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There are very few things that we do every day.
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I ll list a few.
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Breathing.
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Blinking.
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You can t even say pooping because some of us don t poop every day.
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Because some of us have chronic constipation.
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There aren t a lot of things that we do every day.
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But something that we do every day that we don t think about enough is make decisions.
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We don t consider the decisions that we make as deeply as I think we could.
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It s so automatic, right?
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I think the value in shifting a little bit of your attention towards the decisions that you make on a day-to-day basis can help you make better decisions, can just avoid a lot of stress, you know?
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I m so excited to be speaking to Miss Emily P. Freeman today because
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Her mission is to help people get out of a rut, help people get better at making decisions, help you figure out the next right thing.
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She actually has a book called The Next Right Thing, a simple, soulful practice for making life decisions.
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But that s not her only book.
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She has many books.
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Another honorable mention.
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is how to walk into a room, the art of knowing when to stay and when to walk away.
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Emily s work focuses on helping people discover the transformative power of quiet reflection and living with intention, leading to a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
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And don t we all want that?
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She also has a podcast called The Next Right Thing.
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With Emily today, I m excited to discuss the art of decision-making because
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When you really think about it, a lot of stress and discomfort starts with a decision that needs to be made.
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Or that s the root of it.
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And so the better we are at making decisions, the more we can have fun.
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Sorry, the more we can have fun.
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And I m all about fun.
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So let s bring in Emily.
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I m curious, obviously making a decision is important, right?
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That is important.
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But what about the way that we approach making decisions?
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What is the significance of the approach to making a decision?
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I m so glad you asked that question because I think we all, I mean, there s lots of books and studies about this, but I ll just speak kind of casually about it.
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We all approach decisions in basically one of three ways.
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We either lead with our gut, we lead with our head, or we lead with our heart.
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And I m sort of a heart person, which can be great or terrible, depending on the day, depending on the decision.
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I know you, I think you re a gut person.
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Totally a gut person.
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from just listening to you and kind of learning from you.
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And I think the thing that you lead with, you often admire the one that other people have, you know what I mean?
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Of course.
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Oh, if only I was a gut person, you know, you think like, or whatever.
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The grass is always greener.
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Always.
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But I think it s good for us to know, it s not that you only make decisions on your gut, but it s that that s what you lead with.
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And so when you recognize about yourself that you re someone who leads with your gut or your intuition,
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then it can be helpful to just pay attention to the cues the other centers give you.
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And that might take community.
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That might take other practices that you have to work harder at because the gut comes so naturally.
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And so you kind of have to test the gut sometimes, right?
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It s like I lead with my heart or I lead with my head.
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You know, head people are more like the pro-con listie maybe, or like they re kind of doing their research.
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Yep.
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Figuring it out.
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Yep.
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And you re kind of like, I just don t feel right about it.
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Yeah.
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Totally.
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Our thing.
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And so that s why, I mean, that s why we need each other.
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That s why it s so great that we re not having to do this thing alone.
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But I also think that, you know, for me, and maybe some people can relate to this, there s a theologian and an Irish poet named Padraig O Tooma.
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And he says, we might know more than we know we know.
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Yeah.
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And I think that that s something I am even at, you know, a grown human person.
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Yep.
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I m still learning to like not outsource my confidence to someone else.
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Yes.
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And really trust what I know.
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Yes.
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But first I have to know what I know.
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How do you feel about seeking advice?
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Yeah.
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To help make a decision?
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Like it s definitely good sometimes, but I ve talked about this with my dad before.
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He s like,
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A lot of advice is just shit.
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Yeah.
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He s not wrong.
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Most advice is bad.
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You know, and maybe that s why making decisions is so complicated because there isn t a right way to do things.
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It s very individual.
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Right.
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But I guess my question is, you know, how helpful is advice?
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Should we seek advice?
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When is it helpful?
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When is it harmful?
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It depends on who the advice is coming from.
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Right.
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I mean, your dad s not wrong.
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Yeah.
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There are two categories of people that I think about when it comes to seeking advice.
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One is the gurus, like the kind of, listen, I have been a guru collector in my life where
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it s like when I have a big decision to make sometimes I want to avoid that one and so I ll go and try to make decisions about like capsule wardrobe or you know like what s the best body type for my all that type of stuff.
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Oh my god I love that shit I do the same thing.
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And then you sign up for like then I m like why does my inbox have
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so much junk in it.
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It s because I ve been collecting gurus.
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It s like a good tell for me.
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I mean, we all have our tells, but for me, that s a great tell of like, I m avoiding something important because I ve been guru collecting again.
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So that s not a great, I mean, there can be some gurus.
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I think we can pick our, I call it like picking your Oprah s pick your gurus wisely.
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Like the ones that you re like, no, I want to learn from this person.
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In this area.
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Yes.
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And we can have those, but they re probably not going to be the people that we can call up on the phone because they don t know that we exist.
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No, totally.
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Totally.
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So then there s this other group that I call co-listeners.
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And I mean, you know, and those are the people who are more handpicked.
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These are the ones it s like the small.
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I think Brene Brown talks about writing on if you can write on one piece of paper that you can carry in your pocket.
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the people whose opinion you care what it is, and no bigger than that.
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If you re not on this paper, you don t get a say.
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I love that.
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I love that.
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It s so great.
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So I think that those co-listeners, people who, I mean, I feel like we have a lack of listening epidemic where a lot of us, we know how to talk, we know how to say words, but we don t always know how to listen.
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and listen well and listen in a way that is not toxic.
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In other words, not trying to tell the person what we necessarily think they ought to do or what we would do, but really listen and pay attention to what makes them tick, what s important to them, what are their core values.
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And so that s something I m really, I look for people like that who are willing to listen and ask me not just the first question, but maybe the question beneath the question and the second question.
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And those are the types of people that I think are good to kind of seek advice from.
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What about, like, the headspace when it comes to making decisions?
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Like, as I mentioned, when it comes to taking advice, right?
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Like, a lot of times when we re faced with a decision, particularly a big one, we get frazzled.
