Reduction as a Lifestyle, Why Simple Makes Sense [Episode #462]

This week’s topic is: Reduction as a Lifestyle, Why Simple Makes Sense

Happy April and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast. We all know that we are in the midst of a very interesting time right now, an unprecedented time where our lifestyles have completely shifted our day to day life experience.

In the midst of confusion, uncertainty and feeling unsettled, there’s also a really big opportunity to reframe our lives, to reframe our schedule, to reframe our goals and intentions.

It’s also a really powerful time to peel away and let go of things that don’t serve us anymore. To get to the core of what we do want to create and our daily schedule and our routines, which really do make up how we feel day to day.

We’ve had some really interesting questions as we are in the midst of COVID-19. We are here for you. We are so excited to come together in community and dive into these questions, which have come right from you Beauties. We’re always listening and are always so excited to hear how we can support you.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question and 3 more sent in by Beauties just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Questions Answered]

Angela – Colorado

With working from home now due to what is going on and everything being accessible on my cell phone, there is way too much stimulation. Is there a simpler way to keep order in my life?

Karen – Washington

Since I am home often now, I am trying to cook more, I get overwhelmed with all of the recipes on Pinterest and purchasing vegan books that I don’t seem to ever try. Any suggestions on where to begin purging? Do you ever feel this way?

Jean – Nevada

I’m pretty sure I have “choice overload”. I can’t seem to make a decision without it stressing me out. Does this ever happen to you Kimberly? And if yes, do you mind sharing what you do to help make choosing easier?

Nadine – Pennsylvania

Have you ever heard of relationships being ruined because of too many material possessions? My husband keeps buying more and more and it’s creating clutter and making me stressed. Not sure how to ask him to stop when it’s a hobby he enjoys doing?

Inspirational Thought Of The Week

The source of peace is found within.

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: Hey Beauties. Happy April and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast. Our topic today is Reduction as a Lifestyle, Why Simple Makes Sense. We all know that we are in the midst of a very interesting time right now, an unprecedented time where our lifestyles have shifted completely our day to day life experience. There is in the midst of confusion and uncertainty and, of course, feeling unsettled, there’s also a really big opportunity right now to, I think, reframe our lives, to reframe our schedule, to reframe our goals and intentions.

Kimberly: And it’s also a really powerful time to peel away and let go of things that don’t serve us anymore, and to get to the core of what we do want to create and our daily schedule and our routines and our life, which really do make up how we feel day to day. So, we’ve had some really interesting questions as we are in the midst right now, of course, of COVID-19. We are here for you. We are so excited to come together in community and dive into these questions, which have come right from you guys. We’re always listening, we are always so excited to hear how else we could support you.

Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes

Kimberly: Before we dive in, especially now, you may have a little bit of extra time on your hands, my one ask is to please leave us a review on iTunes, which is free, easy ask. It could be a sentence long, but it’s a really, really powerful way to support the show and to help other beauties like yourself find this show and this material that could help them. This is our life mission. I do consider this my life’s work to help to support each other. I feel like we are all connected. I know we’ve all been through our own journeys, our own struggles, and we’re here to support each other. And so, I authentically and genuinely love, love, love to do this. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

Kimberly: So, a review is just a great way to help support the mission. While you’re at it, you can also hit the subscribe button. It’s a great way to make sure positivity is coming into your life regularly, especially with all the negativity in the news and fears and things like that. We want to be a grounding force for you. We have interviews and Q&As shows every week. This is a great way to just help boost your inspiration, positivity, self care. And so, I encourage you to do that as well.

Kimberly: Now, we have our beautiful Katelyn, who’s been waiting on the line patiently, who used to stay in New York, Kay, but she recently moved to Virginia. She’s a newlywed. In the midst of all this going on, life still goes on. Your babies are growing, moves are happening, people are getting married. How you doing, Kay?

