Letting Go Of Clutter Podcast: Cell Phone/Texting & Driving

Cell phones can be very distracting to our lives. They can easily derail us from the things we truly care about. In this podcast, we take a look at how texting while driving can become clutter for us. Rather than say, "Don't do it," Gregory and I take a compassionate and kind deep look at what's going on within us when we check a text while driving our car. This is a more effective approach, rather than criticizing ourselves and trying to force a change, which never works. This gentle approach can be applied to any kind of clutter busting. It's the basis of any real and positive kind of change. I hope it helps give you a new insight into this or any problematic areas of your life.

This podcast stars best-seller author and professional clutter buster, Brooks Palmer, and his good friend, Gregory Gardner

Transcript

Welcome to a podcast part two,

The clutterbusting letting go of what's holding you back with Brooks Palmer and Gregory Gardner.

And hi Gregory.

Hey Brooks.

How are you?

So far so good.

It's always funny talking over the internet rather than person.

Most of our conversations over the years have just been audio.

And the funny thing is we can see each other here tonight while we're doing this podcast,

But we're not actually doing visuals for this podcast.

So it's just another audio conversation as far as everybody else is concerned.

How would you describe how we look?

Well,

I look like Clark Gable pretty much,

Right?

It,

It,

It is nice to do descriptions.

You're absolutely right.

Especially even if we were doing visuals for the visually.

Um,

Last week when we were speaking,

I had a little tiny bit of hair on my head and a big bushy beard.

Uh,

This week the beard is trimmed to,

Um,

Each fuzz and my head is trimmed and,

Um,

So I look like a baby.

I like that.

We're both bald.

You know what I mean?

I wouldn't have liked it when we were in high school,

We knew each other,

But now I'm glad that we're both bald.

You know,

You,

You have,

You let your hair grow out a little bit on the sides.

And,

Uh,

On the sides.

Yeah.

But the top is a sphere,

But you can see pull over.

It's not even going to work up there.

But,

Um,

No,

We look good.

We are really good.

And,

Uh,

We're hot.

Yeah,

We're hot.

That's pretty good.

So what are we talking about today?

I asked Gregory to pick a topic specific to,

Um,

And not to tell me.

So it's a surprise to me and to you,

Right?

It's a surprise to him.

And,

Um,

But it's not surprised,

You know,

I just look at,

You know,

All the different things that happened last week and it was a real busy week.

I had a lot of work still.

There's a lot of stress going on with family stuff.

And it's just,

Um,

It's a lot for me right now.

I was taking my daughter,

My beautiful six-year-old daughter to,

Um,

Her grandparents and we left the house and we're down the road and I realized I had forgotten my phone.

Um,

So I go into a mild,

You know,

Just a,

I'm like,

Oh God,

I don't have the phone.

And then as if she's reading my mind,

She starts saying very loudly story pirates,

Story pirates,

Which is her favorite podcast only because she hasn't heard this story pirates.

And when she,

You know,

When she finds out it's about her,

She will like this one better than story pirates.

But,

Um,

Like,

No,

I don't have my phone.

Um,

I left the phone back home and I'm going to do this without the phone.

No story pirates.

No,

You can have the phone for story pirates.

And I'm going to take it,

Try to find this place that I'd been to 68 times,

Um,

Without my man and,

Oh God,

What if somebody texts me?

What if somebody needs me?

Um,

There was panic.

And as soon as I dropped her off,

I turned around and right back home so quickly,

Um,

Because that's for my phones.

Um,

You know,

And the thing about my attachment to this thing is,

Um,

Frightening to me,

Considering I don't even do social media,

You know,

I am not sitting there scrolling Instagram or Tik TOK or whatever for hours and hours,

Like many people that I know do.

And,

Um,

I just use it,

You know,

For,

For DMS,

I use it,

I use it for a lot of different things,

Honestly.

You know,

What am I going to do without my wordle?

I am so attached to this thing that I feel,

You know,

Mentally,

Physically,

And emotionally incapacitated when it's not right in front of me.

Um,

Like there's a part of like,

I'm walking around without my brain.

And,

Um,

It's really frustrating.

And I,

And I was thinking about this and,

And,

And then I came across this great article.

Um,

Just,

You know,

It came out Friday,

Came out yesterday,

Um,

In the guardian,

How a digital detox day could help people take control of downtime.

Because I don't know what downtime is without a film.

Um,

Downtime to me is,

Is,

You know,

Doing that's,

That's my whole universe.

I live in the matrix.

Um,

And,

And I think that,

Um,

This is something that could use a little bit of clutter busting in my life,

Probably not just for considering.

Oh yeah.

I'd say more than a little bit.

Cause it really bothers you,

You know,

I mean,

The definition of clutter is anything that doesn't serve you.

And when something doesn't serve you,

It,

It causes pain in one way or another.

And so that sounds like that's a lot of pain,

The realization of,

Of your relationship with the phone.

And so in a blessing,

I mean,

In a way it's a blessing that you had this experience because oftentimes we don't wreck,

We don't see what's clutter until it's really revealed to us now in a big way.

So you're,

I think you're very lucky to have that experience.

That's the first step of any decluttering is the recognition of the pain that's caused by the thing,

The activity,

Or a person in your relationship with any of those three things.

So it's,

It's quite wonderful that you can see the pain that it causes you.

Not that pain is,

I'm not saying that pain is good,

But it's doing its job,

You know,

Like if you're,

You're touching something that's really hot and that hurts,

You remove your hand from it.

