February 19, 2025 • 24 mins
Minimalism expert Courtney Carver shares tips on building habits, organizing life, and getting the stuff under control
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:24):
they might have for the rest of us. So today
I am delighted to welcome Courtney Carver to the show.
Courtney has a devoted following for her teachings on minimalism
and simplicity. Lots of people have been inspired by her
project three thirty three Minimalist Fashion Challenge. She is the
author of the book Soulful Simplicity and the brand new
book Gentle, which bills itself about being how to rest
(00:48):
more stress less, live the life you actually want. Things.
We are all into here. So Courtney, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thank you. I'm happy to chat with you again.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, well, maybe you could tell our listeners a little
bit more more about yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh wow, you summed it up so nicely.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Well, I don't know, fun fact, anything else you want
to share.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I live in Salt Lake City, and as you mentioned,
this is my third book and I've been writing and
kind of being in the online world since twenty ten,
which feels like two minutes ago and one hundred years ago.
So sometimes I don't know how to feel about that,
(01:31):
but I'm happy to be here and love, love, love
what I do, and have simplified my life over that
time span and even prior after being diagnosed with MS
in two thousand and six, which really is what propelled
me into looking at ways to have less stress in
my life and feel healthier and more content with what
(01:56):
I have.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah, well, let's talk about that with the MS angle there,
because you've written very openly about that, which I really appreciate.
But you had gotten your diagnosis, I mean, your health
was in not a great place I assume at the
point of getting the diagnosis, and you're facing down treatments
for that and uncertainty of how this is all going
to go. I mean, what made the link between that
(02:18):
and simplifying things? I mean what occurred there that made
you think, well, this is the direction I should be going.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I never really thought that for a long time
because when I was diagnosed, I was working in advertising sales,
lots of deadlines. It was in magazines, so really quick
turnarounds and lots and lots of work, always over extending myself,
really wanting to achieve some level of success, although I
(02:49):
defined success much differently then than I do now. But
all that to say, just doing whatever I could to
keep climbing the ladder, and in addition to that, doing
everything else, raising a child, you know, having just life
like everyone else. And I was so exhausted, and by
(03:10):
the time I got sick, so scared and didn't know
what to do. I had really no idea what was
going to happen, other than I had done a little
bit of research about how people live well with MS,
and so much of what I found, outside of conventional
meds which I do take, is lowering stress. And I
(03:31):
wanted to win at that too, So I was like,
I'm going to get rid of all stress.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
We're going to win at the Low Stress Challenge here, That's.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Right, And that was my focus. And it took me
a little while to see that as I was reducing
the stressful things in my life, what I really was
doing was simplifying. I was removing things that really removed
me from my life, and that extended or started, I
guess with different food. I was experimenting with like what
(04:03):
made me feel really good, and that's changed over the years,
of course, but clutter, debt, job stress, like from every
different direction. As long as I could see it acknowledge it,
I could simplify it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, and the good news you've been pretty stable then
for the last few years.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Is that correct? My neurologist often says, it's like your
MS is in suspended animation and I haven't had a
relapse or anything change on like MRI brain scans since
two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Wonderful. So well, that is a long time from now.
I was right in the past, I mean, is it
is a really long time. My oldest child was born
in two thousand and seven and we're shipping them off
to college, so it's it's very, very wonderful. What are
the things you write about related to sort of reducing
stress and monitoring your energy? I mean, people who are
(04:59):
dealing with chronic health conditions may have to approach this
from a different perspective than lots of other people. And
you've had a fascinating metaphor in your book, which I
think you've said came from elsewhere, but about spoons that
you only have so many spoons. Can you explain this
a little bit more right?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
It's called the spoon theory. And the person who kind
of identified this I always mispronounced her last name, which
I feel terrible about, but I believe her name is
Christine Miserindino. I might have actually said it right that time. Great,
but she was explaining to a friend how their energy
was different. And we always measure things like time and
(05:41):
money pretty easily, but we don't measure our energy. We
just spend it until we're completely spent and then hope
that it comes back the next day. And for some
people that works great for a while, but generally I
find chronic illness are not. That's hard to maintain that
like go do it all at all costs for a
(06:06):
very long time. And so with the spoon theory, you
kind of assign units of energy to each spoon, And
so you might have ten spoons for the day, and
getting breakfast ready and the kids off to school takes
two spoons, but on a day that you may be
low of energy, it might take four spoons. And so
(06:28):
it's just a way of minding how you are exerting
yourself during the day and maybe saving some for later.
