Kristine Carlson, co-author of the Don't Sweat the Small Stuff series, inspires millions with her wisdom on resilience, peace, and purpose.
543: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
Kristine Carlson
Hunter Clarke-Fields speaks with Kristine Carlson, co-author of the "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" series. They explore the origins of the book, the impact of technology on mental health, and the importance of mindfulness and emotional wellness. Kristine shares her personal journey through grief after the loss of her husband, Richard, and how it deepened her understanding of presence and emotional expression. The conversation also touches on the significance of gratitude, the power of thoughts and feelings, and the importance of intentional living.
Ep 543- Carlson
Read the Transcript 🡮
*This is an auto-generated transcript*
Kristine Carlson (00:00) many of us are running on deep beliefs and deep patterns that have been established in our early years that still run us in our adult life.
Hunter (00:14) You're listening to the mindful mom podcast episode #543. Today we're talking about don't sweat the small stuff with Christine Carlson.
Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have. And when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clarke-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting Course and Teacher Training. I'm the author of the international bestsellers, “Raising Good Humans”, “Raising Good Humans Every Day”, and the “Raising Good Humans Guided Journal”.
With all the craziness in the world today, are you feeling a little unstable or a little irritable? I I definitely find myself feeling that in plenty of times recently. And so that's why I'm so happy to have Kristine Carlson, co-author of the “Don't Sweat the Small Stuff” series, which has inspired millions. And Christine has a lot of wisdom on resilience, peace, and purpose. So I'm so excited to bring her to you and to the podcast. We're going to talk about mindfulness and emotional wellness. We'll talk about the impact of technology on our mental health. And we'll also talk about the significance of gratitude, you the power of our thoughts and feelings and the importance of really being intentional about how you live. So there is a ton here. I know you're going to love it. So let's just dive in.
Hey, I want to let you know that I'm now offering lunch and learn talks for your workplace to bring practical mindfulness and mindful parenting tools right where they're needed most. Whether you're a working parent trying to juggle it all or you want to support the parents in your company, these talks are designed to nourish and empower. Here are just a few of the topics I've been sharing recently. Calm in the chaos, how to talk so kids will listen, how to stop yelling at your kids. I offer mindfulness practices and parenting insights for working parents and caregivers simple ways to stay centered in the swirl of work and life. you're in HR or a parent group or you want to bring this kind of support to your workplace, reach out to me at support@MindfulMamaMentor.com. Let's make the workplace a little more mindful and parenting a lot more peaceful.
Hi Christine, thanks so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast.
Kristine Carlson (03:04) Hi, Hunter, so good to be here with you. Thanks for having me on.
Hunter (03:07) I'm glad you're here. So it's so interesting to talk to you because in college over 20 years ago, I bought Don't Sweat the Small Stuff. I think I'm pretty sure it's the original. I was like, oh yeah, there's a gray outline. I bought it for my boyfriend who was then pretty anxious about a bunch of things. And your, your late husband, Richard, wrote that book and it, it became this kind of like snowball of life's work for the both of you. And I was just wondering, what do you remember about the beginning of the work and that, and where did the book come from?
Kristine Carlson (03:39) The beginning of the work was actually Richard's 10th book. So it wasn't actually the beginning, “Don't Sweat the Small Stuff”. It was more toward the middle of his career that that book was birthed. He had written many books on happiness and about basically the happiness principles that are woven throughout the “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” series. And in his early work called “You Can Be Happy No Matter What”, you can feel good again- shortcut through therapy, stop thinking, start living. But all of the work having to do with happiness and how to be grateful, how to get to happiness or back to happiness more quickly. yeah, so it was his 10th book and 10 years and he'd gotten his master's and PhD in psychology 10 years earlier. And yeah, it was a journey. “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” was born at a time when technology was really taking off. And it was 1997, you know, we were having cell phones and we were having email and “Dot Com” boom. And we always, think we thought all of us that technology was gonna make our lives simpler initially, that we thought that it would give us more time. And I think what people became overwhelmed with was the knowledge that now, instead of having time in the car when you could be uninterrupted, you were in the car and always interrupted. And when you got home, there wasn't just that time to spend with the family. You were going to your email and constantly having to check and constantly getting notifications of emails and so forth. So I think that it happened at a time when people were overwhelmed by technology. And that's why one of the reasons why it took off so big because with that came a lot of anxiety for a lot of people and they didn't even know why.
