February 28, 2025 • 27 mins
Clearing out the closets of our lives isn't just about dust and old clothes; it’s about confronting the emotional and mental clutter we accumulate over time. On the latest His and Hers Podcast episode, we reflect on the age-old tradition of spring cleaning and its metaphorical application to our life's debris. Inspired by moments from the David Letterman Show and "The Big Bang Theory," our discussion serves as a reminder that our attachments to items and memories can be as sticky as the cobwebs we swipe away. We share personal stories that underscore the importance of not waiting for a special season to tackle the mess—mental or physical—that inhibits our growth.
The episode focuses on the metaphor of spring cleaning as a way to address emotional and mental clutter, encouraging listeners to evaluate the baggage they carry from their pasts. Through personal stories and reflections, the discussion emphasizes the importance of letting go of unproductive memories and ensuring that room is made for new growth and opportunities.
• Exploring the metaphor of spring cleaning in emotional and mental contexts
• Understanding the relationship between physical clutter and emotional baggage
• Sharing personal stories of attachment to past memories
• Employing questions to encourage self-reflection on clutter
• Examining the concept of the "pink elephant" as a symbol for unaddressed issues
• Discussing the consequences of keeping unresolved feelings and memories
• Offering strategies for emotional decluttering and personal growt
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome back to the His and Hers Podcast On the they
Call Me, mr U brand of showsand networks.
We thank you so much again forlistening to our show.
We're excited to be back withyou.
I'm your host, mru.
The queen is in the house, hi.
Well, we love all the supportwe're hearing from you guys On
all of our social mediaplatforms.
It's obvious that this show ismaking an impact to you guys and
(00:48):
we're excited about it.
We're hearing from alldifferent genres and all forms
and walks of life.
We're excited about it.
That means that we're making adifference in some way, shape or
form, so we're excited aboutthat.
If you have been enjoying theprevious episode, by all means
let us know what you think.
Drop comments, whether you findthose episodes on our YouTube
(01:08):
channel, if you have any audiofiles there, or on Apple
Podcasts, amazon Music, spotify,iheartradio and Pandora,
whether you find our stuff, oreven on our social media
platform like Facebook,instagram, twitter and LinkedIn.
But we're really excited aboutthis particular episode.
You know this is one of thoseepisodes that kind of get up in
(01:31):
your business, and I think mostof our shows do that anyway, so
it's not really a new thing, butthis one.
We call this episode SpringCleaning.
I don't know what springcleaning, what those words
indicate.
For you, what comes to mind,the imagery that comes to your
mind when you hear springcleaning.
For me, because of my mindsetand my personality, I feel like
(01:56):
spring cleaning is too late.
If I'm doing that right thenand waiting the whole three
months of the year before thatto just clean, I'm probably
doing something wrong.
I'm probably doing too much inother areas.
So spring cleaning shouldn't bethe big event in my household.
I think I've kind of alwaysfelt like that.
(02:18):
But it's a tradition that weknow in our society and people
relate to it.
It's a tradition that we knowin our society and people relate
to it, and they take thosetimes to get rid of old winter
clothes and perhaps donate themto some charitable organization
or give us something to have foryears that they haven't touched
, been in file cabinets andclosets somewhere, and boxes,
(02:39):
and they take the time to dothat.
Then no judgment, that that'swhat you do and it works for you
.
Keep doing what you're doing.
But when I think aboutSpringfield, I think about the
clutter of life.
I shared it on a previousepisode.
As a matter of fact, it shouldbe on our YouTube channel for
sure, but on all social mediaplatforms.
There was an old show that Iused to love.
(03:01):
It's not on anymore.
It used to be on NBC, calledthe David Letterman Show.
Now, honestly, every other partbut this segment of the show I
didn't really care too much for.
It came on at 12.35.
I remember that distinctively12.35 at night from Monday
through Friday.
Now that's way past my bedtime.
I would beg my mom andsometimes I would sneak in and
(03:24):
watch the TV.
Mom, sorry about that, butthat's just the truth.
I would wait for Johnny Carsonto go off and I would wait for
the David Letterman show at12.35 am.
Like I said, way past mybedtime.
I'm getting up in about five orsix hours to go to school, but
he had a show called DestroyingStuff and I'm like I was
(03:44):
infatuated with it.
I won't get into the wholething.
I got an episode out here thatgoes into more detail, but the
short of it is that he would geton a five-story building and
the live audience can seeeverything that's going on and
he would take stuff off thebuilding and throw it off on the
pavement below and watch itexplode.
Now, if you don't know't meetyou probably get why I like that
(04:05):
.
Oh my goodness.
But anyway for the record, thatepisode is called keep it clean
, life's debris.
If you are looking for it youcan find it on uh, they call me
mr you and the inspirationstation.
It's called keep it clean,life's debris.
But I would love he would dropbowling balls.
He would drop blenders.
He would drop kegs with screwsin it.
(04:27):
He would drop big melons, alltypes of melons.
He would drop those.
He would just drop Baskets fullof steel and glass vases I mean
anything you can think of thatcan make a big mess.
He would drop it on thebuilding and a live crowd would
cheer.
And I'm in my bed under mycovers at 1235 at night, all the
(04:51):
lights out, only lights and TVon, and I'm cheering too.
I'm loving it.
I don't know why.
I think I just like how thingsare made.
There's a show that I watchcalled how it's Made.
I just love the inner work.
I can't do a lot of that stuff.
I just look at the psychologyof why something is made, how it
works from an inner workingstandpoint.
I love to see all these bowlingballs, all these things.