Or saving some for you or not completely running out
every day.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. Yeah, well it's a good thing to think about
in general, I mean managing energy and what you said,
like for a lot of people, having a good night's
sleep does in fact mostly charge you back up. I
mean I think about like plugging an iPad in overnight
and in the morning it is in fact charge and
you know that's great. But obviously if you're not completely
(07:02):
charging it, then you know you're not dealing with a
full load.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I guess that's it, right, right, Or if you have
other circumstances that where you naturally start out with lower energy.
You were asking kind of what I write about, and
on my site, I write about simplifying your life, anything
from becoming debt free to clutter free to cleaning out
your closet, things like that. At least that's what I
(07:28):
started writing about. And then the more that I talk
to people who were working on it and saw how
it was different from person to person is when I
really started thinking about different approaches, like moving more slowly,
being gentle, being good to yourself, conserving that energy, and
(07:49):
maybe not making the end goal the primary focus.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, well, we're going to talk a little bit more
about what it means to be gentle. In just a minute,
we're going to take one quick ad break. Well, I
am back with Courtney Carver, who is the author of
the brand new book Gentle, which is about how to rest, more,
stress less live the life you actually want. So, Courtney,
(08:15):
what does it mean to be gentle? I mean you
talk in this book a lot about gentle you. What
is this state of gentle you?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, Well, the gentle you or the gentle me, I
think is who we are inherently. I think it's the
inside voice that we can connect with once we stop
being crazy busy all the time, once we start really
(08:43):
paying attention to how we feel and what we want
instead of listening to all of those outside voices and
kind of bowing to that external pressure that we all
face from time to time. So really checking in. And
I mean we spread this advice to each other all
the time, like, oh, be gentle with yourself, but how
(09:05):
often do we turn that on ourselves? And to take
it a step further, Once you learn how to connect
with the gentle you, you can start making decisions in
advance of having to be gentle, so that the steps
that you're taking are more gentle and feel better.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, what would be an example of that, Like a
decision you might make an advance in order to be
more gentle on yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Sure, like if I put it around decluttering, for instance,
which is something that I talk about a lot, is
I think people get really overwhelmed with making decisions about decluttering,
like what should I donate, what should I sell? What
should I throw away? What should I recycle? And those
decisions get to be so big that they often stop
us before we do anything, And so coming up with
(09:53):
a gentler approach makes a lot of sense. For instance,
instead of donating anything or making any of those decisions,
just hide it all, like, put it all in a box,
get it out of sight, and give yourself a minute.
See what it's like to live without all that extra stuff,
and then see if you even remember what when in
(10:13):
the boxes. In my experience, it's it doesn't happen very often,
and then it's so much easier to let go because
you're not dealing with that stress of the emotional connection
that you have from seeing things every single day.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, exactly, Well, I wonder if you have any daily
routines so I know our listeners always love to hear
about people's morning routines or any other sort of daily
rituals they have in their life.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah. I'm pretty routined, actually, and especially in the morning.
I go to bed early, and I wake up pretty
early around usually around five five point thirty, and I
like to drink a lot of water first thing in
the morning, and then I write three pages of morning
(10:59):
pages Julia Cameron, and then from there it depends. Today.
For instance, I went to the gym. I have a
walking pad under my desk where I work, but sometimes
in the morning, if it's dark and cold out and
I don't want to go outside, I'll do a little
walk on the walking pad. And I also generally talk
(11:22):
to either or both my sister and my daughter in
the morning, so we have a really fun, just catch
up conversation. And it's just a great way to start
the day feeling really connected to people who I love,
and also having moved my thoughts off my brain and
moved my body a little bit. That's kind of the
beginning of my day.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Wonderful. And in the book Gentle you talk about like
if people want to build a morning routine, the problem
is often we're like Okay, Well, I'm going to start by,
you know, running six miles every day, getting up an
hour and a half earlier that I normally do. And
that seems to be setting ourselves up for failure? Can
you talk about it perhaps slightly more sustainable approach?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Sure? So I started my morning routine when I shortly
after I was diagnosed with MS, when my daughter was
young and at home. She's still young, but you know,
like child, and I had a full time job working
for someone else, so my mornings were very limited, and
my morning routine started at five minutes. So I spent
(12:25):
five minutes stretching out on my yoga mat. And of
course it wasn't this like big yoga practice for five minutes. However,
it was five minutes of me getting out of bed
going to my yoga mat. And then a week later
I added five minutes of meditation, and then the week
after that five minutes of journaling. So I had this
(12:46):
fifteen minute routine after three weeks. And from there, and
this is where I often lose people. I added one
minute to each activity each week, only one minute. So
that's a three month and it's total, which sounds like nothing,
but I mean today I still have a morning routine
(13:07):
that I practice, even though it's not yoga meditate right.
