The Joy of Less: Finding More in Simplicity With Courtney Carver | Ep. 139

Foreign.

Hey Hadley, I think giving our all is highly overrated.

What about you?

Oof.

What a, what a thing to say. And I would, I would follow that up with. Consistency is so much more important than intensity.

Oh, girl. You guys, we just had the most beautiful conversation with Courtney Carver. And just because her writing is so beautiful and her bio, I think describes her personality so beautifully, I'm going to just read you just a teeny little excerpt from this bio. So it says Courtney Carver writes things. She wrote a book called Soulful Simplicity and the Simplicity blog, be more with less.com she shares things that make her laugh and cry on Instagram at Be More with Less. She doesn't know her Myers Briggs type, but she knows she's an introvert because she needs to be free from humans several times a day. Bracket cats and dogs are always welcome. And aside from her seasonal wardrobe, she doesn't count her things. Courtney is the author of her brand new book, Gentle rest more, more stress less and live the life you actually want. She's also authored other works such as Project 333 in Soulful Simplicity. And you can connect with her on her website, bmore with less.com and of course on Instagram at Be More with Less. And I'm really, really excited for y' all to hear this conversation. What for you hads what stuck out?

I mean there were so many things that she said that I was like, wait, that's a whole, that's a whole thing that we need to unpack like completely because, because there were so many pieces of the conversation where she just dropped this wisdom that was totally, that's totally counter to how we think in our society. And so there are, I mean for me and I talk about this stuff like a lot of the stuff that she was saying, like this is my jam. I do a lot of this stuff with my clients. But the way that she communicates things, I had a bunch of mind blowing moments. I was like, oh yes, that it's so good.

Hadley and I were both writing notes down.

Yeah.

Actually I always, when I'm writing notes, I always then like lift my pen so that they can see the visual cue. That that's like why I've like looked away so much is I don't want them to think I'm like Instagram scrolling or something that like actually I'm so engaged I can't not write. I don't know if you ever noticed that. I just like casually like I'm leaning on my pen right here.

I love that.

That's so you're going to see it now. You'll be like, oh, there's Kane. Mm.

Absolutely. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. Yeah.

You guys are going to take a lot away from this. It's. It's really about designing the kind of life that you want, but in a very gentle and simplistic way, because that's what our souls really want, is simplicity. We don't want necessarily all of the stuff and all of the busyness and all of the things. And she has some really practical, tactical ways to get to a place where we have, where we feel more of that simplicity in our lives.

Without further ado, let's dive in, then do it.

Thank you so much for being here, Courtney. I am so excited for this conversation. I've been loving listening to your. Your pop up episodes of your podcast and checking out your books, and I'm really excited to read the new book.

Thank you.

Yeah. Do you want to tell us just a little bit about yourself, a little bit about who you are, what brought you on this journey? And I would love to hear about your. Your other books too, because those are also very rich with awesome stuff. But yeah, you want to just take us on a little journey of, of where you came from?

Sure.

Well, I started really sharing my Life Online in 2010 with my blog, Be More with Less dot com. And I started that to share my health and simplicity journey. Because prior to 2006, neither of those things were super important to me. It was more of a like, getting all things done all the time lifestyle, doing whatever I could to make ends meet, constantly overachieving, giving my all, doing my best, like climbing the ladders. All of the metaphors you could possibly think about were my Life. And in 2006, all of that changed pretty rapidly after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And ironically, I was diagnosed while I was completely burnt out at work and volunteering and training for the MS.150, which is a cycling event here in Salt Lake to raise funds for multiple sclerosis. Yeah. So my boss had Ms. And I was riding for him. And when I got sick, of course, that never crossed my mind. And after months of testing, I had that diagnosis. And after some fear and uncertainty, I had this giant permission slip to finally prioritize myself and whatever it would take to feel better and be well and live my life in a. A way that resonated more with me versus what I thought I was supposed to be doing in life. I don't really think I understood the benefits of adulthood until then. It was just like, it just felt so full of responsibility and like, here's how you're supposed to act and these are the things you should do and should want in your life. And this diagnosis changed my life in the best way because it said, throw that all out the window. It's not working for you. How do you really want to live?

