An Interview With Drew Gerber
Define for yourself the people and experiences you want to have in the next three months and say yes to those. Define the people and experiences that exhaust you and start saying no to those.
We live in a time of great excess. We have access to fast fashion, fast food, and fast everything. But studies show that all of our “stuff” is not making us any happier. How can we simplify and focus on what’s important? What can we do to let go of all of the clutter and excess, and find true happiness? In this interview series, we are talking to coaches, mental health experts, and authors who share insights stories, and personal anecdotes about “How Simplifying and Decluttering Your Life Can Make Us Happier.” As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Brook Belden.
Brook is a coach, healer, and mystic who resides in Raleigh NC. She is a homeschool mom carving out her own unique path in this lifetime. She is a powerful healer, helping women reclaim the truth of who they are, align with their soul’s purpose, and heal the blocks and shadows that interfere.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?
I suppose I have always been a person with emotional depth and curiosity. I had this burning question about what creates dissatisfaction, supposedly always knowing that we have this innate right to inner peace and “happiness”. The most conventional career path led me to becoming a therapist. While I was completing my master’s degree, I wrote my thesis on how improving basic wellness, like through exercise and nutrition could improve our mental health. Now this was 15 years ago and super “woo” back then. I have always been on a path of uncovering what was underneath — pulling back the layers to uncover that initial question, which inevitably led me to my own existential crisis or dark night of the soul and the deeper embodiment of spiritual practices, hearing my intuition (and following it), believing my psychic channeling, and being blown away by the accuracy of Human Design and astrology as tools for alignment.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
In my work, the most interesting is always the one that created the greatest resistance and breakthrough! So for me, it was 4 1/2 years ago. My husband and I were running a business together. We had been working hard and hustling for years. We created some great success — built a great community, became leaders in our industry, and grew a ton, but we were doing it all on hustle principles and it was all off. We never thought that we would or could leave our business. We had so much wrapped up in it. So instead, I suggested that we just move to a virtual model, sell off our belongings, and take our 2 and 5 yr old on a travel adventure. I wasn’t as connected to my intuitive voice back then and when I was really in a bind, I would just make negotiations with God — for instance, “I need to know if this is the right move. So, If I am going to sell my house and everything I own, pack up my tiny kids and geriatric dog, and live in 180 sq feet, I need this transition to demonstrate total ease and flow. We can have adversity while we’re out there, but not in the process. Make the house sell and the purchase of the trailer go smoothly.” Needless to say, that didn’t happen. We had issues after issue. The people we were buying a trailer from ghosted us. Our beautiful house sat for three weeks with crickets (in a strong market). Our dog’s health declined. It was a mess. My husband kept trying to rationalize it all, but I couldn’t ignore this pact that I made. So we pulled the plug. Took our house off the market, walked away from our business, and watched the entire thing crumble. My husband took a job and we spent two years healing and rebuilding. It was the hardest and most beautiful time in my life. While our businesses and life is in great shape, the inner landscape of who I am has never been more solid.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Writing has always been near and dear to my heart and there are few things that touch me deeper than reading other people’s stories and being able to see myself and hear my voice through their experience. It’s one of the most profound ways to feel connected and therefore strike out any feelings of loneliness. For some time now, I have been wanting to return to writing and have recently created a blog on Medium, called Reclaiming Her. You can read more at www.reclaimingher.medium.com
Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority on the topic of “How Simplifying and Decluttering Your Life Can Make You Happier”?
Yes. To me, decluttering is all about aligning to your truth. Saying a big No to the things that don’t align for you and YES to the things that come from your soul. While this is a lot deeper than “just say no to ‘add to cart’” it is literally the purest way to simplify. One of the very first courses that I taught was called Clear the Clutter and it was all about how to simplify the things that were robbing you energetically — the apps on your phone, the calendar requests, and yes, even the closets that are overflowing. This is actually a major analogy that I use with my clients. You see our body is a finite space, much like a closet. And when we stuff it filled with traumas, narratives, and societal conditioning that is not true for us, or aligned for us, then we have no space for our truth or our soul’s purpose. This is what we refer to as shadow and light. Much like that junk drawer or closet that you have in your house, our body and emotional well becomes so full that we don’t even want to deal with it. So we avoid it. Yet every time we pass it, we feel that nagging to deal with it. We may even quickly throw one more thing in there and slam the door shut before it spills out on top of us. And while we can try to go in and sort through it, the only real way is to take it all out bit by bit. Look straight at it and intentionally decide — is this me? Do I really love this? And if it’s a no, it has to go. THEN — and only then, can we put it all back in the closet with spaciousness. And just like that feeling you get after you clear out the closet — I mean you literally want to just go and open it and see how beautiful it looks — that spaciousness in your soul feels like heaven.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. We live in a time of excess. We have access to so much. But studies show that all of our “stuff” is not making us any happier. Can you articulate for our readers a few reasons why all of our possessions are not giving us happiness?
The biggest reason is that we are purchasing from a place of influence, rather than soul desire. For instance, I can sit in meditation and envision exactly what it is that I want my travel to look like for the year. I want to take my kids to Yellowstone, take a solo trip to the beach, and go to NY with my husband for a long weekend. This is all aligned with my life path. But then I open Instagram and I see friends going to Disney and their trip looks so magical. So I pivot, or I add in this trip. And in the end, I just feel depleted and exhausted because what was once intentional is now overrun by what’s right for someone else. This happens with everything! The next thing we know, we have more toys, gadgets, skincare products, and on and none of it is aligned for us! We are chasing the feeling that we think the item will bring us.
