Transforming Stress into Peace: Lessons from the Book "Gentle" with Courtney Carver

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:01]:
Welcome back to the make time for success podcast. This is episode number 258. Today's episode is a gift to anyone who is feeling stressed, overwhelmed, feeling like you have too much clutter, feeling like you'll never get caught up. And the designer of this gift is my guest, Courtney Carver. She is absolutely the first person I would recommend if you were struggling with how to simplify your life, how to make things feel more sane and more nervous system friendly. We got together in this episode to also celebrate her new book. It's called gentle rest more stress less and live the life you actually want. It is her third book and we're going to discuss topics in the book.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:55]:
We're going to discuss social media and scrolling and a whole host of other topics. I can't wait for you to listen to this episode. Courtney is the founder and creator of Be MoreWithLess.com and the simplicity space, a membership community supporting and celebrating people as they simplify their lives. Her other books are Soulful how living with less can lead to so much more and Project 333. She's been featured on Good Morning America and in the New York Times and O the Oprah magazine. Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:52]:
In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the make time for success podcast. Hi, everyone. And hi, Courtney Carver. Courtney is my special guest today in this episode where we are really going to focus in on her newest book, which I have with me on video. If you're watching on video, it's called gentle rest more stress less and live the life you you actually want. I'm really excited about this conversation and really so excited to see you again.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:49]:
Courtney. Welcome to the show.

Courtney Carver [00:02:51]:
Thank you. I'm excited too. I mean, we've been friends for a really long time and we've worked together and played together and this is just so fun to be doing an episode for your pod.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. You are a returning guest, so thank you for coming back. And yeah, we've known each other for a long time over different phases of our online life and our personal lives as well over the years. So, so good to see you again. I saw on social media a while back that you had written this book, and a few weeks ago I picked up the book finally. And it just was such a comfort to read your words right from the get go, starting from the introduction, thinking, wow, how many people need this book right now? Could you explain to us the reasons you wrote this book and maybe what it means to you to be the messenger for this type of material?

Courtney Carver [00:03:55]:
Well, I've been writing about how I've simplified my life and done everything from paying off debt to decluttering to moving to getting a new job, like just really overhauling my life. And it feels like I've kind of gone through these different layers of simplifying and the whole purpose behind me simplifying my life has always been my health and wanting to be more present, healthier, happier. And I realized after, I don't know, maybe kind of towards the middle of that journey, that I was doing too much still. And I started to really look at that and look at rest and look at why rest was so hard for me and for a lot of people. I mean, so many people that I've talked to and worked with talk about how difficult it is to do nothing. They feel guilty when they don't get enough done. Their to do lists are never ending. And I just remembered so many times in my life where I too felt guilty or lazy or like an underachiever for taking care of myself essentially, and realizing that I knew that I needed to write this book.

Courtney Carver [00:05:17]:
Because yes, simplicity will help you stress less, but the rest component is essential. And getting comfortable with the discomfort of doing less just really changes how you feel and how you sleep and how you talk to people and how you thrive in life.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:38]:
Thank you for explaining that. I find myself wondering, was there something that happened that signaled, oh, there's just another piece that's missing? Was there something in particular?

Courtney Carver [00:05:49]:
No, I don't think so. I think it's just that there was like, as I've simplified the there's always something next to simplify, which surprises me. I was like, oh my gosh, I've been doing this for three years, I'm all done. And then life was like, oh no, we're not even close. So let's look at this.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:10]:
You are making me chuckle because I think we've both been online for a stretch of time, and the more you try to kind of maybe have a position or teach something online, the more you open up in terms of people's reactions to you and what you discover and then what you learn from your audience and then again what you just said, what you're going through in your own life. So I too have gone through something similar feeling like, well, there's more to more for me to explore so I can teach more and also in that process, heal part of myself, which has been amazing. But it's also just, it does feel like, well, there's another layer and there's another thing I haven't thought of.

Courtney Carver [00:06:52]:
So true.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:52]:
Yeah, let's talk more about rest, because coincidentally, I have been on this giant not great streak with sleep. It's not me always, but it's definitely me periodically. And I have a feeling our talking about this and my revealing this is going to help someone who's listening to us now. There's been so much baseball, the World Series, last night's New York City mayoral election, some sport, some TikTok that I feel like I need to produce whatnot. And then it ends up just getting later and later and later. And I've wanted to curb it back, but it just feels like, well, here, here we go again. I'm finding it's. It's this crazy hour again.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:41]:
And it's not out of pressure, seemingly. It feels to me at the time like it's joy, but it ends up in the end not feeling great. Because of course the morning after I'm thinking, what just happened again? So can we talk about this topic of sleep, rest and decision making around sleep?