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You know what I mean?
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We get anxious.
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We start overthinking.
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Is it always best to be in a solid headspace to make a decision?
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Can we force that headspace?
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Like, what is the ideal state of mind for making a decision?
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And then on top of that, how do you get there if you re not there?
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Yeah.
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I guess.
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It s a great question.
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Yeah.
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And I would say probably we would all say that we want to be in our tippy-toppiest shape.
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Yes.
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Every time.
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Yes.
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But we know that s not always possible.
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There are lots of different types of decisions.
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You know, if you think about there are ones that we have to make on the spot.
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There are ones that we have a deadline for and we ve got some time to prepare.
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And so we ve got time for that anxiety, that initial anxiety to wear down.
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We ve got time to test the decision to live with.
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One trick you can do is make a decision for 24 hours and live with it and see how your body responds.
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And then the next day, do the opposite.
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Like, if you re going to decide, yes, OK, I m going to do this thing, but I m not going to tell anyone.
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I m just going to live with it in my body for 24 hours, see how it goes, flip it the next night, see how that goes, if you have the time.
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But I think, really, I think the question beneath your question could be, what if we don t have the time?
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What do we do when
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we have to make a decision kind of on the spot.
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And part of that I think is, you know, the secret that nobody really talks about when it comes to decision making is in some ways the decision is rarely the point.
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The point in many ways is who are you becoming in the process of making this decision?
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And as we focus on our character,
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who we are in community, who we are spiritually, who I am on the inside.
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I think that can grow us to give us more confidence later when a decision comes and you don t have time to cultivate your character real quick.
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Yeah, that s true.
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So that s something that if it s a lifestyle,
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Then, I think it helps us make better decisions along the way, keeping in mind that such an invitation that I have tried to extend to myself, and I don t always do this well, is to be my own friend.
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Oh, me too.
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Because listen, we re not always going to get it right.
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And sometimes we re going to be in a great headspace, and we re going to ask all the right people, we re going to be
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you know, spiritually, physically, mentally feeling great, and we re gonna make our call, and then we re gonna live the life, and we re gonna live the decision out, and everything s gonna go terrible.
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And we ll be like, what did I get wrong?
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And that s when doubt can come in, and we wonder like, did I not discern correctly?
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Maybe I can t trust myself after all.
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Or maybe I m embarrassed, or I look like a fool now, and maybe other people can t trust me.
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So all these questions come in.
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But the reality is that we do the best we can with what we know at the time.
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And if things go terribly,
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If our measure of success is how things turn out, I think we ll continually be disappointed, and we will lack confidence in ourselves.
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But if we say, my goal is to make this decision as the person I most deeply am right now, with all the information I have in front of me, and to do my next right thing, to move, to take action.
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Marie Forleo talks about how clarity comes from action, but clarity cannot be rushed.
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And so we just have to do what we can do.
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And then once we make that decision and we live with whatever the consequences are, then we say, oh, well, if the goal wasn t perfection, if the goal wasn t that everything turns out exactly right every single time, if the goal was me becoming more of who I most deeply am, well, I still get that.
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But you never don t get that.
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You never don t get that.
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That s so true.
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If anything, I ve learned the most from my bad decisions.
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Listen.
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I mean, I think bad decision.
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No, bad decision.
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Yeah.
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Like I was like, should I be nicer?
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But it s like, no, it s OK that it s bad.
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Yeah.
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Like, you know, it s like those are actually the things that that really test you and really
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force you to grow through it.
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You know what I mean?
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When things are all sunshine and rainbows, you can hit autopilot and be like, I m chilling out.
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And that s gorgeous.
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And we need those moments.
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Take it when you can get it.
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But I think that s the way I ve reframed it.
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You know, when I make bad decisions, it doesn t make it any easier.
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And it s a lot, it s a lot easier said than done, but I ve tried to reframe it.
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Like when I make a bad decision,
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this is where my character development comes in.
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And I mean, do you think that that reframing actually, ironically, makes you make better decisions?
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Like, if you can convince yourself, the truth actually, it s not even, it s actually true, that bad decisions are not, I mean, it depends on how bad it is.
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Like, did you do something really bad?
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But like, you know, like something- Is the law involved?
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Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
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It s like, let s, like, if it s,
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to move to New York or to Los Angeles, right?
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Like, we ll keep it in that world for the sake of the conversation, but it s like, if you should have actually probably moved to LA, but you moved to New York, if you can look at that decision as, yeah, one might be more fulfilling for me, but also the other one s gonna teach me something even more valuable, it s like, does that reframing then
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make you make better decisions overall?
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Or do you think, no, it doesn t make a difference?
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Because I feel like taking the pressure off naturally puts you in a better state to then make decisions.
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Have you noticed that in people or even in yourself?
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I think so for sure.
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I did a very informal survey among my readers about who among you are decisive?
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You would self-report, I m a decisive person.
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Only about 30 to 35% of the people who read my stuff and who listen to what I m saying and teaching would say that.
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Maybe that s because the decisive people don t need to listen to me.
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So that s skewed already.
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But among those who were like, yeah, I m not a chronically hesitant person.
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I can make a decision.
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So I dug into them and I asked them like, okay, so what would you say contributes the most to your ability to be decisive?
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Like, what is it?
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And one of the things that many of them said over and over and over again was that they realize and they just accept that hardly any decision is permanent.
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And I m like, I m kind of like, really?
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And you know what, that s true if you think about it.
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Now, it doesn t mean it didn t have consequences.
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It doesn t mean it might not take time.
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Like, you know, you cut bangs, that s not permanent.
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But like, if I could avoid the six weeks of growing back, that would be great.
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But people who are decisive, they just decide the risk is worth it.
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Like they would rather, they say they would rather live with the comfort of having this decision made, even if it s not perfect.
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Yep.
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Then with that discomfort, like that tension, that liminal space between like knowing a decision needs to be made and actually making it.
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They don t like that feeling.