Things are in different order. I bring new things in
depending on the season and how I feel. But I
have that framework, and I really believe it's because I
finally said, Okay, I am not the kind of person
who can start something at an hour or a half
hour or whatever it is. It has to be by
(13:27):
the minute. And that helped.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, well, and you get there eventually, like in three
minute chunks. You will eventually get to a longer period
of time, sure, and probably sustainably, Whereas if you start
with way more than you can take on at the beginning,
you will just not get there no matter. That's how
I did get there in six months than not.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, all my habit changes were like, okay, now we
have to go to the gym for an hour a
day or do the five miles of walking right away.
And it never lasted. And it was always this constant
like start a new habit and then it would fall off,
and then start something and then it would fall off.
And eventually all of that, like not being able to
(14:10):
hold on to it. I started to kind of look
at well, before I looked at changing how I've changed.
I beat myself up a lot, like, why aren't you
the most disciplined person that can do this? What's wrong
with you?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, well, it turns out not to be very productive
to do that.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
But let's talk about something that people have found incredibly useful,
your project three thirty three. So if somebody was hunting
around online, there's a good chance if they came across you,
they would come across this because I think a lot
of people have found this fashion challenge very inspiring. So
maybe you can talk a little bit about what that is.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Sure, Well, in the beginning of my decluttering days, I
didn't count closet things because I loved to shop for
my closet and I believed at the time that shopping
reduced stress for me. It felt good to go and
buy something new. And what I wasn't considering is all
(15:08):
the stress that came later with credit card debt and
having too much stuff. And so I decided to finally
take a good look at my closet. I knew that
my slow and steady approach wasn't really going to work
in this case, and I created a challenge where for
three months I would dress with thirty three items or less,
(15:28):
including clothing, jewelry, accessories, and shoes. And just to put
things in perspective, I wouldn't doubt that I had thirty
three pair of shoes when I started this, So it
was a big change for me. And I thought I
would only do it for three months, and I mean,
here we are fifteen years later and I'm still doing it.
(15:52):
So thirty three items every three months, and it's just
a really nice way to eliminate decision fatigue. Choose the
items that you want and need for that time period
and then forget about the rest. It sounds sometimes to
some people like that won't be enough. To others it
(16:14):
sounds like way too much. So if you just have
to kind of see for yourself, there's no real magic
to the number thirty three, So your number might be
thirty five or twenty five, but just play around with
it and see. And for people who often tell me
they could never get to thirty five, I just remind
them that it's a three month challenge, so you can
(16:35):
do it and just hide the rest of the stuff
for three months, and if you hate it along the
way or it's causing more stress, bring the stuff back.
But for me, it's reduced a lot of stress, spending
and really energy that I was devoting towards something that
I don't really care about.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah. Well, and the upside of it being three months,
I mean you can then plan seasonally, right, so it's
you know, you've got a lot of sweaters in that
thirty three items, whereas in the summer, and I presume
there are fewer sweaters in the thirty three items, And
you can also have some new excitement about your wardrobe
every three months. Then, because I assume you're switching a
(17:16):
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Out, well, you could, and some people do. I generally
tend not to switch a ton out, like obviously to
your point, I bring in more sweaters in the winter,
and I probably have more dresses in the summer. But
I would say like between fall and winter, I'm maybe
switching out five or six items and saying from like
spring to summer, so it's not a big shift. I
(17:39):
don't have thirty three different items for each season. But
I think you learn so much just after the first
three months about what you really enjoy, because chances are
a lot of people listening to this are already doing this.
