The Power of Simplicity and Minimalism with Courtney Carver [Episode #961]

This Week’s Episode: 

In this conversation, Kimberly speaks with Courtney Carver as they explore the themes of simplicity and minimalism, particularly focusing on the concept of ‘gentle living.’ They discuss the importance of reducing stress, the impact of external validation, and the journey towards a more mindful and fulfilling life. Courtney shares her personal experiences, including her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis, which prompted her to reevaluate her life and embrace a gentler approach. The discussion also touches on practical strategies for decluttering both physical and mental spaces, the significance of setting boundaries with news consumption, and the transformative power of simplicity in achieving emotional well-being.

About Courtney Carver 

Courtney Carver is he is the author of Soulful Simplicity, Project 333, and her current book Gentle: Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want (Balance/ Hachette Livre; February 18th, 2025). She is also the creator of bemorewithless.com and The Simplicity Space, a membership program and community full of women who are reducing stress and simplifying life. She also co-hosts The Soul & Wit Podcast with her daughter, Bailey. She has been featured in countless articles, podcasts, interviews, including O, The Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, Vogue, Success, BBC, The Guardian, today.com, Good Morning America, CNN, USA Today, Forbes, PBS, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. 

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Guest Resources

Book: Gentle: Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want

 

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Simplicity and Minimalism
02:18 The Journey to Gentle Living
07:14 The Impact of External Validation
11:09 Project 333: A Minimalist Fashion Challenge
15:38 Breaking Free from News and Noise
19:54 Connecting Gentle Living with Simplicity
25:06 Embracing the Present Moment
30:08 The Power of Gentleness
36:59 Releasing Pain and Inner Clutter
43:51 Empowerment Through Simplicity

 

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KIMBERLY’S BOOKS

• Chilla Gorilla & Lanky Lemur Journey to the Heart
• The Beauty Detox Solution
• Beauty Detox Foods
• Beauty Detox Power
• Radical Beauty
• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
• You Are More Than You Think You Are 

OTHER PODCASTS YOU MAY ENJOY!

• Wellness Insights: How to Listen to Your Body for Nutritional Guidance [Episode 878]
• How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
• How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
• How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

 

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Transcript:

Kimberly Snyder (00:01.095)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday interview show. I’m so happy to be here with you today. I’m so happy to be back recording my first interview show back. I’m actually still in evacuation right now, but just excited to be back with the community, back to share another amazing conversation with you and amazing guest. Today we have Courtney Carver, who is an expert on simplicity and minimalism, something very

very close to my heart. She is the bestselling author of Soulful Simplicity Project 333 and the book we’re going to discuss today, Gentle. I love this word. We’ve done whole shows on gentle Courtney. This concept which is actually written about in the Bhagavad Gita. Rest more, stress less and live the life you actually want. She is also the creator of the simplicity space. Courtney, thank you so much for being here with us today.

And speaking of gentle, I’m being very gentle with myself. I’ve canceled all my shows recently. I’ve been displaced and you’re actually the first person I’m speaking to in a few weeks.

Courtney Carver (01:11.66)
Wow, what an honor. appreciate you taking the time and the emotional bandwidth to even have the conversation. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.

Kimberly Snyder (01:22.395)
You know, there’s times, where we really, you you talk so much about the simplicity in this paring down in this case, you these catastrophic fires have affected so many people. So many people lost their homes. You know, we’re very grateful the fire came close, but our home is okay. Our kids lost their school. But these are the moments I feel like as a community we can rebuild. And I know for myself,

in the week when we were watching the fire maps and so much was being destructed, just lost in the community. It takes you back in this way of minimalism and simplicity to what really matters. Because sometimes in daily life, there’s just so much we get distracted by or we add all these layers on top. So I actually think your book is coming at a really important time in your philosophy around this.

Courtney Carver (02:18.062)
I’m so glad.

Kimberly Snyder (02:19.985)
Can you share a little bit about how you got into focusing on this? I can say for myself, as I call myself a recovering perfectionist, it was always more, more, more that burnout in terms of the heart stages that I talk about from my last book. We say the propelled heart, always on, just never enough. You get to that goal and then there’s something else. Was there something in your background professionally or personally where you kind of reached a?

point where you had to shift or have you always been more drawn to the gentle method?

Courtney Carver (02:54.344)
No, I was definitely like go, go, go, always more. It seems like every time I tried to solve a problem, I was looking for something more. So whether it was more time, more money, more accolades at work, more recognition, more

validation. just, I don’t know what it was, but it was just natural to me to seek that. And the tipping point for me, which really set my life in a completely new direction is in 2006, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

Kimberly Snyder (03:31.355)
Courtney Carver (03:32.522)
And it was on the heels of a bunch of crazy work deadlines and travel and just overextending myself in every possible way. And as I started to research like how to live well with MS, I wanted to see stories of other people who were doing it because that’s always so inspiring to me. Like if they can do it, I can do it. Really that kind of mentality has worked for me. And

what it all came back to in my research was less stress, less stress in your life. How can you slow down? And for me, really had like this diagnosis gave me permission to start asking questions about.