On a broader societal level, how do you think this excessiveness may be harming our communities and society?
The excessiveness is such a distraction, right?! It’s like a drug. Keeps us chasing and chasing the next high and quick fix satisfaction from a new purchase without ever really getting down to what we really want. These distractions and feelings of being lost, questioning who we really are, etc are all the culprit for our darkest emotions — like loneliness and emptiness. Now imagine if our society and our communities were enriched with individuals who really knew who they were and could pour into each other from their innate gifts instead of a constant space of greed and emptiness.
The irony of struggling with happiness in modern times is glaring. In many places in the world today, we have more than ever before in history. Yet despite this, so many people are unhappy. Why is simplifying a solution? How would simplifying help people to access happiness?
This a fairly complex question so follow me philosophically for a minute. If you look back over our history of western society, you will see that for hundreds of years, humans and society were constantly seeking and developing ways to make our lives easier. Maintaining life hundreds of years ago was our work. Finding food, making clothes, maintaining shelter, healing from illness. It demanded all of us. So much of the struggle was also the connection. When you see how hard things were, you can understand how we have migrated to where we are today. It’s all about making our lives easier. The real irony is seeing how easy we have it. I would venture to say that we are all simply bored. We lack meaning and depth in so much of our day to day life. We have machines and devices that do everything for us. Luxury homes and vehicles. Food on every corner. So we go to work and continue to churn out processes and systems that lend to this ease. All the while missing the connection to nature, to ourselves, and to each other. So instead we seek out these continued sources of micro-happiness. Trips to Target, a latte from Starbucks, the latest Apple device… I want to also add that simplifying as a means to find happiness will never work. Happiness, like all emotions, will always be fleeting. It is impossible to live in a constant state of happiness. Emotions come and go, just as they should. But a life that is satisfying to you! That’s the stuff right there. And within that you will experience happiness and joy, as well as grief and sorrow, but at the root you will have gratitude and presence. So simplifying isn’t a solution, it’s a path or an extension to the real solution which is finding your truth and real meaning in your life.
Can you share some insights from your own experience? Where in your life have you transformed yourself from not having enough to finally experiencing enough? For example, many people feel they don’t have enough money. Yet, people define abundance differently, and often, those with the least money can feel the most abundant. Where in your health, wealth, or relationships have you transformed your life?
I think you nailed it right there. People define abundance differently. That is the key. My husband and I have a very different experience on what feels abundant. He drives a luxury vehicle. That feels abundant for him. I drive a hybrid. Saving money on gas feels abundant for me in my body. A place for me that I have chosen to simplify is with business and work. We have chosen to homeschool our children so much of my time is with them. This gives me much less time to dedicate to my business so I constantly have to ask myself, “what do I want in my business?” This means scaling back client sessions immensely, shifting into groups, and writing in the nooks and crannies vs scheduling myself for set appointments. This feels really good to me. I love my work. It’s what fills me up. Not having it would create feelings of lack within me, so a simpler model is what I am choosing for this season of my life.
People, places, and things shape our lives. For example, your friends generate conversations that influence you. Where you live impacts what you eat and how you spend your time. The “things” in your life, like phones, technology, or books impact your recreation. Can you tell us a little about how people, places, and things in your own life impact your experience of “experiencing enough?”
Oh sure. It’s so easy to open up a social app and immediately feel FOMO. I literally experience it on some level everyday. The key for me, is to decide offline what I want and need right now. And then go about researching or buying that. If something really looks or sounds like an incredible experience, I will take it back to a quiet space and simply ask myself, “Do I really want that? Do I actually have space (energetic or physical) for that right now?”
What advice would you give to younger people about “experiencing enough?”
I would simply ask them, “What is your enough?” If you logged off your phone for two weeks, what would you really want?
This is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and research, can you share your “five ways we can simplify and declutter our lives to make us happier?”
Yes! And for the sake of simplicity, let’s keep it simple!
- If it’s not a hell yes, then it’s a hell no.
- Make a regular practice of asking yourself what you really need and desire in this moment. In the next three months?
- Meditate and journal about what abundance looks and feels like to you. Say no to everything else **spoiler** because cluttering your life with what you don’t want actually creates lack.
- Clean out the junk drawer of your house and your soul. Get rid of the things that are robbing your energy.
- Define for yourself the people and experiences you want to have in the next three months and say yes to those. Define the people and experiences that exhaust you and start saying no to those.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Reclaiming the truth of who you are. You never actually have to “find” yourself because you are already in there. We have simply been taught that we are supposed to become someone that society values. It’s that message over and over that creates a misalignment in our soul and triggers feelings of unhappiness. Every emotion is a teacher. It’s like how our body will show us a negative health symptom to cue us of dis-ease. Healing the traumas and narratives and aligning to your truth will literally change the world.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can find me on my website, podcast, instagram, and blog.
The Reclaiming Her Podcast wherever you listen
www.instagram.com/reclaiming.her
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.
About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world.
Brook Belden On How Simplifying & Decluttering Your Life Can Make You Happier was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.