Courtney Carver: EPISODE LINK

Courtney Carver: BOOK

TRANSCRIPT:

Bridgett: Welcome back to Hot Flashes and Cool Topics everybody today. We have a wonderful

guest Courtney Carver She is an author. She also has a podcast with her daughter

and She has written a book that is coming out in February. It is Gentle: Rest More,

Stress Less and Live the Life You Actually Want, so Welcome to the show, Courtney.

Courtney:- Thank you, I’m happy to be here.

Bridgett:- Well, we had a little technical glitches before

we got started today, and I need to take Courtney’s advice about just kind of

stressing less, and it was a wonderful book to read because I really need to put

some of the practices that she includes in the book to heart with both my hands

over my heart. But we’re gonna talk about just a lot of different things in the

book but there are three parts to this book. There’s rest, less, and rise.

So I’d like to get started just kind of in that order about the importance of rest

and can you talk about why that is so important and the challenges that come with

really trying to rest?

Courtney:  Sure, well the three sections that you mentioned are actually

seasons that we can put ourselves in and go through to become more gentle and to

connect with the gentlest sides of ourselves. And I think the reason rest is so

important to start with is it’s because it’s the thing we resist the most.

And to illustrate that, I will just say that I had planned on putting the rest

section last until I realized I was doing it right there,

like trying to save it for later. And we put off rest until our bodies demand it,

until we can find a little like window in our schedule, until we go on vacation.

And it’s not enough, clearly. I mean, the reason that I think a lot of us get

into that really exhausted state is because we don’t prioritize rest,

we don’t think we have the time, there’s always something ahead of it on the to -do

list. And so until we just say enough is enough and make it first, we’ll forever

be lacking that opportunity to reset and renew and really feel so much better.

Bridgett: – Right, you know, I know that you mentioned in your book and so many of us, most

of our audience are midlife women and in our younger years, we always heard, oh,

you can do it all, you can have it all, go, go, go. And then, you know,

we’re always serving other people. Can you talk a little bit about how that was

part of your personal life and how that changed for you?

Courtney: – Yeah, they definitely

told us we could have it all, but they forgot to tell us we might not want it.

And we were so busy, we didn’t even take time to question ourselves or what we

wanted or needed. We were, I feel like most of us were on this autopilot life and

we were just doing everything we had to do to make sure that we kept the ends

meeting and all the people where they needed to go and getting our stuff done and

proving ourselves both to the world around us and to ourselves about how wonderful

we were. We needed that validation. And I’m sure that a lot of us still look for

that in different places. But once you see that when you start measuring who you

are by what you accomplish, there’s no end in sight. It’s never enough because you

have to keep doing more and more and more. And there’s this like message,

I think, that we were all maybe born with or was somehow implanted that the more

things we did, the better people we would be. But as it turns out, doing more

things doesn’t make you a better person. It just makes you a tired person. And for

me, that real wake -up call to slow down came in 2006 after I was diagnosed with

multiple sclerosis. It was this giant permission slip to step back,

reassess, figure out not only how to live well with MS,

but how to take better care of myself how to listen to what I really wanted in

life and I never thought I’d be thankful for a condition like that but wow I

really am.

Bridgett:  Right you know that’s amazing because a lot of people that’s not going

to happen too but that was as  you say permission slip to slow down and in your book

you have like steps in each chapter. Do you mind going along how you designed your

different sections or seasons in your book? And you do include at the end of each

little part a permission slip, which it is so difficult to do that to allow

yourself permission. You don’t even know that you don’t give yourself permission.

Can you talk about that?

Courtney: Sure. Well, When it comes to the permission slips, I

think, again, just like with rest, we feel like we have to earn and deserve

everything. And we forget that we’re grown, we can just take it.

We’re adults, like we can do what we want. So if you wanna take a nap in the

middle of the day, you can cancel an appointment and take a nap.