And so you're,

I consider you very lucky that you're seeing the pain that the relationship you have with your phone is,

Is,

Is causing you.

You know,

I'm not afraid to call it an addiction.

Yeah,

You can call it,

I mean,

It's set up as an addiction device anyway,

The phone and apps and the internet is,

They're addiction devices because we check them repeatedly and anything,

Any kind of repeated action that has some kind of reward each time in one way or another,

The possibility of reward,

I should probably say that,

That,

That we find ourselves going back to it,

Even though it's not actually serving us.

And since the majority of the population has,

Has that addiction in one way or another,

It doesn't seem odd to us most of the time until it does,

Until you happen to see it that way.

Yeah.

And for me,

Clutter busting,

My cell phone means I'm getting rid of some apps that I don't use because they're taking up too much memory.

Okay.

So it doesn't mean taking the phone and locking it in a safe for 24 hours that won't open.

Right.

So you need it.

Some of the times you have a kid and so you,

You,

You have communications that you need to have through the phone.

You know,

Part of,

I think part of the,

The issue that's coming up for me is,

Um,

You know,

It's not just that I see it in myself,

But I see it in her and she's six and,

You know,

I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this.

Um,

You know,

She's completely obsessed with screens,

Obsessed with,

Uh,

With the iPad,

Uh,

Watching YouTube kids,

YouTube kids,

Which,

You know,

It says YouTube kids,

But I,

You know,

Noticed her watching some problematic stuff.

Um,

She's obsessed with screens.

Yeah.

You said the other day,

Like your electricity went out and she,

She had a difficult time,

Right?

She had a really,

Really difficult time.

And you know,

I,

I don't know if this is something,

You know,

Part of me is like,

Oh my God,

I failed,

But the other part is like,

This is inherent in the system,

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like,

Um,

When you go to Vegas and everywhere you look,

There's something to do with gambling and you can't,

Can't get away from it.

And our culture is very much set up around the cell phone and the internet.

Hey,

I,

Is there,

I noticed I'm hearing a little rumbling sound.

Oh,

Are you,

Are you like kind of bumping into the microphone at all or anything like that?

I'm not,

But I'm going to sit still.

Okay.

You know,

Maybe it's just me moving around.

Um,

I'm still hearing it.

That's interesting.

Oh,

You're still,

Yeah.

Oh,

Wait,

It stops sometimes.

Oh,

Now it's stopped.

Okay.

So,

Um,

Yeah,

You were saying?

I was saying,

Yeah,

It would be so nice to,

Um,

Be able to listen to a podcast without a digital device.

Oh my God.

That would be like actually being in the room,

Having a conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a,

It's a problem.

I mean,

Like with anything,

Everything's a mixed bag.

There's nothing that if we get it,

It will have no problems.

Everything's a mixed bag of positive and negative.

So whatever technologies are invented,

There's going to be a problem and there's going to be,

Um,

Like good things.

And,

Uh,

But this whole thing about addiction,

It's,

It's been recognized by a lot more people than it used to be.

And,

Um,

So,

So people are looking for solutions,

Governments looking for solutions,

People are looking for solutions,

You know,

There's courses that you can go on where you go without your phone just for the purpose of going somewhere without a phone and detoxing in a way.

Um,

But maybe there's like ways of,

Of putting the phone away for like five minutes,

Turning it off and seeing what happens,

You know,

Just for like maybe short amounts of time.

Last night I,

Um,

I,

I had my phone setting for,

Uh,

Making a noise when I got an email for business and it's kind of,

And it might as well just be,

You know,

The noise of the cash register.

She changed because it's a clear,

Um,

And,

Uh,

You know,

We started hopping off at midnight,

One of them,

And,

And there's a little,

You know,

It's not easy to turn this off and I have to be a fake and I didn't stop because I don't turn it on and off.

So it's disturbing your sleep.

It's disturbing.

I see.

It's waking me up and,

Uh,

You know,

Had the do not disturb setting on.

I had the volume turned all the way down,

But it was still making this noise with an email.

So,

Um,

You know,

The middle of the night I turned off my phone,

Which was right next to my bed.

Um,

And then that produced anxiety because the phone was turned off and I was asleep.

And what was the anxiety?

Um,

You know,

What was causing the anxiety consciously,

It's just an unsettling fear that the world's going to end and my phone won't be able to wake me up and tell me.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

So yeah,

Who knows,

Who knows?

It's just always having it on,

Always having it near me,

Always having it around so that I can't eat.

So I won't miss any,

But there's an endorphin,

You know,

It's a,

It's like a,

You know,

Endorphins I think are related to being able to pick up the phone and check WhatsApp to see if my friend in London reached out to me or checking messages or checking ESPN to see how the Dodgers did.

Well,

That's what biggest,

Um,

People are,

Um,

People want to gamble because there's a feeling,

What if I win?

Same with the lottery,

Which is pretty much like gambling.

And so if I don't do this,

Then I won't have a chance of winning.

There's always some kind of reward in a fantasy sense that exists that keep us attached to,

Um,

To that.

And it's really looking at,

I mean,

Pain is the best motivator.

And so noticing during the day,

Your reaction to the,

You know,

Having a little awareness on how am I responding to my phone,

Not,

Not any criticism of like,

Oh,

I shouldn't be doing this or what's wrong with me for being on the phone or,

You know,

I should be better than this,

But to notice the presence of the phone and how it's affected,

What the effects is like on you can be really powerful.

And in a sense,

You don't have to do anything.

You don't have to change anything.

You can be laying in bed thinking,

Feel anxious because the phone's off.