Katelyn: Doing well. As always, I love this time that we have together to take a step back and connect with people. I have been a little bit, I guess, stir crazy because I don’t know anybody here and Virginia did just issue a stay at home order this past Monday. They were recommending obviously all the CDC guidelines, but we did just get into that. So, now it’s more official. So, just kind of hunkering down over here. And I like that we’re talking about reduction as a lifestyle today because, me personally, I’ve really been looking at my lifestyle and just what I’m doing, how I maximize my time and stop doing so much all the time. This is almost giving me a break.

Katelyn: Last week, we talked about looking at it as an opportunity in the respect of obviously not downplaying what’s happening, but how can we get a positive out of it. And for me, I had so much planned, so much travel, so many things, races. It almost feels like a breath of relief to just [crosstalk 00:04:13]. I’m just home or I have things I could do, but I’m turning more inward like reading and things like that. So, I feel pretty strong, but definitely struggle with the day to day sometimes with my mood.

Kimberly: I heard this really powerful statement, the saying that businesses have closed, but beyond that the busy-ness of life has shut down. In a way, it’s a forced stillness where we can’t just go to restaurants and go shopping and do everything that we used to do. So, there is a blessing in this and I don’t mean to sound insensitive because I know there’s, of course, loved ones that are getting sick and people are losing their jobs. And so, there’s a lot of strife right now. But again, if we can look through to some of the light side of this, the blessing I think is an opportunity to reevaluate our time.

Kimberly: I think this will change our lives forever. I think people will hopefully… My hope is that people will find more stillness through this and maybe be a little bit less busy even after this is all over, just want to be home more and connect with their loved ones more. It is appealing back of layers. The last week, I haven’t really left the house, Kay. My hips have been in tremendous pain now that the baby is over four pounds. I am almost eight and a half months pregnant. So, I haven’t even really been walking because the walking has been giving me even more pain right now. My doctor said really listen to your body.

Kimberly: So, I’ve been home and gardening. We’ve got our garden up and running, which has been really nice. I’ve been outside a lot with Bubby. It just feels simple and I’ve been cooking a lot. Whereas in the past, there’s been periods I just don’t have as much time. I make really simple foods in general, but now I’m back to making more multiple dishes per meal and things like that. So, this is a very interesting time right now. I think, for me, we’ll get into this in the show, having very batched electronic time, I will skim the headlines and then I’ll read if I feel like some information could be pertinent or I need to glean something new.

Kimberly: But other than that, we don’t have a TV. I don’t have the TV on all the time, which I think would be very stressful for me to have that bombardment of audio and visuals of what’s happening. I’ve never been drawn to the news. But I do read what’s going on but I don’t do it all day. I do it in the mid morning after I’ve meditated. I don’t do it before bed. So, I think controlling that input, which is very sensory, has a very big impact on our nervous system and on our bodies, is something we all need to be cognizant of. It shouldn’t come in drips and drabs I think. We’re trying to get things done in the day, we’re trying to meditate, we’re trying to focus on work, if we’re working from home, and just alerts and news feeds are just coming in all the time.

Kimberly: I think we need to be a lot more discerning and protect ourselves in this space and protect this really, really precious time and this really amazing opportunity that we have right now.

Katelyn: I agree, especially about electronics. Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I was up till one in the morning and then I went down a rabbit hole Googling articles around COVID-19 and that didn’t go over well.

Kimberly: At one in the morning, Kay? That’s horrible.

Katelyn: I just had all this anxiety about everything. I actually hadn’t really been having it and it just hit me last night, I was feeling really anxious, and I was trolling the internet. It didn’t go over well and just up so late and got up early. I agree, with your phone, a lot of people I know maybe aren’t working right now or they’re home more so I have to like put my phone aside and only have certain people coming through, because otherwise, if you’re getting texts all day or calls all day, it’s really hard to focus, where that never really used to be an issue.

Katelyn: So, I’ve definitely had to make adjustments also with people being more available than they were in the past of this is what I’m doing, my talk time and I can really enjoy it, and this is what I’m focusing on my work and this is when I’m cooking. I actually made myself a little timetable, because otherwise, I was noticing, “Oh, where, where did the time go or what happened this day?” So, I think that that’s helpful for people just to be mindful. We can be OD on electronics when we’re not used to being home.