Courtney Carver [00:08:03]:
Yes. So this is all tied to the always feeling like you have to do more. Even if it's not pressure, it's like this internal message that's like, you can stay up and do one more thing. At least just one more thing. We'll just get one more thing done today and then throw in like the excitement of whatever it is that you're interested in. And that might keep you up later, too. But for me, and what I try to help people that I work with consider is that sleep really has to come first. And there's different phases of life where that's harder than others.

Courtney Carver [00:08:43]:
If you've just had a baby, that's going to be really complicated. If you are having difficult symptoms in perimenopause or menopause, that's going to be challenging. But if you prioritize it, there's a much better chance that it's going to happen. And so I recommend going to bed about an hour before you want to fall asleep. And whether you're going to read or wind down in another way, that's fine. But at least you're not like you don't keep pushing the envelope in terms of what time you're going to bed because you're probably waking up at the same time every day. So you can back that up eight hours and then go to bed an hour before that. And it sounds scary if you're used to accomplishing a lot of things at night, but you pay for it at some point.

Courtney Carver [00:09:37]:
You, you, you can't get as much done in the end, which, this isn't what this is about, but the logic, the math doesn't. Math. If you are skimping on sleep to get more stuff done because eventually you're exhausted and can't do anything.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:50]:
Yeah. In the book Courtney writes, it's just bad math. It's just bad math. It doesn't add up. So I do feel like I have that, like just one more thing. And then that one thing, as you write in the book also just can take time. Right? It just, you, you don't calculate right. I think I have bad time math.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:12]:
That may be how I became procrastination coach in the first place. How do you transition to become a person who says, okay, it's a 10 o' clock bedtime. That's the rule. Is there, is there, are there some steps?

Courtney Carver [00:10:28]:
Well, first and foremost, you have to start caring less about everything because chances are you care about too much. And we're, we think, I mean, especially because of social media, that we're supposed to care about literally everything. And that reduces our impact, our action, our interest in the very few things that we can actually care about. So it's about saying maybe, like I can't care about baseball this year or, and maybe that's not the thing for you not to care about. But for some people it will have to be like, I can't care about this for the next 60 days until I start sleeping regularly and then I can see how much capacity I actually have. Because just because you are not busy or you don't have appointments all day long, that doesn't mean you have the capacity to care and pay attention to all the things you're paying attention to. And sometimes it's the good things too that you have to say, I don't care. I just don't care.

Courtney Carver [00:11:35]:
All I care about is, you know, sleep, exercise, work, family. Maybe not in that order, but maybe those are the only things at first. Yeah. And then you have to look at how you're really spending Your time during the day, like where is all of that time, energy, attention going? And I recently took a month with Instagram off my phone and wow, I thought that I wasn't spending a lot of time on Instagram, but I definitely was like I. And it's not just the time, it's that your attention is going to all these little different places and you're just scattering yourself all over the place and it doesn't work.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:19]:
And we're all there, we're all playing care less.

Courtney Carver [00:12:22]:
Set a bedtime. Yeah, like an adult bedtime. And then honor the bedtime. So I mean I go to bed at 8:30 at night and I'm usually asleep by 9, 9:15, sometimes 9:30. And I know I'm going to wake up between 5 and 5:30. And so if I stay up until midnight, I'm still going to wake up between 5 and 5:30. So I don't want to risk that. And occasionally something will happen where that has to happen.

Courtney Carver [00:12:53]:
But more often than not, no.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:55]:
So, okay, so a lot of people who are listening to this have not read your book and do not have a friendship and know a lot of your backstory. Could you describe the pre gentle Courtney, you know what your routine was like, the pressure you felt maybe inside to perform that part of your life.

Courtney Carver [00:13:16]:
Oh my gosh, like pre simplicity me, I was over scheduled, overextended, in debt, always running late and never really taking care of myself. Like that was selfish. If I was going to put myself first, I had way too many other things to think about and I wanted to show up everywhere and I wanted to prove to myself and everyone around me how I could do it all. And even though I don't think I thought that then, looking back, I can see that's what was happening. I was really on a mission to be like, oh yeah, I can do it. I can volunteer here. I can work a full time job with ridiculous deadlines. I can get my daughter to school on time.