Kimberly Snyder (04:06.695)
Hmm.

Courtney Carver (04:19.022)
how I was living my life, how I really wanted to live my life, how I was feeling. Like that was such an unusual question for me to ask when I was considering something new or thinking about how things were going. I never was checking in on how I felt. That seemed so indulgent. Same for rest. Resting was always a, like when I get everything done, then I’ll rest.

Kimberly Snyder (04:36.982)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (04:46.062)
Right.

Courtney Carver (04:47.274)
I and if I did rest, I’d really have to justify that to myself and felt kind of responsible to justify it to others. Like I’m just like getting over a cold or I had this bad headache or whatever it was. But this diagnosis honestly saved my life in so many ways, just really, like I said, gave me permission to slow down, to consider how I wanted to feel.

And now I don’t apologize or justify my rest or how I take care of myself or anything at all. I just don’t. And it’s made such a big difference. And I’ve learned now that the answers are often found not in more, but in less.

Kimberly Snyder (05:36.475)
Yeah. You know, it’s what’s crazy, Courtney, is, you talk about giving yourself permission. And one of the concepts in your book is this idea around guilt. And we can even keep scaling it back to self worth feeling like we deserve to, you know, take up space. We deserve to rest. Like you said, we deserve to follow through with our intuitive needs and.

you when you said that it just, you I think about the times where I had the most anxiety and like always on always proving and underneath there’s just this really low, these moments of really low self-worth and self-esteem. Like I have to show that I’m worthy. I have to show that I’m useful. I have to show that I matter. You know, so it’s like this very deep, you know, simple is like, yeah, you know, we can simplify this and that, but actually there’s this real depth of this

paradigm shift back to being present. When you think about these great philosophers and these, Bhagavad Gita has a concept, there’s a Sanskrit word, I forget it right now, about simplicity and the Daode Ching, one of their primary concepts that’s taught in that text is simplicity. But to be simple, Courtney, we have to really

feel whole, think more and more because again, the extra layers on top, the ego is like, well, you’ll matter more if you have a better body, if you keep doing that extra workout, you you need more friends, you need more events, you need to prove this and this. So there’s a deeper underlying thing we need to look at.

Courtney Carver (07:14.968)
For sure. And the funny thing for me is it started out not that deep. It was just like, okay, what am I going to do in this moment to feel better? How am I going to reduce stress? It was really pragmatic and logical in the beginning. And I remember doing a lot of deep decluttering and getting rid of the stuff around me. And it wasn’t until a lot of that stuff was gone that I had that

extra space and time to start decluttering the really good stuff, the stuff that really opened me up, which was looking for that validation externally, instead of being able to give it myself or really caring what other people thought about how I was living my life or the decisions that I was making.

Kimberly Snyder (07:44.107)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (07:53.211)
Mmm.

Courtney Carver (08:05.196)
when I had room to start decluttering those thoughts and the way I was behaving, everything just changed so much. And when you talk about

Kimberly Snyder (08:13.807)
You need to change out here first in your physical space.

Courtney Carver (08:18.154)
It really did. It really did. Even though I was focused on my own health, I was thinking more of physical health. I wasn’t really thinking about connecting with myself or feeling differently and moving through the world differently. I was just thinking like, how am I going to reduce this stress and check this next thing off my list?

And as you were talking about self-worth, it just reminds me of so many conversations that I’ve had from people who are very busy, high stress, go, go, go. And we’re always trying to prove who we are by what we accomplish. And we do it to each other and we do it to ourselves when we review our to-do list after a full day of.

just literally getting things done. And if we haven’t completed enough in our own eyes, then the day was a failure or were a failure or whatever story we want to tell ourselves. But really I’ve found out that doing more things doesn’t make you a better person. It makes you a tired person. And you know, it’s just…

Kimberly Snyder (09:27.377)
Well, I remember Courtney when I became a mom for the first time, which is my older son is eight now. I, I took this picture of myself writing a book, nursing him on one side, pumping on the other. And I saw, I saw this picture the other day and it was like, you know, so much in my family lineage, there was so much emphasis on being really intelligent and being really smart. And my mom worked from when I was young, you know, she was out of the house all the time. And so there was all this.

conflict in me about being a mother and then working full time and not giving either up. And it just took me time to really find as a woman, as a busy multitasking person, all the different ways that we do it, that now I have these really strong boundaries where maybe I don’t get as much done, but by the time I pick them up from school, I’m done with work for the day. So it’s like, okay, I need to spread things out a little bit more, but then I can feel really present as a mom. Whereas before it was like,

all day, all night. I had to be with my kids. I work all night. Like it was burnout one-on-one, right? Because sometimes we get these cultural ideas about, I’m going to be the most successful. I’m going to work. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. You know, and you said something about not caring what people think. And that’s a really big thing, I think, because we get fed so many cultural messages about

what success really means about how we can look good or look right or look enough. You know, back to the depth of we can validate ourselves. We define what that is. I think it’s hard for a lot of people to negate those messages that can feel really strong. What do you think? Or how did you get past it?