(05:13):
I'm like what's inside of thesethings?
How did it get so hard andwatch them shatter and you learn
so much?
But the clutter of life is a lotharder to get rid of.
They can go and clean thatstuff up, but in your life it's
a lot harder.
What does debris even mean?
Essentially, it means it'sresidue from something that's
(05:33):
been broken or destroyed.
Debris is residue fromsomething that's been broken or
destroyed.
It also means scattered piecesthat's been accumulated over
time from your past.
Scattered pieces areaccumulated over time.
Those are the definitions ofdebris and we have those in our
(05:54):
life.
So spring cleaning is not thebest time to deal with all those
.
We need to deal with it on amore regular basis.
But can you recall having thatkind of clutter in the brain in
your life, or if you stillexperience that?
What, what happened, how, howto get there and how are you
dealing with it?
How are you handling it?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
well, I was a person.
I'm not gonna say I'm thatperson now, but I used to like
to keep everything um okay mymom.
I wanted a baby, um, a dollhousefor my babies.
Okay, um, but my mom, wecouldn't afford to get it.
So I created my own, and excuseme, and I took old shoe boxes,
(06:40):
little children's shoe boxes,and attached them to the wall
and turned each room into adifferent room in my doll's
house.
And I would save every scrap offabric I could find.
I would find save the spools ofthread so I can make like
(07:00):
little tables and put a piece ofpaper on top of it, or a lid
from a mayonnaise jar, or I wasjust being creative so I wanted
to keep everything I'm talkingmy caps off, soda bottles and
rocks, because I got to makethis Ground or this floor in one
of the rooms and my mom everyonce in a while everything would
(07:22):
disappear.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Wow, how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And I would have to start over because I'm the
youngest of 13 children, and sowe had a lot of people in the
house, so I couldn't keep allthe things that I wanted, so
they would disappear.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And I would have to start all over All by themselves
.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yes, but as my children grew up and I had
children, you know they startedkeeping things.
Every time I get ready to dothe laundry, I hear something
rolling in the dryer becausethey got a pocket full of rocks
or something.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
In my childhood, a pocket full of rocks.
That sounds about right, so Isaw and so in my childhood, a
pocket full of rocks.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That sounds about yes .
So I saw that pattern.
But then I saw how, when I keptthings, you know, my mom would
make them disappear.
But I was upset because theywere gone.
And then I saw a pattern.
As I got older I started holdingon to things, even in my memory
that would be a stumbling blockor a bondage, and I didn't
(08:31):
clean it out, I didn't get ridof it, I didn't deal with that
issue.
I just held on to it and say,you know, and not deal with it.
So it messed up relationships,it messed up different things in
my life because I was holdingon to the clutter of my past.
I was holding on to the clutterthat I think that somebody took
away from me.
(08:51):
But as I'm getting older I'mbeginning to evaluate how did I
get where I am right now, youknow?
And I need to get rid of someof those things because I can't
go forward holding on to all ofthe stuff of the past.
If that clutter is in my mind,in my emotions, in my heart, the
(09:14):
way that I build anything, theway that I try to express myself
, that little stuff seeps backout, just like those rocks came
out in that dryer, out of thatpocket that they thought was hid
.
It just showed back up and itmade a rattling sound in the
dryer.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
It made a mess.
That's awesome, though.
I love that.
I love that.
Were you done Good thought.
You know, I want to ask a seriesof questions throughout the
rest of this very brief episodetoday Because, you know, I feel
like people talk about the pinkelephant.
I mean, it's a funny saying,because if you got an elephant
(09:53):
in your house, no matter whatcolor it is, it's going to be
noticeable and something youhave to deal with.
But a pink elephant is justlike.
It's like brighter and it'slike even more so.
So I kind of get the idea, butwe got a lot of elephants in our
(10:13):
lives, a lot of debris, a lotof clutter, a lot of old stuff
that we hold on to.
It's like, why do we have this?
I'm gonna, I'm probably gonnaask a few questions or a handful
of questions throughout now andthe end of the episode just to
make us think a little bit, toponder some stuff, and maybe,
perhaps, if you have some ideasor some thoughts, you can share
it with us and let us know whatyou think.
Uh.
But you know, one question weshould ask is how long has it
(10:33):
been there?
I mean, just some times and Ialways feel like I think I'm a
pretty organized person.
I don't like.
I don't like mess.
But there's times where I willgo, and this is probably more
like 20 years ago.
To be honest with you, this isnot current, because I think I'm
a little bit more neurotic nowthan then.
(10:55):
I've kind of given myself overto it.
So I don't like all that junk.
But there were some times whereI would go into closets and that
kind of stuff.
I'm like man, I forgot I hadthis old stuff in here,
especially back home.
I forgot I even had this oldhat in here or this old bag full
(11:17):
of whatever.
I'm like what is this?
So for me, spring cleaning backthen it made sense because I
had stuff inside there for ayear.
I'm like what is this?
Why do I still have this?
So I had to learn how to get inthe habit of dumping it, and if
I didn't do it, mom would helpme out with it.
But how long has it been there?
The debris and the clutteryou're looking at how long has
(11:39):
it been there?
More than a year?
Has it been there more than twoyears?
Has it been five years?
How long has it been there?
Ask yourself this why was itintroduced?
Don't forget the definition ofdebris.
It's stuff accumulated overtime from your past.
Why was it introduced?
How did it get into your lifeand why do you still have it?
(12:03):
Why is it still there?
Is it difficult to get rid of?
If it is difficult, then whyDid the show that you and I
watched together?
It's mainly for comedy.