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And so they go ahead and make the call knowing that probably it s not going to be so permanent that they can t change their minds.
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That s huge.
1
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Yeah.
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See, whereas I feel like indecisive people, maybe instead of alleviating that pain by just making the decision, they alleviate the pain by avoiding.
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Avoiding the decision.
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Avoiding the decision.
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Putting it off.
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So let s discuss that.
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So how successful is avoiding making a decision?
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Like, can you get away with that?
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Because in my experience, you can t.
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You always ultimately have to make a decision.
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And then on top of that, what s your advice for people who
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avoid that feeling?
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Is it reframing what that feeling means to you?
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How do you fix your relationship with that feeling?
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Well, I think, you know, you ask, can you be successful by avoiding the, like, is that a successful strategy?
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Yes.
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And I think the first- Ever.
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Ever.
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Ever.
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Yeah.
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I think the first question would be, what do you mean by successful?
1
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You mean like, can you get away with it?
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Yeah.
1
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Like, can I go through life
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Basically, that person is sort of opting out of life in many ways if you have a lifestyle of avoiding it.
1
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And listen, we know people like that.
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Oh, yeah.
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Oh, yeah.
1
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Oh, yeah.
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I ve been like that.
1
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Yeah, we ve all done it at some stage.
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And you shudder because you don t like that feeling.
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It s horrible.
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You don t like that version of Emma.
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No.
1
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My God.
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It s like carrying around like a backpack of bricks and like it s it s terrible.
1
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Yeah.
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It s the heaviest weight.
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Right.
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The heaviest weight.
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It really is.
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Yeah.
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So I don t think you can get away with it.
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Yeah.
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So because of that, I think when we think about, okay, so I can t avoid this decision.
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I think the reason we do it though is, well, there s many reasons why many of us would do it.
1
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But speaking for myself, I want to avoid making the wrong decision.
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So it s thinking in binaries.
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There s a right and there s a wrong.
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And I m a prayerful person.
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So I ll be like, God wants me to do a particular thing.
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But it s a secret.
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And I don t actually think God works that way, but I think in my mind sometimes I fear that when I m trying to make a decision.
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Of course.
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Or when it comes to any binary thing we think about, like there s a right and there s a wrong, there s a path this way and there s not.
1
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So I think that s one thing.
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We don t want to screw it up.
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I think also we re not only afraid of picking wrong, we re also afraid of being wrong, our identity.
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It s kind of like in there.
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like a terrible person if I don t do this exactly right.
1
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And so I think what that person or what I m looking for when I m in that space and what would be helpful is some type of framework.
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Like, I just need, like, some steps to follow because the steps are not going to fall from the sky of, like, here s what you ought to do.
1
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Oh, yeah.
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And that s, like, what we want.
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Oh, my God.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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So I ll give, like, the simple framework, and then I ll give, like, the little bit four-steppy framework that could be helpful maybe for anyone who might
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Be like, I m actually holding a decision right now, and I was supposed to decide last Tuesday, and I haven t done it yet.
1
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The four part that s helpful for me is it starts with a practice called point and call, pointing and calling, which comes from the Japanese railway system, actually.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they have this system called pointing and calling where it s very simple.
1
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All of the railway workers, they have a job.
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And their job is to point at what s happening and to call it out loud.
1
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And it s so simple.
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It s like, the train is going this speed, and they point it with their body, and they say it with their voice.
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And it has reduced workplace errors by 85%, which is wild, right?
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And I think we can do the same thing for decisions.
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And I think pointing and calling can be something like, OK, if I m deciding, for example,
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Should I stay in this job or should I take this job opportunity?
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Should I stay in this room where I m in or should I go into a different room?
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Pointing and calling, like, what s true in this room?
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What do you know?
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You don t know about the other one yet, but what do you know here?
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What s true about this space?
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Is this a space where I can be myself?
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Is this a space I chose or did it choose me?
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Is this a space where I m avoiding some corners because there s some red or yellow flags over there and I don t want to look at them?
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Why not?
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How often is that happening?
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So, pointing and calling, when it comes to decision-making, is just a great first step.
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Like, what s going on here?
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And just name it out loud.
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The thing that I think prevents me and, I mean, I think a lot of people from sort of making a move is figuring out intuition versus anxiety.
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What a nightmare!
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Like, this is my...
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Oh, like, it is so, it s so bad because I am a very intuitive person.
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I tend to trust my gut, right?
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But I m also such an anxious person.
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Like, I mean, I am an anxious, anxious, anxious girl.
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It runs in the family.
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Me and my parents, we love it.
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We love it.
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Actually, we hate it, but we re, here we are.
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But I am deeply intuitive.
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What have you noticed
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about intuition, like when is it good to trust it?
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When is it just anxiety?
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I read something once about how your intuition won t scare you.
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Like it won t, it will feel smooth.
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Like you ll just glide into that decision when it s your intuition.
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Whereas when you re anxious,
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that s like, that s not intuition.
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Like don t get those confused because it ll be so obvious when it s your intuition where, but I don t know if that s true though.
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Cause I ve made, I ve had an intuition about something and still struggled to make the decision.
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So what are your thoughts on intuition versus anxiety?
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How do we decipher which is which?
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And also how can we better tap into our intuition?
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It s such a great question.
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And I think it s something that especially people who have a strong intuition, it s a great question to ask yourself.
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Yeah.
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fear and the knowledge of knowing that I need to do the deeply right thing feel very similar at first.
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And I think upon reflection, and that s speaking of kind of step two of this framework is looking back, is remembering your path, which is what you re doing now.
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You re thinking like, okay, well, when I ve made this decision before,
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when I have had a really strong sense of intuition, but then I confused it like, is this intuition or is this fear?
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That there is a difference between the peace that comes from doing the deeply right thing and the peace that comes from avoiding something uncomfortable.
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And so at first, they present themselves very similarly, that they both look like, I feel strongly, you have a strong sense of it, right?
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But I was talking with Dr. Hilary McBride.
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She wrote a book called The Wisdom of the Body.
