Busy? Applying decluttering to your mind, your day and your LIFE
Are you soooo busy?? How are we so busy? All the time!? More importantly: What are we so busy with?? It’s time to declutter our minds, calendar and life! Today we will work on discernment, active decision making on what is truly important and where to go from there. Then, we will do a liberation meditation with the mantra, Moksha.
In this episode we will learn:
~Why keeping your surroundings in order is important
~How to discern what is worth your time
~Incoming vs. outgoing: how can this help with the busy problem
~Keeping track of you agenda vs. someone else’s
~Moksha Meditation
The Host for this podcast: Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW The Stress Therapist and Author
Join Cheri Flake on her Next Meditation And Yoga Retreat! In the mountains or At the beach
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Quotes: “A messy space is a messy mind.” -Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW
Interesting Mentions:
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Hope for Domestic Violence and Nspire
Heartwood Retreat Center : location for Cheri’s Georgia Mountain Retreats
Awaken Your Inner Awesomeness:
Melissa Oatman
Website: https://www.melissaoatman.com
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/MelissaOatman
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Register for a meditation and yoga retreat in the gorgeous Georgia Mountains and walk away with a new, solid daily meditation practice with benefits that last a lifetime! OR Register for sweet, peaceful meditation and yoga beach retreat on Jekyll Island seaside right off the coast of Georgia.
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A word from your host, Cheri Flake, LCSW: Feeling good after our Stress Therapy session? Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, The Stress Therapist on social media or go to www.iLoveTherapy.com to find out about meditation classes & meditation and yoga retreats.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, beautiful people. I’m so busy. Are you busy? When people ask you how you’re doing, do you say you’re busy? OOH, stop doing that. Don’t do that. I’ll stop doing it with you. Let’s spend a little bit of time on how to become unbusy, shall we? Today we’re gonna go over a little mindset tip that might change everything. Yes, it’s season six tips and Tricks that this psychotherapist wants you to know. So relax and settle in, and listen up, because your stress therapy session is about to begin right now. Hey, beautiful people. It’s time for Some Stress Therapy, a podcast about how to meditate and get better at stress for people living in the real world. Finally, a place to park my 25 plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in the mental health field. And now, your host, me, the stress therapist, Cheri Flake. Okay, before we get into the thick of it, we’re going to take a teensy tiny break. Be right back. Hey, beautiful people. What’s up? Okay, so when I was an undergrad at Michigan State University go green, go white. Anyway, I was studying psychology, and one of the classes that I was taking was Sociology of Work. And there were a lot of kids at my university. It’s a huge university. There were like, 60,000 kids there. And I think there are about 400 to 600 people in this class. And we were supposed to write a paper. And so I was writing the paper and I was super struggling. I don’t remember what the paper was about, and I was just struggling and struggling. And of course, the teacher doesn’t know me. I was just like a 1157-0684, right? I didn’t even have a name. And I called her at night because I was trying to figure out this paper. I was super struggling. And she answered the phone. It was amazing. And she was very sweet and kind, but she was very rough around the edges, very edgy. I love this chick. I went on and on and on about the paper, and I was telling her I was looking at it and I was reporting on it. And this was way back in the times, in the 90s, early ninety s. And all I had was this Smith Corona little word processing machine. And I was reading her the paper that I wrote, and all of a sudden, while I’m reading it to her, my cat walks onto the desk and puts her little paws on the little plugin where the outlet meets the machine. And this is old school, right? So there’s no way to save it. And all of a sudden, my whole paper is gone, right? While I’m on the phone with her, I’m like, oh, my gosh. Oh, no, my cat, it happened. So it was, like, very clear that it was happening in real time. I wasn’t calling after the fact. I figured she heard the cat. I mean, she