If you want a good laugh, we'llwatch it.
I know a lot of people don'tlike the show and the context of
the show.
That's fine.
It's not a regular basis, butevery once in a while we'll
throw on Big Bang Theory, andone of the episodes was about
(12:28):
one of the characters who had ahard time getting rid of his
stuff.
He had sentimental value to it.
Matter of fact, that's probablysomething that's done in two
episodes.
Two people I've heard that themetwice on that show but they had
a problem with getting rid oftheir stuff and they didn't want
anybody to take their stuff.
So the main character revealedthat he hid all of his stuff
into a storage locker.
(12:48):
He had a storage locker of allhis stuff for almost 30 years
worth of stuff that peoplethought he threw away.
He had it in the storageBecause 30 years worth of stuff
that people thought he threwaway.
He had it in the storagebecause he was so obsessed he
had it in the storage locker.
He couldn't get rid of it.
I'm talking about even a pen, atennis ball, something small
like that a golf ball.
He couldn't get rid of it, sohe would put it in the storage
locker and it would just fillfull of stuff.
So he paid money for storagejust to keep stuff that he would
(13:11):
not use, he would not touch.
He doesn't go back and look atit and reminisce over.
It's just that it was his stuffand he don't want to get rid of
it.
The point of all that is, ifit's difficult for you to get
rid of something, it could be agood time to ask yourself a
question why?
Why do you have an immediatestruggle?
(13:32):
Why do you have an anxietyattack?
At the moment You'reconsidering getting rid of a
specific thing I think it'sworth discussing, it's worth
talking about.
If you gotta talk to yourself,then by all means.
If you need to talk to acounselor, okay, whatever you
gotta do.
But why do you go into anxiety?
Why do you have an anxietyattack the minute you ponder
(13:55):
Getting rid of some old stuffFrom your past, from your old
life.
Why does that, I mean?
I think I think we understandthe reason why, but do you
listen today?
Do you know why you have thisstruggle and this challenge,
this immediate, strong challengethat comes upon you when it's
time for you to clean out yourlife and get rid of all this
clutter and debris in your life?
(14:15):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It made me think about elementary school and how
teachers have labeled you orspoken words over you that would
come back.
I even hear a lot of celebritiessay this teacher told me one
day and ever since then itreally hurt me or whatever the
(14:37):
negative thing was, and I thinkthat we feed into it a lot of
times because that's what webelieve about ourselves.
If we don't deal with it andthat becomes one of those
clutters you know that we havethat could trip us up and cause
us not to go forward and be thebest person we need to be, us
(14:59):
not to go forward and be thebest person we need to be.
And so for myself, you know, Ilook back on a lot of things
that was spoken over me becauseof the era that I grew up in and
the things that was going on insociety, and you have to find
out who you are and use thosethings as stepping stones, if
it's not a good thing, so thatyou can step up and begin to
build those things that are goodthose things that are good.
(15:22):
You use those as tools so thatyou can continue to climb higher
.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You know you're so smart, you're so funny.
I like that.
But these are questions we gotto ask ourselves and think about
this too.
The stuff, whether it be theclutter, the memory, the debris
that you're holding on to, thatyou refuse, for whatever reason,
to clean up what does it costyou To not clean it up?
(15:48):
Because there's a cost Forevery decision that we make.
You lose something when youdon't Take care of these issues
in your life.
I know this with a certaintybecause there was a time in my
life I'll probably say withinthe last five years or somewhere
around there where I had to doa bit of a cleaning.
(16:10):
It wasn't a house cleaning perse, but more of a spiritual
house cleaning.
I had to get rid of some stuffin my life that did not belong,
that didn't need to be there anylonger.
It was attachments to old stuffand old people, and I had to
get that stuff out of my life,remove the memory and all that
stuff.
But part of that wasrecognizing that I was paying
the cost if I didn't do it.
(16:31):
And so when people make or facethe big decisions, people
always say, okay, what's thebenefit?
Okay, you got to ask yourselfthe other side, okay, what's the
detriment to you if you don'tdo it?
You can ask both sides of thatquestion, because if you don't
do it, what's going to happen?
You stay the same, but whatelse happens?
What do you lose in the process?
Does your marriage suffer?
(16:54):
Does your relationship withyour kids suffer?
If you don't make this bigdecision?
Does your opportunity forsuccess in a particular area,
maybe in business or in someplace in your life, suffer?
Also, if you don't make thedecision, there's a cost to
keeping clutter in your life.
There's a cost to keepingdebris in your life, in your
(17:16):
life.
We believe, as believers, thatwhen we open the door and make
room for God in our life, thathe will not only inhabit it, but
he will also bring provisionand increase.
We believe that If we don'thave room in our life, then we
don't have what we call capacity.
If we don't have capacity, thenwe can't expect to have all
these things added.
I know people who don't havethe capacity to do anything for
anybody, but they wanteverything.
(17:37):
They want to have a house, theywant to have a car, they want
to get blessed with this, theywant to have a husband or they
want to have a wife.
They want to have this or thatand they don't have the capacity
to do anything for anybodyright now in their life.
Anything that you ask them todo is a burden.
I don't have time, I don't haveroom, I don't have time, I
don't have room, I don't haveblah, blah, blah.
But they want to have morethings given to them.
(18:00):
That doesn't make any sense.
Either you have the room for itor you don't.
Either you have the capacity oryou don't.
The Bible said if you give, youshall receive.
In good measure.
Pressed down, shaken together,running over, shall men give
unto you.
So if you give, you're going toreceive back.
So if you don't have thecapacity to give, how can you
receive?
