- So we planted a bunch of trees
out here like four years ago, and they were supposed to grow
super fast. And they're poplars, they're supposed to grow
like four to six feet a year, so we call them the tree for
millennials, because we're impatient, we just want things to
grow instantaneously. And these silly things
have not been growing. And so at the beginning of
this summer, this spring, I committed that I was going to
get these things to grow this year. And from what I could tell, what was really standing in our way
was they needed more water and then to control the weeds around them.
And so I was like, I can do that. I'm going to make sure they get tons
of water and they stay weeded. Well, little did I know that we would head
into the driest summer we've had in Minnesota since 1988. I think
that's what my dad said. And so we have had hardly any rain. So
I'm not complaining, it's all relative, but for Minnesota, we have not gotten
nearly as much rain as we normally would. So that meant that I have
gotten to spend hours, hours and hours out here
watering these trees. But like all good blessings in disguise, there's been some really great
things that have come from it. Not to mention the trees are growing.
I'll show you some of them today. I had this really brilliant idea
to video this outside today, and I'm wondering if the bugs
are going to be too loud now. So like I said, I have had hours out
here watering these trees this summer, and we showed our system
a little while back, but basically to make sure
that when we're watering them, that the water goes deep down to the
roots of the trees and doesn't just sit on top and run off the ground. We took a bunch of five gallon buckets
and we just drilled a small hole in the bottom and then we fill the bucket
and then it slowly waters the trees. So it works really well. It's been effective. But that also means we don't have
enough buckets for all the trees. So you end up moving the buckets around
and then you stand with the hose and you fill them. And even though this goes
quicker than how we used to water them, it still takes a fair amount of time. So I have had lots of time just
to stand out here and think. And it's been really good. And I've been
thinking a lot about mental minimalism. We talk a lot about how we
declutter our house and our stuff. We've touched on digital minimalism, but I know that's something
we could talk about more. But what about the stuff up here? And while I'm not qualified
to talk about mental health, I can talk about what has helped me and
some interesting things that I've come across. And so I feel for me, I've
thought about this a lot, again, as I've been watering trees, that mental minimalism is something that
I have really had to work towards and protect. That this is something
that does not come easy. That there are so many
things working against it. That it really has been something
I've had to be intentional about and protective of. So we'll talk about a couple of tips
of how to make it much easier so it's actually practical. I don't want
to add to your to-do list today. That's not my goal at all. But I thought this was so interesting. So a really great article by a
psychologist and a therapist, and I'll link to it down below, cause I thought it was really
helpful and there's a lot more to it. But he talks about mental minimalism.
And total side note, he says, "I suspect physical and digital stuff
are arguably the biggest obstacles to mental minimalism in the
first place. That is, it would be hard to become more mentally
minimal if you're constantly bombarded with a stream of physical and digital
distractions." So that kind of gets into the chicken and the
egg. Which comes first? Can we simplify our mind before
our house, or not? Anyways, I think we can. But
here's what he has to say. "Mental minimalism says that just like
too much physical and digital stuff can distract from our values and the
things that matter most in life, our own mental stuff can do the
same. Thoughts, emotions, memories, and imagination can all become
cluttering of our mental space. And when this happens, not only do we consistently experience
negative feelings like stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and depression,
but perhaps more tragically, we become distracted from living our
lives." So then he asks this question. I like this. I appreciate that he
realizes that this is not easy. "That sounds interesting, but
how would it actually work? We can give away our stuff and stop
watching Netflix in the evenings, but we can't get rid of our
thoughts or donate our emotions!" Wouldn't that be so nice if we could
donate our negative thoughts and emotions? So he says that, "The common
thread that ties together physical, digital, and mental minimalism is the skillful
management of our attention." He says, "Physical minimalism
isn't about less stuff, per se; it's about becoming more intentional
about the stuff we choose to purchase and let into our lives. Digital minimalism isn't about
rejecting technology altogether; it's about setting better boundaries
with that technology." And then mental minimalism. "It's not about getting rid of negative
or distracting thoughts or feelings (you can't, nor would you want to); it's about strengthening our capacity to
control when and how much we choose to attend to and engage with these thoughts
and feelings." He goes on to say that, "Attention is the doorway to the mind. And I suspect we all could benefit from
being better doormen." And I think we all agree with this, right? But
we don't have any more room. We don't have bandwidth to take on
really deep endeavors right now, really big changes to our life.
So today I wanted to talk about, as I've had all this
time to think out here, what are a couple simple things
that we can do to declutter our mind and have more peace of mind and feel
better emotionally? So, number one, let's talk about how we can
make this easy. So again, we know we should consume less media. We know we should declutter our
house. We should maybe meditate. We all have heard the benefits of that.