heard the whole fiasco, of course she would agree to give me an extension on the paper. It was due the very next day. And she said, no, you have to rewrite it. And I was like, okay. And she was like, you have to rewrite it anyway, because it’s horrible. And I was like, okay. My ego a little bruised there, but I had called her because I knew it was horrible. Remember that? Right? And so I said, which route should I take it? Should I take it? This route, that route, this route? What should do? Like, how should I PROCEED writing a paper that’s better than the horrible one that I just lost because of my cat loopy? And she said, Walk away from the machine and clean your room perfectly. Make your bed. Put your laundry away. Do a load of laundry. Do the dishes. Your space should be absolutely impeccable, immaculate. And then sit down and write the paper. And I hung up with her, and I was like, that is the worst advice I have ever gotten in my life. And there was really nothing else to do. And I had cried a little bit. I was pretty upset. I was mad at my cat, right? And so I did. I began cleaning up a little bit. And then after my room was clean, I wrote the paper. And of course, the happy ending is I got a 4.01. I was very upset. I was annoyed. I was mad at her. And here I am talking about it. Wow, 30 years later. Okay, so kind of relevant, right? Like, pretty relevant. And she taught me this woman. I cannot remember her name. I wish I could give her massive amounts of credit. My sociology of work teacher, circa 1990 319 92 at Michigan State University taught me, a messy space is a messy mind, and you cannot count on being brilliant when your space is messy. And since then, I have adopted this. In my life, I have adopted this. And I have managed to keep my space at work, my space in my little pink treehouse, my space in my bedroom where I spend most of my time in my little babe cave, where I work and pray and meditate and do yoga. I’ve managed to keep those spaces pretty clutter free. And what I have found is it has a profound effect on how I function at work with my kids, all of that. My kids cannot understand why my mood is related to a tidy kitchen. But this is why. This is the actual story. Why now here, lately, I have been so incredibly busy, I cannot figure out what to do. And I’m not exaggerating. It’s like the shoemaker’s kid has no shoes. I have been overly stressed out. I know, and I’m the stress therapist. I totally get it, right? But think about it, seriously. If my husband was a stress therapist, he would be a total fraud. He has no idea what it’s like to be stressed. So it’s important that I’m occasionally stressed so I can relate to my ideal client, my podcast listener, et cetera, et cetera. Right? Okay. So I’ve been, like, super stressed out, way more stressed out in the past six or eight months, and I’ve been trying to figure out little ways to make my life less stressful and less busy. And I’ve decided to use this. Messy space equals messy mind mentality. And it is the only thing that’s helped. In the wise words of Jonathan Livingston Siegel, which is a book about a seagull. And from his perspective, it’s amazing. I highly recommend you pick it up. You can read it, like, in an hour. It’s super short, but I do think the author was actually Jonathan Bach. You teach best what you need to learn, and this is sort of my life’s philosophy, man. I mean, a lot of therapists, they specialize in healing and helping people who look like themselves when they’re not doing well. That’s what I’ve noticed. Right. And so that’s what I’m doing here. So I got kids. I got this big house with the dogs and the cat and all the nonsense and the messes and the buckets and the backpacks and shoes and oh, my goodness, just laundry galore. It’s exactly how you think it is, right? Because we live there. And I have found that I can’t just be incoming. So I do like to shop. I won’t lie. My mom and I do a lot of shopping. She loves design and interior design, and she loves to blow my money on redoing rooms in my house. Just kidding. We do. But often it seems like we’re doing my house, not hers. I guess her house is kind of done and mine’s never done because my kids always grow and change or you get a puppy or whatever. But anyway, we do a lot of shopping. We’re going to go shopping tomorrow. We’re going to buy some office furniture because my husband is expanding. He’s next to me at my office now in Atlanta, and we need to buy some new office furniture. And there’s a lot of incoming, right? So I’ll get new bar stools or I’ll get new chairs, or I’ll get, like, a little reading. We’ll put together a reading nook for my daughter. Or we’ll make it