Courtney Carver (11:09.198)
Well, I’ll tell you exactly how I got past it because it was like everything not the not what I was expecting. So it when I was decluttering and this was back in 2010, I started a minimalist fashion challenge called project 333 where I and this was I decided to do this because my closet was just so out of control. I had everything like I shopped for it.

Kimberly Snyder (11:13.329)
Tell us.

Kimberly Snyder (11:37.511)
You’re a fashionista.

Courtney Carver (11:39.286)
No, I really wasn’t, but I still like that. felt like I got such stress relief from shopping and I shopped for every event, every emotion. Like I was just collecting, collecting, collecting. And I decided that for three months, I would only dress with 33 items, including clothing, jewelry, accessories and shoes.

Kimberly Snyder (12:00.039)
How did you come up with that number?

Courtney Carver (12:02.03)
So I made a list of and this was when I was working for someone else. So I was working full time and doing all the lifey things out there. And I just looked at what I had coming up for those three months in terms of weather and work events, social events. the number that I came up with was probably in the 50s. But I wanted it to be a challenge and I loved the sound of 333. So

Kimberly Snyder (12:17.7)
Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (12:30.287)
It’s a Jesus number, you know, it’s like an angel number. Yeah.

Courtney Carver (12:33.838)
I’ve heard that for sure. And there’s no, I mean, in terms of this challenge, there’s no magic to that number 33. So some people have tried it with 40 items of clothes and you still will get that, the lessons that you are looking for. No, so underwear doesn’t count, sleepwear doesn’t count and workout clothes don’t count as long as you’re working out in them. So.

Kimberly Snyder (12:48.305)
Are you counting underwear? Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (12:58.929)
Got it.

Courtney Carver (12:59.02)
I mean, now sometimes we wear workout clothes just in our day to day. And if that’s the case, I’ll count those towards my 33 items. But what was so funny is that I knew I would learn about my relationship with stuff and shopping and spending. And I thought there might be some benefits, like I’ll save some money. But what I didn’t consider is no one noticed.

that I was only dressing with these 33 items. So at work, at meetings, I mean, I wore the same dress to every like event for that entire probably year and no one said anything or, and I kind of worked in an environment where people would say something if they noticed that.

Kimberly Snyder (13:32.241)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (13:38.78)
Wow.

Kimberly Snyder (13:46.299)
What was your field?

Courtney Carver (13:48.526)
So I worked in advertising sales for luxury magazines.

Kimberly Snyder (13:54.119)
so it was kind of like a little image conscious. I love it.

Courtney Carver (13:57.848)
Totally. And I was like, if nobody even notices what I’m wearing, what else aren’t people noticing? Like I’ve been so concerned about what people think about what I’m doing, what I’m wearing, all these things that we just kind of do and I didn’t need to. So I stopped using that as a form of consideration when making decisions almost completely.

Kimberly Snyder (14:05.766)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (14:25.639)
Wow. Wow.

Courtney Carver (14:27.694)
and I, I then also realized like, what, what would I be happier with in my life as it is if I didn’t care what other people thought about it? If someone else wasn’t defining what success meant to me, if there wasn’t this like outside society that was telling me how my house should look or my living space or anything, if it was just up to me.

and I really was able to tap into what I wanted and needed in my life, wouldn’t I be so much more content not having to go after some invisible bar or metric?

Kimberly Snyder (15:08.089)
Yes. Well, one of the things I think, you know, practically you speak about in your book here, one of the topics that really drew me in was when you talk about, because I really relate to this, break up with breaking news and less advice. I these are separate chapters, but there’s a lot of noise that comes in, right? When we talk about simplicity, it’s not just your kitchen counter, but it’s simplifying in every way. So I made a decision, Courtney, years

a couple years ago now to not watch any news. Like, well, we don’t even own TVs, but just the visual and the overload. I’ll read some news, but I don’t watch it. And like back to you said about over advice. Like I think now people can get really overwhelmed even with social media. Talk about like expectations and how you’re supposed to look and all the advice. So can you talk a little bit about these concepts and how people could.

Pair down a bit. It’s not all or nothing transition with less advice and news and just noise and social media, which I know I get asked about a lot because people tend to feel bad or they compare themselves and they judge. I mean, there’s just so much coming in. How does your philosophy and gentleness relate to these topics?

Courtney Carver (16:27.968)
Yeah, well, initially, I’m thinking how in the world can we possibly hear our own selves with all that noise? Like we can’t connect to ourselves if we’re like from the moment we wake up and grab our phones and do a quick scroll before we get out of bed to jumping into the day like it’s all day long constant no matter which way you turn unless you’re really intentional about

Kimberly Snyder (16:37.19)
Right.

