517 | Bad Thoughts

Here's the reason why The A little thing that's just feeding your greed Oh I bet that you'd be fine without it Hello, Simpletons. Welcome to the Minimals Podcast to Rediscuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields-Millburn and joining me here at Earthing Studios is my good friend. That TK Coleman. Hey, hey, hey, goodness gracious. Today we're joined by one of our most compelling guests. He's a New York Times best-selling 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, Judas Miss here. I'm so happy to be here. Oh, Judas, 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 4062197839 or you can email a voice recording right from your phone. To podcast at theminimists.com. Let us know if you're a patron on subscribers 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. Avertisement. Yes, indeed. Our first question today is from Mary. Hi, minimalists. This is Mary and I'm a patron 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, should there 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 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 disappointment 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 who is her own life and I have to admit that they 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 it way, but it has encouraged me to make a plan to ask my mom about certain aspects of her life. 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. What do we want to do? What do we want to do? What do we want to do? 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. I wonder what other people in the community have to say about this? Think of 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 if I put a bunch of poison in the ice 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 less 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. I think we can talk about the unworthy talk that we have, the needy talk, the insecure talk, the entitled talk and the unlovable talk. And I could see elements of all of that here. So if you were talking to Mary, 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. So 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. 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 for us gum 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 kinds of emotions. I think what I would say and I feel so unqualified to speak to such a sacred kind of personal intimate thing. That our caller 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's my thought. But man, Mike and the mechanics had that song in the living years. 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 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 going to be. And so I don't know if, if, if this is what our friend is seeking, but I just applaud her careful sacred approach. Most people I talk to about 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 call or it and what she was sharing because it is in fact a sacred as she's treating it. You know what's interesting is this sounds like a totology, but difficult conversations are difficult. And what you're bringing up in me right now is sometimes reading those journals was like having a difficult conversation posthumously. Yep. Because you're like, I didn't know you thought that way. I didn't know that you struggled with that. 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 going to be the perfect time for the difficult conversations. Like, oh yeah, I'm going to ease into this perfect moment where the difficult conversation could be had. I think that's why we put them all forever. That's right. Do you think there are any situations where a person will 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, T.K., I need to talk to you about your tardiness. 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's 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 when you, 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 filling 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 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 sure of Judah, you know, when Judah's having this conversation about how he felt about for his gum, the way he feels about the movie today may be very different than the way he felt at the time it was document. 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 let people know how I feel about it 20 years later. 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 magnifying of these toxic thoughts for you at all? Oh, man, I so this book that we 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 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, I and it was of no, it wasn't my dad's fault that I felt this way. But but hearing my daughter, my 16 year old daughter, read kind of my dad's writings. There was a lot of that emotion again, obviously missing him all that, but a lot of emotion of man, I was trying so hard every day as his you pastor to make him happy. And and I've changed. And and so I ultimately, I guess there was a bit of 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 it goes that deep for me for sure. You know, you you hold chapter about people pleasing in the book and the disease of people pleasing and one thing that really stood out to me as you talked about how selfish people pleasing is deeply selfish and and self serving and arrogant. But in my so in my tradition, though, in my kind of Christian tradition and the nuance in the way that I've raised, I was raised this idea of being of service and serving and being gregarious and being generous. And 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 like, Hey, can I get that? Can I do that for you? Hey, no problem. I'm here for you. And so I learned real quick in the kind of the space in which I was raised in the dogman, the doctor. And 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 mom was 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 like 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 not thinking about others. And I think this, this, this disease to please, I was on the outside. I was perceived, I think it's this really young servant, but, but man, I was, I was doing it to myself. And so what I mean is the disease to please can be very misleading. And it, 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. But 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 less talks about in the book is the courage to be disliked. He said that 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 way 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. That seems to be. But I want to go record to say less has no problem pleasing people. And so it's real convenient for less. I wish less was here right now. He loves. You know, pissing people off. Is that okay? Am I allowed to say that word? He loves to piss people off. So this is a really, you know, bag 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 loading. 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 I think so much of life is I think generosity is not thinking of yourself at all. It's the first generous act is 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 that that 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 and my couch in my living room. It's me, me, me, me, me. And one of the things you talk about is like that causes the 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 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 strongly 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 going to read the YouTube comments, I'm not going to 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 going to take it in the good and the bad. I'm not going to take in all this change 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 down 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 piece that 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 piece 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. 