Kimberly: Exactly. The texts as you said, Kay, it’s wonderful because we are more connected with friends and family forever and ever because everybody’s on the phone. But just when I started batching emails and then I’ll answer them in periods, and then have periods where I need to focus on a project or write, be creative. Texts, now, I answer in a swoop. I used to feel like if someone texts me, I need to text them back right away. But that really does take distraction and focus and energy and it just feels a lot better to batch it.

Question 1: With working from home now due to what’s going on and everything being accessible on my cell phone, there is way too much stimulation. Is there a simpler way to keep my life in order?

Katelyn: Yeah, and I’m sure that’ll be one of the tips we get into today. There’s a lot we could talk about as ways to get some reduction into your lifestyle. So, we’ll jump into Angela’s question, who’s living in lovely Colorado. With working from home now due to what’s going on and everything being accessible on my cell phone, there is way too much stimulation. Is there a simpler way to keep my life in order?

Kimberly: Angela, this is the perfect question that reinforces what we were just talking about, Kay, about batching. I think that there are sacred periods of the day, if you think of them as sacred junctures of time. Just like in nature when the sun is coming up and there’s this beautiful stillness and the birds are singing and mist maybe coming. This is what I see now. In my life [inaudible 00:10:40] become really tuned in and I love it. Or the time where the sun starts to go down and you can feel it energetically if you watch the sunset, a settling down feeling.

Kimberly: So, I think that electronics and stimulation should be kept out of the early morning and they should be kept out of the later evening. I think we should treat the beginning and the start of our day as sacred times. Just like there’s a circadian rhythm, there’s a process, there’s a flow in nature to each and every day. I think we need to be more regimented as far as our self-care and sticking to our morning routine and our practice, giving ourselves that time to journal, to meditate, to make our GGS, to have hot water with lemon, to maybe sit with some writing or a book or something in the morning that’s not electronic.

Kimberly: As I mentioned, I don’t get into the news until I’ve gone through all that, and so I don’t feel as overwhelmed because I’m more grounded first in my body and in the now. Same thing in the evening, I have been wearing blue light blocking glasses, which I feel is a really good practice and I just put them on as the sun starts to go down. It reminds me that I’m in a cooling down state and it’s a relaxing time. So funny because Bubby laughs at me and he tries to rip them off [inaudible 00:12:21] I don’t put them on until after he’s fully in bed.

Kimberly: But sometimes, it feels good for me. I’ve never been drawn much to shows and we just watched this really… We got sucked in but then it started to not feel good to me. It’s this docuseries called Tiger King, Kay.

Katelyn: That’s so funny, I just watched it this weekend.

Kimberly: Oh, my God. I’m not really into reality shows. It reminded me of big cats with the housewives, all the drama and things. But anyways, sometimes, we’ll watch something like that or my husband will watch something like that. But we definitely stay off the news. And for me, 40 minutes is my max. And then, I don’t want to end the day on electronics. Even if we watch that, I’ll end on a meditation or reading even two or three pages of an inspirational book, a non work related book, journaling. I think it’s important that we don’t end on stimulus from the outside world, but we go back to connecting inside of ourselves.

Kimberly: And then, as we mentioned earlier, finding ways to batch what’s going on. If you’re doing online shopping, if you’re doing emails, if you’re doing texts, whatever it is, maybe making a little schedule. I’m not as organized as Katelyn, but I’ll just say, okay, I’ll wait till three o’clock or whatever, and then I’ll answer all my texts in one fell swoop. Or this morning I said, “Okay, I’m going to have three hours just to do creative work. And then, after that, I’ll answer emails.” Whatever little system you have, but I think what’s very depleting is the dribs and drabs coming in, like answering every email as it comes in quick, little alert, every text message, constantly being on the news.