It don't make no sense.
So what does it cost you tokeep that stuff in your life?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I want to say something right there.
It costs me $110 a month.
What?
When we first got married?
Well, after a few years, and wewere getting ready to move to
Florida and I love arts andcrafts and all this stuff, and
so we got me a storage, paid$110 a month, because I didn't
(18:51):
want to throw away my magazines,wow.
And I said, yusef, why did youlet me do?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
this.
Ho ho, ho, ho ho.
Why did you let me do that?
Did I do what?
When I look?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
back I said why did you let me do that?
You said because you werecarrying your brokenness.
Wow, because I hid a lot behindthe things that I could do with
my hands, because I wasn'tdealing with anything
spiritually or emotionally.
So I took all my stuff becausethat was my hiding place.
(19:24):
I took my arts and my crafts andmy old magazines because I had
that monthly subscription to mycraft partners and, hey, I kept
every page.
But when I began to startdealing with it and I was asking
, you said, why did you let medo that?
I began to tear out the stuffthat I needed, things that I was
(19:47):
working on a little steps thatI wanted to remember how to do,
and I took out that page and Iwas able to throw away the rest.
And so I began to do that in mylife because that was like a
true example of what I wasdealing with.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
No, that's really good.
That's really good.
It's funny because like and yousee it on TV a lot too, but it
happens in your real life toothat those of you guys that are
listening to us, I'm almostpositive you experienced this at
some point in your life and yougot to own that because you
know it did.
It really happened.
But you know you were havingsomebody special come over.
I don't care if it was a parent, maybe it was a friend from out
(20:23):
of town or old high schoolfriend or some important person
in your life come in and staywith you for a few days or just
come to visit you for the day.
Tell me you didn't go and takejunk that you had in your house
and put it in some closet,somewhere where nobody can see
it.
Tell me that's not what you did.
You know you did it.
You know a company is comingover and you try to hide
(20:45):
whatever that stuff is and putit out of sight because you
don't want to be embarrassed.
So if you think that you'd beembarrassed because your friend
or family will see it, whydoesn't it embarrass you when
they're not here?
Yeah, and you still say how didyour heart get so calloused that
it doesn't bother you, thatthis junk has been here in your
(21:06):
life every day when you ain'thad no company over and you
didn't even think about movingit or putting it in the dump or
giving it to some kind ofcharitable organization or
whatever goodwill or whatever.
Why had it crossed your mind?
That's scary.
That's something we evaluatepersonally within ourselves,
(21:27):
because when somebody comes overyou, you would never leave it
out.
It would never cross your mindto even consider leaving it
within sight so they can see it,because it would be
embarrassing, it would paint youin a negative light and you
wouldn't want that.
But you stay in a negativelight when you're not here and
you're good with it.
How can that be?
(21:47):
So what does that indicateabout us?
It's just something to thinkabout.
This is a lot of deep stuff.
It's not about spring cleaningand cleaning up your house.
This is really about a lot more.
But any additional thoughts onthis, anything that comes to
mind for you?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
It made me think about how sometimes we don't
want to deal with what's there.
You know, um, I have theseboxes of pictures and I look
back over the times I mean yearsof pictures, and it was like
every time I look at them therewere certain things going on in
my life that remind me of thoseseasons.
(22:26):
Some of them were sad Some ofthem were.
I was really angry.
There were people leaving outof my life.
There were people that wascoming in my life.
That was new, because I had totransition, because of what
someone else did.
I mean, it's all of theseemotions and why bring them all
(22:46):
up if I'm not ready to deal withthem?
So I just box them and put themaway and I think that's kind of
like the clutter.
Sometimes we don't really feellike doing them, because if I go
in that room and I startpulling this out and that out,
then I know that it's got scarson the wall.
I took down all those pictures.
Now I got a saying, now I gotto paint and it just turns into
(23:10):
a whole project.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And we're not ready to work on that project because
we got too many other thingsthat you know we're staying busy
doing to keep that covered up.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Wow, that's powerful stuff, man.
I don't know how this hits youguys, but I hope that it impacts
you in a way that matters,because, honestly, this isn't
just about spring cleaning andcleaning your house and sweeping
and mopping and cleaningbaseboards.
This is about something a lotdeeper than that, because we
(23:43):
carry I mean, we're reallycomplex beings and I think we
should know that.
If you don't, you should knowthat by now but we got a lot of
stuff on us.
We carry a lot of stuff.
We deal with a lot of pressuresand anxieties and challenges,
and we have a lot of stuff on usand we need to be free.
At the most.
Our goal should be to be whole.
Yes, our goal should be to bewhole.
Yes, and we can do that.
We got all that debris in ourlife.
We got to clean that junk outand we got to keep it clean.
(24:06):
We got to maintain it.
We got to keep it up, fillourselves with the right stuff
that helps us, that feeds us andpropels us to higher heights
and greater destinies, and wejust can't afford to have all
that junk in our life anymore.
I don't care what you wentthrough before and how big your
challenge was back then.
You don't have to make amemorial in your current life of
(24:27):
the stuff you've been through.
You could have a testimony andtell it, but you've got to have
no pictures to go with it.
You don't have to have theclothes to go with it.
I wore the clothes while I wasgoing through the struggle.
Nobody needs to see that.
Just tell your testimony.
If you got one, you got to geteach other the clothes and shoes
(24:48):
you wore.
Pictures of how your headlooked when you was in the
struggle.
Nobody needs to know that stuff.
We got to read your journal.
We got to do none of that stuffthat you were doing during
these hard times.
If it's burning a hole in yourcloset, do something else with
it.