But they still have all the other stuff in their closet,
but they're wearing their favorite things every day. But now
you don't have to look at that other stuff and
(18:01):
feel what I felt, which was stress for spending too
much seeing items that had tags still hanging, wondering what
I was thinking, or keeping things that people had given
me that I didn't like. So I'm much happier with
a teeny tiny wardrobe now.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, Well, what at this point would it take to
get you to buy something new? I mean, at what
point do you add something new into the rotation?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Ah? Well, if I needed something, like if something was
worn out or I spilled something on something, and I mean,
I'm not going to I'm not really suffering through here.
If I need to buy something new, I will, but
I generally don't want to, and oftentimes I'll just replace
something that I already have because I have found it
(18:49):
so freeing to not really care that much about new things.
I gave a lot of time and energy and money
to that for a big portion of my life. And
also to see that people don't really notice that was
great because then I was like, if they don't notice
this what I'm wearing, what else don't they notice in
(19:09):
my life, you know, I became much more free to
make decisions without worrying about Oh I wonder how this
person's going to think about this exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Well, we'll talk a little bit more about worrying when
we come back from our next break. Well, I am
back with Courtney Carver. She is the author of the
brand new book Gentle, which is about how to rest, more,
stress less live the life you actually want. We've been
talking about her project three thirty three Minimalist Wardrobe Challenge.
(19:43):
But one of the topics you cover in Gentle is
worrying less. And for people who worry a lot, sometimes
that feels a little bit like, well, now I have
one more thing to worry about, which is that I'm
supposed to be worrying less. So I wonder if there
are some practical tips you have for reducing the worry
load people who are prone to that.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Of course, I think that worrying can I mean, everybody
knows how much it can weigh us down, and of
course there will always be some worries for us. However,
I think that there are steps we can take to
not spin the worry around and get lost in the worry.
Things that work well for me are to write down
(20:24):
my worries. When I see them on paper, sometimes they
don't seem as real, and I also can see what
is within my control and what really isn't. Like if
there's something I can do to be proactive here and
shut the worry down, I want to do it. But
if there isn't, which is normally the case, then to
(20:46):
have to see it on paper helps. And I know
some people who don't enjoy writing will take like audio
notes and just speak their worry because otherwise, when it's
all living up in our head, it just goes around
and around and around, and it gets worse and worse,
and then we can't sleep and then it feels even
more worrisome. So for sure, I think writing it down
(21:10):
is a big help. And then to really reflect on
past worries and what's happening in our lives. Most of
the things that happen to us or in our lives
aren't the things we were worried about, which again very
freeing to be able to say, okay, maybe this is
(21:31):
a stretch. I don't have to worry about this. And
then probably the simplest thing to do is to distract
yourself to break yourself out of that worry loop. So
whether it's listening to a podcast, putting on one of
your favorite movies, anything to distract yourself from that line
of thinking can help.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Awesome awesome, Well, Courtney, what is something you have done
recently to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Woo? I think what I do almost every day now
to take a day from great to awesome is I
romanticize the things that are already happening in my life
and turn them into simple pleasures. For instance, having a
cup of coffee. I have a coffee every day, at
(22:18):
least one, and it used to just be that thing
that you had to get the fuel, But now it's
a whole thing, Like I really take great joy and
preparing it and having that first sip and noticing how
it smells, and maybe talking to my sister as I mentioned,
and she's having a coffee as well, So making it
(22:39):
really fun and happy. The little things that are already
happening every day really helps me elevate.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
A day wonderful. And what are you looking forward to
right now?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
What am I looking forward to? That's such a good question.
I mean, I think right now work wise, I'm looking
forward to bringing Gentle to the world, and maybe by
the time it's airs it will already be out. But
writing a book, as you know, takes a long time
from thinking about it to writing it to actually having
(23:16):
it ready for people to read. So I'm really looking
forward to people reading that.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Awesome Well, Courtney, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
They can find me at beMore with less dot com
or on Instagram at be more with Less.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Awesome Well, Courtney, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you to everyone who has been listening. If you
have feedback on this or any other episode of Before Breakfast,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
(23:58):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(24:21):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
episode is going to be a longer one part of
the series where I interview fascinating people about how they
take their days from great to awesome and any advice
(00:24):
they might have for the rest of us. So today
I am delighted to welcome Courtney Carver to the show.
