512 | The Secret of Letting Go

The Minimalists speak with Guy Finley about letting go of precious memories, why letting go is so freaking scary, the wisdom of letting go, ten truths to follow if you want to let go, and much more. Discussed in this episode: How can I let go of things that are imbued with my precious memories? (4:20) Why is letting go so scary? (32:24) How does our desire to control prevent us from letting go? (33:30) Are we always letting go of a piece of the past when we let go? (36:59) Have a question for the show? Call 406-219-7839 or email a voice memo to [email protected]. Listen to the full Maximal episode on Patreon: patreon.com/theminimalists http://patreon.com/theminimalists Detailed show notes: minimalists.com/podcast http://minimalists.com/podcast Recorded at Earthing Studios http://earthing.com/simple.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing you think that you need. Every little thing that's just feeding your greed. Oh, I bet that you'll be fine without it.

• 0:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, welcome to the Minimalist Podcast where we discuss what it means to live a meaningful life with less. My name is Joshua Fields Milburn and joining me here at Earthing Studios in beautiful West Hollywood, California is my good friend TK Coleman.

• 0:55Speaker 02

  Let's create a beautiful day.

• 0:57Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You know, today we're joined by the director of the Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study. He is also the bestselling author of more than 30 books, including this one right here, The Secret of Letting Go. Please welcome to the show our new friend, Guy Finley's here. Look at that, a studio audience.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  That's the most applause I've had in 30 years.

• 1:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, you said you showed me this video of a guy named Guy. And you're like, I, we've got to get him on the show. Why did you feel that way?

• 1:35Speaker 02

  He's one of my top five living philosophers today. You know, you listen to a lot of podcasts and it seems like whether you're listening to a comedian, sports commentator, self-improvement author, or a pastor, they're all having the same conversation about the same things. It's a response to whatever controversy the algorithm promises to reward the most. And then there are those thinkers who show up and no matter what's going on in the world, they may not say it verbally, but they say it viscerally, vibrationally. I'm here to talk about what resonates with me. I'm here to talk about what makes me come alive. And Guy Finley is one of those thinkers. And because he doesn't identify as a minimalist, he doesn't wear that label, he's not necessarily in this space. I was so excited about the thought.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Of him coming on and weighing in with his unique insights to the questions that our audience tends to ask. And he's just one of those thinkers who I wish I could ask him about everything, including those things he may not be interested in, because I know the way he thinks about it is just gonna be fascinating. Like, I'd ask him about basketball, even if he says, "I don't care about basketball." I'll say, "I don't know, I don't care. I wanna know your predictions, anyway, cuz I know the insight's gonna be fun."

• 2:48Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Oh, how fascinating. You know, I wanted to bring you, as soon as TK brought you up, I wanted to bring you into our world, because, as he said, we often talk about minimalism. For us, there's a whole lot of overlap with, you know, the secret of letting go here, and letting go. And often, it starts with the material possessions, but then we learn really quickly that the stuff isn't about the stuff. We're letting go of the stories behind the stuff. We're letting go of the past that is tied up into our things. We're also letting go of identity. We're letting go of the need to control everything. We're gonna talk about quite a few of those things today. So, coming up on this episode, we're talking about letting go of precious memories. We're talking about why letting go can be

• 3:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  so freaking scary. We'll look at 10 truths to follow. This is on page 3, 10 truths to follow if you want to let go. Also, we've got something here about clutter that shows up unexpectedly in your home, or shows up in different areas of your life, and maybe letting that go as well, and much, much more. I'm sure we'll navigate all over the place. But let's start with our callers. If you have a question for our show, we'd love to hear from you. Our phone number's 406-219-7839, or you can email a voice recording right from your phone to [email protected]. Let us know if you're a Patreon subscriber, so we can prioritize your message. By the way, big thanks to our patrons. Your support

• 4:09Joshua Fields Millburn?

  keeps our podcast 100% advertisement-free, because, sing-along at home, y'all. Advertisements suck. Yes, they do.

• 4:21Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Our first question today is from Ilona.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Hi, Joshua, Ryan, TK. Ilona hier, uit Utrecht, de Nederland. Ik was al op mijn weg naar minimalisme toen ik je ontdekte. En ik moet zeggen dat je me de extra push gaf om het verder te nemen. Ik heb zo veel dingen uitgegaan, door je visie te gaan. Ik hou van je filosofische beschouwingen en het feit dat je het niet alleen beperkt aan fysieke vleugels hebt. Dus, grote fan vibes uit Europa. Ik ben zelf een poet en ik gebruik mijn gevoelensmeling om diep te gaan om het beste op te vinden om wat ik wil beschrijven. Dus, terwijl ik mijn eigen gedachten aan het leven van een betekenisvolle leven met minder dingen bedacht, dacht ik aan het volgende.

• 5:05Speaker 04

  Terwijl je herinneringen in je zitten en niet in je dingen, kunnen je dingen nog steeds een gatweg zijn tot die herinneringen, door ofwel zijn ze technisch kwaliteit, smaak of gewoon het eenvoudige kijk van je. Hoe moet je met dat gaan?