Oh,

That's interesting.

And it says it's like a nonjudgmental awareness and there will be judgment.

So it's awareness of judgment,

You know,

But what I mean by nonjudgmental is there's a curiosity factor of like,

I wonder how this is affecting me,

You know,

Like I've read about phone addiction or,

You know,

Some people,

A friend has told me about their problem with it or whatever I see it on my daughter that,

You know,

When I see my daughter,

How does that affect me?

Like,

What does that feel like?

And,

Um,

When I'm out driving and I notice I'm texting while I'm driving,

Like,

Well,

How,

How do I feel when I'm doing that?

You know,

Like,

Yeah,

When I'm texting and driving,

You know,

And my daughter's in the back seat and I'm going down the highway.

Yeah.

And to notice that,

Like,

That's what I'm doing.

That's really interesting.

Like,

Wow.

Because when your attention's on the phone,

I remember seeing this commercial,

It was around cell phones and texting,

And they showed,

Uh,

They,

They,

They had a driver's eye view of the road.

So you're,

You're,

As a viewer of the video,

You're seeing the road as if you're driving.

And all of a sudden what they did was they,

They blacked out the visual after about like a little while.

So you couldn't see anything.

And that's,

There's this panic feeling of like,

Oh my God,

I can't see the cars in front of me.

I can't see where I am on the road.

And it's,

It's really intense,

But that that's to,

To,

To,

Um,

A comparison thing to what it's like when you're texting,

Like to notice that.

So it's,

It's really,

It's dropping the criticism of why am I doing this?

I shouldn't be doing this because you are doing it.

It's happening,

But it's like,

How is this taking its toll on me?

You know,

Like what's,

What's the experience of like,

Because pain,

That's the purpose of pain.

There's emotional pain,

Spiritual pain,

Physical pain doesn't matter.

It's it's,

It's a,

Um,

Wake up call.

Well,

It exists because if you sit,

If you sat down and there was attack on the seat and you sat down on an attack,

It would hurt and you'd automatically get back up.

So the purpose of that pain is to illuminate,

Oh,

Get up.

You're sitting on an attack.

So you're out,

Drive in,

Your daughter's in the backseat and you're looking at a text and all of a sudden like,

What am I doing?

Oh my God.

With a,

With,

With a little distance that that's created by the awareness,

You're able to,

There's a pain there.

I'm putting my daughter and my,

And my life at risk right now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And,

And,

And to recognize unfamiliar to,

You know,

One time it's been many,

Many decades.

Yeah.

And I,

I used to be,

Oh,

Excuse me,

A problem for you.

It's not now.

So it's like,

So,

You know,

We have habits and,

And maybe sometimes over time they drop,

They start to diminish or drop off.

And it's when the pain gets bad enough that,

That,

Um,

That it's like,

I can't do this anymore.

Yeah.

I can always get back to somebody.

If they leave me a message,

I can get back to them.

They can leave me a text and I don't see it until I get to where I'm going or someone calls me,

Um,

And I don't answer it.

They'll leave a message and I'll get,

I can get back to them.

Absolutely.

You know,

There's nothing that is so important that,

Um,

We need to address it right there when we're going down.

Yeah.

At the same time,

We could have the feeling that I need to address this.

So you're driving,

Your daughter's in the back seat.

You see that you got a text,

You start to look at the text and it's like,

It's,

It's creating an awareness of how does this feel right now?

I'm looking at a text,

My daughter's in the back seat.

You can't answer this question theoretically,

But in the midst of it happening,

How does this feel?

Like the awareness comes in because now we're talking about it and it can create that space for you to look and notice.

Cause I could chastise you and say,

You shouldn't do that,

Gregory.

And you,

You do that yourself,

Right?

It doesn't help.

Right.

So being mindful in the moment of the experience of,

Uh,

The action and,

Um,

How do we get to this point where we can,

You know,

Be mindful in a moment?

I mean,

By talking about it like this,

Well,

We're talking about it honestly,

Without criticism,

If we,

If I criticize you and say,

Gregory,

You shouldn't do that.

You're,

You're,

You're being a bad parent by putting your daughter's life at risk to look at a text that's just going to make you feel badly.

Uh,

He's right.

I shouldn't be doing that.

What's wrong with me?

That doesn't create change that just creates guilt and guilt is unaffected.

Guilt makes us feel terrible,

But it's not,

It's not that it's not effective in creating change.

Right.

And then I would just resent you.

You'd resent me.

And then you wouldn't want to talk to me.

You'd carry this anger,

You know,

Cause on some level there's a feeling like,

Yeah,

He's right,

But I wish you shouldn't tell me what nobody wants to be told what to do.

It's a hundred percent.

If you tell someone what to do,

You might as well tell them just to do it because people love to go in the opposite way.

Oh yeah.

You can't tell me what to do.

Kids are that way,

But adults are still kids.

And,

Um,

I remember the worst kids.

They don't have the innocence,

But I remember out of this client and I was working with husband and the wife and she had all these shopping bags,

Like kind of those nice shopping bags,

Neiman Marcus kind of things,

Shiny,

You know,

From shopping and she had done,

She'd saved a lot of handles and they're,

You know,

They make you feel like,

Wow,

I bought something nice,

You know?

And so she had a lot of them quite a lot.

And her husband was tell her to get right in front of her,

Tell her to get rid of all the shopping bags.

She doesn't need them.

And then he looks at her and she goes,

You don't need these shopping bags.

The clutter busters here.

Just get rid of them.

Seriously.

I don't understand.

And she just felt bad.

