group. You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled. –Charles Haddon Spurgeon What if more isn’t the answer? I want to surround myself with what’s essentials and brings meaning to my life. I don’t need more crap. Are we pursuing happiness instead of fulfillment? Carolyn Gregoire in her Huffington Post article titled: The Psychology Of Materialism, And Why It’s Making You Unhappy says that: Research suggests that Americans’ well-being has, if anything, declined since the 1950s, according to the American Psychological Association, while our consumption has only increased. “Compared with their grandparents, today’s young adults have grown up with much more affluence, slightly less happiness and much greater risk of depression and assorted social pathology,” David G. Myers, author of The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plenty wrote in an American Psychologist article. “Our becoming much better off over the last four decades has not been accompanied by one iota of increased subjective well-being.” The materialistic values that consumer cultures support may be to blame. Those who pursue wealth and material possessions tend to be less satisfied and experience fewer positive emotions each day. On the other hand, research has found that life satisfaction — surprise, surprise — is correlated with having less materialistic values. It appears that more isn’t the answer? “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. We don’t buy things with money; we buy them with hours from our lives. – Henry David Thoreau More stuff leads to more time taking care of the stuff. Cleaning the stuff, moving the stuff, and sometimes renting a storage unit so we can move stuff out of our house to make room for more stuff. We live in a culture that lacks the ability to be content. One definition describes being content as: “a state of satisfaction.” Great questions I like to ask myself are: Can I say I’m satisfied? Am I content with what I have? Do I find myself chasing for more? When we are constantly chasing after more how can we truly live? “May you live all the days of your life.” ~ Jonathan Swift So what can we do to stop pursuing more and “Live all the days of our life.”? I propose the following suggestions: 1. Collect moments instead of things. 2. Get our value not from what clothes we have on our back but from what we can give away. 3. Don’t spend our life working to pay off the stuff we didn’t need in the first place. 4. Learn to be content. Show Notes: Links: (LA Times Article) For many people, gathering possessions is just the stuff of life (NPR Article) Behind the Ever-Expanding American Dream House (Huffington Post Article) The Psychology Of Materialism, And Why It’s Making You Unhappy  

Welcome to this week’s blog and podcast. Feel free to read or listen. I love books. I love to read, and I love the feeling of holding a physical book in my hand. I have books that I have highlighted, written in the margins of dog-eared pages. That being said, almost all of my books are collecting dust. I’m always looking for ways to declutter and as I stared at my bookshelf I realized that I not only had my books become clutter (to me) but I had an entire library of fantastic knowledge I could be sharing with others. Since I’ve switched almost entirely to ebooks and audio books, I thought it was time to give away all of my physical books I deemed as “dust collectors.” There is nothing wrong with owning physical books at all. For me, I see the greater value my books can have in the hands of others than just sitting on my shelf. When I made the decision to give my books away, I went through a whole slew of emotions. I would pick up a book and feel the anxiety of letting go rush through my body. The anxiety caught me off guard at first. I was surprised that I felt this way. I soon realized that the anxiety was my attempt to hold onto the memories attached to the books, not the books themselves. My books had become a shrine rather than a library. I think this happens with a bunch of things in our life. We are trying to hold on to the memories the physical things brings us when that thing is just collecting dust. Is there anything wrong with keeping items that have a sole purpose of bringing us sentimental value? Of course not. This is my personal journey of decluttering and owing less so I can add value to others. For me, my books have become something that can add even greater meaning to my life by giving them away. The question I asked myself that allowed me to move forward with my plan to give my books away was this: “Will this book add more value sitting on my bookshelf or in the hands of someone else?” My answer was a resounding yes. I didn’t just give them away to the local thrift store. I wanted my collection to go somewhere that I knew they would be read and help people learn and grow. I have the incredible privilege of being on the board of a non-profit organization that helps men and women become re-acclimated into society after prison. I was able to donate the books to them knowing that the books that impacted me will affect many more lives for years to come. What items do you have in your home that could add value to others? Make a contribution in the lives of others by giving away your dusty books or other items.

Rhythm: “an interval during which a recurring sequence of events occurs.” Having a RHYTHM to our life is a wonderful to way to maintain practical, simple, living and keep our life organized. Our RHYTHM is the reoccurring appointments on our calendar and the regular routines we follow every day. Yet, there are times when our RHYTHM is interrupted by life. Life is not static. It’s always moving, changing and shifting interrupting our scheduled RHYTHM. It’s in these moments we learn to pivot from the structure RHYTHM to the pliable state of FLOW. FLOW: “being abundantly present.” FLOW is our ability to bend, move and maintain focus and clarity on what’s most important when our life rhythm is disrupted. It’s ok to let things go and take a break from our RHYTHM when life piles on the unexpected. The reason our stress level goes up is that we still feel we need to cram in our RHYTHM on top of the unexpected interruptions which instantly kills our ability to enter into a FLOW. Most days our lives clip along to the RYTHM we have scheduled with little or no interruptions. This past week I was unable to write or record new podcasts due to life interruptions even though I had scheduled appointments for writing and recording on my calendar. I needed to FLOW with what life had for me instead of trying to make my planned RHYTHM fit. I could have become stressed out and tried to get everything done. I know If I had attempted to get it all done it would have been because of the false expectations placed on myself not because I had to. I desire to be consistent for my tribe of listeners, but I also understand that all of you are very understanding when I let all of you know that I am going to miss a week (which rarely happens). Like the stream of a river, I maintained a relaxed state of FLOW and made the most of my experience looking for ways to be abundantly present focusing my attention on who was in front of me rather than having my thoughts somewhere else trying to figure out how to ensure my RHYTHM schedule was maintained. RHYTHM helps us maintain structure in our lives. FLOW helps us focus on the important things regardless of our structure. RYTHM helps us stay on top of everyday tasks/chores. FLOW reminds us to let go of RHYTHM when the unexpected shows up. RHYTHM sets the pace of our day like the rising and setting of the sun. FLOW gives us permission to ignore our daily pace to focus on the present moment. RHYTHM are the daily steps we take towards our goals. FLOW reminds us that our goals will be there tomorrow. Show Notes No notes this week!

  In Season 1 Episode 3, I discuss how to “Save Money And Drink Better Coffee.” I love coffee but not any coffee. It has to be a great dark roast.We used to use our Keurig Coffee Maker with K-Cups, but K-Cups are pricey and don’t last very long in our house. Plus, the plastic waste we were causing did not sit well with me. I explain in this episode what we switched to and why I’m never going back. Show Notes:  Products mentioned:  Chemex Chemex Unbleached Filters  Organic Unroasted Coffee Beans 

In Season one, two of the Everyday Minimalism Podcast I take about Joshua Becker’s new book “The More of Less.” Joshua shares powerful stories from his own journey with minimalism and practical steps to begin your own journey. Enjoy the show! Show notes:  Book: “The More of Less” by Joshua Becker

In Season One, Episode One of the Everyday Minimalism podcast I share how in my search for meaning and fulfillment I stumbled upon minimalism and  practical simple living. Show Notes:  Resources I mentioned: Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus from the minimalists Joshua Becker from Becoming minimalist , The More of Less Book Leo Babauta from Zen Habits  “essentialism – the disciplined pursuit of less” by Greg McKeown.