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And she talked about, if you have social anxiety, you re somebody who, you go into a gathering, a party full of people, and you feel a sense of anxiety in that room.
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And so you leave the room because you re afraid and it s uncomfortable.
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You leave the room.
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And when you leave the room, you leave the party, your body feels better.
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Like it really does feel better.
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You feel a sense of relief.
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But she described that as that you weren t actually ever in danger.
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It was just a sense that your body gave you that like, I need to get out of here.
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And so what happens is the next time you re presented with a party or a gathering, your sense of fear might even be higher.
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And then your compulsion to leave is even stronger because you re like, I know how to feel better here, is I m going to avoid being uncomfortable.
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The problem with that is that
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everything that s good and right is not always comfortable.
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And so we have to do our work of self-awareness, of reflection, of work talking to our people, of all those practices in the regular Tuesdays of life so that when the Saturday night decision comes, let s just say, we have some muscle memory.
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We have some memory of what it feels like, the difference between the discomfort that comes from being truly unsafe, and this is not a great decision, or just, this is right for me, but I m going to have to have a really difficult conversation I don t want to have.
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or I m gonna have to be alone or I m gonna move to a new place and it s gonna be hard.
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I could see why you might wanna avoid that, but I would say that when you get really quiet and you get alone and you kind of are able to focus on how your body s feeling in a moment, I think we all know what it feels like when we re moving from a deep place of our inner knowing versus when we re moving from a frenetic place of our fear.
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Yes.
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But it takes practice.
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It so does.
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It so does.
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And it s also like touching the stove a few times and seeing that it s hot.
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Right.
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Like, is it still hot?
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Like, you know, there s so much of that because there are going to be times when you make decisions based on anxiety that prevent you from, that actually make you feel worse long term.
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Like, for example, if you re socially anxious,
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It might feel good in the moment, you know, instant gratification to leave, but you ll find delayed gratification if you push through it and learn to be able to go and enjoy the party.
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You know what I mean?
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And like feel comfortable and safe in the party.
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Do you think that intuition is a reliable source?
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How reliable is intuition?
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Like in my experience, I mean,
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I don t know, because it s like, when you tell someone to trust their gut, it s like, is that even good advice?
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Like, it could be your genuine, truest intuition.
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And it could steer you wrong.
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Yeah.
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Like, so it s like, do we trust?
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I mean, I think there s actually a spiritual element to intuition for sure.
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Yeah.
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Where it s like, this is my deeper knowing calling me to whatever I m supposed to be doing.
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Yeah.
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You know, regardless of if that s even what I think I want.
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Like, so, yeah, what are your thoughts on that?
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Well, I think anything that we say, is it bad to trust this?
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I think the follow-up is, well, I think anything we put in that blank alone maybe is not enough information.
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And so I would say that I do think there can be a spiritual element to it where it s like, it s not just me alone, that there is spirit, that there is, you know, I use like God language, that there is, you know, God, divine love with me.
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And that therefore, it s not all up to me to figure out my life, because that s a lot of pressure.
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But as I cultivate my own spirituality, my own life with God, my own life with those who love and know me, that intuition, I think a lot of us, it s not so much that we don t trust our intuition, we actually don t know how, we don t even bring it to the table.
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Because some of us have been told like, you can never trust your gut, like you can never trust yourself.
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And so those people,
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who have experienced life in that way have to learn to bring themselves to the table.
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And so anything, I don t think I would ever say trust your heart alone, follow your heart alone, follow your gut alone, follow your thoughts alone.
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Like anything alone is probably not the best idea.
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But I think that we can have that be a data point in our world of decision making.
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It s a tool.
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I think if we measure our ability to trust our intuition or our heart or whatever only based on the results, I think that we won t always have an accurate measure of, because sometimes you can trust your gut, you can trust your heart, you can trust your people, you can trust God, you can do all the things, and it still turns out terribly, like we said, and it was still the right thing to do, right?
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It could have still been the right thing to do or the best, the deeply right thing for you in that moment, even if it didn t turn out.
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And so instead of having that be the judge, it s like, does trusting my intuition help me become the person that I believe I m meant to be, yes or no?
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And hopefully yes, but not again, not in a vacuum, not to the exclusion of everything else.
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Yeah.
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That sort of made me think about deeply emotional decisions.
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Like what comes to mind for me is like,
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removing yourself from a friend group, you know, moving out of your hometown, breaking up with a significant other, you know, those decisions are so deeply emotional, usually in one extreme or the other, right?
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You know, going through a breakup, you might be like, I know deep down, or maybe you don t, maybe you don t, but you re like, it s not going well, but
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I don t want this to end, like I would do anything for this not to end.
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How do those types of just all-consuming emotions impact the way that we make decisions?
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When it s like one of those unavoidable, full-body,
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like consuming decisions.
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I ve found when I am deeply emotionally invested in a space, a person, a thing,
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I do think it s harder to make a clear decision in the midst of that emotionality.
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I do think if you can get the tiniest distance from it, it s always going to be better.
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Buy yourself as much time as possible.
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But I don t think you re to despise your heart.
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Sometimes I m like, ugh, if only I wasn t such a feeler, I could be clear-headed about this.
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But clear-headed, that s even language that we use.
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It s like, if I could have a clear head.
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But, you know, that s not always the way.
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Like, we re human people.
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But I do think that having small practices that you can do, like, for example, what s just one next right thing you can do?
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You might not be able to make the final decision today about moving from your hometown or breaking up with the love of your life or whatever, but what s one next right thing that you can do?
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And I think that breaks it down a little bit to where it s like, I m not, I m, I m not making the final decision, but I m just going to do one thing today.
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Maybe it s take a nap.
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Maybe it s like drink some water.
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No, that s actually for me.
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Small things.
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Taking a nap.
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Yeah.
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It sounds so wild.
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No, it doesn t.
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But it has been, sometimes that is so what it is.
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Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00
It s like, are you just hungry, Emma?
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Yeah.
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No, actually.
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You need food?
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That can really make a difference.