Courtney has a devoted following for her teachings on minimalism
and simplicity. Lots of people have been inspired by her
project three thirty three Minimalist Fashion Challenge. She is the
author of the book Soulful Simplicity and the brand new
book Gentle, which bills itself about being how to rest
(00:48):
more stress less, live the life you actually want. Things.
We are all into here. So Courtney, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Thank you. I'm happy to chat with you again.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, well, maybe you could tell our listeners a little
bit more more about yourself.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Oh wow, you summed it up so nicely.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Well, I don't know, fun fact, anything else you want
to share.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
I live in Salt Lake City, and as you mentioned,
this is my third book and I've been writing and
kind of being in the online world since twenty ten,
which feels like two minutes ago and one hundred years ago.
So sometimes I don't know how to feel about that,
(01:31):
but I'm happy to be here and love, love, love
what I do, and have simplified my life over that
time span and even prior after being diagnosed with MS
in two thousand and six, which really is what propelled
me into looking at ways to have less stress in
my life and feel healthier and more content with what
(01:56):
I have.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah, well, let's talk about that with the MS angle there,
because you've written very openly about that, which I really appreciate.
But you had gotten your diagnosis, I mean, your health
was in not a great place I assume at the
point of getting the diagnosis, and you're facing down treatments
for that and uncertainty of how this is all going
to go. I mean, what made the link between that
(02:18):
and simplifying things? I mean what occurred there that made
you think, well, this is the direction I should be going.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Well, I never really thought that for a long time
because when I was diagnosed, I was working in advertising sales,
lots of deadlines. It was in magazines, so really quick
turnarounds and lots and lots of work, always over extending myself,
really wanting to achieve some level of success, although I
(02:49):
defined success much differently then than I do now. But
all that to say, just doing whatever I could to
keep climbing the ladder, and in addition to that, doing
everything else, raising a child, you know, having just life
like everyone else. And I was so exhausted, and by
(03:10):
the time I got sick, so scared and didn't know
what to do. I had really no idea what was
going to happen, other than I had done a little
bit of research about how people live well with MS,
and so much of what I found, outside of conventional
meds which I do take, is lowering stress. And I
(03:31):
wanted to win at that too, So I was like,
I'm going to get rid of all stress.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
We're going to win at the Low Stress Challenge here, That's.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Right, And that was my focus. And it took me
a little while to see that as I was reducing
the stressful things in my life, what I really was
doing was simplifying. I was removing things that really removed
me from my life, and that extended or started, I
guess with different food. I was experimenting with like what
(04:03):
made me feel really good, and that's changed over the years,
of course, but clutter, debt, job stress, like from every
different direction. As long as I could see it acknowledge it,
I could simplify it.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Yeah, and the good news you've been pretty stable then
for the last few years.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Is that correct? My neurologist often says, it's like your
MS is in suspended animation and I haven't had a
relapse or anything change on like MRI brain scans since
two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Wonderful. So well, that is a long time from now.
I was right in the past, I mean, is it
is a really long time. My oldest child was born
in two thousand and seven and we're shipping them off
to college, so it's it's very, very wonderful. What are
the things you write about related to sort of reducing
stress and monitoring your energy? I mean, people who are
(04:59):
dealing with chronic health conditions may have to approach this
from a different perspective than lots of other people. And
you've had a fascinating metaphor in your book, which I
think you've said came from elsewhere, but about spoons that
you only have so many spoons. Can you explain this
a little bit more right?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
It's called the spoon theory. And the person who kind
of identified this I always mispronounced her last name, which
I feel terrible about, but I believe her name is
Christine Miserindino. I might have actually said it right that time. Great,
but she was explaining to a friend how their energy
was different. And we always measure things like time and
(05:41):
money pretty easily, but we don't measure our energy. We
just spend it until we're completely spent and then hope
that it comes back the next day. And for some
people that works great for a while, but generally I
find chronic illness are not. That's hard to maintain that
like go do it all at all costs for a
(06:06):
very long time. And so with the spoon theory, you
kind of assign units of energy to each spoon, And
so you might have ten spoons for the day, and
getting breakfast ready and the kids off to school takes
two spoons, but on a day that you may be
low of energy, it might take four spoons. And so
(06:28):
it's just a way of minding how you are exerting
yourself during the day and maybe saving some for later.