Kimberly: Batching is a very powerful way to take back your power of your time. Time is one of the most powerful resources we have. Time is the ability to go deeper into ourselves right now, to unlock a lot of strength right now. And so, we don’t want to give it away with all these alerts and being on someone else’s schedule. So, I encourage you, Angela, and all you amazing Beauties out there to really try to put in your own boundaries right now because you’re home. Maybe you’re working from home, maybe you’re not, but you’re home, and it’s up to you to be discerning with your time and to create those periods of giving it away, communicating, and then create periods where it’s about you and your self care and your time to go inward.

Katelyn: Yeah, beautifully said. I think we all need that help right now. For me especially, I liked what you said about just ending on a positive note. I’ve been trying to. If I feel negative or frustrated, I’ll try to just focus on, well, what are two or three things I could actually be grateful for, and just focus on that, because it really is so easy to go down the rabbit hole when you’re home, if you’re alone or your schedule is thrown off, you don’t have the help you normally have, and you don’t have that alone time to just really focus on. Here’s a couple of things we actually can be grateful for and, and go with that because it is easy to tread down the negativity route. Our mental health is important right now too.

Kimberly: Exactly. It’s very important.

Question 2: Since I am home often now, I’m trying to cook more for myself. I get overwhelmed with all of the recipes on Pinterest and purchasing vegan books that I don’t seem to ever even try. Do you have any suggestions on where to begin purging? Do you ever feel this way?

Katelyn: Yeah, it’s a big part of holding it together here while we’re hunkered down. Let’s dig into what Karen is saying. She’s living in Washington. Since I am home often now, I’m trying to cook more for myself. I get overwhelmed with all of the recipes on Pinterest and purchasing vegan books that I don’t seem to ever even try. Do you have any suggestions on where to begin purging? Do you ever feel this way?

Kimberly: Hey Karen, sending you lots of love in Washington. First of all, I’m glad that you are spending some more time in the kitchen. I think cooking is a really fantastic mode of self-care and I think that it’s a wonderful practice and way to take care of yourself. I will say that I’m not a, this is going to sound funny because I do put out recipes, but I’ve never been a big recipe person myself. I like to get ideas and I’ll flip through and I’ll say, okay, especially in the past when I was learning this new way of eating and cooking plant-based, being more reliant on spices and things like that for flavors.

Kimberly: I think it’s good to get ideas, but I think it’s good to have a foundational base of you don’t need much, let’s say three to five recipes that you feel really, really good about. For me, that’s a soup that I make almost every week. It’s the everyday awesome soup recipe and recipes for your perfectly imperfect life. And I do vary the spices and I do vary the veggies. Another one pot meal that I make all the time is Kitcheree. That recipe’s on our site. It’s basically [inaudible 00:17:47] brown rice and lentils and lots of veggies, the Dharma’s Kale Salad.

Kimberly: And then, the smoothie realm, I make different versions of our GGS and Power Protein Smoothie all the time. And then, I make different salads and then I make different elixirs. And so, I try to pause every day. And this is a practice that you can start doing yourself, Karen, and just tune into your body. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed with recipes and what other people are doing and what other people are making. And it looks so beautiful and look at the pictures and all this stuff out there.

Kimberly: But what really counts with food is the energetics of it. And is it supporting your energy right now? Is it what your body needs? And we are the greatest teachers to ourselves. We know our bodies more than anybody else. And so, I think it’s super important to just pause, open up your fridge maybe and just pause, look at your stock of food and just think should I make a soup today? Should I bake some veggies? Do I feel drawn to a salad? What kind of salad dressing? And it’s amazing the wisdom that will come out of your body.

Kimberly: Again, this is just another form of external stimulation and we are so reliant on trying to get validation from the outside world, trying to look like other people trying to be like other people. We all do it. And the more we’re on there, the more we feel drawn to that. So, I would say, Karen, stopped buying all the books unless you’re really inspired by one, get off Pinterest, just master three to five basic recipes that are simple and easy and really nourishing to you. And then, vary it up and listen to your body and tune into the flavors, the smells, the spices.