Courtney Carver [00:13:59]:
I can also make dinner and just on and on and on. And I never had this like epiphany like, oh, maybe you should slow down or simplify or take it easy. I instead got really sick and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006. And that was my like real slap in the face, like you have to make some changes. This isn't going to work if, if you don't feel well and if you are dealing with a, an often progressive chronic illness. And so that just really started everything for me and I still then didn't think I have to simplify. I just thought after doing a lot of research that I had to reduce some stress, and I didn't know what that would look like. But as it turns out, my life was just really a ball of stress and I had to undo it all.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:56]:
Yeah. And in the book, you write about how you have not had any relapses of multiple sclerosis as part of your healing and simplifying journey, which is, of course, I was so happy to read that. And it's just the power of taking these kinds of actions in your life, no matter what your health status is, the benefits of reducing your stress are life changing. They're literally going to put you in a different course of life. So what has the difference been for you to know that you now have the framework, the intentionality to kind of drive that ship or what? How do you do you drive a ship, to steer that ship that you have the reins of what's going on?

Courtney Carver [00:15:50]:
Yeah, I am living my life and the way I want to live my life without pressure from any expectations or external goals or this idea of proving myself. And so there are some days that I get a lot of things done, and there are some days I get next to nothing done. And they're both great days. There's not a, you know, I don't compare them. I think you have to have one, really, to have the other. And just to back up for a second with the no relapses, I just want to be clear that, yes, simplicity and reducing stress and living the way I do has helped dramatically. I also work with a great neurological team and take conventional miss meds, so that is a factor in this as well. But to be relapse, and I mean, I would say probably 97, 98% symptom free for almost 20 years is pretty great.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:52]:
It's amazing. It's amazing. So happy about that. And I see you as just like this pillar of intentionality. Like, you are my role model for just knowing what you like and what serves you and what you need to see happen. I also see you as someone who you like to take action when action is needed. You don't. You don't like to fuss around.

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:16]:
And I think this is apart from the reading and just how I was connected to you. I was magnetized to your work online. I mean, I met you online back in the day when far fewer of us were online. And I just loved your intentionality. So I just wanted to put that in the middle of this conversation.

Courtney Carver [00:17:36]:
Well, I appreciate that thank you. I mean, it took me a long time to be able to take that for myself because coming from a place of wanting to make everybody happy and be a pleaser, I'm not that person anymore. Of course I want everyone to be happy, but I'm not going to compromise myself to make sure that they are. And so it's more of a, you know, having that, as you say, intention of. Yeah. I trust everyone else to do what's best for them and I'm going to do what's best for me. And sometimes that means saying no or not explaining myself or not proving myself and carrying on. And I hope that we all succeed within that framework.

Courtney Carver [00:18:24]:
But I know it's upsetting to people to, especially to other people pleasers. Not to be surrounded by other people pleasers.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:32]:
Yeah. I mean, I think this is part of the beauty of this book, Gentle, which is that you're able to weave in how we need to learn to treat ourselves and hold ourselves in this very precious way. Precious, not delicate, but like it's so important for us to be happy with our choices and our decisions and our situations. And if we're not, somehow things are going to go awry. We're going to feel badly, we're going to carry extra guilt, we're going to feel like we need to buy things all the time to kind of take.

Courtney Carver [00:19:09]:
You know, feel better.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:10]:
Yeah. To feel better. Yeah. And I just think you, you do it in a. It's like such a readable book while it's also weaving in these very complicated self care ideas. Right. They're kind of complicated. Like it takes years of therapy to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:27]:
To write this book.

Courtney Carver [00:19:29]:
Okay. I have had years of therapy, so maybe, but I don't know. I think they're, they're not definitely complicated ways of self care. They're unconventional. So we think of self care as take a bubble bath, throw on a face mask. But this is like, this is the next level of self care in, you know, paying attention to how you worry about things. Saying no even when you're not busy, like really prioritizing your time and attention. It's so important.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:01]:
Okay. You make me think about your social media posts, Courtney Carver's social media posts. When I see them, I know this is Courtney because I know it's like a straight opinion that's boldly stated that oftentimes is just not what you hear other people saying because it's like what you're just saying. It's like you get to say no even if you have an open schedule yeah. And we're just not taught that. It's not obvious. And yet when you have, when you post on social media, I feel like, well, of course we can. It becomes obvious.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:41]:
But that is the beauty of your be more with less brand, is that you know what helps you and it really comes through in your messaging because you're being you. Right? Yeah. You're being strong, you're being you. So thank you for that because I learn a lot. I know. I remember that a long time ago you said always drink water before anything else. It's like things like that, that is self care, that it may not be high level, but it's so important.