Hunter (05:37) It's only grown more and more. I I feel like it's getting exponentially worse. The more connected we are, I was just thinking about it and I was thinking like, the world is going crazy, clearly. That is objectively true in my world, but also do I know way more about it than I ever would have? Is it the just- constant barrage or is it what's happening? It's very hard to tell for me right now.
Kristine Carlson (06:11) Well, I think both are true. I think it's how you handle the social media influence in your life and scrolling and screen time. It's the kind of self-imposed limitations or guidelines you're able to give yourself and live by that can help relieve some of that. But most people aren't even aware of how much scrolling or time they spend on their phones or on their devices. And so I think that's like the first step for people is really to ask yourself how much time are you spending? Take a look at it. Your phone should tell you how much time you're on it. ⁓ And then start to ask yourself if that's really productive for you or emotionally productive for you. ⁓ Because I do think that too much scroll time is not good for parasympathetic nervous system for our brains. It certainly isn't good for our kids to be on their screens too much. And you know, is some okay? Yeah, likely some is fine. But I think as human beings, we have to ⁓ determine what those limits are if we're gonna be able to set our own guidelines and intentions with them. And it's different for everyone.
You know, I, for example, don't spend a lot of time scrolling because I have done it for my work for so many years. I've been, you know, doing social media because it's a necessity. And so I don't, I'm not, I don't think of it as a pastime. I think of it as work, you know, so I'm not on it as much as some people are on Facebook or other platforms like Instagram or Twitter But if I was, or if my kids were, would definitely be looking at this point ⁓ and understanding that they do cause anxiety. And ⁓ it also, just, it isn't great for your brain to constantly be supercharged the way those things kind of do. And there's positive aspects to it too. Like, I don't know about you, but I love all the dance videos with kids. And I love the things that make me chuckle and laugh.
Hunter (08:33) I know I can't get enough of like the different animals hanging out together. That just, you could send me a million of those. I would keep watching them. Yeah.
Kristine Carlson (08:41) That's very positive. It probably releases a lot of endorphins that are very positive by looking at those things. But then there's so many negative things on social media too. Like for example, the political divide that's happened on social media. You don't even have to talk about a particular side, which I don't. You just have to say there's a political divide and whatever side you're on, if you're receiving all the comments and things, especially from what we just went through this past election year, that can be really ⁓ hard on your psyche because it makes you feel agitated and angry. And so there's a lot of things on social media like that too. And I think those are the things to avoid as much as possible.
Hunter (09:28) Yeah, I'm really this weekend, actually, this is such a pertinent conversation because this weekend I was like, Oh, can I get a dumb phone? You know, maybe this would be good to help me because you can feel it. Even if somebody whose life is pretty centered around mindfulness, I can feel it creeping up on me. I can see it kind of creeping up in my daughter and just like the, you know, and she will argue with me that she is having so much less time on social media than any of her friends. I'm like, but that's a crazy amount of time. is the average. It's a nutty amount of time, like four to six hours a day for kids like who are 14. And so I don't know. am part of me wants to move to an Italian village and have a tongue phone. But then I think an odd thing for a podcaster to not be able to listen to a podcast. I don't know. I'm weighing it all right now.
Kristine Carlson (10:25) Don't know that isolation is ever the answer. I think just being very intentional about what it is you want to achieve and what your values are and then living to those. mean, that's kind of, I think that's always the case, whether it means you're looking at the diet you eat or the amount you exercise or don't exercise or health practices ⁓ that you live in other aspects of your life, how you live your relationships. There's a lot of intentionality that has to happen in order for us to change a habit, to subscribe ourselves to a new habit, to change a pattern, to live healthily, both with emotional wellness and physical wellness. Yeah, it has to be super intentional. And I think that's really the lesson that there isn't going to be any isolation from it because they have internet in Italy.