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Are you dehydrated?
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Did you sleep enough?
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No, it is interesting how it can be the smallest little, because sometimes a nap will help level out your emotions.
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That s right.
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And it will give you that distance that you need, and it will give your brain that rest.
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Sometimes it s calling a loved one, but it is true that my dad always tells me to make a plan.
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And it s kind of that, but it s even easier than that.
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It s a tiny plan.
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It s a tiny plan.
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It s just the next, yes.
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And I think, too, knowing, and this is, you know, your dad s giving you some great advice.
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My dad s giving me some great advice.
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He once told me that 51-49 is still a decision.
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And we want every decision we make to be 100% yes and 0% no.
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But as we look at all the data, our heart, our mind, our intuition, everything included, we might come out to be like,
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I want both of these things, but I...
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sense that this one is just like 2% more.
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Those are the toughest ones.
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The toughest.
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Because there s so many things on the other side.
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That s 49% of the things that we think are great.
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Yeah.
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But it s still a call we have to make as grownups, unfortunately.
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And we do.
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And what we have to do then is we need to grieve the 49%.
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We got to name it.
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We got to take what we can with us, leave what we can t bring, leave it behind.
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and learn to fully invest 100% in that 51% yes.
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Yeah.
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How do you recommend handling that grief of that 49%?
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You know, let s say you go with the 51% and let s say actually that is the better decision for you, right?
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Even if it is the right decision, I think when it is a close call like that,
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the experience of grieving the 49% can then make you resent, you know, the 51% choice.
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And I think that is something that, you know, is hard to manage.
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Is it sort of going into every decision knowing that you re going to lose something and accepting that as a part of it?
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Like, how does one manage that grief so that it doesn t make them resent their choice?
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This question is so important.
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I wrote a whole book about it.
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It s called How to Walk Into a Room.
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And the subtitle is The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away.
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And the whole thing of it is there are those decisions that are, I mean, when I talk to people across the board, the decisions that are the hardest are deciding to go or stay.
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To leave this thing behind or to walk away.
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Yes.
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Or to stay in this room and make a difference, right?
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Like, what s it going to take for me to stay here?
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What if I leave and everything falls apart?
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What if I stay and nothing changes?
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And so what you re talking about is when you walk into that next room, the one that might truly be meant for you, how do I let go of the last one?
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Like, how do I leave that behind?
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And it s an excellent question.
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It s such a formative question because the way we walk into a room is almost entirely dependent on how we left the last one.
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And, you know, we bring that stuff with us and nobody walks into a room like as a blank slate.
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Like we bring our stories with us.
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We bring our narratives with us.
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We bring, you know, we all can have in the same room, we all can have a shared experience, but we don t have the same experience.
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We all have our own experience because we re bringing the last stuff with us.
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And so I think for me, it really has been, I mean, I talk about lists and I don t make pro con lists as much, but I, I do make lists of like, what are the gifts of that room?
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Like truly, like I write it down, like here s if it hadn t been for that room or that potential room, like let s say the one I said no to, like, what are the things that were gifts there?
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That I m bringing with me.
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Like, I m a different person because of that space.
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Or even doing it for the room you re walking into.
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Like, what are the gifts of this room that would not have been in that 49% room?
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Like, what do I have here?
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And then also naming, like, what am I leaving?
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Like, what are the things that I m, like, real glad to be done with?
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That s so helpful.
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Because those things are good to remember.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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Because you know how it is, like when you make a call, like, you know, you look you look around a space, you re like, oh, there s there s things I don t like.
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There s red flags.
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I m going to get out of here.
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And then as soon as you make that call, you re like, oh, but it had this and that.
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Always.
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And oh, it was so great.
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Always.
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You remember all that stuff.
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So don t deny it.
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Like I think we have this tendency of when we make a decision, especially if it was tough, we want to paint that last space or that decision that we, the call we didn t make in like all villainous colors.
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Like, well, it was going to be terrible.
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And it was awful.
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And those people were the worst.
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And I m so glad to be done with them.
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But in reality, that s just not true.
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Nobody is just one thing.
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No room is just one thing.
3
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Totally.
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honest about your experience, about what it was, about what you are, who you are now.
3
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And I think grief is a thing that, I mean, just like we don t know how to listen, we don t know how to grieve.
3
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And I think learning, like, you know what?
3
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It s okay to be sad.
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Feel your feelings.
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It doesn t mean you chose wrong just because you re sad.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
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But also maybe, I mean, some of us let go of things that we were really good at.
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Like I worked really hard to get in that space.
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And even though it was the right thing for me to leave it or to not go down that path anymore, it s really hard.
3
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And you can feel like, you know, like, well, at least in America, we don t like to waste our time.
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And so we think like, did I waste all my time in that space with those people or trying to get that degree or working so hard?
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SPEAKER_00
It s like, no, you did it.
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You did the thing, and you got what you needed from it, and now it s time to move on.
3
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But I think just because you re good at something doesn t mean you have to do it forever.
3
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
3
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And I think that s something that we don t have a lot of concept for.
3
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It s like, no, I m skilled at this.
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This is my thing forever.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes we re being invited to be a beginner and to start again.
3
SPEAKER_00
We don t like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
We like new beginnings.
3
SPEAKER_00
Those are fantastic.
3
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
3
SPEAKER_00
But being a beginner, like having to ask where the bathroom is and not knowing my passcode and all the things, like being new, we don t like that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it s also too that we think we re not going to like it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like we dread it.
3
SPEAKER_01
We dread it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right.
3
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I think a lot of times it s like that with a new job.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like you re like, oh, I don t want to get a new job because, yeah, I don t want to embarrass myself and ask questions that might be considered dumb to the people who are higher up.
3
SPEAKER_01
But then you end up
3
SPEAKER_01
There s so much room for excitement and fulfillment there that you don t even, that you forget about.
3
SPEAKER_00
You forget about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Same thing with like, you know, you break up with somebody and then you start dating, right?