• 5:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Ja, dus in ons laatste film, Guy, hebben we het over dit. De ontdekking die ik had toen mijn moeder dood was. Dat was echt het begin van minimalisme voor mij. Dat was bijna 16 jaar geleden, dit maand in feite. En ik had haar dingen laten gaan of probeerde te laten gaan en ik had moeite om ze te laten gaan. Ja. Want ik had al deze herinneringen in deze dingen, of zo dacht ik. En dan had ik dit moment van epifany. Ik was als: wacht even. Onze herinneringen zijn niet in deze dingen. De moeder is niet in deze dingen. De herinneringen zijn in mij en ze zijn in mij het hele tijd. Maar natuurlijk, zoals Ilona hier het gaat, kunnen onze dingen soms, zoals ze zei, een gatweg zijn of ik zou zeggen een trigger tot sommige van de herinneringen die binnen ons zijn.

• 6:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Dus wat zeg je haar over het laten gaan van dingen die in deze prijzen herinneringen zijn?

• 6:10Speaker 03

  Nou, de eerste ding dat ik zou zeggen is: hoe prijzen is het om in een soort pijn te worden gekoppeld? Want je hoofd neemt je terug naar een moment waar de herinneringen flitsen, maar er is geen vrijheid binnen het. En je bent letterlijk, zoals ze het zegt, opgekeken door je eigen herinnering. Ik bedoel, hoe is dat mogelijk? Ik bedoel, dit zijn de dingen die ik mezelf vraag. Hoe kan ik opgekeken worden door een hond die ik lieverde? Je weet, Tessie bijvoorbeeld, ze is dood, wat het was. De gedachte komt op, onmiddellijk is er dit pijn van pijn. Wat is de relatie tussen wat mijn hoofd doet en mijn ervaring?

• 6:51Speaker 03

  And what I've found and what I would suggest to Elona is to start recognizing that, and this is something I just talked about, so you tell me if I get off base here. This mind, our mind is a sleeping mind. We don't know what it's doing 99.9% of the time. It's just going on with its mechanical life, the habits it has, and then hoping that when things happen in a certain way, everything can fit the pattern that it has already established. So that you're suffering is when something in life challenges a pattern that you don't even know you're a part of. So in this instance, I'm suffering over,

• 7:31Speaker 03

  how do I separate this thing? Our mind is what I call object-dependent. It is object-dependent. That means that it will, of its own accord, and she'll attest to this, I hope if she listens to this, my mind suddenly goes to, I walk by that painting that my mother loved, and suddenly I'm filled with remorse because my mother's gone. She loved that painting. Well, that whole reaction is a product of a mind that first attended to something that you didn't even know it was going to go to. It just went to it. And then it goes to it, and when it goes to it, then it goes, oh, no, this terrible, I loved her, but now I'm suffering. Well, who's involved in that? So that you begin to discover that your mind

• 8:16Speaker 03

  will, in fact, attend to an object to bring up this subjective state of yourself, and then you are suddenly identified with something that you didn't even really want to or think about getting identified, like this. Who goes to a museum and buys a painting on the wall that when you bring it home and you see it on the wall, you get sick to your stomach? That would make no sense, would it? Right? I buy something that I hate what I bought. My mind brings up what it then wishes it wasn't visiting. And if we can begin to see that, then we recognize that this mind is fine on the street, you know, doing what it's got to do. But this mind is not intended to be the source of consolation, the source

• 8:57Speaker 03

  of freedom, even the source of love. That's not what this particular level of mind is for. But we're so caught in it that we don't recognize that level of consciousness is often doing its own thing, and then we wind up footing the bill.

• 9:10Joshua Fields Millburn?

  It seems to me like one of the problems with memory, the memories that we think are things are imbued with, is it does keep us stuck in a past, that it keeps us stuck in a pattern of misery as well. You conjure this emotion in me, I often think about, when you go to a museum, you can appreciate a painting without needing to take it home.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 9:29Joshua Fields Millburn?

  But then, when we take something home, it can become the object of our discontent as well. I think about, there was this car I just had to have in my twenties, right? And it was this really nice Lexus, and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. I don't think it's an evil or a bad thing, but it was not appropriate for me at the time, because I didn't have the money to buy it, so of course, it was financed for 72 months.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:54Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And so that thing that is like, oh, this is gonna give me so much joy and satisfaction. I get it home, and I do like it, it has the new car smell, and that feels good, and sort of new car smell as a metaphor as well, like, oh, yes, this is comfortable, this is new, this is novel, there's some variety here. But then that first bill shows up.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  First payment.

• 10:15Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, see, there's always a payment. No, I mean, quite literally. The thing is, underneath what we're describing, is that that memory, the only authority it has over me, is the extent to which I'm identified with it. You take the identification out of the memory, and suddenly, it's a memory. And you, if it's simple enough, you can enjoy what it is, but if you're identified, and then that memory morphs, which they tend to do, you know, you start in one direction, and the next thing you know, you're walking down an alley and getting mugged by something, right? I'm thinking about that great time I had in Spain, and then I'm thinking about, you know, the siesta that I slept through and missed my appointment, and now I'm suffering again. And it's all just happening in a kind

• 10:57Speaker 03

  of a stream that we don't see taking place. So it's the really, when we boil down everything relative to letting go, it's an inside job. It's always an inside job, and to be present enough to it means that I have to be within myself in these moments when memories come. If I'm not present to the fact that a memory has come up, and I'm beginning to participate... Paid in the joy or the sorrow of it, I'm dead in the water. But if I can be present to it, then that awareness will allow me to see, you know what? Guys, something's trying to draw you into something that you don't need to be a part of. How do I know? Because I've done that a 10,000 times and it doesn't do. I don't, it promises, but it doesn't deliver.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  Or it promises and then punishes me in order to take deliverance of that identity with the Lexus or whatever it might be. The possession's not the problem. It's the persona that pursues it for the sake of glorifying itself in one sense or another. And that's pretty much for all of us.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  You know, if we think of the mind as a kind of inner eye and we think of our thoughts as the objects of perception, we can make a distinction between what we see and what we watch.