Hunter (11:30) Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
I know, I know. I was thinking that maybe like I could be like the Amish where, you know, we just go back to sort of 1996 and we don't allow any technology and that's like post 1996. I don't know when the Amish cut off for their technology allowances, but I thought maybe it's possible. I imagine some people are considering this. I can't be the only one thinking about it.
Kristine Carlson (13:48) I mean, what's kind of cool, I mean, what you could do with as a family is just take a camping class, you know, and leave your devices or at least have one emergency device and then everybody leaves their device at home. Yeah. You know, just things like that. I mean, just the cleansing part is really important ⁓ to take those time periods where you're away from all of it. And it feels so good. I don't know about you, but I actually love to leave my phone at home.
Well, the only thing is that people sort of panic when they can't reach me like my kids, they sort of like, they start calling each other like, where is she? I haven't heard from her. She's not responding, you know? And, um, but then the share location thing really takes care of that because then they see, oh, her phone's at home and she's not, that's what happened. But I actually really enjoy the quiet time, you know, when my phone is left at home. Sometimes I go for a walk with my dog and I just intentionally leave my phone behind because it's an hour where I can be with my own thoughts and be with nature and be away from any notifications or any device interference.
Hunter (14:56) That's exactly what I've circled to is like, I'm going to be not walk going on walks with my phone. I'm going just to be crowded out with activities are non phone. Yeah. All right. Now that we've discussed the big elephant in the room, the tiny objects in our pockets, I was thinking about, as I was looking at don't set the small stuff and now you have don't set the small stuff every day, which is so funny because when they asked me to write a follow book to “Raising Good Humans”, I thought “I'll do one with 365 pages- one for every day”. I love those books. I loved like an everyday book. And then my publishers were like, things and I thought and then as I started writing I was like thank God they just limited they just said let's do 50 because I can imagine myself getting to like 73 and being like wait I have how many more-
Kristine Carlson (15:50) -to do and just be like so overwhelmed.
Hunter (15:54) Did that happen to you?
Kristine Carlson (15:55) Yeah, it's a lot. Well, this book is a compilation of from four of the already existing books. So I would have found 365 very overwhelming to do for sure. But they took ⁓ what I would consider some of the best of the best out of four books and brought them into this book and edited them down to be one page. So it's not overwhelming for the reader either.
Hunter (16:20) No, not at all overwhelming. And I think that when I look at this, don't sweat the small stuff, there's a lot of mindfulness lessons in them. And I was wondering like, were you or Richard studying Buddhism at the time?
Kristine Carlson (16:35) Well, that's an interesting question because actually at the time that Don't Swap the Small Stuff was written, Richard wasn't studying Buddhism, but he had studied Buddhism on some level after and also, of course, had read many Buddhist books. I wouldn't call it, Buddhism was his kind of religion of choice toward the middle part of his career, maybe 10 year anniversary of “Don't Sweat the Small Stuff”. But no, we had studied from kind of an Eastern psychology group that had come around at the time that ⁓ when we were at a college and it was called psychology of mind at the time. It's no longer called that, but it was really an incredible experience because at the time we were also really into philosophies and religions and kind of evaluating a total spiritual path, like what would that look like? And both having had a Christian background. So interestingly, many people reading Don't Spout the Small Stuff will say, my gosh, I could track every chapter to the Bible. You know? There you go. So, and then other people reading Don't Spout the Small Stuff would say, I can track every chapter to Buddhism. You know, but when you write about mental health and well-being and you write about happiness, there are some really ⁓ basic common sense principles that are woven throughout this series that sort of lend themselves to transcend religion per se as a dogmatic practice and transcend a lot of things. I have to say that Richard was really a pioneer because he did focus on many things that are today are called mindfulness, but at that time were not called mindfulness because this is, you know, 27 years ago. So mindfulness has always been around, but it wasn't popularized until maybe the last 10 to 12 years or so. And even positive psychology wasn't around when he wrote don't sweat the small stuff and you can be happy no matter what. And all those other, happiness books that I had referred to earlier.