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, that hurts, right? The more I try to please other people, the less pleased they actually are. Mary, I'd 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 the Minimists.com, click on the resources page. Here's 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 ebook for free over at the Minimists.com, or if you want the audiobook 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 for the short, shareable minimal maximum, but not really. We just monitor on the line, but we do tie it up with a pithy bow at the end here. We call the minimal maximums. You can find this episode's maximums and the show notes at the Minimists.com slash podcast and every minimal maximum ever thousands of them at this point at minimal maximums.com. We'll also do over our weekly show notes, directly your inbox, including seven new maximums every Monday for free. If you sign up for our email newsletter at the Minimists.com, whenever it's in you spam or junk or advertisements, but we'll 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 reach out to our audience and said, what sends you into a mental spiral? 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 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 tail spin? Please tell me. 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 going to 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. Mrs. Smith, the prime show, which we just fallen love with all over again, shout out to the childish Gambino. Yeah, and we're watching it. Oh, hi, Nate of as well. Oh, that's right. Yes, he always has the farmers market with a short shorts on. It's really great. All the cool guys live in Ohio. We get it. We get it. And that's Orange County. I'm Mr. Smith. Yeah, Mr. And she's laying there and I'm feeling the vibes and I got to tell you I was I was so excited. We had such a brilliant conversation. It was actually really transparent, really honest. And my friend West was there, whatever. And so I'm just getting back in a kisser, 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. 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 is kind of 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 a hundred to zero. And I'm in the bathtub because when things are not right between her. It sounds like I'm so committed to marriage. And it's the incredible. But I mean that is like, she's like been my true best friends since I was like, you know, 10 years old. So that sends me an spiral, which obviously gets back 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 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 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 and might have nothing to do with you. Yeah. And that's just love, right? It's so hard to not micro-manage love when you've got somebody in your life that you care about. And you just see, you 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 grief 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. Due to the last chapter in your books about love. And I love how you talk about that it's not transactional. And we often talk about this, you know, the tagline for them. And I'm just 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 money. I need to earn this love. Like how that's like I have a punch card for love. 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 to do? And I say, oh, doesn't that ruin the gift? The exchange part ruins the gift. Like the need, the demand actually. And so that's the that's the neediness part that you talk about quite a bit. It's like the the neediness. I did this so I now I deserve this. Now I'm entitled as well. Right? Let's get back to our audience here. That overstimulation can really make my mind run wild. Do you have any stories about how overstimulation can run to the run in that mental clutter? Oh, yes. Yesterday in Oklahoma City, I went to an antique shop called Dead People 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 morning can feel for me. And I was like, I just, she also 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 want to 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. First of all, 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, Charles. And I think one of the reasons that I wanted to come on here is I feel like the two of you in your dynamic. I really mean this. Like it's, I'm already happening to me again, like last year, listing 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, okay, 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 to overstimulating. Stephanie 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. It'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 off and 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 I'm doing nothing but worrying about it. I'm punishing myself now and then the bad thing actually happens, I'm punishing myself again. And so it's like a double punishment. The problem with that is usually 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 it 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 loveable. I'm not secure. And so fear manifests and it has different voices. And sometimes it says sometimes it's angry. Sometimes it's confident. Sometimes it is terrifying. Fear has all of these different masks that it wears. And OCD, which I've been diagnosed with OCD when I was a kid, I totally get it. But I also recontextualize it as a superpower in a way. Well, 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. Exactly. Exactly. I could not read it. I want to please you. That's okay. And so I wondered if there's anything you could tell Priscilla about this worry that she constantly has. And off it, 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. I think, ultimately, I think from the sacred text, which is in so many ways kind of my guide to the New Ones of Life, is this the opposite of worry and 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 in 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 lately. It's literally every day. It's to clean a bathtub, which is TMI. 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 put me here. 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 in the modern age. But for me, I don't know what I would do without those worshipful moments every day. Yeah, that bit of gratitude I think is really important to you. 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 some 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? Like 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, their Kobe was obsessed about basketball. We don't say poor guy suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder, right? No, I mean, it'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 Hilderbrand, a book called Liturgy and Personality. And he talks about that very concept, how our worship 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's substantially, 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 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, oh, I didn't close the refrigerator door. Right? Is that all right? In a moment like that, just state it out loud. I am afraid because I am not sure that I close 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 Less Talks About, it's not about removing fear, which I think is what we want to do. Like, how do I get rid of this fear? How can I become fearless? Well, if you were fearless, you'd be dead. Literally. But 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. Yeah. 