Kimberly: It feels really, really good to cook that way and to live that way. And it’s much more powerful than trying to make all these recipes perfect. It’ll feel much more satisfying to your body when you listen to your body and you start connecting with your body. I think there’s the real self-care power of food, if that makes sense. And that’s what started really turning things around for me because I used to be so disconnected from my body.

Kimberly: I would eat things that maybe other people were ordering or that looked pretty or that I thought were the right things. But then, I never felt satisfied. So then, I would always end up eating afterwards or I would end up eating a bunch of treats or doing stuff afterwards because I wasn’t tuning in. Once I started just listening, yesterday for instance, I felt I needed earth energy and thankfully my husband went the other day to Costco. I haven’t been going in the stores at all. But he goes and [inaudible 00:20:58] and he’s really good about it. He got a huge bag of organic potatoes and organic sweet potatoes and I just felt I really need potatoes.

Kimberly: So, I made this very potato based stew with ginger and and some veggies. Oh my God, Kay, it felt so good. It wasn’t fancy. It was pretty because there was colors of veggies and it wasn’t following a recipe. It was just what I was drawn to. So I would say, Karen, you don’t have to have these rigid, fancy recipes. I would just completely listen to your body and tune in.

Katelyn: 100%. You would have been proud of me last night, Kim. I actually cooked. I made a version of a lentil kitcheree, the crispy tofu. I made all the stuff because I have been the biggest offender of just eating out and I’ve been trying to get back into it. So, I couldn’t agree more. I just went back to the basics of everything we always talk about. It just felt really comfortable and I’m like, “Oh, this is nice. I don’t need anything.” I don’t really like fancy either, the pressure of presenting. “Here’s my meal.”

Katelyn: I’ll put a couple of links in the show notes today, Karen, and Beauties for those couple of staple recipes that we always talk about. Kitcheree, GGS, a version of Dharma’s Kale Salad for you guys and you can play with that. But just having a couple of centrals is key. During the break, which we’re about to take here, if you want to head over to mysolluna.com and check out the show notes today, you can look at those recipes.

Kimberly: Yeah, recipes I think are great ideas and they’re great to inspire you, but ultimately, you are the master of your body. You are, not to sound cheesy, but the chef of your life. You are the one that knows what your body needs the most. Yeah, I would just say to really keep tuning into that. Don’t use recipes as a crutch, as in like, “Oh my God, I have to follow a recipe for every single thing,” but use them more for inspiration. Shift your perspective of recipes and know that you never have to follow anything exactly, unless you’re trying to bake something.

Kimberly: Baking, to me, is very different than cooking [inaudible 00:23:22]. Oh my gosh, I am not a big baker. I will do it sometimes, but I’m more drawn to cooking myself, but that’s a different way of looking at food prep.

Break

Katelyn: 100%. All right, Beauties, we are going to take a short break here and then Kimberly will be back to answer the last two questions.

Kimberly: Hey Beauties, we are back from our short break, and we have two more questions for you guys on this amazing topic of reduction as a lifestyle, something that I think is a really, really powerful thing to talk about right now in this time of reevaluation and simplifying our lives and really finding the power in that, and connecting with our own wisdom and our own bodies, and discerning what really matters and what we can actually let go of. So here [inaudible 00:00:41] Kay, two more questions. I’m excited to hear what they are.

Question 3: “I’m pretty sure I have choice overload. I can’t seem to make a decision without it stressing me out. Does this ever happen to you, Kimberly? And if yes, do you mind sharing what you do to help making choices easier?”

Katelyn: We have Jean living in Nevada. “I’m pretty sure I have choice overload. I can’t seem to make a decision without it stressing me out. Does this ever happen to you, Kimberly? And if yes, do you mind sharing what you do to help making choices easier?”

Kimberly: Jean, thank you so much for your question, I love this question. I think that it wraps up everything that we’ve been talking about so far, which is finding the right balance for us between external input and really tuning in to our own wisdom. So let’s say the more we tune in, intuition starts to get stronger and stronger and we start to be more and more clear with decisions, with things that we have to do, with going forward, and there isn’t as much internal struggle and conversation and back and forth.