So he was very much a pioneer in the field of psychology, bringing these awarenesses and these practices and gratitude of practice and all these things to the forefront of ⁓ psychology and wellness to people where they could practice them in a practical application. That was really, you know, amazing because it didn't matter what religion you were, didn't matter even what language you speak. It transcended all of that and even age. So you'll find there's readers that are 10 years old reading Dumps with the Small Stuff or the Dumps with the Small Stuff series and readers that are 80 years old. So it was pretty incredible what he was able to do in his lifetime by bringing this body of work forward at that time.
Hunter (19:43) And what are some of the universal principles that are woven throughout it?
Kristine Carlson (19:49) I'm just going to just say them out loud and then I'll kind of go into a minor explanation of them. So we talk a lot about thoughts, moods, feelings, separate realities and present moment living and of course gratitude. So when you talk about thoughts, we tie thoughts to your feelings. And the way we do that is we say, you you can't really have a feeling without having a thought first.
So there's two things about that that are really helpful for people. Most people are far aware of their feelings, far more aware of their feelings than they are of their thoughts that led to those feelings. But it really helps you as a navigational tool to understand what your thinking is. Why? Because we are wired, our brains are wired in a certain way, and we have patterns of thinking, patterns of thought. Many of us are running on deep beliefs and deep patterns that have been established in our ⁓ early years that still run us in our adult life. We don't even know it because they become invisible, but we think as automatically as we breathe. Now you don't notice your breath until you say, I'm breathing. And then you say, yeah, there's my breath. But thoughts are the same way. You don't really necessarily notice your thinking until you- it's your intention to notice what it is you're thinking. So again, your feelings can be a great navigational tool because it's almost like you can backtrack. You can say, well, I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling angry. What kinds of thinking have I been doing today that is leading to that sadness and leading to that anger? Now, once feelings are present, it's not about denying yourself your feelings. mean, you watch children and they're the most healthy and how they deal with their feelings because they're just in it, right? They're like, they're angry and they're just in it. And then they're just, you know, reacting and responding. And then suddenly the next moment they're giggling, you know, because, that's kind of, that's healthy. You know, once you have a feeling, you know, you don't have to analyze it in order to, you know, be past it. You just have to allow yourself to be in it and then move past it. However,
If you find yourself in a rut of feeling, even in a depression, you can start to ask yourself, what is my thinking about? Because when you can start to witness your own thinking, a beautiful thing happens and there's this opportunity that you have to actually shift. the opportunity happens because you can see your thinking. You're actually witnessing the thoughts that you're having and how they're tied together in a pattern. And they are tied together in a pattern. I guarantee you that. And it's just that you have to get to the point where you can interrupt that pattern. You can notice, and then you can interrupt it by the notice. I mean, people always say, what do you do? Well, it really isn't anything to do but notice. I mean, once you've noticed it and it's a negative thinking pattern, then you can choose otherwise. You can choose to focus on gratitude. You could place your hand on your heart and tune into your heart. You could decide to pause there and be curious about what is that belief? What is that thought pattern? Just those things alone interrupt that thought pattern. And that's what you want to do in order to rewire your brain. The beautiful thing is, sorry.
Hunter (23:30) Now I was just going to agree with you that the interrupting itself is so incredibly powerful. It's like you're in the spiral, you're spiraling your sweat. As soon as you interrupt, you've broken the pattern, right? You can make a new choice. It's so great. It's so simple.
Kristine Carlson (23:44) Yeah, and because we have neuroplasticity, which is the ability to rewire our brains, that's not something that ends at any age. We always have it. We always have this ability to rewire our brains, which is a really beautiful thing.
Hunter (24:01) Yeah, yeah. You were talking about thoughts, you were talking about feelings, you were talking about-
Kristine Carlson (24:06) And moods. So moods are really important because how does life look for you when you're in a good mood?
Hunter (24:14) God, it's a totally different picture. I'm playful with my kids. I'm like doing a little dance around the house. Literally, it's pretty corny to your listener. And yeah, everything is all possibility.