Clear the clutter out so thatyou can be free.
So I really hope that thisimpacts you.
There's a lot in thisdiscussion but not enough time
for that today, but we'regrateful that you were able to
(25:10):
listen to us.
Thank you from the queen andmyself for continuing support.
They call me Mr U Brand ofShows and the His and Hers
Podcast, which we do togetherevery four Fridays.
Sometimes a little more depends, but thanks for listening again
.
We really appreciate it and wehope you enjoy all of our brand
of shows, but especially our hisand hers podcasts.
Have a great day, guys.
(25:53):
Thank you.
Welcome back to the His and Hers Podcast On the they
Call Me, mr U brand of showsand networks.
We thank you so much again forlistening to our show.
We're excited to be back withyou.
I'm your host, mru.
The queen is in the house, hi.
Well, we love all the supportwe're hearing from you guys On
all of our social mediaplatforms.
It's obvious that this show ismaking an impact to you guys and
(00:48):
we're excited about it.
We're hearing from alldifferent genres and all forms
and walks of life.
We're excited about it.
That means that we're making adifference in some way, shape or
form, so we're excited aboutthat.
If you have been enjoying theprevious episode, by all means
let us know what you think.
Drop comments, whether you findthose episodes on our YouTube
(01:08):
channel, if you have any audiofiles there, or on Apple
Podcasts, amazon Music, spotify,iheartradio and Pandora,
whether you find our stuff, oreven on our social media
platform like Facebook,instagram, twitter and LinkedIn.
But we're really excited aboutthis particular episode.
You know this is one of thoseepisodes that kind of get up in
(01:31):
your business, and I think mostof our shows do that anyway, so
it's not really a new thing, butthis one.
We call this episode SpringCleaning.
I don't know what springcleaning, what those words
indicate.
For you, what comes to mind,the imagery that comes to your
mind when you hear springcleaning.
For me, because of my mindsetand my personality, I feel like
(01:56):
spring cleaning is too late.
If I'm doing that right thenand waiting the whole three
months of the year before thatto just clean, I'm probably
doing something wrong.
I'm probably doing too much inother areas.
So spring cleaning shouldn't bethe big event in my household.
I think I've kind of alwaysfelt like that.
(02:18):
But it's a tradition that weknow in our society and people
relate to it.
It's a tradition that we knowin our society and people relate
to it, and they take thosetimes to get rid of old winter
clothes and perhaps donate themto some charitable organization
or give us something to have foryears that they haven't touched
, been in file cabinets andclosets somewhere, and boxes,
(02:39):
and they take the time to dothat.
Then no judgment, that that'swhat you do and it works for you
.
Keep doing what you're doing.
But when I think aboutSpringfield, I think about the
clutter of life.
I shared it on a previousepisode.
As a matter of fact, it shouldbe on our YouTube channel for
sure, but on all social mediaplatforms.
There was an old show that Iused to love.
(03:01):
It's not on anymore.
It used to be on NBC, calledthe David Letterman Show.
Now, honestly, every other partbut this segment of the show I
didn't really care too much for.
It came on at 12.35.
I remember that distinctively12.35 at night from Monday
through Friday.
Now that's way past my bedtime.
I would beg my mom andsometimes I would sneak in and
(03:24):
watch the TV.
Mom, sorry about that, butthat's just the truth.
I would wait for Johnny Carsonto go off and I would wait for
the David Letterman show at12.35 am.
Like I said, way past mybedtime.
I'm getting up in about five orsix hours to go to school, but
he had a show called DestroyingStuff and I'm like I was
(03:44):
infatuated with it.
I won't get into the wholething.
I got an episode out here thatgoes into more detail, but the
short of it is that he would geton a five-story building and
the live audience can seeeverything that's going on and
he would take stuff off thebuilding and throw it off on the
pavement below and watch itexplode.
Now, if you don't know't meetyou probably get why I like that
(04:05):
.
Oh my goodness.
But anyway for the record, thatepisode is called keep it clean
, life's debris.
If you are looking for it youcan find it on uh, they call me
mr you and the inspirationstation.
It's called keep it clean,life's debris.
But I would love he would dropbowling balls.
He would drop blenders.
He would drop kegs with screwsin it.
(04:27):
He would drop big melons, alltypes of melons.
He would drop those.
He would just drop Baskets fullof steel and glass vases I mean
anything you can think of thatcan make a big mess.
He would drop it on thebuilding and a live crowd would
cheer.
And I'm in my bed under mycovers at 1235 at night, all the
(04:51):
lights out, only lights and TVon, and I'm cheering too.
I'm loving it.
I don't know why.
I think I just like how thingsare made.
There's a show that I watchcalled how it's Made.
I just love the inner work.
I can't do a lot of that stuff.
I just look at the psychologyof why something is made, how it
works from an inner workingstandpoint.
I love to see all these bowlingballs, all these things.
(05:13):
I'm like what's inside of thesethings?
How did it get so hard andwatch them shatter and you learn
so much?
But the clutter of life is a lotharder to get rid of.
They can go and clean thatstuff up, but in your life it's
a lot harder.
What does debris even mean?
Essentially, it means it'sresidue from something that's
(05:33):
been broken or destroyed.
Debris is residue fromsomething that's been broken or
destroyed.
It also means scattered piecesthat's been accumulated over
time from your past.
Scattered pieces areaccumulated over time.
Those are the definitions ofdebris and we have those in our
(05:54):
life.
So spring cleaning is not thebest time to deal with all those
.
We need to deal with it on amore regular basis.