Kimberly: But the more we are susceptible to external validation and external ideas, whether it’s from social media or over relying on the opinions of well-meaning friends and family, or newsfeeds, there’s so many different ways that we can start to get sidetracked from our own voice. So just like we’ve been talking about all along, I think when an important choice or decision comes up you start to tune in and you ask yourself, “How does this feel in my body?” If it’s choice A or B, you could actually bring each choice to the forefront and feel into your gut or your heart, see what feels good to you.

Kimberly: And if it’s not clear, what I usually do is I take a break from it. I go for a walk or I’ll make dinner, or I’ll take a shower, or sometimes I’ll revisit it the next morning, the next day. Sometimes it’s good to do it in the morning or when you’ve had that space from conversations, new social media, whatever, and do it again. Ask yourself, “Hey, is this the best choice or is this the best choice?” And listen to your body. So the thinking mind goes in loopholes, and doubts and what ifs and, “Oh, maybe it should be this or that,” but your body is where you feel decisions, I feel like. It’s where you feel intuition.

Kimberly: So you’ll notice a sensation in your body if you really start to tune in, and this is something I didn’t start doing until somewhat recently, is listening to your body. Your body will give you cues, your body will not betray you the more you tune into it, the way thoughts can. Just like I go on all these panels, right? And I’m like, “Okay, you can get confused. You could find a study to back up any sort of claim, whether it’s vegan or plant-based or whatever.” The thoughts get confusing, but what doesn’t get confusing is when you tune in.

Kimberly: So for instance, along those lines, when I listen to my body, when I feel, it feels good to only eat plant-based for me. It feels good not to put animals, decaying animals that have suffered, animals that have been killed, into my body. My body tells me that, I don’t need a study to prove it to me. And so anyways, the more you listen to your body, and again, you can take breaks and find moments of clarity, but start to tune in more and the answers will start to become more clear.

Katelyn: Trusting ourselves is a big, big lesson, huh Kay?

Kimberly: Oh, yeah.

Katelyn: Owning our truth. So many times when I can’t make a decision, I’ll call my mom or I’ll call a friend, and then that adds levels of complexity opposed to… At the end I really know what I wanted to do, I just wanted somebody to validate me. Having that help, so that’s important for us to remember.

Kimberly: I think that’s normal. Yeah, it’s normal and it’s natural, but sometimes again, when I say well-meaning friends and family, they don’t really… They’re not you, so it’s not going to be exactly right for you. And I’ve had advice from people saying, “Oh, look at how perfect all this is.” And then I’m like, “Oh yeah, you’re right.” And then I’ve stayed in relationships too long, or I’ve done things because of external input, and it’s never felt good.

Kimberly: So the one person, the one being, the one energy that you can always trust is yourself. And so to me it’s just about creating that clear space away from external noise, doing it after a meditation, settling… Yogananda talks about this. Meditate first and then act, and that’s always been something I’ve always tried to do, whether it’s a mini-meditation or breathing exercise, like we do every day. I’ve been doing Instagram Lives every day, you guys, at noon, if you’re not aware. Noon, Pacific time every single day, our circle time, and we end with a little meditation or breathing practice, which just shows that it doesn’t have to be long. It could be a few minutes, and you can start to get a lot of clarity from these little breaks. These little mini meditations throughout the day can be really powerful.

Katelyn: Such a good tip. Sometimes we don’t know what to do, so I think having these applicable tips and tricks to make things easier is helpful.

Kimberly: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Question 4: Have you ever heard of relationships being ruined because of too many material possessions? My husband keeps buying more and more, and it’s creating clutter and making me stressed. Not sure how to ask him to stop when it’s a hobby he enjoys doing.

Katelyn: All right, we have one more for you today, Kay, from Nadine living in Pennsylvania. “Have you ever heard of relationships being ruined because of too many material possessions? My husband keeps buying more and more, and it’s creating clutter and making me stressed. Not sure how to ask him to stop when it’s a hobby he enjoys doing.”