Kristine Carlson (24:28) Yeah, so and then how does the same day look when you're in a low mood? yeah.
Hunter (24:33) I'm, I am seeing all the problems, all the roadblocks. I am seeing any little injury. I'm it's like, yeah, it's completely, it's so funny because I have so much self-awareness and I can see it. Yeah. At the same time, I still feel like when I'm in the low mood, I still feel like I'm always like this. And I don't remember that I've been in like great moods for like numbers of days at a time.
Kristine Carlson (25:03) Yeah, and that's how we all are. When we're in a low mood, life looks pretty negative and pretty sour for all of us. same day, the same events when we're in a high mood, they don't seem like problems any longer. And I think the benefit of understanding that principle of happiness is that there's two benefits. One, for yourself, you can start to take your low moods less seriously.
Like you can acknowledge that you're just in a low mood. That's what I do. say, you know, gosh, I'm in a low mood today. Now I know not to take my thinking too seriously, like not to listen to myself. And sometimes when I focus on gratitude, when I'm in a low mood, that's what really shifts me out of my low mood pretty instantly is, you know, taking a walk, focusing on gratitude. But even if you didn't do any of that, even if you just notice and you acknowledge you're in this low mood, that's oftentimes the only bump you need. so then the other thing is where that plays a really big role in your relationships is that let's say, let's say you're in a high mood, but your partner's in a low mood. How would, do you think that you should tackle any kind of serious discussion with your partner if they're in a low mood?
Hunter (26:25) No, absolutely not. In fact, my, well, or even a loved one, my daughter, who's about to turn 18 is planning on coming on the podcast to talk to me, which I'm very excited about. But then the day we were planning on doing it, she was in a low mood and we were both like, no, we're not gonna, we're not gonna tackle this conversation then we're gonna postpone it. So knock on wood, we'll see that it happens, listener.
Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break.
Kristine Carlson (27:32)
Yeah. So, so the same as, you know, true for anyone, like you kind of want to check in on somebody's mood before you tackle anything that's challenging, uh, you know, difficult conversation that you have to have or something maybe you want that you'd like to, you know, receive from your partner. You kind of want to engage their mood and, choose the right time to have that conversation. And it will pay great dividends to your communication. And also you both receiving what you need and want from your relationship. that's a really, think that's kind of one of the most valuable principles is understanding the moods. And then that leads us into like understanding that separate realities exist. No matter how much you love a person or you feel like you're alike that person, like you're like them, knowing that the two of you view the world through your own unique lens, which is built up from a lifetime of beliefs, a lifetime of experiences is also very helpful in your communication and your relationship because sometimes you're just not gonna see eye to eye with somebody. And it's important to understand that if you want to have a good relationship and good communication, you've got to try and find that common ground with each other when you don't see eye to eye. And also it just gives you a lot more compassion when you understand that somebody they don't understand, they're not seeing things the way you see them. They're seeing things the way they see them. And so I think that's a really beautiful, also beautiful lesson to understand and take in as far as any kind of relationship with a coworker, with a friend, with your kids. You know, it's super helpful because it automatically allows you to acknowledge that and find your sense of compassion. Compassion is really important when you want to have really wonderful communication with somebody. And then of course, the last two I want to talk about are present moment living and gratitude. Present moment living is really, you know, there's a lot said about it now, but it isn't as easy to practice as it is to talk about. And I think going back to our original conversation about social media and being on screen, you know, that is not present moment living. Like you'd be really present with your screen, but you're missing all the life that's happening around you. I like to think of present moment living as like when you're focused on the small stuff, sweating the small stuff, there's like this black dot on a big white page. And the small stuff is the black dot on the white page, but life is happening in the white space. And you're focused on that one thing.