so my boys trophies and tennis things have a place to go in his room. And then they like to have this kind of desk, and they like to have this kind of decorations and this, light up this or light up that. So we’re constantly catering to the change that your kids go to. But what I found is if I don’t consciously remove things right, like if I’m just incoming, new top, new T shirt. I mean, even things you need, new underpants, whatever you have to have outgoing. You cannot just have incoming because all of a sudden you’re in a messy space and you have a messy mind. And I was like, maybe this is what’s happening. So every two weeks inspire outreach. That’s Nspire if you’re in the Atlanta area. And the other one is called Hope for Domestic violence. They come out and collect items that families and women need in order to make their lives better. And so every two weeks, every two weeks, a big truck comes and picks up. And so I have outgoing. And I’ve noticed here lately I have a little bit more incoming than outgoing. And could this possibly be my I’m too busy, right? So I did a little bit more of a massive clean out. We got rid of all the Barbies. We got rid of all the old workout equipment that we don’t use that sits next to the equipment that we do use and hinders us from using the equipment that we use. We did a massive hobby clean out all the arts and crafts that we do use and the ones that have dried up or are no good or we’re through with get rid of those. And that helped a little bit too. But still all this stress, all the same old feeling. Like I have this messy space in a messy mind. And then I’m reading this book called 4000 Weeks. Holy smokes. Pick it up again. I think this is the third time I’m going to do this now in a row. Even after saying that I don’t do it, so I clearly do. I’m going to recommend a book I haven’t finished, but it’s so good and I’m almost done with it. Really close. It’s so good that it is a completely different look at the way that we have brought up to think about productivity, getting things done, getting things into our lives, getting things out of our lives, which is really the message because we only are going to live about 4000 weeks. What? And even though that sounds totally depressing, the book actually brings you around to a positive look at valuing every moment that you have on this planet, which is, you know, something I can get behind, right? And then I noticed here’s the ticket, okay? I have all this incoming, right? So I have my little private practice and I see clients two days a week, virtually or in person. And I have a podcast. And then I joined this amazing ethereal network of shows with a bunch of other podcasters that are all my new favorite friends. If you haven’t listened to The Reluctant Medium, oh, please do yourself a favor. What? I love this. It’s my girl Maria. She’s a therapist and all of a sudden she figured out she’s also a medium. Didn’t ask for it. Didn’t ask for it, but wants to share her gifts with the world. And she talks to spirit babies. Anyway, there are like 15 other people. The skeptic metaphysicians. These are my new favorite people, Will and his wife Karen. They’re amazing. They’re going around interviewing people in the spirituality side, metaphysical, paranormal stuff and trying to get to the bottom of it. I love it. Anyway, so I’ve been surrounding myself with all these like minded people that are so much different than me but kind of like me. And we’re like hanging out and connecting and promoting one another’s podcasts and also producing, performing, editing and publishing our own podcasts. Right. That takes some time. Seeing clients takes some time. Driving my kids all over the universe as soon as school gets out takes some time. I am not a huge fan of carpools, at the risk of sounding. I just want to be with my kid after school. I just want to be with them alone on the way to the bus. I just want to connect with them. And when you’re in the car alone, it’s such a great opportunity, and they’re going to be gone in a couple of years. And so I just try not to fill my car with a bunch of kids. So that takes a little bit of time to always be the one that’s driving. I try to make it up to the universe by driving my husband’s car occasionally, which is electric because I do a lot of driving. My kids really into tennis. Both of them are. They like after school clubs. They want to go hang out with their friends. I’m doing a lot of driving. I also love traveling, and if there’s an experience out there, I want to have it. October is so slammed full with the coolest things. I’m going to be going to California to see a bunch of therapists that, oh, my