• 12:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  What we observe and what we become engrossed or enchanted with. This morning on my way to work, there's like this 15 minute traffic delay and everything looked pretty normal at this point. And as I get close to the source of what's causing this delay, I'm on the highway. It's the other side of the highway. There's apparently some minor accident and there's a fire truck and there's the police and a couple of police cars. And you can see the, you know, the lights coming from afar. And everyone on my side of the highway is slowing down to look at this accident. So the accident isn't actually obstructing us in a direct way. And there's nothing that any of us can do about what's happening on the other side.

• 12:52Speaker 02

  In fact, there are already people over there doing something about it and it will be the height of arrogance and presumptuousness to think that we could do better. But everyone's slowing down and looking as if this is so necessary and we are delaying our own selves from being where we want to be. And it's similar to what we do with memory. It's similar to what we do with things where we see something and we have the opportunity to go, hmm, interesting. Fascinating.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  This is significant because attention is connection.

• 13:26Speaker 03

  And when you have a mind that you are not attending to, then it's going to go look for what it wants to connect to independent of you, which is why people slow down. If people really knew that they were encumbering the whole of Southern California when they slow down to see a traffic accident, they wouldn't do it. But I'm so engrossed and I don't know my intent. And why am I actually slowing down, incidentally, to look at that? Is it so, so, you know, I can have a birthday party? Or am I, or do I want to see something that then I'm going to go, oh, my God, look at that? So there's this, this constant vacillation inside of this mind that attends to what it does because it derives an identity from its attention.

• 14:07Speaker 03

  So the sleeping mind is, is a breeding ground for defeat. As the more asleep a mind is, the more defeat that human being will meet. Not because it's inherent in life, but because that mind is looking for something to validate whatever that sense of self is that gets captured. We all have a billion memories. Well, what if I knew that in this body of this unconscious mind, something in me is always looking to corroborate me in some way? And if I be this person, I'd be that person, I'd be this person, I'd be that person. And I never know who I'm going to be. And then I have to explain why I am the way I am, thinking that really it's me explaining me, and it's not. It's just this, this unraveling of an unconscious mind trying to justify what it's going through.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  I mean, have you ever tried to defend yourself when you knew you were wrong? Who hasn't done that? You know, God, you're not in the right place. Yeah, but you know.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  I've never done that, God. I'm prepared, I'm prepared to debate it.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  I just want you to know it's coming.

• 15:08Joshua Fields Millburn?

  You reminded me, my 12-year-old daughter, just this weekend, we were at the dinner table and having a conversation. There was something she was upset about. She goes, she, she knew she was wrong, like in the moment, and she was realizing that her her point of view, like she was clinging on to being incorrect.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:24Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And she said, but I'm just so stubborn. And, and I said, that's fine. That's not immoral. You're not wrong for being stubborn. I said, being stubborn is making a contract with yourself to be dissatisfied until you're proven correct. And she looked at me and kind of blinked for a second. She goes, Oh, remember that Wee Bay meme where it's just like, oh, that's kind of how she was in the moment. Like she realized like, oh yeah, I'm clinging on to my stubbornness. It's not wrong, but it is making me kind of miserable in this moment.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  Precisely, precisely, because I can't be, that's a big point. I, I can't, I am as I am. I bring to this table, to sitting with you men and having this conversation, everything that to this date I have understood. But if I'm going to keep growing, then what I have understood has to be transcended. And it can't be transcended by thought. It's transcended by me seeing the limitation of my understanding. That's what went through your daughter. She suddenly realized, you know, I always thought I was right to be stubborn. Now I see that it's a limitation. I understand something I didn't understand about it before. Well, she didn't give herself that understanding.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  It was part of this broader awareness that allows a person to start recognizing where it is that they're in their own way. That, if you want to know how a person, I have this kind of an old saying, you know, everybody, people think about the gates of heaven and, you know, all these footprints, you know, deep winds marching through that gate, that's, that's nonsense. If you want to know, if you found the real gate, there's heel marks where people were drawn through the gate. Because that's the only way it happens is that you have to see as humiliating, as humiliating as it is from time to time, that I'm standing on ground that I've stood on for a hundred thousand years. I have been like this. And by the grace of that light, suddenly I see, I can no longer be that man.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  I don't know what man I'm going to be, but I can no longer be him. And that's the beginning of a new kind of crucible in which a person becomes aware of their own consciousness. Because without the awareness of your own consciousness, your consciousness is going on and telling you what you should be aware of. And then you're dead in the water.

• 17:40Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, and, and the flip side of that coin of I can no longer be him is I get to be who I create.