But can you recall having thatkind of clutter in the brain in
your life, or if you stillexperience that?
What, what happened, how, howto get there and how are you
dealing with it?
How are you handling it?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
well, I was a person.
I'm not gonna say I'm thatperson now, but I used to like
to keep everything um okay mymom.
I wanted a baby, um, a dollhousefor my babies.
Okay, um, but my mom, wecouldn't afford to get it.
So I created my own, and excuseme, and I took old shoe boxes,
(06:40):
little children's shoe boxes,and attached them to the wall
and turned each room into adifferent room in my doll's
house.
And I would save every scrap offabric I could find.
I would find save the spools ofthread so I can make like
(07:00):
little tables and put a piece ofpaper on top of it, or a lid
from a mayonnaise jar, or I wasjust being creative so I wanted
to keep everything I'm talkingmy caps off, soda bottles and
rocks, because I got to makethis Ground or this floor in one
of the rooms and my mom everyonce in a while everything would
(07:22):
disappear.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Wow, how did that happen?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And I would have to start over because I'm the
youngest of 13 children, and sowe had a lot of people in the
house, so I couldn't keep allthe things that I wanted, so
they would disappear.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
And I would have to start all over All by themselves
.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yes, but as my children grew up and I had
children, you know they startedkeeping things.
Every time I get ready to dothe laundry, I hear something
rolling in the dryer becausethey got a pocket full of rocks
or something.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
In my childhood, a pocket full of rocks.
That sounds about right, so Isaw and so in my childhood, a
pocket full of rocks.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
That sounds about yes .
So I saw that pattern.
But then I saw how, when I keptthings, you know, my mom would
make them disappear.
But I was upset because theywere gone.
And then I saw a pattern.
As I got older I started holdingon to things, even in my memory
that would be a stumbling blockor a bondage, and I didn't
(08:31):
clean it out, I didn't get ridof it, I didn't deal with that
issue.
I just held on to it and say,you know, and not deal with it.
So it messed up relationships,it messed up different things in
my life because I was holdingon to the clutter of my past.
I was holding on to the clutterthat I think that somebody took
away from me.
(08:51):
But as I'm getting older I'mbeginning to evaluate how did I
get where I am right now, youknow?
And I need to get rid of someof those things because I can't
go forward holding on to all ofthe stuff of the past.
If that clutter is in my mind,in my emotions, in my heart, the
(09:14):
way that I build anything, theway that I try to express myself
, that little stuff seeps backout, just like those rocks came
out in that dryer, out of thatpocket that they thought was hid
.
It just showed back up and itmade a rattling sound in the
dryer.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
It made a mess.
That's awesome, though.
I love that.
I love that.
Were you done Good thought.
You know, I want to ask a seriesof questions throughout the
rest of this very brief episodetoday Because, you know, I feel
like people talk about the pinkelephant.
I mean, it's a funny saying,because if you got an elephant
(09:53):
in your house, no matter whatcolor it is, it's going to be
noticeable and something youhave to deal with.
But a pink elephant is justlike.
It's like brighter and it'slike even more so.
So I kind of get the idea, butwe got a lot of elephants in our
(10:13):
lives, a lot of debris, a lotof clutter, a lot of old stuff
that we hold on to.
It's like, why do we have this?
I'm gonna, I'm probably gonnaask a few questions or a handful
of questions throughout now andthe end of the episode just to
make us think a little bit, toponder some stuff, and maybe,
perhaps, if you have some ideasor some thoughts, you can share
it with us and let us know whatyou think.
Uh.
But you know, one question weshould ask is how long has it
(10:33):
been there?
I mean, just some times and Ialways feel like I think I'm a
pretty organized person.
I don't like.
I don't like mess.
But there's times where I willgo, and this is probably more
like 20 years ago.
To be honest with you, this isnot current, because I think I'm
a little bit more neurotic nowthan then.
(10:55):
I've kind of given myself overto it.
So I don't like all that junk.
But there were some times whereI would go into closets and that
kind of stuff.
I'm like man, I forgot I hadthis old stuff in here,
especially back home.
I forgot I even had this oldhat in here or this old bag full
(11:17):
of whatever.
I'm like what is this?
So for me, spring cleaning backthen it made sense because I
had stuff inside there for ayear.
I'm like what is this?
Why do I still have this?
So I had to learn how to get inthe habit of dumping it, and if
I didn't do it, mom would helpme out with it.
But how long has it been there?
The debris and the clutteryou're looking at how long has
(11:39):
it been there?
More than a year?
Has it been there more than twoyears?
Has it been five years?
How long has it been there?
Ask yourself this why was itintroduced?
Don't forget the definition ofdebris.
It's stuff accumulated overtime from your past.
Why was it introduced?
How did it get into your lifeand why do you still have it?
(12:03):
Why is it still there?
Is it difficult to get rid of?
If it is difficult, then whyDid the show that you and I
watched together?
It's mainly for comedy.
If you want a good laugh, we'llwatch it.
I know a lot of people don'tlike the show and the context of
the show.
That's fine.
It's not a regular basis, butevery once in a while we'll
throw on Big Bang Theory, andone of the episodes was about
(12:28):
one of the characters who had ahard time getting rid of his
stuff.
He had sentimental value to it.
Matter of fact, that's probablysomething that's done in two
episodes.
Two people I've heard that themetwice on that show but they had
a problem with getting rid oftheir stuff and they didn't want
anybody to take their stuff.
So the main character revealedthat he hid all of his stuff
into a storage locker.
(12:48):
He had a storage locker of allhis stuff for almost 30 years
worth of stuff that peoplethought he threw away.