Courtney Carver (16:55.63)
turning it off about not listening. I love that you’ve set boundaries around how you take in the news. I think that’s so important. I do the same thing. I have a vivid imagination. I don’t need to see the news. All I need to do is read it and process it and then figure out if this is an opportunity for me to take action or to move on.

Kimberly Snyder (17:09.306)
Ugh.

Courtney Carver (17:24.098)
But I don’t need to watch it as if it’s a mini series for days and days and days. I mean, and just in light of current events, you can see how that is so easy to get wrapped in and you’re in it. So I can only imagine that you have to be connected to that, but it does a number on your nervous system, of course.

Kimberly Snyder (17:30.667)
Kimberly Snyder (17:47.953)
Well, let me tell you something Courtney and I’ll say this factually. didn’t through all of these fires, I didn’t watch one minute of the news. I didn’t watch one minute. My in-laws said we’re glued to the news 24 seven. Like they’re nervous. They’re watching the most horrible sad stories, people losing their homes, the crying. I know this is going on. I’m on the text. I’m talking to people that are our friends who are literally losing their homes, right? And connecting. I don’t want to watch it on the news.

Courtney Carver (17:58.274)
That’s amazing.

Kimberly Snyder (18:18.053)
We were watching the emergency coalitions, we’re doing moment to moment postings. We were watching the aerial ops where they were dropping the water. We were watching the moment to moment fire maps, like the relevant information. If I was watching the news, I don’t think I would even be here with you today doing this podcast. I’d be a complete wreck and a mess. had to know everybody has a different limit to their nervous system. And that would not be gentle on me. That would be very harsh and I couldn’t handle it.

Courtney Carver (18:44.918)
Yeah, I think for most people because the what is actually happening is horrific as it is, but then you take something like breaking news and it’s their job to hook you and make it even more horrific if that’s possible. So yeah, it’s, think putting boundaries around when if you do watch the news when you watch it. So not first thing in the morning, not right before you go to bed.

Kimberly Snyder (18:51.963)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (18:58.086)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (19:11.654)
Yeah.

Courtney Carver (19:13.492)
and how you take it in and what your sources are so that you’re feeling informed but not so devastated that you can’t take action. There’s just this fine line between being informed and being completely overwhelmed by the news.

Kimberly Snyder (19:28.998)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (19:36.487)
Well, so Courtney, can you explain your connection between gentle, which is the subject of your new book, and simplicity, which sounds like you’ve been working with for a while and you’ve done these challenges and you had prior books. Tell us about how they two really connect.

Courtney Carver (19:54.188)
Well, they one thing led to another as they always do in my life. Simplifying gave me the time and space to start asking bigger questions and to start listening to myself and to start understanding how I feel what adds value to my life and what doesn’t and

the idea of gentle really came from this idea of changing the way you change. I used to do habit change in a really like aggressive, disciplined way. And it didn’t serve me, know, the habits didn’t last. And I usually ended up feeling pretty exhausted from going at it with this like go big or go home approach.

Kimberly Snyder (20:34.631)
Bye.

Courtney Carver (20:48.11)
And I started creating new habits after my diagnosis in a really gentle way, even though I didn’t call it that originally. And for instance, when I started a morning routine, instead of saying, okay, I’m going to set my alarm for an hour early and go for it, it was five minutes. And it was weeks and weeks and weeks before I was ever up to practicing for more than 30 minutes.

Kimberly Snyder (21:17.169)
Mmm.

Courtney Carver (21:18.176)
And that slow and steady approach, well, sometimes annoyed me because I was like, we can go faster. We can get this done, you know, more efficiently. I knew it wouldn’t last. I had tried it that way for so long. And so I started my morning routine in 2006 and here we are almost 20 years later. And I practice the morning routine every day and have since then.

Kimberly Snyder (21:29.498)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (21:43.591)
What’s in your morning routine?

Courtney Carver (21:46.066)
it changes. But essentially, it started as five minutes of yoga, five minutes of meditation the following week, and then I added another five minutes of writing. And then from there, this is going to set up people are going to stop listening after this next bit, but I added one minute a week to each habit. So only one minute.

It was slow and now I change it depending on the season and what I’m interested in. So these days, my morning, for instance, today I woke up, meditated for 20 minutes, wrote three pages of morning pages, and then I went to the gym. In the summer, that might look like going for a walk outside instead. I live in Salt Lake City, so it’s pretty chilly out and dark in the morning.

Kimberly Snyder (22:23.879)
Beautiful.

Kimberly Snyder (22:39.078)
Wait.

Courtney Carver (22:39.438)
Um, so I just adjust it as, as I can. And if there are times where I’m traveling or my mornings are a little bit more compressed, I don’t have as much time. I’ll still practice. Um, like I’ll still do my meditation and then maybe five minutes of writing instead of a half hour or an hour.