We know we should get outside every day, that being in nature helps us to have
perspective and feel better about ourselves. We know. Like
we have this whole list. We know the list of things that
we should do to feel better. But then why is it so hard? And why it's so hard is
because what we actually crave, what we want to do is the
opposite of that. It's not that. It's we want to spend time on social
media because it makes us feel better. We want to buy things because it
makes us feel better. And why is that? Like why is that so hard? And I read this about cravings
that I thought was so good. It said that we crave things because
we know it'll make us feel better. So I have a track record
with the things that I crave, whether it's going on social media, whether it's buying something
or eating something, I have a track record with those
things that it'll make me feel better. Now, often it's a short lived feeling
better, right? But regardless, I would rather do those things
because I know, pretty much 100%, that I will feel better after it. Now, when you're talking about the other
things like spending time in nature and meditating, those seem like
a more long-term payoff. Like I don't necessarily crave those
things or trust that if I go outside today, I am going to feel better. It
doesn't always happen that way. In fact, coming up I'll tell the story of
my bee stings because... Yeah, that was par for the course. So it does not always make
us immediately feel better. So then when it's towards the end of my
day and I'm deciding, what should I do? Should I go outside and spend some
time in nature or go on Facebook? It's very, it's a very difficult choice.
We would like to think it's easy, but it's not. So then how
do we make it easier? Well, I would like to borrow from
Atomic Habits here and say, we have to find an activity
that hardly costs us anything. That is hardly a decision at all. That is just a tiny step in the
direction that we want to go. So what I would propose and what I kind
of accidentally fell into this summer was that we simply say, "I'm just going to go sit outside for
five minutes and unplug." When I'm out here, when I'm watering the trees, I have made a deal with myself
that I don't have any input. I don't listen to podcasts.
I'll sometimes listen to music. That's okay in my rules, I allow
that. But I don't look through emails. I don't go on social
media. When I am out here, it is about time for my brain to process. For it to sort out the events of the day. What's going on in the world? What are
all the things I've been taking in? And when I do that, then I do feel like I have a little more
choice over what it is I dwell on or spend my time thinking about. And so what if we just committed
that every day I'm going to go sit outside for five minutes? That's
it. Five minutes. Again, I mean, we have the luxury of living out in the
country and having lots of outside space to go and use, but it doesn't
actually matter where you are. There is something about being outside
that helps us regain perspective. And if you want to take it a step further, doing something where you
are touching the earth, touching living plants or
something makes it even better. But we'll talk about that a
little bit later on. So again, we just want this to be easy. I am just
going to sit outside for five minutes. Will those first couple of times
necessarily make me feel better? No, probably not. But what happened the
other day, I was working on my computer, it was like three
o'clock in the afternoon. I had a couple of things I wanted
to finish up and I thought, "Oh, I really want to go outside and
water the trees." And I'm like, "Wow, that's a new thought." I crave
my walks in a similar way, but I had yet to have the thought of like, "I want to go outside and water
trees." And I was like, oh, it has gotten to a point
where now I crave that. I had gotten consistent with walking. I crave going for a walk and
having that time to clear my head. And now it's gotten to the point where
I also craved the time of just being outside, caring for these silly trees, spending the time
filling watering buckets. But I knew what I was really craving
was that mental unplugged time where I just don't do anything. And I
just let my thoughts wander. I think about things
I want to think about. If something's upsetting
me or frustrating me, I kind of try to unpack it a little bit.
What's going on with that? But again, backing up, how do we make it simple?
Five minutes outside. And then from there, if we do that consistently, I do believe that you are
going to start to crave it, and it won't be such a difficult decision. And as we do it more and more, we are going to start to feel some
of this mental minimalism or feel our thoughts coming more in order, feeling like we have more control over
the things that we're thinking about and dwelling on. That's really cool,
isn't it? I think that's awesome. But let's talk about the "what
if," though. Let's say, okay, what if it's raining out? What if I live
somewhere where it is incredibly hot? Like it's not enjoyable to sit outside.
I had totally forgotten about this. My friend, Marybeth, reminded me. When we first started our
decluttering Facebook group, it was our very first lesson, I think, was to create a spot in your home
that is like your getaway spot. It is a peaceful spot. You keep
it tidy around just that spot. Doesn't have to be a whole room. For
some people it was in their bedroom. Other people it was their dining room.