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SPEAKER_01
You re like, oh, I don t want to date around again.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then you start dating around again and then.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, you start something new with somebody and you re like, it s actually really exciting.
3
SPEAKER_01
Like I m having fun in the beginning.
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It s like we tend to dread these sorts of things and it s not always, yeah, sometimes the beginning does suck and you know, that s fair, but there are also times when
3
SPEAKER_01
it looks a lot worse in our brain than it s actually gonna be.
3
SPEAKER_01
It totally does.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we have to let it sort of show itself to us in a way.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that actually just made me think about sort of preconceived ideas about things, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like we all have, just based on our life experience,
3
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you know, who we are, we have these sorts of ideas about what this is going to be like, what that s going to be like.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they re often not accurate.
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SPEAKER_01
How important is it to, you know, I think this directly relates to decision making because it s like those sorts of ideas that we let fester and exist there, how important is it to
3
SPEAKER_01
Go in and check on those.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, what you re kind of describing is the narratives that we have about ourselves, about the world around us.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they are powerful.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a philosopher, Dallas Willard, who says that we all live what we believe.
3
SPEAKER_00
We just don t live what we say we believe.
3
SPEAKER_00
So true.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because we say, well, oh, yeah, I believe in whatever the thing is.
3
SPEAKER_00
But then we actually live what we truly believe.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so that s kind of what you re talking about.
3
SPEAKER_00
And those are deeply rooted.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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SPEAKER_00
And your whole life you ll spend like discovering them because we don t, it s like a fish in water, like we don t know that s a narrative that s been formed.
3
SPEAKER_00
We just think that s reality.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because that s my reality.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why it s so sneaky.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s very sneaky.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
3
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
3
SPEAKER_00
For example, I was asked to
3
SPEAKER_00
teach at a graduate-level class.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t really feel like I had business doing that, but I was invited to do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s a narrative, you see?
3
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I was invited to teach at the school that I graduated from for a week-long graduate class for students.
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And my first response was like, yeah, that would be amazing.
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My first response was, fantastic idea.
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My second response was,
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uh oh, I m going to have to do it.
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I m going to have to do this and that s going to be deeply uncomfortable and it s going to challenge all of my own self-confidence and all of my insecurities because the other people who teach have like these, you know, they like went to Yale and Princeton and all these smart schools and I m like just me and I remember that s when popped up a narrative, right?
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I m a sign language interpreter by trade and so this is the sign that popped up.
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But there it was, was like, oh, this this.
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And it often comes like in your own voice, like a first person, like I m I m not good enough to do that or I m not smart enough to do that or whatever the thing is, we have them all the time.
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Like we all we walk into a room and we re wondering, like, what are they thinking of me?
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And so that was a moment when I had to when I had to kind of take the invitation for what it was.
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I had to go outside of myself.
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And this is where I would say when it comes to like
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being aware of your own stories, sometimes that you think it s intuition, like my intuition
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says, you can t do that.
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But that s like a negative, that s a negative thing.
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Yes.
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Right?
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I don t think our intuition shames us.
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No.
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Right?
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No.
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And I think instead it invites.
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I think there s an invitational piece to intuition.
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And so that s when I had to get outside of my own head, my own story, and say, this person, whose program it is, is inviting me to do a thing.
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And so the belonging is in the invitation.
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So even if I feel all the things on the inside, that s my own work to do.
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But I m not going to act.
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I m not going to move out of that space.
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Like I might feel it.
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I m going to have to deal with that maybe in therapy, maybe with my, you know, besties or whoever.
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But that s not where I m going to make my moved decision from.
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I m going to be like, I ll discern it and figure it out.
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And then I m like, yes, I would like to do that.
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Thank you very much for the invitation.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so it s almost even on a case by case basis.
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I think it is because you don t know what might be in there until something happens to kind of wake it up.
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Absolutely.
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Oh, it is so it s so sneaky, but it is also so satisfying when you realize that you have one.
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Yeah.
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And then you re like,
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This is awesome because being aware of it is actually the hardest part.
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So once you re aware of it, yes, it s hard to combat it, but I think the awareness is key and just being, you know, every decision that you have to make, paying attention to yourself.
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It s almost like
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Watching yourself make the decision can teach you so much.
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So much.
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There s so much to learn from that.
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Yes.
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And that s a pointing and calling practice, like really.
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It s like, oh, here s a narrative, point at it, call it out loud.
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Half the battle s over.
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Yep.
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So true.
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Like what about when someone s stuck?
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Right?
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We all fall into a period every once in a while where we just feel stuck and we don t know why.
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And upon thinking about that, I think most of the time when you feel stuck, it s because you have a few decisions that you re not making.
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Yeah.
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Like that s always what it is.
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Always.
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And they re not ones that are timely and they re not ones that are so loud that you can t actually
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Sometimes, like sometimes there can be a really big decision festering, big life change, but you re like subconsciously avoiding it so it s not even loud yet, like you re not even looking at it, oh I ve done that.
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Like my body almost knew before me that, like I felt stuck and I couldn t figure out what it was and it was because I had a decision to make somewhere.
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SPEAKER_00
Right.
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So what s your advice for people feeling stuck?
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Like, what is, you know, how do you figure out what the next right thing to do is?
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Well, two things come to mind.
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We mentioned earlier this framework that I think for someone who s stuck, it s so helpful to first point and call.
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Remember your path, past decisions you ve made.
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What did you learn?
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Acknowledge presence.
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Who s with you?
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Who can you trust?
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Who can you depend on?
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We don t go alone through these decisions.
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And then finally, yield to the arrows.
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And what that is, is you re describing someone who s desperate for maybe an answer, but they don t actually even know what the question is.
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Yes.
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Right?
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Yes.
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And so I would say that rather than
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demanding an answer before it s time, how can you yield to the arrows?
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And what I mean by that is, first of all, if you can t put your decision into a sentence, you re not ready to make the decision yet.
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There s no decision to make.
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But we feel this like, oh, if only I could resolve this discomfort.
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We don t like it.