Kimberly Snyder (23:02.609)
I love it. feel like that really aligns with me. this, say like everybody has masculine and feminine energy in them, right, to different degrees, but there’s this nurturing-ness in this approach. And there’s so much in wellness, especially, that’s very pushy, it feels like to me. Like get in that, make it even more cold, the cold plunge, right? Or…

you know, get in, make the sauna as hot as possible or do these really intense workouts, which, you know, personally never resonated with me. My main form of exercise is walking. And when my mom passed away a few years ago, Courtney, I can’t explain why, but I had a really intense yoga practice and I gave it up. I just felt like I had to walk and it just felt really good to me to ground and be gentle. And so there’s these moments that kind of brought me away from certain practices and

It sticks, like you said, there’s a sustainability. It’s almost like the tortoise versus the hare. And so much of our society is on off, fad diets, do this for a day or two, New Year’s resolutions that don’t stick. It’s interesting because gentle, there’s so much of my work now is around the heart and heart coherence. And think about the power of love. Think about the power of a heart. There’s a gentleness to it, but it’s the most powerful. Dr. Hawkins.

Courtney Carver (24:27.518)
It is if you can hear it, if you can connect to it, take.

Kimberly Snyder (24:29.509)
Yeah. Right. Well, it’s inviting, it’s magnetic. He wrote a book called Power Versus Force. And force is like breaks down, it creates rigidity, things don’t last. But power, this power in the gentleness, like you said, it gives us this, this consistency and this long-term quality.

Courtney Carver (24:51.02)
Yeah, I think so. mean, I think so many of us are used to pushing through at all costs, giving our all, doing the go big, go home thing. And it’s exhausted us. It’s worn us out. At least, I mean, that’s been my experience. And so the gentle way is so much more, I mean, not only effective, but soothing. So it just feels better.

Kimberly Snyder (25:06.223)
Yeah.

Courtney Carver (25:19.572)
along the way and really that’s all we have. mean we consider this like far away point that we’re trying to get to like we’re always trying to get there but this here is right now like this us hanging out right now is all we have it’s it and the next moment in the next moment I mean aren’t guaranteed and

Kimberly Snyder (25:35.601)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (25:39.312)
Yes.

Courtney Carver (25:43.658)
I think instead of getting there, to be here is just so much more relaxing and enjoyable. And I just feel so much more content with my life because there’s not some other place I’m trying to be all the time.

Kimberly Snyder (25:58.247)
This is so beautiful. And the Vedic texts where I draw a lot of inspiration and I just love reading about them. Like I said, specifically the Gita, which is within the Mahabharata, there’s these soul qualities. And I believe I was thinking that, I think it’s Hriti, not sure if I’m saying it right or it’s exactly that, but there’s this quality that’s written about thousands of years ago, exactly what you’re talking about, Courtney, this.

gentleness. And also, as we become gentle with ourselves, we actually become more gentle with each other and other people. Because have you noticed when people are really high stressed and they’re just like trying to, it’s like, I’m so in a rush, I’m not going to let that person into the driving lane, I push past this person to get in line first, or you kind of can be a little bit cold without meaning to be on a call.

And it’s, you know, back to paring down to what really matters, love and connection. This gentleness, it’s like grounding. Like here we are. Why wouldn’t I be caring and compassionate, except when I’m rushing and I’m up in my head, the gentleness brings you into your heart.

Courtney Carver (27:14.37)
Right. As soon as you get into that rush mode, you remove yourself from the moment from yourself away from your heart. And you’re just on autopilot living. There’s no intentionality. And I think we all slide into that from time to time. But the more, at least for me, the more I practice being gentler and connecting with the gentle me, the quicker I can pull myself out of that.

Kimberly Snyder (27:22.981)
Yeah.

Courtney Carver (27:42.744)
hurry and that like compulsion to do one more thing and get that last thing done and all of these little time stories we tell ourselves.

Kimberly Snyder (27:55.015)
So yeah, how often does it happen, this hurry mode? And I call it that too. Courtney, it’s so funny. We were doing a saloon shoot, my friend Margo and I, and it was like, I could feel the hurry energy come up. Like, oh, we could do this one more shot and get this and this and get more more and more. And I said to her, I said, I feel myself going into hurry mode. sometimes for me, it was like recognizing it and even calling it out.

and it happens way less in me. Have you noticed it happens less in you since you’ve been doing these practices?

Courtney Carver (28:27.494)
way less. mean, here I am getting ready to launch a book and the my favorite time of a book is the writing part where everyone leaves me alone and I write the book. And

Kimberly Snyder (28:39.503)
Yes, me too.

Courtney Carver (28:43.558)
Now about, you know, as we’re recording this, I’m about a month out from publication. And normally this time gets very squishy and busy, but because of my amazing team and the way that we’ve been working together and that all of our meetings, like all of our zoom meetings are called gentle meeting or gentle. Whatever it is. And so we always start with this word and everyone is a little more relaxed and I’m not over committing myself.