• 17:49Speaker 02

  And you know, I think about a man walking a dog is a healthy activity for both of them. A dog walking a man is a sign to be concerned. And I think the same is true with our thoughts. Who is in charge? Are we being guided by our thoughts and our things? Or are we the ones who are guiding them? And I think when it comes to this question about the the subject of our memories not being in our things, the real question is, are my things what I look to to find my identity? Or are they a creative expression of a conception of who I am that is larger than anything could be? If it's the latter, the thing becomes a trap. You know, if it's if it's I look to this to get my identity. I become a slave to a thing, even if it's impressive to other people.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  But when I realize that I am the one who imbues that thing with the power that it has to represent something positive in my life, then the relationship is healthy, and that's the goal.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  And we have to go one step deeper.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Let's take it.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  We are, as human beings, look, you have a very successful show. You guys deserve it. They're very nice people in case anybody out there wants to know. They're not just putting it on. But I am so, as a human being, I'm endowed with the right to create. I'm an author, but I didn't make myself an author. Everything that took place in my life brought about a wish within me to understand. I didn't put the wish to understand in myself. Something developed that over time so that here I am, I can create. I can buy my Lexus, I can have a home where I want to have it, I can have horses, I can do any blessed thing I want to do.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  But until I actually understand that, yes, I can create, but I am first a creation. First and foremost, I am a creation. And if I'm a creation as a human being, that means that there's no moment in which this creation isn't taking place. So it isn't I who doeth, that's actually out of scripture, if it's okay to say it. It's not I who doeth the works. My father does the works. Then you begin to understand that there's this much broader life. I get excited just when certain things open up and I'm talking. We live in a, we look at life through a pinhole. I mean, literally, we do. That's what to be identified is, is to look at something and derive my entire identity from it.

• 20:13Speaker 03

  But to begin to be aware of that identity means there is another order of awareness that is allowing me to see the thing I'm identified with and the self that's identified. Now, there's no longer this duality. Now, there's a trinity. Now, there's a whole new way to look at my life, not through the eyes of I'm this or I want that, but to see them both at the same time. And then TK, what I was getting to, then the action that I take is not determined by who I've been. It's determined by what I am being given to see in that moment. And that new light, that new intelligence, makes the choices for you so that you then begin to be, if you want to use those words, karma-free. You begin to be someone who's no longer carrying with you everything that you thought was

• 20:58Speaker 03

  so critical. And it's a process. You know, it's not like, you know, people say, well, what's it, what is it, what is enlightenment? And I say it's the wrong question. Because there's no moment, if I'm present to myself, that I'm not being enlightened. Because every moment that I'm aware of myself, I can see the whole of myself, and I'm not the one providing the light that lets me see this. That light is already present within every human being. And the task is to live increasingly in this broader kind of awareness that lets you see your proclivity to want to attend to that. So, we have a kind of a line where we look at this idea of awareness and attention. Because if I'm not attentive to what my mind is laying on as we started, then I'm going

• 21:43Speaker 03

  to start suffering the consequences of, without knowing it, being identified. And then, we're gone.

• 21:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. And I find that as soon as the, that identity, that false identity, the false self, the ego, whatever you want to call it, as soon as we, as soon as it starts dissolving, you see it for what it is, and it's like trying to hold on to smoke, right?

• 22:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All of a sudden, the identity becomes less precious. I think one of the things about the memories or about the stuff that we hold on to, anything that we're holding on to, is we treat it as though it's precious, and therefore, we cling. But then, we start treating everything as if it's precious. And then, if everything's precious, then nothing is.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  And that's what TK was alluding to. It's precious to me because it helps keep in place a person that I think I am. So that this object dependency, the reason that's so important to me is because I am important relative to that object. And if I think the object is to be successful, the object is to be a philosopher, whatever, anything the mind has desired is going to produce the opposite in the end. And you're going to find that, yeah, here I am. And I'm so afraid, what does this mean? What's going to happen to my podcast, to my body? What's going to become of me? I watched my father die. I don't want to die like that. And then, then, and you're gone. The deal is done, because

• 23:05Speaker 03

  you're not present enough to recognize that you're about to be run through a gamut. Gamut, was that, what are they, no, not a gauntlet, that you're about to be run through a gauntlet that you didn't sign up for, but something in you signed you up, because my identification is so deep with that memory, with that desire, with that image of myself. That's what we need to get to if we want to be true minimalists, because that means that I can begin to minimize this identity of mine that is so dependent on what other people think of me, or what I have, or where I'm going.

• 23:39Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah, this, this idea of, we often refer to it as identity clutter. And I think fundamentally, that is the thing that causes this other type of clutter, relationship clutter,

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 23:49Joshua Fields Millburn?

  material clutter, calendar clutter. I'm so busy because I'm an important person. An important person must have to be busy. And that becomes part of my identity. Or even the memory thing that Elon is talking about here is, you know what? That's who I am. And who am I without those memories? Maybe I'm not me. Those memories are so important. If I let go of them, maybe I'm not important.

• 24:14Speaker 03

  Well, yeah. And, and this is an eventual inescapable crucible for an aspirant of an inner life, is the gradual recognition that everything about me is object dependent. I know myself through what I'm thinking about. But what if I didn't start those thoughts? And I don't start those thoughts. The mind just picks something up to think about. And the next thing you know, you're busy thinking about it, because that nature is telling you, everything depends upon them liking you. If they don't like you, you're dead. And then you're afraid of dying. And nothing's happened at all, except that you were in a dream.