Or saving some for you or not completely running out
every day.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah. Yeah, well it's a good thing to think about
in general, I mean managing energy and what you said,
like for a lot of people, having a good night's
sleep does in fact mostly charge you back up. I
mean I think about like plugging an iPad in overnight
and in the morning it is in fact charge and
you know that's great. But obviously if you're not completely
(07:02):
charging it, then you know you're not dealing with a
full load.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I guess that's it, right, right, Or if you have
other circumstances that where you naturally start out with lower energy.
You were asking kind of what I write about, and
on my site, I write about simplifying your life, anything
from becoming debt free to clutter free to cleaning out
your closet, things like that. At least that's what I
(07:28):
started writing about. And then the more that I talk
to people who were working on it and saw how
it was different from person to person is when I
really started thinking about different approaches, like moving more slowly,
being gentle, being good to yourself, conserving that energy, and
(07:49):
maybe not making the end goal the primary focus.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah, well, we're going to talk a little bit more
about what it means to be gentle. In just a minute,
we're going to take one quick ad break. Well, I
am back with Courtney Carver, who is the author of
the brand new book Gentle, which is about how to rest, more,
stress less live the life you actually want. So, Courtney,
(08:15):
what does it mean to be gentle? I mean you
talk in this book a lot about gentle you. What
is this state of gentle you?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Yeah, Well, the gentle you or the gentle me, I
think is who we are inherently. I think it's the
inside voice that we can connect with once we stop
being crazy busy all the time, once we start really
(08:43):
paying attention to how we feel and what we want
instead of listening to all of those outside voices and
kind of bowing to that external pressure that we all
face from time to time. So really checking in. And
I mean we spread this advice to each other all
the time, like, oh, be gentle with yourself, but how
(09:05):
often do we turn that on ourselves? And to take
it a step further, Once you learn how to connect
with the gentle you, you can start making decisions in
advance of having to be gentle, so that the steps
that you're taking are more gentle and feel better.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, what would be an example of that, Like a
decision you might make an advance in order to be
more gentle on yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Sure, like if I put it around decluttering, for instance,
which is something that I talk about a lot, is
I think people get really overwhelmed with making decisions about decluttering,
like what should I donate, what should I sell? What
should I throw away? What should I recycle? And those
decisions get to be so big that they often stop
us before we do anything, And so coming up with
(09:53):
a gentler approach makes a lot of sense. For instance,
instead of donating anything or making any of those decisions,
just hide it all, like, put it all in a box,
get it out of sight, and give yourself a minute.
See what it's like to live without all that extra stuff,
and then see if you even remember what when in
(10:13):
the boxes. In my experience, it's it doesn't happen very often,
and then it's so much easier to let go because
you're not dealing with that stress of the emotional connection
that you have from seeing things every single day.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah, exactly, Well, I wonder if you have any daily
routines so I know our listeners always love to hear
about people's morning routines or any other sort of daily
rituals they have in their life.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah. I'm pretty routined, actually, and especially in the morning.
I go to bed early, and I wake up pretty
early around usually around five five point thirty, and I
like to drink a lot of water first thing in
the morning, and then I write three pages of morning
(10:59):
pages Julia Cameron, and then from there it depends. Today.
For instance, I went to the gym. I have a
walking pad under my desk where I work, but sometimes
in the morning, if it's dark and cold out and
I don't want to go outside, I'll do a little
walk on the walking pad. And I also generally talk
(11:22):
to either or both my sister and my daughter in
the morning, so we have a really fun, just catch
up conversation. And it's just a great way to start
the day feeling really connected to people who I love,
and also having moved my thoughts off my brain and
moved my body a little bit. That's kind of the
beginning of my day.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Wonderful. And in the book Gentle you talk about like
if people want to build a morning routine, the problem
is often we're like Okay, Well, I'm going to start by,
you know, running six miles every day, getting up an
hour and a half earlier that I normally do. And
that seems to be setting ourselves up for failure? Can
you talk about it perhaps slightly more sustainable approach?