Courtney Carver [00:21:13]:
Well, yeah, I think it's interesting that something like that, where we'll be doing something else, we won't be feeling good and we'll keep pushing through the thing until we're finished before we give ourselves a drink of water. And at some point it kind of dawned on me like, oh my gosh, like I am a grown person person. I can drink water anytime I want. I don't have to push through, actually, at least not in this moment. Like, I don't have to finish this blog post or finish watching Instagram or whatever we're doing that. We won't stop and have some water or take a walk or lay down or whatever. Count to 10. Why do we withhold that from ourselves? It's so punishing.

Courtney Carver [00:21:53]:
I think so to turn it around. It's like instead of a punishment, now you're giving yourself this gift of like, hey, I matter right now, in this very moment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:04]:
Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the art of under reacting. Because that is a part of the book and I think that's such a wonderful topic. Could you share with us a few thoughts on that? And one question that I took in my notes is, do I care?

Courtney Carver [00:22:24]:
Yes. So we kind of talked about that earlier, about the way that we care about everything. And I think asking that question is so important no matter what we're doing. And I even practice that now. So I will. Let's say I open my email and there's a link to an article that I'm interested in and I open the article and I start reading it, I have to stop myself and say, do I care about this right now or did I just do that thing where you just click, click, click. And if I don't care, then I'm immediately out. So always asking that question.

Courtney Carver [00:22:57]:
I'll ask it when I'm reading a book, when I'm watching a show, when I'm talking to someone like, do. Am I in this? Am I really in this? Do I care? Or am I just here on autopilot and then I can shift? But when I talk about the power of underreacting, I think for a lot of us who. Like, for me, I used to overreact, for sure. And even though it may not have come across that way, I wasn't throwing chairs or screaming at people, but I was really overreacting on the inside and catastrophizing and making whatever the situation was ten times worse because of my reaction. It was like I was experiencing the hurt twice. Once when it happened, and once when I just, like, lost my mind about it. And it could be something as difficult as a hard conversation or as simple as my eggs are overcooked, like, who knows what it's going to be? But practicing on the simple stuff helps you practice on the tough stuff. And if you don't overreact, if you can give yourself some space to pause and think about things, I think usually the best benefit is that the situation resolves itself without you putting yourself in the middle of it.

Courtney Carver [00:24:19]:
You can just step back for a minute and watch and see what happens. And then you also have that time to decide how you want to react, if at all. It's such a gentler process for your nervous system and for you and for the people around you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:35]:
Okay, you're reminding me of what you have in this book that I've been hearing about lately on social media and amidst my own client group, and that is the spoons.

Courtney Carver [00:24:47]:
Oh, counting your spoons.

Dr. Christine Li [00:24:49]:
Counting your spoons. Could you explain that to me? Because it's brand new to me. And I was. The first time I heard it, I said, what are you. Did you really just say spoons? And what are we talking about?

Courtney Carver [00:24:58]:
So, yeah, we need to credit the original creator. And I put that in the book. I think her first name's Christine, actually. And I'm not remembering.

Dr. Christine Li [00:25:07]:
Miserandino.

Courtney Carver [00:25:09]:
Okay. That's right. Christine Miserandino. She created this theory called the spoon Theory to talk to her friends about her energy levels with a chronic illness. And we're often measuring our time and our money. Like, we all know how to do that, sort of. We know it's possible, but we don't think about measuring our energy capacity. And the way she laid it out, it was like, let's say that you have.

Courtney Carver [00:25:40]:
And I don't know if this is exactly how she said it, but essentially that you have seven spoons for the day. And each spoon is a certain amount of energy. And so making breakfast might cost you two spoons and then working might be three spoons. And then you only have two spoons left. So you have to decide how you're going to use those spoons. You have to be much more intentional about it because you do run out of energy faster. And I agree. And I think even without chronic illness, we could all benefit from giving a little more attention to how we send our energy out and how we conserve it and how we renew it.

Courtney Carver [00:26:26]:
Because if we don't, then we're just running on empty. And all of us have done that. And it's the worst. It just feels terrible.

Dr. Christine Li [00:26:32]:
Well, it, it. I've been doing this for the past week or two weeks with my sleep deficit. Right. It's temporary and I'm enjoying myself in the moment. But I'm also calculating. I know that I'm doing bad math. I know that my energy is going to, you know, I'm going to pay for it somehow tomorrow or the next day. Right.

Dr. Christine Li [00:26:52]:
It's sometimes not the next day that you feel it, but somewhere. You lose your train of thought. You can't find. Find the word all of a sudden. And it's because of this bad math that we've been talking about.

Courtney Carver [00:27:04]:
True.

Dr. Christine Li [00:27:05]:
So thank you for explaining more about the spoon theory. Yeah. And can you now tell us about the work you do with your community in the Simplicity Space and in other places? If I don't know the other spaces and your goals there and what you've learned from working with your own community?