• 24:52Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I mean afraid of the inevitable too, like that's that's the paradox of that like I understand being afraid of the wolf because I don't want to be in a bunch of pain from him biting me or just here in West Hollywood, there was a coyote running down the street the other day and it's like I could understand the the fear of that, the fear of pain, but like fear of death, it's inevitable, like it's going to happen, so.

• 25:13Speaker 03

  So is pain.

• 25:14Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  It really is. When you look at that idea of the fear of inevitable, I, one of the things that I teach is that you can't have a fearful reaction without negative imagination. It's impossible because all fear of what may be coming, what is inevitable, is what your mind has glommed onto as the thing to be feared and then the mind selects the thing to be feared, the wolf, because I'm not getting chewed up right now, but you know, two days from now, if I come out with that pizza with all the toppings, you know, whatever it might be going on in your head, then it's going to get me. No, the minute that you have identified with a thought about the future where something may happen to you, you're got then, you're not getting got later, you're got then.

• 26:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes, yeah. And so and then you take it out a bit further and you realize that, you know, there are, there's present danger and we understand why we have a physiological response to that, but then we also have that same physiological response to, oh my God, the stock market went down 1% today.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Exactly, did?

• 26:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Exactly. I don't know.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Oh, no. I gotta go, guys. I'll talk to you later.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Really quickly, it makes me think of this science fiction story where these three men get together to travel into the future because they have this time device and they have a little bit of gold and this is their means for surviving in the future. And in a moment of temptation, one of the guys kills the other two so that he can have all the gold to himself. He makes it to the future and he gets there and the first thing he discovers is that one of the great technological revolutions of the future is that they figured out how to manufacture gold. So that's a pretty useless currency now. And the moral of the story is that the basis for tragedy is when we exalt the thing over that which truly makes life precious and that is life itself.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  That's correct.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:04Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Guy, you put together this, The Wisdom of Letting Go. It's this one hour seminar. I'd love to send this over to Ilona, but also for anyone who's listening to this. And we'll put a link to it in the show notes, or Savvy D is going to put it in the show notes. And you put together this one hour seminar just for our listeners. You want to tell us a bit about that? The Wisdom of Letting Go?

• 27:23Speaker 03

  It really follows along the lines of what we're looking at here, which is that in any given moment, my identity is not, has not been given to me to be determined by what people think, what they say, what they do. Now, we all know that. I mean, we can agree till the cows come home on spiritual principle. But how do I turn principle into action? That's the real rub. Because today, everybody, honestly, you know, I travel a lot, I speak a lot. Everybody knows the password. I mean, we just do. We have knowledge that's almost unending because we have unending access

• 28:05Speaker 03

  to all the masters and all the teachings and all the things that have gone ahead of us. But how do I, how do I take that moment where I know so much, but I'm suffering so much? How can I know so much and suffer at the same time? This is, this is where the rubber meets the road. Because if I can see that my knowledge doesn't really do for me anything, then in that moment, I'm aware of a, of a certain, very distinct gulf, an abyss, actually, between what I know and what I am. I do what I am. Doing is downstream from being. Doing is downstream from being.

• 28:49Speaker 03

  So I need to get to where I'm being and not doing. Thinking is a form of doing, so I can do all day long. I can pull the wool over almost anybody's eyes. That's what you call a successful person.

• 29:02Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Is the capacity to bluff, to pull it off, you know? And at a certain point, the wisdom of letting go, I just, I don't, I can't do it anymore.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  Not I don't want to do it anymore, I can't do it anymore. I can't be that witty, you know, comeback kid. I can't be someone who regrets what happened yesterday, but oh, I've got a plan for tomorrow. All of those things, at a certain point, a person realizes that in the end, if they really want to go through what is an authentic transformation, they are going to have to see that the future that they vest their life in is part of the fear they're trying to escape. And as that becomes clear to a human being, that fear fashions a desire to be fearless. Why do I have to think about, why do I want, why do I want a fearless life?

• 29:59Speaker 03

  Because I have an image of what it would be like to be a person without fear. And the minute I have an image of what it's like to be a person without fear, then my mind is fashioning the places, the people, the power, the possessions, whatever it is, I got it. And the very fabrication of those images, which is by the way, why the Mandela in the older traditions, that's why they sweep that thing away. They make this beautiful form, representing the cosmos, and as soon as it's done, it's washed away. Why? Because the attachment is the problem, not the thing that's been created. It's natural to create, it's natural to even think about, I run a foundation, I can't spill the beans here, but maybe you'll have me back.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  We're developing the most exciting app that's, as far as I'm concerned, can change the entire world. So that takes a lot of work, and we've been hard at it. So you have to see it, you have to imagine it, but then if somebody says, you know, that's not going to work, or this won't work, and then, then what happens to you? Oh, no, oh, no, that's terrible. What's gonna, what's going to happen? You think you care about the app? You don't care about the app, you care about the app maker. That's the issue. So that's what the wisdom of letting go is, is beginning to understand the relationship between attachment and dependency, and the unseen part of this mind that doesn't want to discover the qualities that are constantly identifying with whatever it's doing.

• 31:23Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Hey Lona, we're gonna put a link to the wisdom of letting go in the show notes. You can download that for free and anyone else listening to this can download that for free. Theminimalists.com/podcast to find those full show notes. Now Guy, before we get back to our callers, we have a little something here we call "The Lightning Round," where we answer the Patreon community chat's question of the week. And we attempt to answer questions with a short minimal maxim. But don't worry, we can wander on as much as we want. We make the rules here, right? And we get to break the rules. So TK is here. Absolutely. We break them every day. We do these little things called minimal maxims. You can find this episode's maxims in the show notes at theminimalists.com/podcast and every minimal maxim ever at minimalmaxims.com.