He had it in the storageBecause 30 years worth of stuff
that people thought he threwaway.
He had it in the storagebecause he was so obsessed he
had it in the storage locker.
He couldn't get rid of it.
I'm talking about even a pen, atennis ball, something small
like that a golf ball.
He couldn't get rid of it, sohe would put it in the storage
locker and it would just fillfull of stuff.
So he paid money for storagejust to keep stuff that he would
(13:11):
not use, he would not touch.
He doesn't go back and look atit and reminisce over.
It's just that it was his stuffand he don't want to get rid of
it.
The point of all that is, ifit's difficult for you to get
rid of something, it could be agood time to ask yourself a
question why?
Why do you have an immediatestruggle?
(13:32):
Why do you have an anxietyattack?
At the moment You'reconsidering getting rid of a
specific thing I think it'sworth discussing, it's worth
talking about.
If you gotta talk to yourself,then by all means.
If you need to talk to acounselor, okay, whatever you
gotta do.
But why do you go into anxiety?
Why do you have an anxietyattack the minute you ponder
(13:55):
Getting rid of some old stuffFrom your past, from your old
life.
Why does that, I mean?
I think I think we understandthe reason why, but do you
listen today?
Do you know why you have thisstruggle and this challenge,
this immediate, strong challengethat comes upon you when it's
time for you to clean out yourlife and get rid of all this
clutter and debris in your life?
(14:15):
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It made me think about elementary school and how
teachers have labeled you orspoken words over you that would
come back.
I even hear a lot of celebritiessay this teacher told me one
day and ever since then itreally hurt me or whatever the
(14:37):
negative thing was, and I thinkthat we feed into it a lot of
times because that's what webelieve about ourselves.
If we don't deal with it andthat becomes one of those
clutters you know that we havethat could trip us up and cause
us not to go forward and be thebest person we need to be, us
(14:59):
not to go forward and be thebest person we need to be.
And so for myself, you know, Ilook back on a lot of things
that was spoken over me becauseof the era that I grew up in and
the things that was going on insociety, and you have to find
out who you are and use thosethings as stepping stones, if
it's not a good thing, so thatyou can step up and begin to
build those things that are goodthose things that are good.
(15:22):
You use those as tools so thatyou can continue to climb higher
.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You know you're so smart, you're so funny.
I like that.
But these are questions we gotto ask ourselves and think about
this too.
The stuff, whether it be theclutter, the memory, the debris
that you're holding on to, thatyou refuse, for whatever reason,
to clean up what does it costyou To not clean it up?
(15:48):
Because there's a cost Forevery decision that we make.
You lose something when youdon't Take care of these issues
in your life.
I know this with a certaintybecause there was a time in my
life I'll probably say withinthe last five years or somewhere
around there where I had to doa bit of a cleaning.
(16:10):
It wasn't a house cleaning perse, but more of a spiritual
house cleaning.
I had to get rid of some stuffin my life that did not belong,
that didn't need to be there anylonger.
It was attachments to old stuffand old people, and I had to
get that stuff out of my life,remove the memory and all that
stuff.
But part of that wasrecognizing that I was paying
the cost if I didn't do it.
(16:31):
And so when people make or facethe big decisions, people
always say, okay, what's thebenefit?
Okay, you got to ask yourselfthe other side, okay, what's the
detriment to you if you don'tdo it?
You can ask both sides of thatquestion, because if you don't
do it, what's going to happen?
You stay the same, but whatelse happens?
What do you lose in the process?
Does your marriage suffer?
(16:54):
Does your relationship withyour kids suffer?
If you don't make this bigdecision?
Does your opportunity forsuccess in a particular area,
maybe in business or in someplace in your life, suffer?
Also, if you don't make thedecision, there's a cost to
keeping clutter in your life.
There's a cost to keepingdebris in your life, in your
(17:16):
life.
We believe, as believers, thatwhen we open the door and make
room for God in our life, thathe will not only inhabit it, but
he will also bring provisionand increase.
We believe that If we don'thave room in our life, then we
don't have what we call capacity.
If we don't have capacity, thenwe can't expect to have all
these things added.
I know people who don't havethe capacity to do anything for
anybody, but they wanteverything.
(17:37):
They want to have a house, theywant to have a car, they want
to get blessed with this, theywant to have a husband or they
want to have a wife.
They want to have this or thatand they don't have the capacity
to do anything for anybodyright now in their life.
Anything that you ask them todo is a burden.
I don't have time, I don't haveroom, I don't have time, I
don't have room, I don't haveblah, blah, blah.
But they want to have morethings given to them.
(18:00):
That doesn't make any sense.
Either you have the room for itor you don't.
Either you have the capacity oryou don't.
The Bible said if you give, youshall receive.
In good measure.
Pressed down, shaken together,running over, shall men give
unto you.
So if you give, you're going toreceive back.
So if you don't have thecapacity to give, how can you
receive?
It don't make no sense.
So what does it cost you tokeep that stuff in your life?
Speaker 2 (18:25):
I want to say something right there.
It costs me $110 a month.
What?
When we first got married?
Well, after a few years, and wewere getting ready to move to
Florida and I love arts andcrafts and all this stuff, and
so we got me a storage, paid$110 a month, because I didn't
(18:51):
want to throw away my magazines,wow.
And I said, yusef, why did youlet me do?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
this.
Ho ho, ho, ho ho.
Why did you let me do that?
Did I do what?
When I look?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
back I said why did you let me do that?
You said because you werecarrying your brokenness.