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And so we think like, if I just make a call,
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if someone can just give me like a bearing or some like, we almost want a deadline.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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Because then we d have to make a decision, but we don t know what decision is yet.
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And so this is the worst, but you might just have to wait.
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SPEAKER_00
Interesting.
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The worst, right?
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You don t want to hear that.
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That s true.
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But I do think that like this smoky like stuckness, I would challenge someone in that space though.
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If you go through the process of pointing and calling what s true right now,
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of remembering your past decisions, of acknowledging who s with me here, I m not alone.
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Like once you get to that doing action step, you might actually not feel so stuck anymore.
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Now you might not know the final decision, but you might know one next right thing.
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And so there s not, and I think we can often get stuck with that phrase, like do the next right thing.
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It s like we get stuck on the word right
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We re like, but what is right?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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And I would just encourage you to think instead of the word next, like just what s the next thing?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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Just the next thing today.
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SPEAKER_01
And again, it could be, it could be a phone call.
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It could be a question to someone you trust.
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It could be like we said, a nap, brush your teeth, have some tea or coffee, whatever it is, you know, like, you know, just, you know, maybe that.
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But I think we can over complicate
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decision making because it feels so deeply important.
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I mean, it is so deeply important.
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Yeah.
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But I don t think the stakes are always as high as we make them.
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SPEAKER_00
So sort of pivoting to soul minimalism, tell me about what a soul minimalist is and how in the world do you become one?
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Well, we all know the word minimalism.
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You know, this is like, you know, we re trying to get rid of the things that don t matter and elevating the things that do.
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You know, I think a lot of us maybe imagine
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If you re a minimalist, you own seven things and you live in an empty, cold house.
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Well, it s like those full guru vibes.
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So I m going back to the gurus.
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Right, right.
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SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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Right.
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And so we have that idea.
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But then this idea of your soul, like your inner life, what s happening beneath the surface, what s happening on the inside.
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When you think about the way we accumulate stuff
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In our physical spaces, we re always having input, like holidays, we have a birthday, we get gifts, we go shopping, we travel, we do things.
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There s always input.
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And then when we drive ourselves nuts because our closets are full, we have a spring cleaning day, we take everything to donations.
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I got to get this output, right?
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We know the input, we know the output in our physical spaces.
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When it comes to soul minimalism, the question is, we are always receiving input on the inside, on the level of our soul.
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A conversation you had this morning, an appointment you just got back from, something that bothered you that you didn t have the time to name because you were in a hurry, but it s like there on the inside, and it impacts the conversations you have later in the day.
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By the time you lay your head down on the pillow at night, you have been accumulating reactions, responses, information, invitations,
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junk advertisements all day long.
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Yeah.
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And the question is, where s the output?
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Yeah.
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And so what it means to be a soul minimalist, there s not a club.
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I do have a Substack newsletter called The Soul Minimalist, which you can find, but you can be one right now.
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And all it is is how can I begin to develop some practices of a regular practice of output on the inside?
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Yes.
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Because this is stuff we re carrying around with us all the time.
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And if we don t have a way to release some of it,
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We re just going to be a ball of nerves everywhere we go.
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And the thing is, is everything we re carrying impacts the decisions that we make.
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It impacts the interactions that we have.
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And so what might it look like to release some of that?
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And a couple of things that come to mind for me are silence and stillness and solitude are to the soul as decluttering is to the home.
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Totally, yes.
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And it can be an uncomfortable practice.
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You re like, so I just sit in silence for five minutes?
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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And I would say yes.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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You do, you try it.
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You see what happens.
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You see what happens.
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That s what I do.
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Right, right.
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Yes.
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I ve been craving that.
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Like when you said that, I was like, oh, like sitting alone, quiet.
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I think you get to a point where you crave it.
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Yeah.
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I feel like I might be a soul, like I crave that output.
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SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
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And I don t know how I came to that conclusion,
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I think that there s so much value, though, to understanding what you re doing, because I ve never understood what I was doing or why I needed it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I literally texted someone today and I said, I need to stare at the wall all day tomorrow.
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It s interesting how your brain just starts sorting, sorting, sorting, and as you sort things out, your body can send them out.
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SPEAKER_00
That s right.
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You know what I mean?
4
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Yes.
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It s a practice of release.
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I m curious, in your own life, how do you recognize that you need some wall-stirring time?
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What are your tells?
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really bad anxiety because my brain is cluttered, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So I m like, I m on edge because I don t feel like I have my finger on the pulse of everything I need to have my finger on the pulse of, right?
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SPEAKER_00
There are things piling up in the peripheral.
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I don t love having too much in the peripheral.
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And when I see that cluttering up on the sides, I m like, and I feel that.
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and I know not everything s getting attended to, that creates anxiety for me.
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So when the anxiety starts to go up, I know.
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SPEAKER_00
Wow, I know.
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SPEAKER_00
When it starts to go up, it is no mystery to me.
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SPEAKER_00
Also, irritability even.
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I can be irritable.
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I can snap at my parents or maybe not enjoying
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social things.
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Like I don t want to go out with friends.
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I want everyone to leave me alone.
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And sometimes it s like, oh, well, we don t, we don t always have time to go stare at the wall.
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Like sometimes it s, it s, you know, especially, I especially think of new parents.
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Like I have a lot of people in my life where, you know, they just had kids, right.
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And I see them and it s like,
5
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They wake up.
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kids, go to work, kids, head hits the pillow, up, kids.
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They have not a minute.
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It s so important to find the time, though, for that output.
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And I think we all can, but it s so easy to be like, but I need to go on my Instagram Explorer page because there s so much fun stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
But that is a form of input, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
It is a form of input.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s a horrible form of input.
5
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Like when you do it too much, it s so bad.
5
SPEAKER_01
What s your, how do you know when you need
5
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when you need to.
5
SPEAKER_01
Are you the same?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, I think what you described is very similar.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I had twins.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had two babies at one time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
I brought them with me.
5
SPEAKER_00
Maybe you can meet them.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re fantastic.