If you need to take some time off from social media, you can do that, like these

things are available to us and maybe not all the time in every stage of our lives,

but for the most part, I think there are a lot of real tiny steps we can take

that will make a difference in each season of the book. The chapters are practices

for that season. So in the rest section, I think there’s about 10 different

practices that you can put into place to rest more in your life. And then in each

chapter at the end, I give you some tiny steps and also a gentle step.

Because if this isn’t something that you’re used to and you don’t start small,

tiny, gentle, it’s just like all of the other habits you’ve probably tried in the

past where you go big and then you exhaust yourself.

You burn out from trying to make too much change at once. At least that’s what

used to happen to me all the time. And then same in the less section and the rise

section. Again, practices, tiny steps and a gentle step.

I really wanted to share my experience, but also create a really clear roadmap on

how you can get to know the gentle you and start to rise from that place instead

of trying to always rise from the exhausted overextended you,

right?

Bridgett: You know, I love the tiny steps because I’m one of those people that I like

to get things out of the way. I’m like, and you, you mentioned in your book, your

checklist, your checkmarks and things like that, and the tiny steps.

Can you talk about why the tiny and the gentle steps? You kind of did address it

a little bit, but why the tiny and the gentle steps make progress?

Like you may not feel like it, but you are making progress.

Courtney: Sure. Well, I put them

in place because that is what really impacted my own journey. I had to change the

way I change because prior to getting sick and really having to figure things out,

I would get really excited about a habit change. I would read a new self -help book

in the ’80s or the ’90s, and they were all like, buckle down, go bigger,

go home, push through. And I thought, yeah, I need to do that. I have to be more

disciplined, tougher, harder, and I would go for it. And within the promised 30 days

or two weeks or whatever they said, I wouldn’t have accomplished much of anything.

It felt like I was making progress and then I just gave up because it was too

hard to stay with it. And so when I started making habit changes in the name of

changing the way I change, I was looking at one thing at a time, really tiny

steps, mostly because I was too tired to take bigger steps.

And also I realized that I never really knew where I was going to end up or what

these tiny steps would lead to, but I gave myself so much of a runway to take it

slowly that I had time to really incorporate the lessons I was learning and probably

more importantly I could finally for the first time in my life really hear myself

really hear what I wanted what I needed what my body was telling me and that only

came from taking the pressure off and realizing that I didn’t have to be so

disciplined or so perfect or so good or any of that nonsense. I could just take a

tiny step and see what happened.

Bridgett: – And I love the tiny step things too. Like if

you want to read more, okay, so you read a paragraph, you read a page, tiny,

tiny that you are making the progress. Because I think you bring up in the book as

well about we’re trying to get validation like you said earlier we’re trying to get

this external validation from the outside world to make us feel like we’re doing the

right thing or we’re doing great like you said and it really spoke to me that it

is okay it is okay to do this little bit. Another part that you talk about and

you really you’ve written previous books on this is the less part and just the part

about not really having so much stuff and the advice with that. Can you touch on

the less I mean you you talked about in the book how you moved from this huge

home to a smaller place and how you just feel so much stress -free that is a big

thing just the stress -free.

Courtney:  Yeah what’s interesting is becoming stress -free or or

lower stress was really my main purpose after my diagnosis.

I’d done a lot of research. It seemed like people who were living with less stress

were having better outcomes, fewer relapses. This doesn’t just apply to MS.

I think it applies to most conditions and even just our regular day -to -day.

You don’t have a diagnosis, but you find you get worn out or you get colds easily

or whatever it is, stress has to be a contributing factor to all of that.

And while I know it sounds silly to say that you could remove all stress, certainly

we can remove some stress. And for me, the answer to reducing stress was simplifying

my life. And so getting rid of my clutter, getting rid of my debt, getting rid of

a job that didn’t serve me anymore. All of this took years.

It wasn’t an overnight thing. And the less that I had or the more that I released,

the better I felt. The less there was to take care of, the less there was to

clean, the less there was to manage.

and not having so much to think about. I mean, think about how our brains are just

like all day long trying to keep track of everything. And I started this in,

like I said, 2006. It was kind of just as, it was for me,

pre -social media, pre -blogging, pre -all of that stuff. And I think today,

for someone just getting started, you know, not only are you looking for that

validation in your own life, but now we have this whole other layer of online noise

and that needs its own simplicity filter for sure because otherwise we won’t have

time to do anything except respond to everyone else’s thoughts and opinions. It’s too

much.