Kimberly: Nadine, thank you so much for your question. I love this question, and I think that relationships can shift and alter based on different priorities and different ways of approaching life. So it’s not just… We can say, “Oh, it’s the material possessions he’s buying more and more.” But it may be deeper than that. It may be that you are looking to simplify, you’re looking more inwardly, and your husband is less inward and relying more on external things to feel better and to make him happy. And that’s a life approach difference. It doesn’t mean you can’t get past that and you can’t work through it together, but I think sometimes we think the relationship discord has to do with something on the surface, and it’s actually just indicative of something much, much deeper.

Kimberly: So I would say it’s not about asking him to stop necessarily, or trying to force someone into doing an action that they’re not ready for, it doesn’t feel good to them. We talked about this many times with food, for instance. I think it’s more just having an open conversation, trying to get an idea of his feelings and saying, “Hey babe, I’ve noticed that you’re buying a lot of stuff. What does it feel like to you, or how does it make you feel?” And then maybe you can start to just create an open dialogue, and sometimes men in particular are not the most open but you can just be really nonjudgmental and try to get to the root of it. Maybe he is super stressed and that makes him feel like he’s doing something, or maybe you can intuitively pick up on that.

Kimberly: And then I would say as a couple you could do things together, like take a bath together. My husband and I always take baths together where we talk, or you give each other a massage, or you just have conversations, you make dinner together. Find ways to connect where it’s about real connection and reducing stress, but really about connecting. Because sometimes when people are over-reliant on outside things, they needed a fancy car to feel good, or a fancy watch. There’s nothing wrong with having nice things, but it’s the motive behind it. If we need that validation, if we need that.

Kimberly: So just trying to be really supportive and getting to the root of it and then finding ways to support him that way, and maybe in a nonthreatening way just express, “Hey, it feels good to me to declutter right now. It feels good to me to find more space. What do you think about that?” Sharing and trying to get each other’s perspectives, I think, is really powerful. On the outside Kay, people thought… People think probably now too, and thought when my husband and I got together we were such an odd match because his body is almost completely covered in tattoos, and he likes to smoke meat sometimes. He’s not fully vegan, although he goes in periods and we’re vegan in the main house, as we say. He’s into UFC fighting and CrossFit.

Kimberly: We have very different interests, but what binds us is the connection, we can be really real with each other. I can be completely myself and I want him to feel like he is completely himself. And we have done some couples therapy, we talk to this healer woman, Laura, that I love. So it’s not traditional therapy per se, but sometimes she’ll coach us through in listening to each other and trying to see each other’s perspective, and that’s really, really helped. Because sometimes we just make things overly personal and we think, “Oh my gosh, this is how I feel and they don’t get it.” But if we could just try to open it up and see how everybody’s trying to do their best and they’re taking an approach to feel better in some way. Maybe it’s not the most efficient way always, but they’re trying to feel better in their life, too. It opens the door for really healthy communication.

Katelyn: Yeah. What I’m hearing, too-

Kimberly: Relationships, Kay.

Katelyn: Relationships, yeah. The biggest things I was hearing when you were speaking was compromise, patience, understanding, all of those things. Especially now, maybe you’re home more Nadine, and things are bothering you more because we’re in our house, right? So I know for me, I’m more critical. I’ve been for a while now, working from home. When I used to not work from home my house was a mess, I didn’t really care, I was never there. And now that I’ve been home for quite some time and even more now, I’m very protective of my energy and my space. Even my husband now, we were decorating, I’m like, “Okay, you can have this one wall.” But even then I’m like, “Oh, I want the picture here.” I’m a little controlling and it’s something I’ve had to work on, because we also have really different interests.

Katelyn: And luckily we have the same taste in how we like the house to look, but yeah, it is. And I’m like, “You know what? If that makes him happy to have this picture I don’t really like on the wall in this one spot, okay fine. Because everything else is the way I want it.” It’s compromise, and it makes him happy. Now if everything was imbalanced and he was controlling everything or vice versa, I think that wouldn’t be healthy. So I think you can express how you feel, but then just knowing it’s not all or nothing, right? There’s a lot of gray space in relationships. So I’m right there with you Kay, it’s a journey and you have to work together, or else you’re not able to pull together in the same way in a partnership if you’re not listening to how your partner feels.