And that's taking you away from all of this possibility of life that's happening in the white space. So when you think about present moment living, you can think about it like, I like to think of it like being vertical versus horizontal. You know, when you're horizontal, you're like either your past and your future. Your past is, you know, on this side, your future is on the right. And when you're vertical, you're just right in this moment right now. And it just, you know, kind of going to your breath, putting your hand on your heart, like we talked about earlier, the breath is the easiest way to find the present moment. And then just allowing yourself a lot of time to practice non-distracting thoughts, you know, like meditation is really key. A lot of people mistake meditation for not thinking. It's really not that you're always going to be thinking. Meditation just helps you know what you're see you're thinking more clearly and it quiets you down. So in those moments of stillness, your brain actually gets to relax and it gets to ⁓ think fewer thoughts, you know, and, and it's, it's just a beautiful thing when you can find that joy of the present moment and be really tuned into that and be super engaged in life that's happening right now. then gratitude. It is just such a way to access joy. And HeartMath Institute has done so much research on the intelligence of the heart. And one of the HeartMath studies shows that when you are in gratitude, actually your heart is experiencing real joy.
So it's hard to be in a bad mood or a low mood or any other kind of mood except for a joyful mood when you really are in gratitude. And that's why I like to do what I call a golden pause and take 10 really deep breaths and lead people through a gratitude practice that's super simple that just takes them right into their gratitude and into joy.
Hunter (32:37) I love that. Do you want to try it right here? Sure. Does it sink? Yeah. Let's do it.
Kristine Carlson (32:43) Let's do it. All right, let's do it. Okay, so everyone just close your eyes. And if you're doing an activity, just do your activity, but use this as a deep breathing, presencing exercise to get really engaged. So just take a deep breath in through your nose, allowing your chest and your belly to fully expand, taking in the fullness of your breath and exhale, release, relax and let go. And breathing in beautiful golden sunlight to the top of your head, to the tips of your fingers and your toes. Just exhale and release any tension you feel in your body. And breathing in pure golden sunlight through your core, through your heart, through your mind on the exhale, just continue to let go of anything that doesn't serve you well in this moment. And breathing in pure golden sunlight to the top of your head, to the tips of your fingers and your toes. Just continue to release, let go and relax.
This time as you breathe in pure golden sunlight to every cell of your being, place your hand on your heart, activating your heart, opening your heart, and spend a moment thinking of one thing you feel grateful for. And as you fill your heart and your entire being with golden gratitude, just continue to let go on the exhale. And breathing in pure golden gratitude to the top of your head, to the tips of your fingers and your toes, allowing your heart to grow in joy, the joy that gratitude brings. And breathing in pure golden gratitude to every cell of your being on the exhale, allow that gratitude to wash over you like a cascading waterfall of pure joy. Breathing in pure golden gratitude again to every cell of your being on the exhale, allow it to wash over you again, like a cascading waterfall of pure joy. And taking one last deep breath in of golden gratitude, filling your entire being, every cell of your being with golden gratitude. On the exhale, go ahead and open your eyes.
Hunter (35:20) That is a lovely pause.
Kristine Carlson (35:23) Thank you.
Hunter (35:25) There's a lot of life lessons there. imagine that sometimes that these life lessons, I imagine imbued into your family and your parenting and your relationship. And I also imagine that sometimes it might have been that you might have struggled to sort of follow this advice and to walk this path.
Kristine Carlson (35:52) Every day. Every day for sure.
Hunter (35:57) I mean, almost, you know, when your partner writes a book that we can all just choose to be happy, like, I imagine you might almost feel guilty if you don't feel happy.
Kristine Carlson (36:08) Totally. There was a time, I mean, that I often would say, God, I wish I could just have a really good cry today. But if I, if I couldn't be happy, then who could be, you know? And then you're right. And then I went to, I did some Debbie Ford work- some shadow work- and it really helped me. And it really helped me understand that, you know, you don't have to deny these aspects of yourself in order to be happy. And you can experience all of the emotions and all the things and still choose to be happy. But you know, sometimes having a good cry, especially when you're a mom, man, there's just so much pressure and you're trying to do so much right for your family. That's a lot of pressure. And we need to cry sometimes. We need to have a really good cry. For no reason at all. Like you don't have to have a reason to cry. It's just such a great emotional cleanser to just sit and have a good cry.