I’m really watching the time so that I’m not

rushed because what happens to me is if I have like if next week for instance were jam-packed with appointments, I would be rushing now to try to get ahead, which again, another myth of life like catching up, like I’m going to get all caught up so then I can just do these things. But if catching up worked, we’d all be caught up by now. It’s just there’s always going to be another thing.

Kimberly Snyder (29:27.771)
Right.

Kimberly Snyder (29:43.367)
There’s more. Yeah. It gets added on and on and on. So yeah, this book is coming right now, but it’s actually available for pre-order as people listen to this podcast, which is great. As an author, know pre-orders are great and important. It just starts that momentum. So back to your book, Gentle.

What, you when you look at this really interesting table of contents, were you envisioning, like there’s a part one, rest, a part two, less, and a part three, rise, and then there’s different subject matters. Were you envisioning for people to kind of go through chronologically, or could people pick out things that resonated with them and start to incorporate certain aspects of these parts?

Courtney Carver (30:33.312)
Yeah, either way. I mean, it’s really a choose your own adventure kind of book. I did start the first section as rest, which, interestingly, I was going to make it the last section. And then I realized that that was just me resisting rest again, like, let’s save it for later. So I do encourage people to try to start with rest, if only to start creating that habit in your own life of resting.

Kimberly Snyder (30:42.172)
Yeah.

Courtney Carver (31:02.03)
First, not waiting until you’re worn out and exhausted, but just taking a rest because it feels so nice and it’s so good for your body and brain and heart and soul. And then…

The section on less is really about not only my simplicity journey, but different ways that we can really simplify our lives. there’s only one chapter in that section about actual clutter and stuff. The rest is about decluttering all of the other things that weigh us down. And then I wanted to include, yeah, so spoons, the spoon theory is all about

Kimberly Snyder (31:34.641)
Count Your Spoons was a fun title.

Courtney Carver (31:43.37)
measuring your energy and being, I guess, aware of the energy you’re spending every day. Like we’re all so programmed to give our all and do our best and get it all done that no wonder we’re

We have no none left for us at the end of the day. And we are really good at measuring how much time we have, how much money we have, but it’s kind of elusive how to measure our energy. And so I love this spoon theory that kind of assigns a unit of energy to each spoon you have for the day. So let’s say you have 10 spoons, you give yourself 10 spoons of energy for the day. And after you make breakfast and get the kids ready for school, one of your spoons is gone. Now you have.

Kimberly Snyder (31:59.824)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (32:17.305)
Kimberly Snyder (32:27.175)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (32:40.026)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (32:49.119)
Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I like how you put it in those terms, which is also a gentle approach. It’s not like those metrics on these wearables that’s so exact. know, some people love all the wearables. My husband’s really into all the biohacking stuff. For me, it’s more intuitive, right? So I can think of the terms of the spoons and relate to that. There’s been days where I’m like, I could push this. I could squeeze in my walk. Or maybe I’m just gonna stretch on my yoga mat. I just don’t have…

Courtney Carver (33:00.014)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (33:17.883)
the energy for this and I’m gonna have to play with my kids for the six hours after school. You know, like you just kinda see the landscape and you start to make choices for our, you know, for your wellbeing versus like you said, for some place or some, you know, judgment or some imaginary perfection that isn’t really real. It’s like breaking this myth.

Courtney Carver (33:43.95)
So many myths. I mean, we’re just inundated with them. And I kind of grew up in the self help world of the push through at all costs. And here’s the one way that works for everyone. And you should do it this way. This is the best way. And what I found is there the best way is the way that works for you. And it probably changes over time for you. So there isn’t this one like perfect path to follow.

Kimberly Snyder (33:54.503)
Courtney Carver (34:13.646)
And the more that we’re shutting the noise down, whether it be from advice from other people, which we were talking a little bit about earlier. And the reason I included this chapter on unsolicited advice is because I did a survey with blog readers and asked them, what is something that

because I was interested in boundaries at the time when I did this survey. I’m always interested in boundaries, but especially these questions I sent. And one of the questions I asked were, what do you tolerate on a regular basis that you wish you didn’t have to tolerate? And overwhelmingly, the answer was unsolicited advice about how I parent, what I eat, how I take care of myself, my work.

Kimberly Snyder (34:43.429)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (34:53.351)
Hmmmm

Courtney Carver (35:05.462)
my finances, like on and on and on people that are well-meaning and who love us in many cases want the best are giving us this advice that we didn’t ask for. And so it’s finding a way to gently say, I’ll come back to you on that. Or if it’s okay, I’m not in the mood for a

this advice right now and for all of us to be more aware of it when we have great advice for people as we often do to say, do you want advice on this or do you just want me to listen? Like let’s find out what we need from each other. Maybe someone just wants to vent and they don’t need us to fix it. And we feel compelled to fix it because

Kimberly Snyder (35:35.761)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (35:42.842)
Yes.