gosh, I love so dearly, and I can’t wait to learn from them. At a conference there. I’m going to hook up with my friend from Whitney Howard Designs, Whitney Schwartz, and she lives in Calabasas, so I’ll be hooking up with her. I’m going to be taking care of my little niece and nephew for like, four days in their house, so I’m going to be living over there and taking care of them. It’s, of course, Halloween, which is my all time favorite holiday. I take it very seriously. The Flakes take it very seriously, so I’m busy with that and going to Capturing the Spirit and visiting the cemetery and doing all the fun things with my friends. I also love going to concerts. There’s going to be aerosmith. There’s going to be the black crows. We just went to Lionel Ritchie and Earth, Wind and Fire. What? It was amazing. And I fill it up and fill it up and fill it up, and the next thing I know, I’m not listening to the book for a thousand weeks at all. I’m not even listening to myself because it’s just incoming. Even the good stuff. Even the good stuff. Even if the incoming is good stuff, you’re still filling up to the top with it. And an overly busy person is a messy mind, even if you’re filling it up with the good stuff. And so this book says, listen, it’s not true. All these productivity books and like David Allen, I learned a lot of good things from David Allen. Oh my goodness. My biggest takeaway is if you can do it in two minutes, do it. But his point in this 4000 weeks, and I’ll put it in the show notes, is that you need to decide what you’re going to put in your life and you’re going to need to make some big decisions. And if that sounds depressing or hard or whatever, you’re already making all these big decisions, maybe by default, because you’re not going to be able to go to every concert, you’re not going to be able to experience every single thing, you’re not going to be able to fill up every single second of every single day. It’s all not eventually going to fit in this idea that productivity is around the corner or you’re going to have more time around the corner. You are not guaranteed one more second on this planet. So how are you going to spend it? And if it’s going through your email and clearing it out, that just means you’re not spending time on what you want to be doing. And this delusion that if we spend some time doing these frivolous things, that it opens up space for you to do the things that matter is wrong. Like you need to start with the things that matter. So I have been taking on this philosophy this week. It’s been amazing. I am marketing for retreat that I have a few spots left for in October. I would love to have you. You can come on out and really trying to creatively think about what this retreat provides for people and make sure that I am bringing people to the retreat that want that thing, that want to walk away with a daily habitual meditation practice. They want that from the retreat. They’re not just coming to be on vacation or coming to just do rigorous amounts of yoga. There’s only going to be two relatively long yoga classes on this retreat. It is a meditation retreat. It’s how to learn this peaceful practice in an accessible, comfortable way, hopefully sometimes even humorous way, and who are the people that need to hear that. And then I can give it some thoughtful thinking. I don’t want to fill up my retreat with people. I want to fill up my retreat with ideal clients, with retreatants that want to learn this specific thing and want to learn it from me. So the whole idea is you need to spend your time on what matters. This morning when I was talking to my boy and he was showing me something on YouTube, I said, remember how you spend your time when you look back on your life? This is what you’re going to remember. And I was kind of giving him a hard time because he doesn’t spend that much time on YouTube, but he does spend time on YouTube for sure. My amazing friend Sarah, shout out to her who just moved to Pittsburgh, and my heart is broken because that is so far from Atlanta. She has three beautiful boys and they are the cutest things in the whole world, and they are beating each other up and hugging each other and they are just a riot. And I love being around her boys. And she’s one of these moms that you just admire, that you want to be more like. And when I need mom advice, I’m calling her. She’s amazing. And Sarah, when you pick up her phone, it doesn’t have a picture of these three beautiful boys on it. It has a message that says, whose agenda? Question mark. And she says it’s a reminder. Am I picking up my phone to cater to and pay attention to someone else’s agenda or mine?
[17:40] What?