• 32:07Joshua Fields Millburn?

  We'll also deliver our weekly show notes directly to your inbox for free, including seven new maxims every Monday. If you sign up for our email newsletter over at theminimalists.com, we'll never send you spam or junk or advertisements. But we'll start your week off with a dose of simplicity. All right, question of the week this week. Guy, this is a simple one, but I can't say that it's easy. Why is letting go so scary? Why is letting go so scary? Now, we reach out to our audience.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  I got it.

• 32:43Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Save it, save it, save the answer, because I want to talk about Ashley here. She said, "For me, letting go was scary because I felt like I was giving up control over something, but letting it go helped me understand that the thing I was clinging to was actually controlling me." Can you talk about the role that control plays and our inability to let go?

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do. I like the question. I like the young lady's answer to the question. Letting go is scary because without something that I'm clinging to and deriving an identity from, who am I?

• 33:25Speaker 03

  Now, to step back for a minute, and I've tried to keep this as brief as I can.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  The mind that is so occupied with thought, the mind that has all of this knowledge from reading and talking and even good ideas, it's still a world of thought. It's still a world that as I'm thinking and looking at my thoughts in quotes to decide what is intelligent or clever to say, so I come off wise. There's another order of being that knows better than trying to be wise. I mean, literally, another order of awareness that doesn't have to, like Christ said, "What man taking thought can add one cube between..." Taking thought seems to be the way to get through something.

• 34:12Speaker 03

  No, taking thought is the way to get, not through, dragged into whatever it is that started speaking and then needs to defend itself. So that it requires inwardly, why it's so scary, seeing the futility of trying to free myself with ideas, with beliefs, with opinions. Because I've been trying to free myself with whatever it may be all of these years, and I'm still like that when somebody says something, I'm ready to have the quip. You know, I'm that fast, and people admire me because my mind is a quick mind.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  But my mind is quick, but it's quick to deceive me into believing that it is I who have said this, when, if I look closely at it, I would never say that. If I was present, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't hurt it. I would never hurt another human being if I was present. It would be impossible. But we all hurt each other. And we don't know we hurt each other because we're living from a mind that looks for, it's like having a giant warehouse of endless files. And the moment comes, and it happens so fast, especially intellectual center, just like that, and it pulls up what it needs to be safe. And the very fact that I have to pull something out of the hat to be safe means I'm in fear. So I'm protecting the fear.

• 35:40Speaker 03

  And that's what's so difficult about this idea of letting go. When you really start seeing these things, you realize the answer isn't to try to answer the moment. The answer is to be as present as I can to something that's trying to answer the moment. So I get through smelling like a rose. And that's what's frightening because who am I going to be if I don't, if I'm not always this person? See, that's the, what a great, what an unbelievable trick. To believe that the continuity of this identity is the proof of its intelligence. No. The continuity of a sense of self is the proof there's no intelligence there because nothing is being reborn moment to moment as it's intended to. If you take part in creation as opposed to protecting what you've created.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  And you didn't create TK, you didn't create Josh, I didn't create Guy. We talked about that earlier.

• 36:30Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah. You know what's fascinating here is what you're talking about is we create this thing through all of these memories and past experiences. And then we drag it forward because of this perceived continuity. I am who I am only if the past remains true. And then we get to a point, like with me, it was when my mother died or other things can happen. Often it's like a life-changing event where you're like, I don't want to keep clinging to that past. And in fact, Becky says here, letting go is scary because when you let go, you no longer look back and are thus forced to look forward. Are we always letting go of a piece of the past?

• 37:11Speaker 03

  Well, see, I would challenge that.

• 37:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Okay.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  You ready?

• 37:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  What am I, okay, so letting go is I have to let go of the past. Now I'm going to look forward. Forward to what? I'm looking forward to knowledge. I'm looking forward to a new plan, to a new idea. Paul, Saint Paul, our hopes must not be in things seen, for who has hopes, they must be in things unseen. This is why real letting go is scary, because you start to realize that everything I call my future, where I'm gonna be, what I'm gonna do, and I'm not saying, "Don't strive." This is such a difficult thing to describe, because you have to let, whatever it is that you have been given, you have to let it go, you have to let it work, you have to let it teach you. How am I gonna learn about Guy if I'm sitting there governing

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Guy at all points in times, given to what Guy says is good? Then I'm just, I'm not alive. But if I begin to see that, okay, so I'm very upset with my husband, I'm very upset with my daughter, and my mind is telling me, "Well, you know what, you don't go on the past," because part of the upset is, you know, you have this dependency, and your mind's working all that out, and then your mind says, "Well, here's what I'm gonna do." Well, where are you getting that idea from? The past, not the future, because the only thing the mind can access is thought, and thought is the past. That's what's scary about letting go, is gradually,

• 38:39Speaker 03

  everything starts to slow down, and you become a quiet human being. Your mind is no longer running around. You're happy to be where you are, as you are, seeing what you're being given to see, and changing according to your willingness to let that will reveal what it's intended to reveal to you. Then you have a completely different order of life. Then you can go do your work. Like I said, I run a foundation, and we're doing really cool things right now. But if I get lost in that, I'm dead in the water, and I refuse to, because I understand it's not joy, it's something promising joy, but delivering sorrow, when the joy doesn't appear on time the way it's supposed to.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  It's a playful expression.