Okay, I love what you just said, that you didn't recognize the benefits of adulthood until that point. Like, I feel like people talk about adulting is so hard, right? Like, oh my gosh, adulting is so hard. I've always kind of thought of it in that, in that similar vein. Like, I do not want to be a child again. I, I actually, I had a pretty good childhood, but I love being an adult and having like agency and autonomy. And so what you're saying it sounds like is taking, taking back that agency and autonomy and being like, this is how I get to be an adulthood.

Right? It's not making it look like everyone else's adulthood, I guess. And I learned this late in life, late in adulthood, but it made such a difference for me. And not that I figured it all out right away, that's for sure, but just to be able to start asking questions like, how does this make me feel? What happens when I sleep a full eight hours? How do these foods make me? How does it affect my energy? Like just really simple basic questions that I didn't have time to ask. And when I did have time to ask, I certainly didn't have time to listen to or trust the answers that I had. And I think part of that was because it's so noisy out there. Like everyone else has great answers too. So it's sometimes hard to dissect what is coming from inside and what's coming from outside. And, and I think part of it too was being afraid to listen to the answers because once I knew then I would have to make changes.

I was thinking about that as, as you were saying that is, is you're going in one direction. And it sounds like very high achieving and doing, doing, doing. And then there's this letting go that has to happen to get from point A of that doer mindset to where you are now and where you are today. And I, I know for me, I resonate very much with the always say yes, always do all the things and how I def. Desperately need to let go of probably most or a lot of that at least, and step into more gentle living. But there's this like, fear and grief that can come from point A to point B. And I was wondering if you could talk more about that.

Sure. You're reminding me of this woman that I talked to at a book event years ago, who I was there sharing my story, kind of what I've just shared with you, and how I've slowed down as a result. And she also had Ms. And she said, I don't understand. Ever since my diagnosis, I've been really speeding up because I'm afraid that if I don't, I'm not going to get everything done before I get really sick. As if that was a foregone conclusion. And my thought pattern was, if I keep up this unsustainable pace, I am going to get really sick. But perhaps if I slow down and realize that a lot of the stuff that I think I have to do, I really don't have to do. But because we're so used to this, like, kind of proving ourselves by our accomplishments, by how much we get done every day, by how fast we get things done, it's hard to break out of that. And I think that, I mean, for me, there wasn't a lot of. Of grief around letting that go only because it felt so good to slow down, to take a beat, to rest. And I noticed the benefits pretty quickly. So I wasn't afraid of letting that part go. I was more afraid of, you know, not being able to help my daughter with her homework or waking up and not being able to see or not feeling my feet hit the ground. Those were the things that were scaring me. It wasn't. I'm going to miss out on a bunch of stuff. I'm not going to do all the things. I'm going to be saying no a lot. Those are the things that actually propelled me to feel better and better.

Yeah, I, I hear it. It's. It's sort of like, well, I'm not saying no to a faster car. It's. I'm saying no to not being able to feel my feet or not being able to see it'. The trade off is different when you're. You're doing it in, in awareness of the effects on the mind and the body. And I think that's a powerful sort of reframe of. Well, you're not just letting go of getting a Bentley. You're. You still could get a Bentley, who knows? But you're letting, you're, you're choosing your health, you're choosing longevity, you're choosing getting to do homework with your children and, you know, do these other things. And so I appreciate that.

Yeah. And I think through that process, I realized that the things that I thought I cared about weren't the things I really cared about. And, I mean, cars were never really it for me, but if they were started, everything, I guess, seemed to be more about function versus, hey, look at me and my fancy car, or look at me and my great suit or new dress or high heels or whatever it was. And not that I was consciously running around thinking that, but once I unpacked it and kind of shed that version of myself, I could see how much proving I was trying to do. I really wanted people to see me in a certain way, and that isn't even who I was, which, I don't know. It's a lot of unpacking. If you start digging in, how does.