She's shrank and shrank and shrank.

And I finally said,

Stop,

Just stop talking to the husband.

I said,

Just stop talking.

And I gave,

You know,

He stopped talking because he was paying me.

Right.

He's like,

Okay,

I'll pay him.

You should listen to him.

And then I waited a few seconds just so they can get some quiet.

And I said to her,

Cause she was,

She wasn't,

She was hanging on to the bags,

You know,

And I said,

There were like,

How many of the bags do you think you need?

And I meant it.

I really wanted to know,

Like,

You know,

These,

These bags that you have,

Like,

How many do you,

Do you need to,

To do whatever you want it like for your life?

She goes,

I don't know.

I never thought about it.

Maybe like five.

I go,

Great.

Let's pick the five and like,

Go with the rest.

She goes,

All right.

And she did her husband's mouth.

It was hanging open,

You know,

Like in the movies where someone's jaws hanging down and he was shocked that she was throwing away bags.

Yeah.

Cause he had been berating her before I even got there other times and it didn't work.

So braiding others are braiding ourselves.

You know,

That it's cruel in a sense.

Cause it doesn't work.

I mean,

You could do it with a kid.

Like a kid picks up a knife.

Don't put that knife down.

You have to.

Right.

Cause the kid's like danger.

But it's like,

I am recently watching how I react to some things that my daughter will do that.

You know,

Don't necessarily want her to do,

You know,

Reacting or am I just approaching her,

You know,

With an alternative suggestion?

Well,

Yeah.

Well,

Yeah.

I mean,

You know,

Whatever you feel is right.

But what we're talking about here is a different approach,

More of a kind awareness,

Like I'm curious to see my,

I'm curious to learn about my relationship with the phone as opposed to like,

I got to stop doing this.

Something's wrong with me.

Why can't I stop doing?

So it doesn't work.

Doesn't work with anybody regarding anything.

So it's like,

Obviously I'm powerless over the phone.

Otherwise this would never happen.

So that's the first step.

Admitting I'm powerless over my phone because if I,

What,

If I,

If I had power of the phone,

This would never happen.

I would never text while driving by myself or with my daughter.

You know,

I would not like have this problem at nighttime where I'm anxious if the phone's off.

Cause you know,

It wouldn't have any power over me.

So that's,

That's the first step.

I'm powerless over the phone.

Oh,

And,

And,

Um,

And,

And then first,

Yeah.

Well,

So then that's the curiosity comes in.

Like,

I'm curious about how this happens and what it's like and what it,

You know,

I'm curious to watch it,

To watch myself and,

And that,

Oh,

You mean not watch the phone,

Well,

To watch your,

Your relationship with the phone.

You know,

Like,

Um,

It's just adding it.

Cause you know,

You have an awareness when you're driving,

You know,

You have awareness of the,

The speed limit that you're driving and,

And,

Uh,

The gas tank,

You know,

Do I need gas?

You know,

You're,

You're looking through the mirror.

So your awareness is on those things.

So you can have your awareness on something and it's,

You know,

You're not constantly looking like,

Oh my God,

Is it what it's just,

It's a light awareness and that's what we're encouraging here is to have a light awareness towards how do I react around my phone because that creates some space between you and the phone.

That's what awareness does.

It creates space.

I feel like I'm much more able to,

Um,

Be in that space where I can be aware of what's going on around me,

What's going on inside of me,

With me,

Through me,

Um,

When I spend some time meditating.

Yeah.

So it's for you that,

That seems the meditation seems to have a positive effect.

It creates,

Um,

It creates that awareness.

Yeah.

Sometimes it's blocked out by the noise.

Right.

So,

And,

And,

You know,

You,

You may be driving down the road,

Your,

Your daughter's in the back seat,

You're in the middle of texting,

And then all of a sudden the awareness kicks in.

My,

I'm texting while I'm driving.

Like it just kicks in,

Like before you're just doing it.

And now there's a little bit of space between you and what you're doing.

And that's where change happens.

It allows change,

It actually invites change in that's what awareness does.

And,

And so it's,

It's a light awareness.

It's like,

And you can't have it all the time.

It's just in the midst of like,

For me,

I don't have a problem with the phone.

It's not a problem.

But if I go into YouTube,

I can get lost in there for an hour.

I can get lost in there for an hour.

So I'll watch Johnny Carson clips or I'll watch fog had in concert,

You know,

Or like,

Oh,

And all of a sudden it tells me,

Hey,

Here's,

Here's the rolling stones from 1972.

What?

Oh,

Here's this easy top from a 1973 concert clip.

Oh man.

I got to watch that.

It knows me.

It's,

It's a smart system.

It's watching it on your phone.

I don't watch it on my phone,

But I'll.

And the midst of the day when I'm doing stuff,

Sometimes I'll go,

Oh yeah,

I gotta,

I want to check YouTube for this.

And I never get to the,

This I get to,

It shows me,

It tells me like,

Oh,

Here's a,

Uh,

Here's a clip of George Carlin.

You know,

I love George Carlin.

I started watching it.

So these devices are,

They're built to,

To hook us.

It's not like,

Oh,

I,

I've developed this false addiction for this thing.

It's,

We're tricked into it,

You know,

That we blame ourselves.

Yeah.

So like the internet,

It's YouTube.

If there's nothing that you can think of that YouTube doesn't have,

You know,

Hours and hours.

Oh,

I know it's endless.

And I'll like,

I remember once I was like,

Oh yeah.

Um,

I was at the stones concert in New York on this state.