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Sure? So I started my morning routine when I shortly
after I was diagnosed with MS, when my daughter was
young and at home. She's still young, but you know,
like child, and I had a full time job working
for someone else, so my mornings were very limited, and
my morning routine started at five minutes. So I spent
(12:25):
five minutes stretching out on my yoga mat. And of
course it wasn't this like big yoga practice for five minutes. However,
it was five minutes of me getting out of bed
going to my yoga mat. And then a week later
I added five minutes of meditation, and then the week
after that five minutes of journaling. So I had this
(12:46):
fifteen minute routine after three weeks. And from there, and
this is where I often lose people. I added one
minute to each activity each week, only one minute. So
that's a three month and it's total, which sounds like nothing,
but I mean today I still have a morning routine
(13:07):
that I practice, even though it's not yoga meditate right.
Things are in different order. I bring new things in
depending on the season and how I feel. But I
have that framework, and I really believe it's because I
finally said, Okay, I am not the kind of person
who can start something at an hour or a half
hour or whatever it is. It has to be by
(13:27):
the minute. And that helped.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, well, and you get there eventually, like in three
minute chunks. You will eventually get to a longer period
of time, sure, and probably sustainably, Whereas if you start
with way more than you can take on at the beginning,
you will just not get there no matter. That's how
I did get there in six months than not.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Yeah, all my habit changes were like, okay, now we
have to go to the gym for an hour a
day or do the five miles of walking right away.
And it never lasted. And it was always this constant
like start a new habit and then it would fall off,
and then start something and then it would fall off.
And eventually all of that, like not being able to
(14:10):
hold on to it. I started to kind of look
at well, before I looked at changing how I've changed.
I beat myself up a lot, like, why aren't you
the most disciplined person that can do this? What's wrong
with you?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, well, it turns out not to be very productive
to do that.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
But let's talk about something that people have found incredibly useful,
your project three thirty three. So if somebody was hunting
around online, there's a good chance if they came across you,
they would come across this because I think a lot
of people have found this fashion challenge very inspiring. So
maybe you can talk a little bit about what that is.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Sure, Well, in the beginning of my decluttering days, I
didn't count closet things because I loved to shop for
my closet and I believed at the time that shopping
reduced stress for me. It felt good to go and
buy something new. And what I wasn't considering is all
(15:08):
the stress that came later with credit card debt and
having too much stuff. And so I decided to finally
take a good look at my closet. I knew that
my slow and steady approach wasn't really going to work
in this case, and I created a challenge where for
three months I would dress with thirty three items or less,
(15:28):
including clothing, jewelry, accessories, and shoes. And just to put
things in perspective, I wouldn't doubt that I had thirty
three pair of shoes when I started this, So it
was a big change for me. And I thought I
would only do it for three months, and I mean,
here we are fifteen years later and I'm still doing it.
(15:52):
So thirty three items every three months, and it's just
a really nice way to eliminate decision fatigue. Choose the
items that you want and need for that time period
and then forget about the rest. It sounds sometimes to
some people like that won't be enough. To others it
(16:14):
sounds like way too much. So if you just have
to kind of see for yourself, there's no real magic
to the number thirty three, So your number might be
thirty five or twenty five, but just play around with
it and see. And for people who often tell me
they could never get to thirty five, I just remind
them that it's a three month challenge, so you can
(16:35):
do it and just hide the rest of the stuff
for three months, and if you hate it along the
way or it's causing more stress, bring the stuff back.
But for me, it's reduced a lot of stress, spending
and really energy that I was devoting towards something that
I don't really care about.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah. Well, and the upside of it being three months,
I mean you can then plan seasonally, right, so it's
you know, you've got a lot of sweaters in that
thirty three items, whereas in the summer, and I presume
there are fewer sweaters in the thirty three items, And
you can also have some new excitement about your wardrobe
every three months. Then, because I assume you're switching a
(17:16):
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Out, well, you could, and some people do. I generally
tend not to switch a ton out, like obviously to
your point, I bring in more sweaters in the winter,
and I probably have more dresses in the summer. But
I would say like between fall and winter, I'm maybe
switching out five or six items and saying from like
spring to summer, so it's not a big shift. I
(17:39):
don't have thirty three different items for each season. But
I think you learn so much just after the first
three months about what you really enjoy, because chances are
a lot of people listening to this are already doing this.