That process look for people? And. And so it. I'm kind of wondering about this, like, contemplation phase of change. So someone reads your book, they listen to this episode, and they're like, okay, I'm willing to. I'm willing to dabble. Maybe not let go of it yet. So let's start unpacking and see. Tell us about that.

Well, it didn't start with any of these realizations at all. I didn't know. All I knew is that I wanted to live with less stress because my research showed that I would live better with Ms. With less stress in my life. And I was really focused in the beginning on the how to, like, how can I take action? What are the steps I can take? What can I change in my life to reduce this stress? And so I think that approaching it in a practical way like that can be really helpful because it takes away that overwhelm of everything that may have to change and how you may evolve. I mean, who really knows until you get started? So, for instance, debt was a huge stressor in my life, and I had gone into debt when I was 18 and never came up for air until this Ms. Diagnosis. And I and my husband, we together, we decided we would become debt free. And we didn't know how long it would take or what that would look like, but we just started the path of pulling back on our spending and paying our debt down. And in that process, we could also start to look at other things, like our stuff, the stuff in our home. It was stressful, and I had never seen it that way before and maybe wouldn't have if I hadn't started paying the debt off. But the stuff in my home was a constant reminder of that debt. Like, why did I buy all this Stuff that I don't even practically notice in my house anymore. And why do I need it? Just because I bought it and spent money on it, does that mean I'm responsible to hold on to it until the end of time? Or can I let go and see what it's like to have more space in my house? And so that from the debt came the our clutter free portion of simplifying. And from there it was, wow, like I don't have any debt. I don't have as much stuff. Maybe we don't need so much house. Maybe we could downsize, which we did. And then now that I don't have this ridiculous mortgage and all of this stuff to take care of and these other needs that I thought I would always have, do I need to keep this job I have, or might I do something that I enjoy more? So each thing led to the next thing. So I think the most important thing to do is to start really small and don't worry if you don't know what you're doing, because I don't think most of us do when we start. But the more space that I created, the more room I had to listen for those bigger revelations.

I love that you talk about that because a lot of times I feel like when people are talking about, you know, going more minimalist and paring down and all of that kind of thing, they talk about like the clutter in their house. But I think taking a bird's eye view and looking at the big things too, not just the little things that are cluttering our, our homes is huge. And that's something that I've actually talked a lot with my husband about, is a lot of times when we go to buy a home, we actually end up paying way more than we ever would for to rent, like an apartment or whatever. It's like, well, I don't want to buy a home that only has one bedroom, even though I would be renting a place that only has one bedroom for like the next couple of years if I weren't buying. And so taking all of that into consideration. I really love that you say that.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's so much to consider. I mean, I, I don't know if we have time to talk about buying versus renting, but.

Yeah, right.

I don't think there's one right answer when it comes to that. I've done both. When we downsized, we went from. I think we had over 2,000 square feet, pretty big house for three people at the time. And when we were done decluttering, we had empty rooms in the house, so we knew that we could easily downsize. And we downsized to a 750 square foot apartment with no storage space. And there were a handful of things that I had in boxes and I thought, I'll just put these in storage in the new place and decide later what to do with them because they were important to me. We didn't end up taking them. And you couldn't pay me to tell you what was in those boxes that were so important. I have no idea. It wasn't that important. But we love to trick ourselves into believing so much of our stuff is so special. But I feel like when you have too much stuff, then it nothing special. It's like when everything is, nothing is. And so we lived in an apartment for a long time. And then in 2020 we purchased a house still less than, I guess about half the size of our first house. Uh, but we, it was so interesting to look at what was important to us then because we had already gone through this big process of decluttering and really figuring out how we wanted to live and how we wanted to spend our time in a space. And so we weren't looking for the big closets and the extra cabinets and storage space and a big garage. None of that was important to us. Like the top of our list was light, natural light. We just wanted the house to be flooded with light. And that was something I had never even considered when looking for a place before. So it was just so such a great way to see how our, our needs and wants and, and values had changed.