And I,

I wonder if they have clips of it,

Which is like,

That's already bringing me in.

So I look and I found a clip of myself at the concert,

The people that were sitting in front of me.

Had made,

I remember that took the cliff.

Yeah.

They're like,

They,

They had turned around with the camera and they,

And they videotaped me.

And,

And it's like,

There was like 80,

000 people there.

You know,

That's how smart this thing is.

So,

So it's recognizing like,

All right,

This is a power greater than myself.

I mean,

That's from the 12 steps.

But it's true.

Obviously if it wasn't true,

If it wasn't true,

I would never go on YouTube because it's a guarantee if I go on YouTube,

Even if I happen to look at the thing,

I want to look up,

I'll start looking at something else.

It doesn't stop there.

Yeah.

So I don't,

For me,

The phone's the phone.

I don't have that problem with the phone,

But I understand it regarding the YouTube.

And it bothers me.

I'll be in like an hour into looking at stuff and then I'll recognize like,

What the heck,

You know?

And I'll,

How are they?

Where'd all the time go?

You know?

And I'm sure anyone has their own version of this.

Yeah.

So it's,

What we're talking about here is dropping the,

The self-criticism are,

Are maybe beginning to diminish it.

Because that takes the biggest toll.

Idiot.

Why'd you do that?

Jesus Christ.

You know,

That when you go on YouTube,

That's what you're going to do.

Like,

Why would you,

Why Jesus,

You just wasted your day.

Like,

How does that make me feel?

Like never a good,

Right?

Right.

So that's one approach.

I'm not the kindest approach,

Not the most effective approach.

It's the common approach because,

Because criticism is,

Is the main,

It generally societally,

It's always been the way of the criticism is the way to get people to change.

I see almost,

I see only two approaches in almost anything.

Very binary fear,

Which is where the criticism is coming from.

And love.

Yeah.

And I'm wondering,

You know,

A love might approach this.

Well,

The love is the awareness.

Love is,

Is,

Um,

What's it called?

Unconditional love is awareness.

Well,

Awareness can be neutral.

Yeah.

So,

So what we're talking about is an awareness of,

Oh yeah,

That this is what I'm doing without the,

Um,

Slam of the self-hatred.

It's like,

This is what I'm doing.

It happened to me.

Of course it happened to me.

I've got a device in my pocket.

That's highly addictive.

There's enough studies and enough articles about.

What if I had a betting app?

Yeah.

Sports betting.

If you're a betting addict.

Which I do not.

Yeah.

But if you,

If you did have that,

If that was your problem,

Then that would be a problem,

Right?

You'd always want to be checking it.

I have a friend who's very much into the stock market and he's constantly checking where his stocks are at and it doesn't help him.

He's got a lot of anxiety about it,

You know?

And I,

I,

And I help try to help talk with him about it,

Just to point out the anxiety part of it,

Because that,

That hurts him,

You know?

And it's starting to have some kind of effect on him,

But it's just that it's like.

So when you talk to him about it,

Does,

Do you have any sense that he feels,

You know,

Any kind of guilt or shame?

Oh,

I think he feels shame about it.

And shame is really,

It's shame is self-criticism.

It's,

It doesn't,

It's this feeling of,

I could have not done this and I'm doing it.

And because of that,

I'm bad.

I'm bad.

But we're talking about here is a,

Is a further step back,

You know,

Like,

You know,

We were dealing with a technology that's very recent.

And it's,

Again,

It's built to keep you on the technology.

And,

And it's constantly,

There are alerts that we sign up for because we're encouraged,

Like,

Oh,

What if you don't get this alert,

You know?

So we're,

And then people all around us are doing it.

So we're social creatures.

We learn off of that.

The gig economy apps.

Yeah.

And people are starting to talk about this,

Just like you're starting,

You know,

Like you're talking about it.

People are becoming more aware of this isn't,

You know,

The government's now becoming invested in trying to help kids with social media because the,

The level of self-hatred,

The level of suicide attempts are,

Are skyrocketed.

And since the cell phone showed up,

Social media and the cell phone.

Putting on a search and to help one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so when it gets to that level,

You know,

Things are great.

Cigarettes.

Level of cigarettes.

Yeah.

I mean,

There's people that know,

People know that cigarettes cause cancer.

It's,

It's listed on the thing and they hear people tell them about it.

You should stop smoking because it causes cancer and,

And they're not able to stop because the addiction is really intense.

So the compassion is,

I'm addicted because this is what's happening.

Yeah.

We talked about,

You know,

Seeing what it is that we're doing,

Being able to step back and witnessing it without being in it,

Just kind of saying,

Oh,

Okay,

This is what's happening.

Yeah.

And approaching that from a neutral place rather than a place of shame or guilt,

Just as a neutral witness.

Oh,

There you are.

Oh yeah.

I put the screen down because I can just focus on what I'm talking about.

My God.

You know,

I really like looking at your beautiful face and not the tabletop,

But that's okay.

I understand.

But,

But then,

You know,

What's the next step?

And I'm not necessarily looking to go down the road of this 12-step program,

Although it's a road that I've,

You know,

Put a lot of holes in my shoes walking down.

I don't like that.

Yeah.

But,

But,

But,

You know,

Just coming from you,

What do you see as the next step in the process?

The next step is to,

Is you're admitting that it's a problem and that it hurts you and you don't know what to do about it.

It's a good start.

It's an honest start.

You know,

It's,

It's a big deal to admit,

Put my daughter's life at risk every time I get on the phone when I'm driving,

Yet I still do it.