[17:41] This is the smartest thing I’ve ever heard because we need to spend our time doing things that matter according to us. And the author of this book uses the example. I get this message from my boss that says, Please read, which probably means I don’t have to read it at all. And then I spend 15 minutes changing my password, not because anything’s been compromised, but just because it’s time. And then I didn’t spend any minutes on the talk I’m going to give later or whatever big project he had going on. I’m just saying, what if you went to sit down and did not clear off the decks because the decks fill up overnight. All these little procrastinating ideas, all these little things I’m going to do before I do the big thing, because then you don’t have time for the big thing and you don’t want to go to bed and you don’t want to drop dead with your music still in you. That’s what Wayne Dyer says, right? Like, you want to have spent the time on the thing that matters to you. And so you might need to take some drastic measures because whether you think so or not, you’re already settling. You’re already making the decision to do one thing instead of the other. Wouldn’t it be good if it was a little more thoughtful? Because if you want to travel the whole world, you’re never going to see the whole world. If you want to go to every single concert, you’re never going to be able to go to all the concerts you need to pick. And I missed Culture Club. I missed Culture Club because of this idea that I’m going to have to make tough decisions about things I want to do. Okay? Those are the tough decisions, not things I don’t want to do. And we’re spending so much time even on the things that are making us feel bad about how we’re spending our time. Like Facebook or Instagram or whatever. Like the very thing that you’re using to figure out how to spend your time. Like being in this Facebook group for puppies that I’m in, I’m seeing all these other ways that I could spend my time and all this missing out on. And you’re missing out on everything. You’re going to miss out on everything. You’re going to miss out on 99.99% of the world, what the world has to offer you. So what are you going to engage in? What are you going to surround yourself with? I was reading this book called Shantaram. It’s a great book. It’s a memoir. It’s unbelievable. The writer is amazing. And he tells a story about breaking out of this Turkish prison, I think. And then he goes to India. He pretends to be a doctor. It’s an amazing story. But at one point he’s in love with this woman who she is under the impression they are just friends and she may or may not be dating someone else, I’m not sure. But they’re going to meet up for dinner or to go somewhere and she says, here’s the key to my place. Here’s where it’s located. Just go into my place and I’ll meet you there. And he goes over there and while he’s waiting for her, he looks about her apartment and it is so eloquently written, I’m going to destroy it right now. But I mean, I must have reread it five or six times. It was so beautiful how he described being among the things that matter to her the most and what a privilege that was, and how he fell more and more in love with her, knowing that this map meant something or this pen that she held or whatever. And again, I was faced with the idea that we need to be more conscientious about what we surround ourselves with, what is surrounding you, that if someone loved, you would want to come in and be near all those things. Do they matter that much to you? I mean, he seemed to think so. And that just seemed like something to kind of live up to, that maybe you consciously put things that bring you joy. I mean, I don’t mean Marie Kwondo on you, but considering what items bring you joy and how little we actually need. And having some outgoing might help with all of this incoming. And I’m going to get through October, and from now until then, I’m doing active planning on choosing what my life is going to look like. And I mean, I would tell my clients, life is made up of experiences. It’s always easier to stay home than to go out. No one ever says I shouldn’t have hung out with my friends. And those things are still true. But I don’t have to answer your email. That’s only going to prompt another response. If I don’t want to. So maybe pick up that book, I’ll throw it in the show notes, read it with me. And since we are so blessed with so many things and so much opportunity because if you’re listening to this podcast, life is probably going pretty well for you in some ways. Let’s make the best of it. Let’s just make the best of it. Make the best of our 4000 weeks. Or this moment that you’re in. And sometimes that might mean you’re just taking deep breaths or giving your dog a kiss or whatever. You don’t have to get it all done. You never will anyway. So what do you want? What do you want? What do you want to do? How do you want to spend your time? Who do you want to be? Let’s just check in with each other, maybe get a friend to do this with you and make sure you’re spending time doing that. I have a lot of clients that are musicians in some way, and having been in a band for a really long time and traveling around and performing and recording with them, I can relate to these clients really well. If they don’t perform or sing or write or play, they’re sad. There’s a little piece of them that is sad. And there’s no time around the corner that’s going to open up for you to do that. There’s no magical time slot coming up. There just isn’t. Because if there was a magical time slot, you’d probably fill it up with stupid **** that you have to do. I mean, if we learned anything from 2020 when we had lots and lots and lots of time that we don’t really know what to do with it. So I have to plan it. I plan my Harmonium classes with my teacher. I make sure that I pay for them because then I’m more apt to show up. They’re in my calendar and they make me well and better. And so what makes you well and better? It’s not it’s I’m sorry, but it’s not Facebook, it’s not Instagram. It’s not looking at about how other people are doing. It what makes your heart sing. That is how you need to spend your time. I love you to pieces. Let’s meditate together right now.