Bridgett:  It is amazing when you know, you talk about that. I know one time I went

Somewhere, I was in Italy with my siblings and we were staying at this villa that

this woman owned and she came by and we’re like “oh it’s so beautiful”and she said

“but it’s so heavy” she just said “it is so heavy” and it made me think about

different things in my life, what do I want more of, and something a similar situation

to this this woman came up where the home we grew up in was selling and it was

going to be torn down and should we buy, should I buy this home? Should I try to

buy this home? And I thought, oh my goodness, I don’t live there anymore. I’d have

to travel. I’d have to maintain. Yes, I’m sad. I’d lived there for 18 years. But

I’m like, it would be so heavy. And that is, it just reminded me when you said

the stress, the more things you have, the harder it is to just manage and take

care of it all. And then you touch on social media, which, oh my goodness, like

you just said, it can add so much stress. You’re so worried, you’re reading what

people are thinking about you. Can you talk about just little tiny steps about what

people can do to try to stay away from, not even stay away, but just manage the

stress that social media comes into play with.

Courtney:  I mean, honestly, I think the only

way to manage the stress is to have less of less screen time, less time on the

social platforms. And I’m not saying it’s easy by any means. I go in and out with,

you know, how much time I want to spend here. What is the purpose? What am I

doing? what am I offering? What am I getting back? And I’ve made some amazing,

wonderful connections and friendships on social media, so I have to give it that.

But it seems like it’s just growing into this very compelling place to be,

but compelling for no reason that I can see. Like, I never spend time scrolling and

then finish and think, “Oh my gosh, that was time well -spent.” Nor do I remember

anything I saw except I just feel a little depressed. It’s just kind of the way it

goes. And so I just try to be mindful of that and spend my time, you know,

doing the connecting that I can do within a short amount of time and then leaving.

I think extended breaks are so helpful. If you can take 24 hours off the internet

and digital devices a week, wow, I don’t do it every week, but on the weeks that

I do, it makes such a tremendous difference. I mean, the day just seems to go on

longer than a normal day. There’s more like lingering and noticing and it happens

very fast. Like the first couple of hours you think, oh my gosh, what is happening

out there? You know, what am I missing? Who’s missing me? And then by the next

day, you don’t really want to go back. And when you do, you find out that no one

even notices that you weren’t there.

Bridgett:  – I mean, yeah, I was amazed. Was it your

husband that did like a, did he do a month off or he’s done or?

Courtney:  – He’s done.

So he was planning on taking about a month off And then he just never went back

and now it’s been, I mean, that was when I started writing the book. So it’s been

more than a year now and he just never went back and does not miss it.

Bridgett: – Well, I mean, that is, my husband is rarely on it as well, like very rarely. And

it is amazing. He seems very happy, you know, he actually seems very positive. You

know, another thing that really struck with me is the news breaks that you do.

Can you talk about that? Because that stresses me out.

Courtney: Sure. Yes, the news is

stressful. It’s very stressful now, but if I’m looking back, it’s always stressful.

And I think the way that it’s delivered now is hard because it’s not like you

watch or see or read an article. It’s just this little drip of horror all day

long, and it’s coming from all directions. And so you really have to put some

boundaries around how you take the news in because breaking news is broken.

There’s no doubt about it. It’s all breaking news, which is traumatic to our nervous

systems.

And I’m not saying be informed. I’m not saying never watch the news again.

Actually, I would challenge you to do that. I mean, it’s so hard to get away from

it. If you’re not watching it, someone’s talking to you about it. But things that

I’ve put into place that have been really helpful is that I don’t watch any news

videos. So anything I take in around news is either in the form of an article or

sometimes a podcast.

I don’t want the visuals. I really don’t. It’s not helping me to take action in

any direction. It’s just making me sleep poorly.