Courtney Carver [00:27:27]:
Sure. So I write regularly on my blog, be morewithless.com and have been since 2010, very consistently. And then I have a membership program called the Simplicity Space where you've actually come in and worked with our group several times. We love you. Thank you for doing that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:27:46]:
I love the space. Thank you.

Courtney Carver [00:27:48]:
And it's a combination of a community in mighty networks, along with live declutter hours and live gatherings that are sometimes guest hosted. And then we also have some content in there like a Simplicity course and other things that people use to really take their own Simplicity journey. And what I love about it is that some people are working on simplifying their clutter, some people are working on simplifying their schedule, some people are simplifying their career path. It's really a personal journey, but we all have the same, the same intention behind it and the group itself. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and it is just the kindest most thoughtful group of people, mostly women. The way that they support each other and the lack of judgment. Like, I've just really never seen anything like it. I'm always so honored to be a part of their experience.

Dr. Christine Li [00:28:52]:
Experience.

Courtney Carver [00:28:53]:
So, yeah, that's that. And then I recently started writing on Substack a little bit and I'm really loving that platform and thinking that it might be like the long term alternative to social media, actually. But it's still a big experiment, as is my work all the time.

Dr. Christine Li [00:29:17]:
Great. Could you explain, just for my personal interest, if I made the substack, like, what. What is exciting about it for you?

Courtney Carver [00:29:27]:
Yeah, it's really. It feels like the early days of blogging where it's very easy to connect with people and it's a nice, like, clean platform that they've created that you can easily modify. You can build a. A paid subscribership where you can offer not only written content, but audio. Some people do podcasts. Really. I think the sky's the limit. Like, I've only just started and I'm just beginning to scratch the surface.

Courtney Carver [00:30:02]:
But for the most part, it's just this like, really gentle, quiet corner of the Internet so far for me, which I really like. And so it is. It's just a little something different and I'm really curious about it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:30:18]:
Are you be more with less over there as well?

Courtney Carver [00:30:21]:
I'm not. I'm actually Courtney Carver. And the. The space that I created is called Little Saturday. And so I publish on Wednesday and Saturdays and then a monthly letter and declutter challenge.

Dr. Christine Li [00:30:36]:
Okay, terrific. Thank you for describing that. I'm glad you're excited about that. Terrific. Okay. I know that when we. When I got your information for today's episode, you had mentioned a free download for people.

Courtney Carver [00:30:51]:
Yes. Yeah. So I have a quick simplicity guide that gives you 25 ideas to simplify in 10 minutes or less. And it just really helps people take action without getting overwhelmed. Because whether you're starting to simplify for the first time or the 50th time, that beginning is always, can be a little overwhelming because you're like, where do I start? There's so many different places. And so I think this really helps break it down and make it a little simpler for people. So, yes, I sent a link to you for that that people can click on and get a free guide.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:32]:
Okay. I can create an easy way for people to get that link. And that is maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/simplicity. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/simplicity. I want to make sure that everyone who's interested in what Courtney is teaching and representing and modeling for us that you stay in touch with Courtney, get on that substack and just keep learning from Courtney because she's. She's a great mentor and person to learn from. So thank you, Courtney.

Courtney Carver [00:32:08]:
Thank you. I feel the same about you. I mean, thank you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:11]:
Thank you. You. You've been a great supporter of my work from the beginning. Literally from the beginning. Courtney was there at the beginning for me. So thank you, Courtney.

Courtney Carver [00:32:19]:
My pleasure.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:20]:
And everybody, remember, Gentle is the book that you need by your bedside when you're feeling like you just can't let the day go or you can't let it wind down. This would be a great thing to kind of pick up and read a few pages because it's wonderful. So congratulations.

Courtney Carver [00:32:36]:
You can read it during that hour that you go to bed before you have to go to sleep.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:40]:
Absolutely. And you'll learn so much. So thank you, Courtney, for all the work that you do and all the heart that you put into the work that you do.

Courtney Carver [00:32:49]:
Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me today.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:51]:
Do you have any last words for our audience?

Courtney Carver [00:32:56]:
Just give yourself permission to rest. Really give yourself permission. Let the guilt go. It's just not productive at all. And. And rest. See what happens if you lay down for five minutes, like right now. Not if you're driving.

Dr. Christine Li [00:33:12]:
That was a surprise to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney Carver [00:33:15]:
And you can lay down. See what happens if you just lay down for five minutes in the middle of the day. Everything will be okay.

Dr. Christine Li [00:33:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. Great message. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also Visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach.

Dr. Christine Li [00:33:49]:
Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.