I love that. I feel like that, you know, it's a concept that we can talk about as an example with the house, but I feel like it's such a great concept for all facets of our life, all areas of our life where it's, it's not just about decluttering the stuff, but like what are, what are my values? What do I actually want to be living on a day to day basis?

Right. And that really having a good understanding of that helps you with your to do list, with your planner and calendar, with your career planning, with your conversations. I mean really everything. Because I think for a lot of us, the natural solution to our problems is more like seeking more of more money, more time, more energy, more whatever. And yes, we do want more energy, more sleep, more of a lot of things, but a lot of other things we want less of. I mean, if we have fewer things to take care of. For me, having Fewer choices in my closet makes a really big difference in terms of how my day goes. You know, I don't want to be obsessing over things I don't care about. And it makes it a lot easier for me to say no to things or when things pop up in my Instagram feed that have nothing to do with me. For me to just get out or keep going or whatever it is. It's very hard to. For me to get caught up in the drama of anything or just things that remove me from my life. I just don't have time for it anymore.

I think about how these things could also be representations of unmet needs. And I think about how, like, I have a box in the basement in my house, and it has gifts that I got as a kid. It has, like, really special stuffed animals that I loved as a kid. And I grew up in a house where there was a lot of emotional neglect. And so those objects, it was like, oh, I got this gift from my dad when he came back from Japan from being away for a year and a half. So this is that love that I missed out on. And so I still have this doll. And. And so I think that there's an invitation here that you're inviting us is to look at what is coming up for us when we think about this item and we're trying to make that decision between do I keep this item or do I let this item go?

And.

And if there's something that's being activated with this item is. Is allowing ourselves to be curious about what it means, and if there's something for healing going on or maybe is something that we keep. Maybe I'll always keep that little doll. But I love that it gives us space that this, like, art of less, this art of simplifying, and we're figuring out what really matters to us is that then we have this gift of being able to do some really deep inner child work.

Yeah. And I think you will also become much more discerning about what you bring into your life in the future because you'll have that background to work with, like, whatever it is that you have come up with in. In doing those. That analysis of your connection with certain things.

Oh, I so, so feel that I. I used to be, like, you know, the kind of person who, like, anytime you got freebies, I'd be, like, so excited about, like, the freebie things. And now I'm like, don't you dare give me that freebie. I don't want it in my house.

Right. Right. I was really big into the. You know, you buy this thing and then you get this thing. You buy this thing you don't need, and you get this free thing that you don't want.

Right, right.

So you wrote this book and it's.

It.

It's like brand new, and I'm so excited about it. And it's called Gentle Rest, more, stress less, and live the life you actually want. And you've broken it into three sections. There's Rest less and Rise. Right?

That's right. So, yeah, they.

Yeah, yeah, I'd love to learn more about that, more about each. Sure.