Bridgett: – Yeah. – So, yeah. – Oh, I’m just, I’m sorry to interrupt. I was saying, you know,

you had the point in there about PTSD from someone who was actually at an event to

someone who watched it all day. Can you talk about that?

Courtney: – There was a study done

about the Boston Marathon bombing and I remember watching that unfold on the news

and watching it on TV and then when I left and got in my car listening to it on

the radio and just like following it from the minute it started until the minute it

ended, I was terrified.

And When I reflect on that now, of course, I know that if I had been away from

that, I could have heard about it two days later, made a donation to the victims,

been helpful in some way without going through that myself. And this study showed

that people who watched that unfold, as they did,

had more PTSD than people who were actually at the event because, they actually had time to  rest I’m just thinking about why that might be, but my thoughts are if you were at

the event that had to have been horrible, horrible, but you didn’t see it from

every single angle and you didn’t hear people repeating it over and over and over

again all day long. I have to think that contributed to that,

because it doesn’t make any sense to me when I heard that, I was like, this can’t

be real.

Bridgett:  – Yeah, I agree with that, yeah.

Courtney: – And so what are we doing to ourselves

as we’re watching news all the time now? And I would say,

like if you’re watching the news and it is helping you contribute to solutions and

take action and better your life or someone else’s life in some way, keep watching,

go. And that’s not how I operate at all. I’d rather have a high -level understanding

of what’s going on, kind of bird’s eye view. And then I can decide on a case -by

-case basis where I’m going to dive in and when I’m not going to dive in. It’s not

going to be right before I go to bed and it’s not going to be right when I wake

up in the morning. I want a chance to have a thought for myself. You know,

that is another thing because you can rest better probably not having that thought

before you go to bed. And then when you wake up, what is the reasoning when you

wake up not to have that be the first thing? Well, if the first thing is the news

or somebody’s Facebook post or what’s going on on Instagram, then I don’t have my

own thoughts first. So, my day is guided by what everyone else thinks or what’s

going on around me. And I mean, I can take those first 10 minutes,

20 minutes, two hours, and just be in my own glory with my coffee.

I don’t need all the extra. It’s going to come for me, I know. But I can decide

When and where Which I feel really Grateful to have noticed that and been able to

implement that.

Bridgett:  right and you know you you’re talking about noticing like just the

You’re having your coffee in the morning having your tea. Could you talk about

that part of the book, the  part of the rise or was that part of?

Courtney: Yes, yes, so in the so in the last section We talk about everything from clutter

to the news, to alcohol even. And in the rise section, this is you’ve rested,

you’ve cleared out, made some space for yourself in different areas of your life.

And now in the rise section, you are enjoying your life,

thriving in your life, meeting your goals, reaching for the stars,

whatever you want to do. Being gentle doesn’t mean you don’t care about things at

all anymore, it doesn’t mean you don’t want things for yourself, it’s exactly the

opposite. But now you can do it with some resilience and stillness and purpose.

And in that section, I have a chapter called “Simple Pleasures,” enjoying simple

pleasures. And this is something I think as adults, we all need to do for ourselves

on a daily basis. And usually it’s just enjoying something that you already have

going on in your life, but giving it a little more attention, a little more

celebration. So for me, that’s having a coffee and chatting with my sister or

chatting with my daughter and having a fun little phone conversation in the morning

or going for a walk. Things that aren’t expensive,

but that really make a big difference in my day, but it’s not like I’m just

grabbing the coffee and then drinking it while I’m doing 10 other things. I’m trying

to enjoy my life. And the only way I can do that is by being here and noticing

it.

Bridgett: – Right, I really love to your section where you talk about unsolicited advice.

I love that, how to deal with it and how to monitor yourself if you’re giving it.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Courtney:  Sure. So this actually came from a survey

that I did with my blog readers on BeMoreWithLess.com.

And the survey was about boundaries. And one of the questions I asked is, you know,

what is something that you tolerate in your life that you wish you didn’t have to

tolerate? And the answers were all about this, like advice about how I parent,

advice about what I eat, advice about just on and on and on about unsolicited

advice. And I had to really check myself because, wow, do I love to give my

daughter advice or a friend advice? And I think we all want to do that to help.