[24:03] Take a moment to find a beautiful, comfortable space where your body has the ability to settle in and your mind is at one. With this very moment in time.
[24:33] Give.
[24:33] Yourself this gift of freedom from to do lists freedom and liberation from all of the other things that you could be doing right now. Allow yourself to luxuriate in this moment, in this time, recognizing that there’s always something you could be doing, but you’re giving yourself the gift of love and peace and calm in decluttering your beautiful mind. As you take a long, slow, deep breath and exhale, relax your shoulders.
[25:37] Close.
[25:38] Your eyes and begin silently repeating the mantra moksha moksha moksha m okay. Sha. I am free. I am liberated from all of it. Moksha Moksha when you falter, when your mind moves to the next thing you could or should be doing, gently bring yourself back to the mantra. Moksha moksha. That is the practice time and time again. Moksha moksha. And I’ll be back in a few minutes to guide you out. Moksha, moksha moksha. Allow this mantra to leave your awareness, knowing that from now on, you are going to be discernment. You’re going to be an amazing decision maker, looking out for yourself, for your interests, for your gifts, and for what brings you joy and bringing it all into your beautiful life. Take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose. Let it all go out of your mouth. Take one long, slow, deep breath in your nose and again releasing out of your mouth. And one last long, slow, deep breath in, letting it all go out. And when you’re ready and free, you can open your beautiful eyes.
[36:06] My all time favorite thing to do in this whole world is to do meditation retreats and just teach people how to meditate. I’m going to be doing a free class right here in my neighborhood so I can cater to my community a little bit. And I had a friend tell me that maybe I would have bigger retreats or better retreats, or the retreats would mean more or I could charge more if they weren’t so often, they would be a little more meaningful for people out there. But knowing that there’s always one retreat right around the corner all the time kind of lessens the value of it. And I got to tell you, I listened to that, and it made me really sad, because I want to provide this to as many people as possible. The value does not come with a paycheck. It comes with doing what I love to do, probably what I need to learn the most, right? And so that is where my time and my energy and my passion and power and love and affection is going to go. To my kids, to my dogs, to my friends, to my family, certainly to my amazing husband. But mostly what matters most is what I was put on this earth to do and be. And I’m going to pay attention to that because I don’t even know if I’m going to be here next week. I hope so. But nothing is guaranteed. And so paying attention to what matters saves us. You matter to me, that’s for sure. Have a lovely, lovely day. Before I go, I want to tell you about another Ethereal Network of Shows podcast that I think you’re going to love.
[37:47] Hello. My name is Melissa Oatman, and I’m the host of Awaken Your Inner Awesomeness. I’m a teacher, healer, intuitive, and single mom of twins. I’m an Empath and are a covering people, pleaser. I created awaken your Inner Awesomeness to help other people. Like me learn how to stop living their lives for others so that they could start living their absolute best lives. I cover topics in spirituality and self improvement, like setting healthy boundaries, working with the archangels, and protecting your energy. I end every episode by pulling a card of guidance to help you get a message to start your day off right. I also interview fascinating guests who cover a wide range of self help topics. If this sounds interesting to you, then what are you waiting for? Start listening today.
[38:43] How y’all feeling after that stress therapy session? Good. Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, the stress therapist, on social media, at the Stresstherapist on Instagram, and at Stresstherapy on Twitter. You can always go to ilovetherapy.com to find out about meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If you live in Georgia and you’re ready to be one of my clients, go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free face to face consultation with me. At the very least, jump on my mailer so you don’t stress or miss one thing. Until next time, have a lovely, lovely day.