So the Rest Less and Rise are the three seasons of gentle. And each season has chapters that are actually practices in those seasons. And the practices help you connect with, know and trust the gentle you, which is a way of saying your self, your inner self, not your inner critic, not all the voices that you have seeped in over the years from other people, but the real gentle you. And each practice comes with tiny steps because I think that habit change and kind of changing our lives is tricky and overwhelming, and we need small. A small, tiny way in to kind of close that gap between inspiration and action. And then I've also included a gentle step because sometimes the tiny steps are too big. You know, if we're in a period of life that we're just really have too much going on, we might need the gentlest little step. And I think the whole book gives you permission to start giving yourself permission to take that tiny, tiny, gentle step whenever you need it. So I think oftentimes throughout the day, we'll deny ourselves certain things. Like if we're working, we'll say, okay, as soon as I'm done with this, then I'll go get that drink of water, or then I'll go pee, or then I'll have a snack. But why can't we give ourselves what we need when we need it? I mean, granted, we're not going to interrupt our podcast conversation to do that unless we had to, I guess. But there's multiple times during the day where we can take care of ourselves that we put it off. Because on some level, we think we have to earn it or deserve it. And one of my new rules of adulthood is you don't have to. You can just take it. So that, I think applies to rest, to self care throughout the day, and to simple pleasures, which is a chapter in the book about giving yourself simple pleasures every single day. Like, you don't have to earn your treats anymore if you have been. And I Think simple pleasures are often already in our life, but we just then revolve, romanticize them a little bit. So it might be our morning coffee or tea, a walk, you know, things that we might take for granted that are happening but that we're just rushing through, or we're doing them while we're doing 10 other things. Can we make them more special and really enjoy that particular moment? And then I guess I'm kind of bouncing all over the place here. But the, the cycle or the seasons of gentle rest less and rise aren't a one and done. They're things that you might go through over and over again, depending on where you are in your life and what you're working on and focused on. And so you may feel like you need a little extra rest and then you want to clear some space for this next rising, whatever that is. And I think at first when people hear, you know, be, be gentle, be soft, connect with yourself, they. There's a little bit of a disconnect because you think, well, if I'm going to be gentle, then I'm not going to accomplish my goals or stand up for what I believe in or support the things I want to support. But actually this is just giving you a platform. Like the gentle you is the ground that you need to, to rise from and do the things that you actually want to do. And I just think there's a big difference between rising from that place and being exhausted and trying to give from that place. Or at least for me, there was always this feeling of like, trying to get there. Like my goals and the way I was living my life was always to get there. I don't even know where there is anymore, but to get there. But every time I was trying to get there, I didn't get to be here, which that's all we get. This is it. So I think to, to really let yourself off the hook for trying to be some version of yourself that you're not really helps you start showing up for yourself in the moment.

Yes, I love it. Instead of doom scrolling and being in a freeze state, you actually go do the things because you're allowing yourself to be gentle with yourself all of the other times of the day.

Exactly. Or you rest or you set a timer when you turn on Instagram because you are more intentional about how you want to live your life and spend your time.

I love that. Can you speak a little bit to the listeners who might be listening and being like, okay, yeah, I want to, I want to have more of this. These simple Pleasures or not even have more of them, but actually enjoy the simple pleasures. What about the people who they kind of, they maybe do have these simple pleasures, but they're not allowing themselves to really like soak in them because they feel guilty about having those simple pleasures.

I work with a lot of people who have talked about this and this comes from this like instilled feeling of having to earn our joy, earn our rest, prove that we're worthy of enjoying our lives. And it's, it's some pattern interrupt. You really have to break that cycle by, by noticing that guilt when it comes up and also deciding like, is this guilt because am I doing something wrong by listening to great music while I drink my coffee? Or do I feel uncomfortable because I'm really taking care of myself and I don't normally do that and I haven't, I know I haven't proven myself worthy of this to anyone today, including myself. That's uncomfortable and practicing. So feel the guilt, have the simple pleasure and then do that again and again. And I mean, sooner or later the simple pleasure is going to win because you will see that this isn't changing anything other than making you more excited for your life. You deserve joy. You don't have to earn it. And it is something that we've all, I think most of us been conditioned to believe, you know, or that's why we don't take a break until our two week vacation, if we even get a two week vacation. And now everyone's checking their email on vacation. So when do we get a break? Like, and who's going to give it to us is the bigger question. Nobody but us.

I love that and I love that you said, is it even guilt? That's a big reframe. Like, is it even guilt or is it just an uncomfortable feeling because we haven't done it in the past? My mind is blown.

I mean, wow, I'm glad. Guilt is, I think I'm defining this right. It's feeling bad because you did something wrong. I mean, is anything about enjoying a simple pleasure wrong? And is resting.