Wow, because I hid a lot behindthe things that I could do with
my hands, because I wasn'tdealing with anything
spiritually or emotionally.
So I took all my stuff becausethat was my hiding place.
(19:24):
I took my arts and my crafts andmy old magazines because I had
that monthly subscription to mycraft partners and, hey, I kept
every page.
But when I began to startdealing with it and I was asking
, you said, why did you let medo that?
I began to tear out the stuffthat I needed, things that I was
(19:47):
working on a little steps thatI wanted to remember how to do,
and I took out that page and Iwas able to throw away the rest.
And so I began to do that in mylife because that was like a
true example of what I wasdealing with.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
No, that's really good.
That's really good.
It's funny because like and yousee it on TV a lot too, but it
happens in your real life toothat those of you guys that are
listening to us, I'm almostpositive you experienced this at
some point in your life and yougot to own that because you
know it did.
It really happened.
But you know you were havingsomebody special come over.
I don't care if it was a parent, maybe it was a friend from out
(20:23):
of town or old high schoolfriend or some important person
in your life come in and staywith you for a few days or just
come to visit you for the day.
Tell me you didn't go and takejunk that you had in your house
and put it in some closet,somewhere where nobody can see
it.
Tell me that's not what you did.
You know you did it.
You know a company is comingover and you try to hide
(20:45):
whatever that stuff is and putit out of sight because you
don't want to be embarrassed.
So if you think that you'd beembarrassed because your friend
or family will see it, whydoesn't it embarrass you when
they're not here?
Yeah, and you still say how didyour heart get so calloused that
it doesn't bother you, thatthis junk has been here in your
(21:06):
life every day when you ain'thad no company over and you
didn't even think about movingit or putting it in the dump or
giving it to some kind ofcharitable organization or
whatever goodwill or whatever.
Why had it crossed your mind?
That's scary.
That's something we evaluatepersonally within ourselves,
(21:27):
because when somebody comes overyou, you would never leave it
out.
It would never cross your mindto even consider leaving it
within sight so they can see it,because it would be
embarrassing, it would paint youin a negative light and you
wouldn't want that.
But you stay in a negativelight when you're not here and
you're good with it.
How can that be?
(21:47):
So what does that indicateabout us?
It's just something to thinkabout.
This is a lot of deep stuff.
It's not about spring cleaningand cleaning up your house.
This is really about a lot more.
But any additional thoughts onthis, anything that comes to
mind for you?
Speaker 2 (22:04):
It made me think about how sometimes we don't
want to deal with what's there.
You know, um, I have theseboxes of pictures and I look
back over the times I mean yearsof pictures, and it was like
every time I look at them therewere certain things going on in
my life that remind me of thoseseasons.
(22:26):
Some of them were sad Some ofthem were.
I was really angry.
There were people leaving outof my life.
There were people that wascoming in my life.
That was new, because I had totransition, because of what
someone else did.
I mean, it's all of theseemotions and why bring them all
(22:46):
up if I'm not ready to deal withthem?
So I just box them and put themaway and I think that's kind of
like the clutter.
Sometimes we don't really feellike doing them, because if I go
in that room and I startpulling this out and that out,
then I know that it's got scarson the wall.
I took down all those pictures.
Now I got a saying, now I gotto paint and it just turns into
(23:10):
a whole project.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
And we're not ready to work on that project because
we got too many other thingsthat you know we're staying busy
doing to keep that covered up.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Wow, that's powerful stuff, man.
I don't know how this hits youguys, but I hope that it impacts
you in a way that matters,because, honestly, this isn't
just about spring cleaning andcleaning your house and sweeping
and mopping and cleaningbaseboards.
This is about something a lotdeeper than that, because we
(23:43):
carry I mean, we're reallycomplex beings and I think we
should know that.
If you don't, you should knowthat by now but we got a lot of
stuff on us.
We carry a lot of stuff.
We deal with a lot of pressuresand anxieties and challenges,
and we have a lot of stuff on usand we need to be free.
At the most.
Our goal should be to be whole.
Yes, our goal should be to bewhole.
Yes, and we can do that.
We got all that debris in ourlife.
We got to clean that junk outand we got to keep it clean.
(24:06):
We got to maintain it.
We got to keep it up, fillourselves with the right stuff
that helps us, that feeds us andpropels us to higher heights
and greater destinies, and wejust can't afford to have all
that junk in our life anymore.
I don't care what you wentthrough before and how big your
challenge was back then.
You don't have to make amemorial in your current life of
(24:27):
the stuff you've been through.
You could have a testimony andtell it, but you've got to have
no pictures to go with it.
You don't have to have theclothes to go with it.
I wore the clothes while I wasgoing through the struggle.
Nobody needs to see that.
Just tell your testimony.
If you got one, you got to geteach other the clothes and shoes
(24:48):
you wore.
Pictures of how your headlooked when you was in the
struggle.
Nobody needs to know that stuff.
We got to read your journal.
We got to do none of that stuffthat you were doing during
these hard times.
If it's burning a hole in yourcloset, do something else with
it.
Clear the clutter out so thatyou can be free.
So I really hope that thisimpacts you.
There's a lot in thisdiscussion but not enough time
for that today, but we'regrateful that you were able to
(25:10):
listen to us.
Thank you from the queen andmyself for continuing support.
They call me Mr U Brand ofShows and the His and Hers
Podcast, which we do togetherevery four Fridays.
Sometimes a little more depends, but thanks for listening again
.
We really appreciate it and wehope you enjoy all of our brand
of shows, but especially our hisand hers podcasts.
Have a great day, guys.
(25:53):
Thank you.
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