But that's also,

You know,

That's also triggers the shame.

And then you notice the shame and the guilt,

Like,

All right,

Now the shame,

Here we go.

Here's the shame and the guilt showing right up on schedule,

Right on schedule.

That's so interesting.

Like when I was working with clients regularly,

Who we would ask questions about this stuff one at a time,

Just in the same kind of same way we're doing now.

And we come across something and I go,

Do you like to use this or not?

And they go,

No.

And I go,

Can you let it go?

And they go,

No.

And I say,

Why?

And they go,

Because it's a gift,

You know?

And I go,

Yeah.

And they go,

Well,

It's,

It's wrong to get rid of a gift.

What if they come over and they say,

Where's the gift?

And if I tell them I got rid of it,

They're going to get angry at me.

So there's shame there,

You know?

Like,

This person's going to hate me,

I'm bad.

So I said,

Well,

What's it like to live with that feeling?

And they go,

It's terrible.

Yeah,

So,

You know,

It's,

It's recognizing I have this addiction and I also have guilt and shame about it.

And then I feel powerless over all of it.

And,

And if I could,

I would just not use the phone while I'm driving,

Turn it off,

You know,

Unless I'm doing GPS.

And maybe I could,

But as you pointed out,

It can't,

You can't,

Right.

You can't.

Like when you're drinking,

You don't mind me talking about the drinking stuff to you.

We've,

I think we've established it.

Okay.

When you were drinking,

Like that was pretty hard,

Wasn't it?

When you were drinking at the same,

Some part of you wanted to stop sometimes or maybe not.

Every morning.

Yeah.

Every morning when I woke up,

I'm so sick that I was puking my stomach lining.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You went back to drinking,

Right?

By five o'clock that day.

Yeah.

So it's like,

Okay,

That's,

That's the whole first step.

I'm powerless over alcohol.

And that's the only place that healing can start to happen.

I'm powerless over my phone.

I'm powerless over this.

And at that point,

It's like,

That's,

You can't have guilt about something when you're powerless over it.

Well,

You can,

But it can't be as loaded as when you finally admit I'm powerless over this.

It helps though.

It helps to call it.

It helps to be honest.

Yeah.

What is,

What the problem is.

It helped the clarity.

Yeah.

No,

It does help a lot,

But no,

It can still trigger guilt and shame.

Right.

So guilt and shame can show up.

It will show up.

It's very ingrained.

It's in our DNA.

We've been brought up,

Parents taught us to feel ashamed about what we did.

So when they didn't like what we did,

And it doesn't work,

It's just,

We'll do it.

We'll still do it.

We'll just try to hide it.

That's often ends up what's happening.

We hide stuff.

For ourselves,

Especially.

Yeah.

I mean,

For others,

Of course.

So it's like,

Just recognize what's going on.

It is really the first step.

This is happening.

I can't seem to put my phone away.

And I,

And I put my life in danger and my daughter's life in danger because I'm powerless over it.

And,

You know.

You know,

One time I tried this game.

I think it lasted a whole hour,

Maybe two,

Where I would set a time on my phone.

Mind you,

So that probably on the inside timer app,

Those are,

Of course,

The best timers that you can possibly imagine.

So that I would not look at my phone until the timer went off.

And so I would like set maybe 20 minutes or a half hour in that.

Now,

Granted,

I would be on my computer while this was going on.

Maybe it was just to try to set a focus time so that I would just focus on my work and I wouldn't keep looking at the phone and going down the rabbit hole.

Yeah.

As the DHT guy knows.

But yeah,

That didn't.

Right.

It never does.

You know,

I'm not going to do this anymore.

If I could tell you that,

Don't look at your phone while you're driving.

And you go,

Yeah,

You're right.

I shouldn't look at my phone.

I'm not going to stop doing it.

And then you'll be driving.

Your daughter's in the back seat.

And next thing you know,

You're looking at checks,

You know?

So that's why I don't wait.

Yeah.

Look,

What did you say I was looking at?

You're looking at a text while you're driving.

Yeah.

So,

So I could tell you like,

Here's the things to do.

I can't tell you what to do because everyone's going to need a different answer of what.

But that's the,

That's,

That's where to start is to be like,

That's how powerful my phone is,

That I will,

I will look away from the road to see what somebody texted to me.

And,

And I will,

I will,

You know,

Cause I'm putting in harm's way my daughter,

Myself and the other people on the road.

And here I am a person who loves my daughter,

Who's a person who cares about society in general,

Like does a lot of things to help disenfranchise voters or people who are down on their luck in one way or another.

You know,

You've done a lot of work helping people in the 12 step group.

So it's your nature to,

To want to help others.

And it's your nature to want to help yourself because I know you,

You're a very spiritual person.

So you've done a lot of stuff to become a deeper understanding of who you are.

And you'll put everybody's harm,

Everybody in harm's way to,

To look at the text.

And it's like,

This is bigger than me.

This goes against my nature.

It's like that,

That's where to start because then you realize it helps you realize this,

This is not my friend.

The phone is not my friend.

Yeah,

It's not my friend.

I want him to be desperate.

You just really,

And it's built an addiction device.

What about that one month that I had Tinder on my phone?

Oh yeah.

So I don't know what that was like.

Oh,

I appreciate that.

I check it all the time.

That'll,

Yeah,

That'll take the phone addiction to a new level.

Yeah,

Right,

Right.

So,

So the thing is,

It's,

It's built into the system that the people that create apps,

The people that create the phone are not your friends.

They're not,

They're,

It's just,

What do they want?