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Of something that is so much larger than the work itself. And you know, I think that language is very interesting, too. I have to let go of the past. There's that sense of obligation. I think about Wayne Dyer's, "Stop shooting all over yourself. I have to let go." Well, every relationship that we have with people, with things, these are just patterns of interaction. And we can transmute those patterns of interaction, negotiate them at any time. And so what if we substituted, "I have to let go of this thought. I have to let go of this situation," for, "This thought does not own me. This thing does not define me. This situation is not the totality of who I am." Then you transmute the energy around that. And it's no longer something that I am obligated to let go of. But if part of the play, I choose to let go, I can play the game that way.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  If I may?

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Yes. You always may.

• 40:20Speaker 03

  Here I am, and I have to let this go. If you, did you ever, Josh, you ever pick up a skillet? Well, you know, sound asleep, you know, dreaming about the pasta, whatever it is, you pick up that skillet?

• 40:32Speaker 02

  He's done exactly that several times.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Right, right. Do you go, "Oh, my God, I've picked up a hot skillet. What an idiot I am. You know, I have to let this go." I mean, that sounds stupid, doesn't it?

• 40:46Speaker 02

  And then I get on Google, I look, "How do I let this go?"

• 40:48Speaker 03

  Exactly. And then watch some film while you're holding it. But that's what's going on up here all the time. So, so I, no, intelligence, physical intelligence, provides me with an instantaneous action that doesn't require thought at all. Well, what if I actually see that that memory is burning me? What if I actually see that this desire that I have to be someone special in time to come, whatever it might be, that in that moment, I'm seeing the glory, I'm seeing all that's coming my way. I can't see the fear that's projecting it that says you're nobody unless that happens. Because if I see that, TK, I don't have to try to let go. Intelligence, the divine, does it for me.

• 41:33Speaker 03

  It says, instant, it doesn't even say it. You just, you just stop hurting yourself. Because now you can see where it is that these parts of you are indeed clinging without you knowing they're clinging. And that's part of the beauty of running into situations where, as you described, suddenly I see myself. Well, again, do I see myself or is something showing me the self that's clinging? Do I see myself or is something showing me, you know what, Josh? Let go dude.

• 42:03Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 03

  This thing's really burning you. And that's what happens. Well, Christ said, "Love your enemies." That's impossible today for human beings. How do I love my enemy? Well, I have to imagine what it's like to feel loving. Well, that's not loving. To love my enemy is to understand that there is no enemy apart from the part of me that makes it out of him, so that I can have a sense of myself as someone other than this kind of person or that kind of person. Then you're done with judging others because you actually recognize that there is no judge unless you're superior to what you're judging. And it hurts to be a superior person. It's not pleasurable. Our whole pursuit in life is to be seen as somebody superior.

• 42:45Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  Right?

• 42:47Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes. Yeah. That brings me, actually, to my pithy answer. My minimal maxim for this week was, letting go is not something you do, it's something you stop doing. And it's exactly what you're talking about there with, with the hot skillet. It's not like, what do I do to let this go? I simply stop clinging.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  I see it.

• 43:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I see it.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  This awareness sees it. So letting go isn't doing, it's seeing something in me that wants to do me in.

• 43:12Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Yes.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  Because it's saying, "You're so stupid. Let go of that handle, Josh." No, because if I drop it like it's hot, people are gonna know I picked it up in my sleep.

• 43:19Joshua Fields Millburn?

  I'm gonna look so stupid if I drop this, so I'm gonna keep burning myself.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Honest to God, honest to God. And you can take that exterior world life and see it interiorly. I'm at a dinner table, I say something embarrassing. I say something that's, you know, or somebody says something, my face drops. The minute you're, you catch yourself having that reaction, if you're clever, if you're watching, you can see something clever trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. So you don't look like somebody who just got triggered. Are hurt because a real spiritual person doesn't get triggered. No, a spiritual person sees what got triggered. And then they use that moment to begin releasing themselves from identification with that part of oneself. There is the difference.

• 44:01Joshua Fields Millburn?

  And that's why he said that letting go is an inside job.

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 44:05Joshua Fields Millburn?

  TK, how about you? Do you got something pithy? Why is letting go so scary?

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Every new chapter begins with your own obituary. You know, so if you think, if you think about it in evolutionary terms, you could, you could say it is a process in which a species has to adapt to circumstances that are adversarial to those parts of itself that are not conducive to survival. And, and that means I've got to let go of who I thought I was in order to become this stronger version of myself, if you will. And so one of the reasons why letting go is so hard for many of us is because we have these things and we have these stories that we tell about these things that say, this is what makes me important.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  In order to realize that I don't need strength.

• 44:54Speaker 03

  I don't need strength. Who is it that needs strength? Somebody that's got to deal with something. Well, what if the whole thing is being dealt with all the time and in a very beautiful, deliberate fashion by something that knows a lot more about Josh and TK and Guy than we know about ourselves and is trying to educate ourselves? You don't need strength to learn. You need to see where weakness is interfering with your wish to see the truth of yourself. Cause then you start recognizing, and again, this is why, if you want it one more time, why is letting go scary? Cause at a certain point, you have to realize that I never have any, I never had any power. I never had any control. What I had was a lot of pain and a lot of ways in which I was trying to ensure that I didn't feel that pain. And as you start recognizing, you know what?