Some people had to go out to their car. But creating a spot where you
could go to get away from it all. Because even before we have our house
decluttered, we need to prioritize this. We need to get away. And I think that many of us will find
that if we can take this time on a daily basis, that decluttering our house
actually becomes a lot easier. And then, again, we have similar rules. I'm not
going to be on technology when I'm there. I'm going to use it as just time to
rest my mind and to try and take a few minutes to relax and reset. So real quick, so lastly I want to talk a
little bit about grounding. This is something I've just
learned more about recently. It's called grounding or earthing, and it's basically when you're
just in contact with the earth, which if we think about it, very few
of us actually are on a regular basis. At least without rubber soled shoes on. So they say that rubber
soled shoes interrupts it. So the theory of grounding states that, "Modern lifestyle has disconnected humans
from the electrons naturally present in the ground. This loss could be
responsible for increased inflammation, affected sleep and chronic pain. Supporters of earthing use various tools
to remain grounded even while inside buildings. Several studies exist
that support the theory of grounding, though these studies, as you can imagine, have been the subject of controversy
and skepticism." But I mean, I have read so many different studies
that suggest gardening, flower gardening, vegetable gardening, anything
where we're touching the earth, is very good for our mental
health and our physical health. They even have support groups and
therapy groups now that meet in flower gardens. And I understand
my mom better now, why she enjoys flower gardening so
much. And it's this same effect. When we get outside, when
we're in touch with nature, there is some kind of transfer that
takes place. And some have even said, it couldn't even be a placebo
effect. But regardless, who cares if it's lowering our blood
pressure, lowering our stress levels, lowering our anxiety? Then I don't really care if it's real
or not if I'm feeling better after I do it. So what's been funny, so
when I'm out here, I have my, these are like my outdoor garden sandals,
so that they're very easy to wash off. But I'm like, okay, rubber soles disrupt
this, disconnect us from the earth. So I've been taking off my shoes and just
walking in the grass while I'm walking around, filling the buckets with
water and watering the trees. And pulling weeds. Like I'm really trying to keep
the weeds down around these trees. And so I'm like, okay, I'm just
going to take my shoes off. It's going to be good. And I don't
know. Again, is it all in my head? Very well could be. But it feels good.
And I think that's part of what I crave, is like, I'm going to get outside.
I'm going to take my shoes off. I'm going to walk around in the
grass. I'm going to fill buckets. I'm going to see how
the trees are growing. I'll show you how the trees
are going too in a minute. So like the second day that I did this, I got stung on my ankle by a bee. So we have these little white
flowers in the grass here. Tom wouldn't want me to show you
that because in his perfect world, we would have no little white
flowers in our grass. But we do. And the bees love them. And when
you're out here in the afternoon, you can hear the bumble
bees buzzing around. But I guess I thought they
would stay out of my way, that I didn't really have to worry
too much about them. Not the case. So I got stung on the ankle by one, and it totally swelled up my
ankle and it kind of hurt. And I'm like, okay, par for the course. And so then last week
I was doing it again. It did make me a little bit hesitant
for like a day or two, I'm like, should I take off my shoes?
Should I not? But I did. And so then just last week I got stung
again. I just, I guess I was not paying, I try to be aware, but I guess I was
not paying close enough attention. So I totally got stung, this time on
the bottom of my foot. Which again, swelled up the bottom of my foot. And it made it hard to walk for like
two days because my foot was swollen. And I'm like, this is really
funny to me that I'm trying to be, "Connect to the earth and be healthier,"
and I'm getting stung by bees. So I don't know what the moral of
the story is. I was going to look up, I'm like, I'm sure maybe getting
stung by bees is good for you. I think some people use it for like
arthritis and stuff, right? So I'm like, hopefully there's some kind of health
benefit to it if I'm going to be getting stung by bees. But all that to say, I actually still walk around with my
sandals off because even having gotten stung by bees, it still, it just feels good to be touching
the ground with my bare feet. Just even to feel it, to feel the grass. Even when it was dry here and the grass
was getting kind of hard, I'm like, oh, that does not feel as
good. But just... again, it brings things into perspective. The
world is crazy right now. We know that. And so there is just something
about this being right here, feeling the crunchy grass,
getting stung by bees. I'm not actually recommending that
you go looking to get stung by bees. But tending to trees, just taking this little bit of time in
nature has been truly one of the best things that I have committed to doing.
And I do want to show you the trees. So this tree, I'll show you what
it looked like earlier this year. So I have been watering these guys. I have been keeping the weeds down above
them. Not all of them look as good. This is like my prize one right
now, but it is growing so well. And again, it's a poplar
so they grow super quick, which has been really
gratifying, cause most trees, we have our bigger trees and they
haven't, you don't notice them growing. But these poplars, you can tell. And
it's awesome. And then I've also been... the bigger trees are elm trees and
some of the leaves were yellow. So then I'm researching, is that
okay? Do they need more water? Do they need less? And it was just nice to have something
else to think about right now. To not think about the rest of
the events of the world right now, and just to think about what's
right here, what's in front of me, what things can I influence
and do I have control over, and what things don't I? And it's really helped to bring things
back into perspective and just to feel like my mind is a little less
cluttered. So I would love to know, are there any things that you
use to declutter your mind? Are there any practices you do? Habits
you've put in place? Places that you go? Would you share that down below? Because I think that is so helpful and
it would be really fun to hear what you do too. And if this has been a struggle, do you think could you commit
to five minutes outside? Just a few minutes every day where
you just sit and don't do anything? No agenda, nothing you have to do.
Just get unplugged from everything. I would love to hear if you
think that'd be practical, or if there's other things that are
standing in your way. So as always, I am so grateful for you.
Thank you for watching. Thank you for sharing our videos
with your friends and family. It means more than we could ever tell
you. So thank you so much. We love you. I hope you have a good day
and I'll see you again.