They want your attention because it sells apps,

Because it sells,

Um,

One,

Because it sells apps because it sells,

Um,

Sells cell phones.

It sells,

You know,

Um,

The electricity use it.

A lot of people make money off of you for this.

And then you find yourself putting everybody's life at risk so they can get more money.

That's what,

That's,

That's when people build an addiction device,

Whether it's a cigarette or it's Vegas,

Or it's like Netflix.

Netflix,

President of Netflix said our only competition is sleep.

Like that person's not your friend.

It doesn't mean that Netflix is bad.

And you know,

Uh,

Whatever,

You know,

The gambling's bad.

It doesn't mean that anything's bad.

It's just whatever's anything that doesn't serve us means our relationship with the thing doesn't serve us.

So you,

If you saw that your life,

Your daughter's life was in danger,

Someone was about to attack her,

You would throw yourself in front of that person or whatever to protect her.

Right.

If somebody,

Right.

So when you're putting your daughter's life in danger with the phone because of the addiction device that was presented to you as a solution to your problems,

Then it's like,

Wow.

Right.

It's like,

Man,

That's amazing that that's happening.

You know,

Then I would justify,

Yeah,

It's okay.

Look at a text.

And for my,

Myself,

My daughter's life,

The other people's on the road,

It's life and danger to answer.

Somebody sent me a message through this little device.

And you know what really pisses me off?

What's next?

What pisses me off the most is when I am in,

Um,

You know,

I am being conscious enough that I'm only looking at the text at a stop.

And the light turns green and I'm looking at my phone and some guy behind me starts honking at me.

Oh my God,

That really pissed me off.

You know what I do?

I put my phone down and,

Um,

I go,

Yeah,

Then,

Then when he tries to pass me,

I speed up,

You know,

And I kind of parallel with the guy next to me,

So he can't get around me.

Yeah.

So you're,

You're hurting that person too,

Right?

I mean,

What a dick,

Right?

So that's,

You're recognizing this,

This is what I'm doing.

And I'm,

Yeah,

I'm still doing it.

And I did it today.

Yeah.

My daughter was not in the car.

Yeah.

And you're recognizing that I just,

I did this and it's like,

Well,

Today,

Actually,

When he honked at me,

I wasn't looking at my phone.

Yeah.

So I was really,

I was even more upset.

The fact that I'm not even looking at my phone.

So I,

Well,

Who knows what's going on in that person's life?

Maybe somebody yelled at him earlier and,

And,

Uh,

That's a whole other story.

That's like,

You know,

We often,

We get upset at other people for what they do,

But we don't know what happened to maybe their mom died that morning.

Maybe they're,

They're,

They're,

Uh,

They got yelled at by their wife or,

Or,

You know,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Their,

Or they lost their job,

You know,

Like,

Who knows?

Or maybe they found out they have cancer.

It's like,

We just assume that person's doing that to me and they're wrong.

You know,

What we're talking about here is an expanded view,

Like a willingness to take the possibility that maybe I'm not right.

Maybe there's something else here and it's bigger than me and it's admitting it because right.

Like,

Again,

I'm doing this thing that goes against my nature.

You do stuff to try to,

To help people that are disenfranchised in one way or another.

You spend free time that you don't get paid for to help other people,

Right?

No,

I do not.

Right.

You do that,

Don't you?

Do I?

Yes.

I do a lot of volunteer work.

Right.

That's what I'm talking about to help others.

And I have for decades.

Yeah.

So when you do something to hurt somebody on the road like that,

That goes against your nature.

So it's just,

Wow,

I'm doing this,

You know,

Because I'm talking about the opposite of chastisement.

The opposite of,

I have to stop doing this.

It's wrong.

Something's wrong with me when I do that.

You know,

That whole thing,

That whole worth,

That criticism of the harshness towards ourselves,

Which becomes a harshness towards others,

It's an openness to see that in ourselves,

To see what we do.

You know,

We're not sitting here asking for answers or solutions.

But we are looking for a different approach.

Yeah.

And since we're coming down to the last few minutes here,

What I'm talking about today,

And this is an example,

But it can be taken in any direction of something that's hurting us,

That we recognize this is hurting me,

Is to take a different approach versus not like,

This person's causing this to happen to me,

Or I shouldn't be doing this,

What's wrong with me,

To like,

This is what's happening,

And it hurts.

That's the start.

That's the whole thing about clutterbusting,

Is a willingness and curiosity and openness to take a look,

To see.

Like,

What are the things in my life that are hurting me?

And I may not recognize that.

I may not recognize it before I start to take a look.

And when I take a look,

Sometimes I see things I never saw before with these new eyes.

That's an important part of this.

Because,

Yeah,

You know,

999 times out of 1,

000,

I don't notice that much of the stuff that I'm doing,

That is hurting.

I don't know that it is.

I don't even notice.

Yeah,

And that's the case with the stuff that people live with.

I know that from working with clients,

Is that people often have quite a lot of stuff that upon asking the questions and taking a look,

They realize they don't serve them,

But most of the time,

They don't realize it doesn't serve them.

They just know that they don't feel good,

And they don't know why.

So they go and get more stuff,

Because stuff's supposed to make us feel good,

According to advertising and marketing.

So we're always looking to,

Like,

Something outside of ourselves to make us feel better.

And what we're talking about here is taking a look,

Curious and kind look within,

And recognize that you're going to see some stuff that is going to surprise you.

You're going to see stuff that,

Like,

I didn't know I felt this way towards that thing,

Or that I do this thing.