Kimberly: Mm-hmm (affirmative), mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly. And picking and choosing your battles. Sometimes the little things… My husband is the one really taking on the load for the family. He’s going out to stores, he’s sourcing things, he’s carrying all the heavy stuff, and sometimes he doesn’t put a new toilet paper roll in, and sometimes I have to remind him to take out the garbage. These little things, but then when I step back I look at the big picture and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, he really is doing so much and it’s so amazing,” and that makes me feel really grateful for the relationship as a whole, even though it’s not perfect, of course.

Katelyn: Yeah, because we could pick any friendship, any relationship apart. So it goes back to that, and whenever we focus on the positives of a person we’re going to get a lot farther than maybe their detriments, and we all have detriments ourselves. I try to focus, “Okay, where can I stop…” Because I can be a little overbearing sometimes with my perfectionist personality. And owning ourselves, like, “Where do I play the role in also?”

Katelyn: Because we’re a part of it, too. Nobody’s perfect. I think just being honest with yourself, sometimes I’ll be ridiculous and I’ll be like, “Okay, I’m sorry, I was really being ridiculous.” It was just bothering me at that moment. And yeah, on our topic of reduction as a lifestyle, I think that this was a good question to end with today, just because a lot of us are spending a lot more time with whomever we live with. It might be a roommate, it might be family. Some people are by themselves at this time, but we are in more contact with people than ever, at least for me, I’m feeling. So, good to bring up some relationship here to wrap up the show.

Kimberly: For sure, for sure [crosstalk 00:00:14:57].

Thought of the Week

Katelyn: All right, Kay. Well, do you have a thought for us? We’d love to hear what you have, what you’re thinking to round up today.

Kimberly: So this thought is very, very simple, but I want you to ponder it and to think about how it applies to your life at this time. And it is the source of peace is found within, and there’s so many teachings about this. It’s the foundation of yoga and Buddhism, is going within, going within. But as it applies to everything we’ve talked about today, whether it’s frustration with relationships, confusion with choices, always going out, going out, feeling unsettled by the news. Remember that your sanctuary is always there, and it is always right inside of you. So no matter what’s going on, the world could be collapsing, we’re in the middle of this crazy time with Covid-19, there could be wars, there could be divorces, things happening in your outer world.

Kimberly: You always have that in your sanctuary, it will never go away. It’s greatly comforting to know that you carry it around with you, you just have to tune in. So meditation and breathing, if you have no idea how to get started, remember that we have free meditations for you guys over at My Solluna. It could be as simple as closing your eyes and taking some deep breaths. Remember, we have our Instagram Live every day, we end with a short meditation. We have our Solluna Circle program online that has a meditation every month.

Kimberly: It doesn’t matter the form, but I would encourage you, especially this time, to start tuning in and getting really connected with that inner strength, that inner place of peace. Because no one else can give it to you, and we don’t want to put that on friends and family to try to get it from them, to try to get it from some sense of security from the government, or jobs, or the news. We’re not going to find it there, it’s inside of you. So I want to end with that thought. It’s a big thought, but something to think about, and we send you so much love and strength. We are here as always for you, every day. Keep the questions coming to My Solluna. Keep them coming on the Instagram Lives, get them on there every day. Thank you so much Kay, for gathering all the info. The link to submit questions is mysolluna.com/askkimberly. That right, Kay?

Katelyn: That’s right, and also now if you just go to MySolluna.com, on the top you’ll see podcast. There’s an easy drop down there that you could just hit ask Kimberly. We’ve updated the nav, so it’s a little easier for you guys. If don’t remember the URL, you can go right to the homepage.

Kimberly: All right guys, well have a wonderful rest of your day and we will be back here Monday for our next interview podcast. Until then, take care and so much love.