Courtney Carver (35:53.199)
I don’t know why. Like we don’t have the answers either. We don’t know what we’re talking about.

Kimberly Snyder (35:58.791)
Yeah, and it’s so different what works for us. May not be the right thing for that person. They had their journey. Yeah. I think it’s all, it’s interesting because that’s an ongoing thing with my husband. I will want to vent. I will just want to share. I’ll be like, you could do this and this. And I’m like, I don’t want a solution. I’m just expressing. So, you know, you have to put up those boundaries.

Courtney Carver (36:04.289)
Exactly.

Kimberly Snyder (36:26.343)
Sometimes he doesn’t get it. He’s like, well, then why are you saying it? Well, I’m just sharing and maybe journal about it right now.

Courtney Carver (36:35.618)
Well, and you can also set the boundary before you say it. Now that you, think when we know someone is prone to helping us in that way. And again, I don’t think they’re doing it in a.

Kimberly Snyder (36:39.087)
Right?

Courtney Carver (36:48.456)
a malicious way. think they’re trying to be helpful. But to say, I know you’re going to want to solve this problem, but it’s not a problem to be solved right now. All I want you to do is like, hug me and let me cry or whatever it is. You know what I mean? We have to be able to express what we want and need and not expect everyone to read our minds at the same time because they can’t. They’re too in their own heads thinking about what they know and how to fix the problem.

Kimberly Snyder (36:49.797)
No.

Kimberly Snyder (36:59.899)
No.

Kimberly Snyder (37:13.638)
Right.

Kimberly Snyder (37:17.189)
Right. So I want to also call out this chapter, which also, I mean, there’s so many concepts here, which I really relate to. And the, the calendar spoons we talked about, and then release your pain was interesting to me. When, how, if we don’t release our pain, Courtney, how could that contribute to that?

ongoing clutter.

Courtney Carver (37:46.766)
Like the inner clutter, I mean, I think our bodies are really good at holding on to everything and even the things that we’re not consciously thinking about, those things lie in our bones and our muscles and our tendons and our tissues. I have a friend, Rachel Schenken, she’s a mind-body therapist in New York and she always says our issues are in our tissues, which I love because it’s so true and so…

Kimberly Snyder (37:51.941)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (38:11.985)
Mmm.

Courtney Carver (38:16.546)
as we’re collecting new pain or new ideas or new things that our bodies might be storing, I think it’s important to process them. And for me, that’s writing them down. that’s why I write every single day. Like, I have to move the things on the inside to the outside. I don’t do it in a record-keeping kind of way. It’s not for me to read again. It’s, goodness, not for anyone else to ever read.

Kimberly Snyder (38:41.254)
Yeah.

Courtney Carver (38:46.014)
And I think, and this is a kind of a controversial subject for people who journal. For me, it’s important to shred or burn my journals on a regular basis because I don’t want that pain that I’ve written down to live anymore there in my house or in my closet or wherever the notebooks are. I don’t want to worry that someone’s going to find them.

Kimberly Snyder (38:56.689)
Mmm.

Courtney Carver (39:13.11)
I never want to put that on anyone else. It’s more for me to process and then let it go. It just works so much better for me in that way. And I used to like wait for a year or two and kind of do a big journal shred or burn. But now as soon as I fill out a notebook, it goes right through the shredder.

Kimberly Snyder (39:19.387)
Wow.

Kimberly Snyder (39:35.175)
Wow, that’s incredible.

Courtney Carver (39:37.654)
It feels so good because it gives you extra permission as you’re writing because you know this is so temporary. Like this is not going to live here long. So say it. Just say it. Don’t judge yourself and then let it go.

Kimberly Snyder (39:52.397)
At the temple we go to in Hawaii, there’s a Shiva temple. And in front, there’s this big sort of urn. And they urge you to write things that are burdening you, memories. And they describe it as moving from a color photo to a black and white. So you’re meant to write it and then light a fire and burn it and let it burn through your consciousness and release. So it’s very powerful. And I never thought to do that with my journals.

Courtney Carver (40:17.889)
very.

Kimberly Snyder (40:20.999)
I think I will get rid of some of them now. I don’t have a shredder. Maybe I should get a shredder. Right now I’m sort of like a little touchy with the fire situation. I’m not, I’m not, you know, last, last winter we made a lot of fires. It felt really ceremonial. We gather the wood, like we have oak trees that get trimmed. So we have a pile of wood and I would gather them with my kids and like make these fires. But you know, there’s just a bit of, you know, getting back to the gentle trauma around even any fire.

Courtney Carver (40:28.937)
No burning.

Kimberly Snyder (40:48.421)
even just lighting the stove at this house we’re staying to make tea, kind of jolted my nervous system. You know, back to your release, we went, we had no things Courtney, like in this evacuation, I just had one bag, we could see the fire coming down the ridge. So it’s like, what’s really valuable? I had grabbed some photos of my parents, some things my kids made, just like sentimental items. I did grab our passports, so we didn’t really have anything. So we went to Target to get some supplies.