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 could happen is, 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, 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 medium 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. Parishables only out 200 bucks. You got a good deal in your perishables. I just want to start that out there. Well, I'm going to air one for this. I'm going to watch more than 200. I thought 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. Stillness isn't optional. It's oxygen. For me, a spiral is the inevitable outcome of procrastinating on the stillness. You know, if you've ever had trouble breathing before. You know that the body can do a lot of funny things. You might find yourself, you know, 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, quits swinging your arms around. That person's 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 have a good night. And my brother gets mad and he says, Hey, man, shut up. And he punches me. But paradoxically, the punch woke me up and it's all the problem. Look at God. Look at God. You meant him, my 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 wins the last time you took some time to go for a walk. You know, 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's most, 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. Right. Amen. You are the richest person I know. How about that? Whoa, whoa, whoa, I love it. Yeah. How wealthy you might be, but also how miserable you might be. You're in the way, right? I'm wondering in terms of, because you've got a lot going on. You run a large organization. You're given talks. You're given sermons. You're doing a lot of stuff. You're writing books, podcasts, interviews, all this stuff. Is there room for stillness? Man, there's, there's not stillness is not an option. The scripture that really, really means a lot to me the older I get is, is be still 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'm going to 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 or another are just so annoying to me. Oh my 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, such stillness, but it gives me a saddleness in my soul. And my soul goes from I'm overwhelmed to I'm not in control. And the outcome ultimately is in his category and it belongs to him. And I'm going to, I'm going to trust him with that. So that's what TK is probably doing for five hours. He's just like, you are in control. I am not in control. 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. 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 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 right here right now, segment. Let's talk about one thing that's going on in the life of the minimum lists. So due to 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 minimums that 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 play anxia. 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 reached? That's a measurement of width. It was 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 in 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 West on the couch here. He's in our studio audience. 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. Yeah. You know, for me, the first level of connection started with myself because before we went on, before we went off social media, I was on fire on Twitter, man. I would just, every thought that comes of mine, 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 every thought that inspires me that comes of mine, 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 all I can't tweet that. Let me tell it to somebody, but oh, nobody's, nobody's around. What do I, do I cost somebody? Do I, do I run to the man on the street say, hey, sir, change is easier. It's better, easy said than done, 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, 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 tweeted away is 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 them, 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'd like to do while we say here together is, no, how's your new job going? Oh, yeah. Wow. And the first thing I've ever lied 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 Jew and I were having coffee across street of Bluebottle 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 it's 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, the my grade on social blade is and as good as someone else is great, 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's like, I just don't like being an interrupted man. Imagine if you're up giving a talk in the middle of you, like, let's take a sponsor break. That, 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're on the over to the Minimists.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 Minimilists, Jesse 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 Minimilism about two years ago when I was living in England. House is there or small and you really have to be thoughtful with the things you want to keep. 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 four year olds. I realized in motherhood, once I scaled down, it made my work look 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 still need to go through. So we moved into our truck camper 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 BF. And I just wanted to say thank you for being inspiring because 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, sitting 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. It'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. It was like the big suitcase and then the other roller suitcase. And then my wife 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, that 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 in like what? And she goes, and I'm not even worried. And I think that's where what you guys represent and the messaging behind how you all live and what you represent. And the reason I believe in it so much is because of what Jesse just said, she now by the relinquishing 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, 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 to imagine after I have a talk. That's why you. You've got to replace it. That's actually why I brought you to it. He's auditioning. He doesn't even know it. Good. This is great. It's terrible. That's terrible. I didn't want to do this on the air. But that's not a problem. But I'll tell my wife like, hey, I lost my job. And she says, I'm not worried. We're going to be okay. Man, I would be like, come on. You throw me an alley, you like that? Let me put on my Superman, okay? That's right. And be like, I'll be right back. Let me, 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 fact that we don't have all the extra stuff that's weighing us down. So there's 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 inside about this episode or any other episode, you can send a voice memo to podcast at theminimulates.com. So we'll feature your voice on a future episode. Up next, page two and page three. But first, let's take a quick pendiculation break. We'll be right back. All right, so that's the first 39% of episode 517. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Judith 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. And that little janitor's closet at the University of Montana. Big thanks to Judith 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, T.K. Coleman, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Jordan No More, Tom Kat, Professor Sean, Savi D, and our audience of one, Wes was on the couch today, and the rest of our team. My name is Joshua Fields-Milbering. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this. Thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. I'm Josh, thank you for watching. 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