You may be shocked,

Or you just may be like,

Okay,

That's what's happening.

And from there,

I've seen a lot of people turn their lives around,

Because,

You know,

They'll ask questions.

I remember this woman,

She had this box of stuff,

And she's going through it,

And she found something.

She goes,

Oh my God,

I've been looking at this for 10 years.

And I didn't even remember what it was.

She was so excited.

10 years,

I've been looking at this for 10 years.

And so I said,

What are you going to do with it?

And now she goes,

I'm going to put it back in the box and put it back in the closet.

I said,

You'll do that.

It's just like it disappears.

It's gone.

And you're just back in the same place of living with stuff that's not serving you.

It just feels heavy and thick and gets in the way of peace of mind.

And so I just,

You know,

Kind of come back to how does it feel to have these things?

Before I came in here,

And we actually took a look,

And she realized there was a lot of pain there.

That's why she paid me money to have me come over to her house to go through that stuff.

So you'll see all kinds of justifying.

You'll find yourself trying to justify why it has to be the way it is.

Or you'll find yourself making promises.

I'm not going to do this anymore.

And then you'll be doing it.

So it's admitting we're vulnerable creatures.

We're powerless.

It can be hard to say that I am powerless over something,

Because we want to feel like I have,

How do I get power over it?

I couldn't have stopped drinking if just based on making a decision to do that.

Yeah,

Yeah.

You know,

I made a decision to stop drinking every single morning for 10 years.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I went to the extreme of going into a Catholic church for a morning mass every single day,

Getting down on my knees,

Praying that I wouldn't drink.

Yeah.

You know,

And that didn't work.

Right,

It didn't work.

So I remember the day you called me and you said,

I can't do this anymore.

I can't drink anymore.

And I heard it in your voice,

Like you had reached bottom.

And you've done a lot of things to work towards maintaining that,

You know,

Going to 12-step meetings,

Having a sponsor and things.

But it happened on its own.

In a way,

It kind of let go of you,

You know?

It did.

You know,

There was a tiny window of opportunity that I went,

That window would have closed in the blink of an eye and left me this side of hell.

That I was living in.

Yeah.

You know,

It was a miracle that I got through that tiny window of opportunity.

So,

But,

You know,

I'm just using that as an example of the much broader thing.

I can't just decide to stop doing something that is painful and detrimental to myself,

Whether it's,

You know,

Texting and driving or eating too many cookies,

Whatever the hell it is.

Because again,

The cell phone is just an example of what we,

You know,

What we have to live with in this,

You know,

The little things that are not great for us and that we need to butterbust.

If we can.

If we can.

If we can.

I always put that in there because maybe you won't be able to stop texting while you're driving with your daughter in the backseat.

She screams,

Daddy,

Please stop texting.

You're going to kill us all.

I'm not going to create an illusion here of now that's not going to happen anymore.

You may find yourself tomorrow,

If you have your daughter tomorrow and you're driving her and she's in the backseat texting and go,

I spent an hour talking about this on a podcast yesterday and now I'm doing it.

And it's like,

It's very humbling.

It's very humbling.

Obviously,

If you had power over it,

You wouldn't do it.

It's very humbling.

You know,

You recognize,

Like,

I'm a vulnerable creature.

I'm affected by my environment.

I can't,

I'm not,

I'm powerless over many things.

And it actually can really open your heart.

And from there,

That's where change can happen.

And everybody's going to have a different thing of what that change is.

You know,

If this changed you and you didn't text anymore,

Or you found a different solution,

That would be what happened to you.

For somebody else,

It could be something else completely different.

So that's why I don't give any answers of what to do,

Because it's a private thing.

It's worth,

It's you're looking within yourself and seeing this is what's happening and then seeing what comes from that discovery,

From that recognition.

It's a very private,

Intimate discovery.

Everyone's on their own.

And the change is not,

It's often,

It can't be just 100% from us.

Otherwise,

We wouldn't do it.

It comes from a power greater than ourselves.

And whatever that power is for you,

That power presents a solution.

But it's great.

It means it's not up to you.

It's up to something bigger than you.

It could be somebody or some idea,

Or it could be anything.

It could be you're driving with your daughter to the backseat and you're texting and you get into a bad accident.

It's like,

You know,

The power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity can take any form.

And that's where our heart opens up.

Because we realize we're not alone.

We're not separate from the world.

We're part of the world.

And that world can present its solutions in the way that suits us.

If we're open with that.

Yeah.

If we're open and if we're not,

We're not open until we are or whenever.

But the self-will aspect of I'm going to change this or I'm not going to do this,

Whatever I hear anybody say that I'm not going to do this anymore.

I recognize this is what I do.

Never going to do it again.

And I've heard it myself or from other people.

And they always go back to it.

So their self-will aspect doesn't work.

It's the compassion.

Unconditional love.

This is what I'm doing.

Wow.

Oh,

Boy.

You know what I am going to do again,

Though?

What?

This podcast with you.

Oh,

Great,

Great.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Thank you for being honest with who you are and what you feel because that's why it makes this podcast really good is that your willingness to be open and that's one of your great qualities that I always admire.

And I hope it wears off of me is that willingness to be open towards yourself.

Well,

I appreciate your insight,

Your love for me and for the world.

And you have a great capacity for healing just by being brought.

I think you heal the world in ways you may not even understand.

So thank you.

I don't understand.

But I like what I do.

I enjoy what I do a lot.

I like what you do.

Thank you,

Gregory.

See you next time.

Yeah.

And I hope you all will join us again if you like,

If you wish.

And I'll take care.