Courtney Carver (40:55.18)
Yeah, I can imagine.

Kimberly Snyder (41:16.152)
And one of the few things I got was a yoga mat, just so could stretch. I could feel it in my body as you’re describing. So simple, just like rolling on the mat, just not this big practice, but just, you know, really simple, very therapeutic, very healing. She’s really simple. know being in wellness too, Courtney, just for me, it’s like really simple eating, like very simple. My whole practice, everything, my whole lifestyle has gotten so simple. So I really, that’s why I really resonate with your book.

Courtney Carver (41:46.83)
Well, it makes it easier to turn towards those practices when you are going through something horrible like you are right now. That you had built those practices and now they were just almost easy for you to turn to because they’re part of you now. So, yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (41:56.976)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (42:06.917)
Yes. And there isn’t, sometimes with layers and layers, there’s a lot of thinking and with simplicity, making a simple soup, making a cup of tea, just stretching the heart aligned meditation, it pairs it down to real presence. Because sometimes all the overthinking takes you out of presence. Am I doing this right? What’s the next thing here? Like think, think, back to a lot more space.

Like you said, declaring a lot more space between thoughts, just being, letting it through. So.

Courtney Carver (42:42.19)
Yeah, and I find often that like visceral reaction is so much more powerful and encouraging than the logical reaction, which is us trying to decide if we’re the best meditator ever or not. And if we put that aside and just think about how does it feel, it’s a totally different story that we’re living in.

Kimberly Snyder (42:52.294)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (43:03.814)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (43:09.041)
Well, that’s, yeah, that’s the intuitive heart versus the overthinking, over evaluating mind and the ego, which is the opposite of simplicity and gentleness and does take us on a path. We could say of suffering more overwhelm pain, lots of things. So at the end of the day, we say, Courtney, you know, what really matters here? This is our life. Do we want to be peaceful? Do we want to have more joy or do we want to have more accolades, more?

achievements, which was the world I was living in for a long time, you know.

Courtney Carver (43:44.352)
Yeah, it’s nice to let that go. And I mean, I don’t want to make it sound like you can just blink your eyes and it all disappears. It’s a process. And make it a slow one because that’s when you’re going to really learn about what’s best for you. If you’re taking your time, there’s no hurry here. So being really good to yourself along the way, I think is important.

Kimberly Snyder (43:51.932)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (44:12.017)
So for anyone reading your book, what would be your hope for them on the other end or to take away or start to incorporate? How would you want them to feel more of or how would you love to see their life shift a bit?

Courtney Carver (44:30.286)
I hope that when people read it, they feel very empowered to give themselves permission to live their lives the way they want to live their lives instead of the way they think they’re supposed to live their lives. And whether that’s just a moment in time or a year or a decade,

Kimberly Snyder (44:47.047)
Mmm.

Courtney Carver (44:52.622)
wherever that leads, hope the book opens that door to asking more questions and being better connected with ourselves.

Kimberly Snyder (45:02.331)
beautiful, back to the true self, back to the heart. You know, it’s so important. I love, I love this topic. And once again, for everyone, Courtney’s book title, full book title is Gentle, Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want. And by the time you listen to this, it may be out or it may be on

still pre-order, so please get a copy either way. And where can we find out where, well, first of all, you say the book is sold everywhere, but where specifically can we lead people, Courtney, and where can they find out more about your work?

Courtney Carver (45:43.02)
Yeah, I mean, the book will be available most everywhere. I hope you can find it at a local bookstore. And if not, then any place in all formats, including audiobook, which I recorded at the end of last year. And you can find me on my website, bemorewithless.com and on Instagram at bemorewithless.

Kimberly Snyder (46:06.769)
Be more with less. I love it. Courtney, thank you so much for being here with us today and sharing some of your wisdom, sharing your heart, sharing your beautiful presence. We appreciate you so much. We will also, everyone, link directly to Courtney’s website and to her book on our, where our show notes will be, which is at mysaluna.com.

And over there, you can also ask me questions for our Thursday Q &A show. I’ll be back there in a few days. I should be back on schedule. Hopefully I will be back. We’ll be back home within the next week or so. So Courtney, this was a really powerful conversation for me because I haven’t done any shows since the fire started. And I’m really glad that you were my first one with your gentle heart.

Courtney Carver (47:02.434)
Me too, thank you, thank you so much.

Kimberly Snyder (47:02.747)
So thank you.

and take great care and take care everyone. We’ll be back here soon. Check out the show notes and in the meantime sending you so much love and support. And I also want to say that the Heart Aligned Meditations, which are free and guided for everyone, are an amazing way to reduce stress. Please share them with anyone, especially during this fire situation or anyone displaced that you think would benefit. And they’re always there for you. So thank you so much and see everyone soon.