• 45:39Speaker 03

  This part of me that's always afraid of falling down, of being seen as stupid, of making a mistake. This part of me, it's always protecting itself. Well, why would I want to protect something that's stealing my life from me? Why do I need strength? I need to see. I need to understand that real strength is something that has to do with this constant. Revelation, the revelation of myself in that is all that is good and true. And we are intended to be constantly revealed to ourselves with the moments we don't want. I might ask to add, because if I don't have those moments, how am I going to know that I came into it? Bringing all these suitcases with me and then I get to see that I've done that.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  And then I have a choice, I can either pack another bag, you know, change my costume. Or I can say, you know what?

• 46:31Speaker 03

  I'm so sorry, I did it again. I have, something has to change. Then, then you begin, and this is what I was really getting at. Then you begin to see, all right.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  You know, what would happen if I didn't try to change this moment? If I didn't have an idea of what a strong man was in this moment? What would happen to me who wants to be strong? And what would happen is that you would see the whole of yourself. And that awareness is this intelligent, it is this action. And then you realize this actionable nature, that part of us that's intended to be free and clear is never not there. So I don't need to go looking for something. I already, it is already within me, not I, but another kind of I, another kind of intelligence. And it's there. Then I'm not, then I'm not afraid anymore.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Because there's that recognition that nothing real can be threatened.

• 47:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that, that's, that's what completes the analogy, right? Because in physical evolution, it is the stronger attributes that survive. And one can look at it as a purification of weakness. But on a spiritual level, it's the, it's the purification of those stories, those narratives, that I am not enough, that I must earn the right to my existence, that I must become that which I already am. And these troubles, these challenges, these instances where we're called by life to let go. We, we're really just letting go of not even superficial aspects of ourselves. We're letting go of illusions that distracted us from the real.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  There's this beautiful, it stopped me if I.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Man, we're not going to stop you. We, we brought you on here to start you.

• 48:11Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 48:13Speaker 03

  Imagine a woman walking along the beach and she sees this beautiful stone. And she takes that beautiful stone and she gives it to someone that she knows can grind it and polish it. Now, the stone isn't going, "God, this is great. I love this grinder, you know? I love, I love this." No, I can't stand it because this is who I am. I'm encrusted. I'm caked. I know who I am. I'm fully defined by my, by what these thoughts that confine. But that process is indeed what we are intended to be. We are intended to be constantly purified.

• 48:57Speaker 03

  I mean, if you think about it and you have moments where you see things about yourself, letting go is really the dross, isn't it? Separating the wheat from the chaff. We understand, "I can no longer cling to these things." Well, that, that understanding that I can no longer cling to these things wouldn't take place unless something was acting to separate the wheat from the chaff, separating the, the, the dross on the stone from the beauty of the stone itself. So that what if a person actually understood, "Every moment of my life, God willing, is intended for me to exit the moment a purer, truer person than went into it, but not because I tried to be truer and purer, but because I saw what was untrue and what wasn't pure."

• 49:39Speaker 03

  So the difficulty becomes letting another will reveal to you what your own will has manifested and then seeing that, "Look, this is fine. I'm learning from this, but there's always, there's always another purity. I can always be more present." And that's endless. It's literally endless. It's, it is a place without time. And being without time means being without becoming. And being without becoming means that I'm no longer trying to become someone special. I realize I've been given everything I will ever need to be a whole human being right now, right now, right now, all the time. I see it.

• 50:16Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Come on. How about you, listeners? Tell us in the comments, why is letting go so scary for you? We have a minimalist tip, but let's hold that for next week for the sake of time. We're just going to take a quick pandiculation break and we'll be right back for page two.

• 50:34Joshua Fields Millburn?

  All right, that's the first 35% of episode 512. We'll see you on Patreon for the full maximal edition with Guy Finley, which includes answers to a bunch more questions. Questions like, how do you decide whether a new possession might add value to your life? How do I navigate the emotional minefield created by a loved one with severe memory loss? How can I enjoy new interests and hobbies one at a time without losing momentum so quickly? Plus, a million more questions and simple living segments over on the Minimalist Private Podcast on Patreon. The link is in the description. When you subscribe, you can listen to our private podcast episodes on Spotify, or Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast

• 51:17Joshua Fields Millburn?

  app. Plus, you'll gain access to all of our archives, all the way back to the very first episode in 2015. Big thanks to Guy Finley for joining us today. You can check out any of his books, including this book, which we were reading from on page three today, The Secret of Letting Go. We'll put a link to his website in the show notes. You also have a link to that one-hour seminar you can download for free called The Wisdom of Letting Go. That's in the show notes as well. And that is our minimal episode for today. A big thanks to Earthing Studios for the recording space. On behalf of Ryan Nicodemus, TK Coleman, post-production Peter, Spire Jeff, and Spire Dave, Jordan O'More, Tom Cat, Professor Sean, Savvy D, and the rest of our team, I'm Joshua Fields

• 52:00Joshua Fields Millburn?

  Milburn. If you leave here with just one message, let it be this: Love people and use things, because the opposite never works. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll see you next time. Peace.