But they still have all the other stuff in their closet,
but they're wearing their favorite things every day. But now
you don't have to look at that other stuff and
(18:01):
feel what I felt, which was stress for spending too
much seeing items that had tags still hanging, wondering what
I was thinking, or keeping things that people had given
me that I didn't like. So I'm much happier with
a teeny tiny wardrobe now.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, Well, what at this point would it take to
get you to buy something new? I mean, at what
point do you add something new into the rotation?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Ah? Well, if I needed something, like if something was
worn out or I spilled something on something, and I mean,
I'm not going to I'm not really suffering through here.
If I need to buy something new, I will, but
I generally don't want to, and oftentimes I'll just replace
something that I already have because I have found it
(18:49):
so freeing to not really care that much about new things.
I gave a lot of time and energy and money
to that for a big portion of my life. And
also to see that people don't really notice that was
great because then I was like, if they don't notice
this what I'm wearing, what else don't they notice in
(19:09):
my life, you know, I became much more free to
make decisions without worrying about Oh I wonder how this
person's going to think about this exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Well, we'll talk a little bit more about worrying when
we come back from our next break. Well, I am
back with Courtney Carver. She is the author of the
brand new book Gentle, which is about how to rest, more,
stress less live the life you actually want. We've been
talking about her project three thirty three Minimalist Wardrobe Challenge.
(19:43):
But one of the topics you cover in Gentle is
worrying less. And for people who worry a lot, sometimes
that feels a little bit like, well, now I have
one more thing to worry about, which is that I'm
supposed to be worrying less. So I wonder if there
are some practical tips you have for reducing the worry
load people who are prone to that.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Of course, I think that worrying can I mean, everybody
knows how much it can weigh us down, and of
course there will always be some worries for us. However,
I think that there are steps we can take to
not spin the worry around and get lost in the worry.
Things that work well for me are to write down
(20:24):
my worries. When I see them on paper, sometimes they
don't seem as real, and I also can see what
is within my control and what really isn't. Like if
there's something I can do to be proactive here and
shut the worry down, I want to do it. But
if there isn't, which is normally the case, then to
(20:46):
have to see it on paper helps. And I know
some people who don't enjoy writing will take like audio
notes and just speak their worry because otherwise, when it's
all living up in our head, it just goes around
and around and around, and it gets worse and worse,
and then we can't sleep and then it feels even
more worrisome. So for sure, I think writing it down
(21:10):
is a big help. And then to really reflect on
past worries and what's happening in our lives. Most of
the things that happen to us or in our lives
aren't the things we were worried about, which again very
freeing to be able to say, okay, maybe this is
(21:31):
a stretch. I don't have to worry about this. And
then probably the simplest thing to do is to distract
yourself to break yourself out of that worry loop. So
whether it's listening to a podcast, putting on one of
your favorite movies, anything to distract yourself from that line
of thinking can help.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Awesome awesome, Well, Courtney, what is something you have done
recently to take a day from great to awesome?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Woo? I think what I do almost every day now
to take a day from great to awesome is I
romanticize the things that are already happening in my life
and turn them into simple pleasures. For instance, having a
cup of coffee. I have a coffee every day, at
(22:18):
least one, and it used to just be that thing
that you had to get the fuel, But now it's
a whole thing, Like I really take great joy and
preparing it and having that first sip and noticing how
it smells, and maybe talking to my sister as I mentioned,
and she's having a coffee as well, So making it
(22:39):
really fun and happy. The little things that are already
happening every day really helps me elevate.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
A day wonderful. And what are you looking forward to
right now?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
What am I looking forward to? That's such a good question.
I mean, I think right now work wise, I'm looking
forward to bringing Gentle to the world, and maybe by
the time it's airs it will already be out. But
writing a book, as you know, takes a long time
from thinking about it to writing it to actually having
(23:16):
it ready for people to read. So I'm really looking
forward to people reading that.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Awesome Well, Courtney, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
They can find me at beMore with less dot com
or on Instagram at be more with Less.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Awesome Well, Courtney, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you to everyone who has been listening. If you
have feedback on this or any other episode of Before Breakfast,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for
(23:58):
listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback,
you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts
from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(24:21):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Before Breakfast News
Host
Laura Vanderkam
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