But as Author Anne Lamont says, “Help is the sunny side of control.”

Bridett:  I love that.

I love it.

Courtney: And that, I was like, “Oh my gosh, am I helping? Am I controlling?

Maybe a little bit of each. Either way, this doesn’t sound great.” And so, I think

we, again, all like to offer our opinion, but what would be so much more helpful

and genuine and connecting for our relationships is if we asked first,

do you want some advice? Do you just want to vent? Do you just want me to listen?

Would it be okay if I told you this thing about this thing? And when they say no,

believe them.

Bridgett: Right.

Courtney: And then I’ll say, okay, maybe another time.

Yeah. I mean, I really, that was so good because I feel like that I’m guilty of

giving unsolicited advice, especially to my children, like you said, your children.

And then when you hear someone that constantly wants to give you unsolicited advice,

you’ve already put up this, you’re trying to establish a boundary, you’ve put up

this wall with that person like, I know what’s going to happen, then you’re tense

around that person when they’re in your space.

Bridgett: So I thought that that was really

wonderful. And another thing you bring up, Being gentle doesn’t mean that you’re a

pushover that you could be walked on. Can you talk about that?

Courtney: Yeah, that’s for

sure. I think there might be some confusion sometimes about

being kind, soft, gentle, that we’re just going to put up with a lot of,

can I say, that we’re just going to put up with a lot of that and that isn’t

what it is at all. It’s actually the way that we start to take some of those

layers down to be more open to our own thoughts, our own feelings, who we are,

who we want to be in this world, how we want to experience life.

And with that, it helps us create good boundaries,

it helps us not tolerate abusive behavior. It helps us to get what we want,

actually.

Bridgett: – And you also mentioned Elise Meyers in a situation that happened to her.

And I’m going to use that from now on. Can you talk a little bit about that

situation? Do you remember that as That’s the hotel I remember it.

Courtney: I hope, I know I’m not going to tell the story as well as she will because she is

a brilliant storyteller, um, Elise Myers. Oh my gosh,

if you don’t follow her on YouTube or Instagram after I just told you to stay off

social media, she’s fantastic. Um, oh,

I’m not going to be able to remember it word for word, but essentially she was

working in a hotel and a gentleman came in and basically demanded an upgrade or

wanted to check in early. Forgive me if I’m not getting this quite right,

but wanted to check in early and she was working there and she said, “I’m sorry.

We don’t have any rooms available.” And he essentially

slapped his credit card down on the counter and said, “Make it happen, bitch.” And

she very calmly, I would even say gently slid the card back to him and said,

“I do not receive that,” and walked away.

And those words, “I do not receive that,” I thought were just so powerful.

She didn’t lose her cool. She didn’t tell him off. She didn’t jump over the counter

and grab him. She turned around, walked away after she said, “I basically, I’m not

accepting anything that just came out of your mouth.” And I think we all get to do

that. So we can hear something that we know is untrue about us,

especially generally it’s something that is hurtful. It’s not critical in a helpful

sense. It’s just mean as this gentleman was. And we can decide I am not going to

take that on or in. I do not receive that.

Bridgett: I love that.

There were so, there were just so many things from your book that just, you know,

things that I could easily put to use, very simply put to use. And just to make

my life calmer and less stressful. It was really wonderful. So could you share your

website and the name of your podcast and how people could reach you?

Courtney: Sure.

So the website is bemorewithless .com. I am on Instagram @bemorewithless.

And the podcast that we record occasionally now is called the Soul land Wit Podcast,

which I record with my daughter Bailey. And people can get in touch with me,

almost any of those places, you can email me, pretty easy to find out there.

Bridgett: Yes. Well, thank you so much, Courtney Carver. Gentle, Rest More, Stress Less, and Live the Life You Actually Want. It will be available in February. And thank you so

much for being on our show today.

Courtney:  My pleasure. Thank you.