5
SPEAKER_00
But let me just tell you that when I had two human people who I was in charge of,
5
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Talk about input.
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I hardly remember their whole first year of life.
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I don t blame you.
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Because it was just constant.
5
SPEAKER_00
As soon as you feel like you ve got one person s needs met, you re like, oh, the other one needs something.
5
SPEAKER_00
Unbelievable.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it was wonderful and a gift and all the things.
5
SPEAKER_00
And also, there s like two years of a blur.
5
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And so I say that
5
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to say a couple things, especially if there s a new parent listening, that there s so much grace for that season of life.
5
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I think there s so much more grace than you can, you can t plan for it and you can t get it a minute sooner.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can t store it up either.
5
SPEAKER_00
It just, it comes when you need it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I would also say that when it comes to being a soul minimalist, it actually might take less time than you think.
5
SPEAKER_00
That we think like, if I could get a week away, then I could recharge and show up for my life again.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s very rare that we get a week away.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I would say a lot can happen in five minutes.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I
5
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literally set my timer for five minutes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like on my phone, I will grab my phone.
5
SPEAKER_00
I will set my timer for five minutes and I will set it down and I will say, you don t have to do anything in this five minutes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like you don t have to do anything, but you can t do anything else.
5
SPEAKER_00
Right?
5
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, there s no assignment during this time.
5
SPEAKER_00
The assignment is to be.
5
SPEAKER_00
You just be a person.
5
SPEAKER_00
And you get those five minutes, because probably even the busiest, working full time, new parent, all the responsibilities can probably find five minutes in the day.
5
SPEAKER_00
And of that five minutes, that s not scrolling.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s not doing a thing to be productive.
5
SPEAKER_00
We have such like this idea that I have to be productive at all times.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if I have five minutes, I should be doing something.
5
SPEAKER_00
But let me tell you, just
5
SPEAKER_00
Tell yourself you are decluttering on the inside, and let that be you re doing something.
5
SPEAKER_00
Write it on your to-do list if you need to, like, decluttering time.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then you can check it off when you re done, and then it feels like I did something.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I think that that five-minute timer can go a really long way.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you have 10 minutes, you can do 10 minutes.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s amazing what that much silence can do for you.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s just so rare.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there s also other times too that you can even find it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like I know when I m in the car, if I m not, I love being in the car driving and I m on, you know, I m calling someone or I m like, you know, listening to a podcast or I m listening to music and people think this is very bizarre of me, but I will sometimes turn everything off.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
no noise.
5
SPEAKER_01
Obviously, I m driving, so I m focused on the driving.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not like I m doing nothing.
5
SPEAKER_01
But in Los Angeles, we have traffic.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m sitting in traffic.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I ll easily get five minutes of no movement.
5
SPEAKER_01
No.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s like you can get creative even with where you find that time.
5
SPEAKER_01
Do you think the brain during these moments of like five minutes of silence, stillness, you know, solitude, do you think that do you think the brain just sort of does what it needs to do?
5
SPEAKER_01
Have you noticed that?
5
SPEAKER_01
Or do you think that there is a need to sort of
5
SPEAKER_01
figure out what you re going to do with that time, or is that in itself ruining the practice?
5
SPEAKER_00
I think it can.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think that in itself, but I think practicing it imperfectly is better than not practicing it at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
5
SPEAKER_00
So even if you overthink it, okay, overthink it for the first 10 times.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yep.
5
SPEAKER_00
But eventually you re going to calm down.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s going to be okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I do think neurologically speaking though, I am not a brain scientist, but I know this much.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
is that when we take deep breaths, it sends a signal to our bodies, to our actual nervous system, that we re safe.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because if you think about it, when we are not safe, our breathing gets like... I listened to your episode about the scariest night of your life and how your body was telling you that you were in grave danger.
5
SPEAKER_00
You weren t, but you didn t know that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so your breathing was probably really shallow and you were breathing quickly.
5
SPEAKER_00
But only when you calm down, your body started breathing more normally, and then your body calmed down because you got the signal that everything s okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we can do that because sometimes we go through our lives low-key terrified every day.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so having those five minutes of deep breathing even,
5
SPEAKER_00
It can just be like for your brain, it s like a brain bath.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, oh, okay, I m going to be okay.
5
SPEAKER_00
Especially when you re anxious.
5
SPEAKER_00
Especially when you re anxious.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like the only solution when you re anxious is just breathe.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s so ... My anxiety ... I go through ebbs and flows, and recently, and sometimes I can t even explain it, high, but it s fine, but recently it s just been so
5
SPEAKER_01
but not even in a conscious way, it s just in a bodily way.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like there s a lot in the peripheral.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s just a lot happening, a lot of input.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I can t tell you how many times per day I m like, we re gonna deep breathe now for three minutes.
5
SPEAKER_01
And you do get back into it.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s something that is coming with maturity for me.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s like not laughing at
5
SPEAKER_01
these sort of small, easy things like deep breathing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like when my mom used to say, take a deep breath, I d be like, shut up, what are you talking about?
5
SPEAKER_01
That does nothing.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was like, what, I need more, I need stronger.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s so, you know, I think part of maturing is realizing that these things are not, they re not,
5
SPEAKER_01
They work, you know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_01
I think a lot of people, and myself included when I was younger, just sort of shrugged off things that seemed too easy, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Seemed too obvious.
5
SPEAKER_01
Totally, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we do that a lot.
5
SPEAKER_01
We do.
5
SPEAKER_01
We get in our own way by looking at things that seem too obvious and not giving them the proper attention.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so, oh, I am so excited.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m going to give myself a really good five minutes.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can t wait for you.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really didn t get a good five minutes this week.
5
SPEAKER_01
I did not.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think we both deserve a five minutes today.
5
SPEAKER_01
Amen, sister.
5
SPEAKER_01
Amen.
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That was amazing.
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I learned so much from you today.
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Oh, good.
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I m so glad.
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That was so amazing.
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And I can t wait to meet your twins.
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So great.
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Oh, good.
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I would love to meet you.