And I actually didn't really learn that totally until my husband died. I was 43, had two teenage daughters, and he got on a plane to New York to promote his latest book. And on the descent of that flight, he died from a pulmonary embolism. And he was only 45 years old. So I was 43, he was 45 and it was a shock to say the least. And it sent us on a tremendous new trajectory of life. And boy, really put all these tools to the test. I'll tell you that. Was I ever glad that I had them? I sure was. Not that it did save me grief. It didn't. I grieved very deeply for many years, but I was able to be really healthy in my grief and also lead my kids through their grief in a healthy way. But it was hard. I mean, it was really, really hard. The hardest thing I've ever gone through ever was losing Richard like that. And so suddenly, but you know, I did learn to cry. I used to say, “Wow, I really did learn how to cry”. I mean, I really, was just- and also it was an amazing thing because I really learned about how to live presently in such a deep way too. It was the safest place to be in grief was in the present moment. And I started to realize that the principle that of happiness about being in your past or being in your future, both of those places were far too painful for me. Why? Because of course I had regrets about my past. I I, wished I had been able to do something to save Richard's life. You know, I wish I had noticed some things that might've saved his life that I didn't until afterwards. And, and then there was the future. I couldn't think of, I couldn't possibly dream of a life without him. It was so incredibly painful because our life was so much the life that I loved with him. And so there's a lot in that and I learned that the present moment was the safest place to live.
Hunter (39:38) Yeah, you could focus on your feet walking, your daughter here making the food, whatever was there. Wow. That's an incredibly tragic story. It’s really, it's a lot to go through. And so you had all these tools, you had all these principles of being present and gratitude and things like that. And you shared with us your golden gratitude meditation. Do you have? What kind of other- if you have any daily practices that you rely on to stay grounded that you've developed since then?
Kristine Carlson (40:17) Well, one of the things that I think is so important, again, going back to the screen time, is that you don't immediately turn your phone on or look at your phone right away in the morning. Like I really believe that how you start your day is how you live your day. And when you can get off to a really peaceful start, a quiet start, and you access that inner peace and contentment inside. And it could be through doing some gentle yoga, stretching, listening to some quiet inspirational music, doing some inspirational reading, just sipping your coffee by a fire or sipping your coffee as the sun rises. You know, these are things that are, it allows yourself to be reflective and quiet at that time of day of stillness. And then I think the more we cultivate that stillness inside, the more we have access to it throughout our busy day or when, you know, stuff really hits the fan where you're just like crazed because something happens and it's just, you know, especially with kids. mean, I remember every time my girls walked in from high school, I would kind of turn around and take a really deep breath. Like, okay, what's going to happen now? What are they bringing home this time? You know, and just the breathing part of being centered is so important when raising a family or just in life, you know, just being able to center yourself, become more responsive to life versus reactive to life. There's a difference. Responsiveness means that you are able to pause in a moment and reflect before you speak. ⁓ A lot of times when ⁓ I feel like I'm getting reactive and somebody's saying something to me, I stop and I say, just say, well, I don't know about that. I need to think about that. I need to reflect on that before I respond. And it gives me that moment of time with my kids or a friend or, you know, whoever, ⁓ to just really interact with myself before I say something that I might regret. I mean, it's so much easier to say the right thing than to say the wrong thing and have to backpedal, isn't it?
Hunter (42:34) Yes.
Kristine Carlson (42:35) We do all of them.
Hunter (42:37) What I'm hearing and you're saying is slowing down, Like deliberate practices to slow you down. The phone is plugged in away from the bedside. The coffee is made. There are practices to slow down and all of these practices are here to just kind of not just push ourselves into more more efficiency, but to actually slow you down to be more present.
Kristine Carlson (43:02) Yeah, I spend time in nature every day, whether it's raining or sunny or whatever. Now I have a golden retriever and he helps me do that because, you know, he's sitting there, he's waiting for his walk in the morning. So I don't have a lot of opt-outs with that, but it really is so helpful to my psyche to just take in the sky and the trees and the breeze and whatever season there is, just take it in. It's quiet, it's usually very reflective time for me. And I just love how I feel afterwards. those are the kinds of things that are kind of, they're just non-negotiables for me. I think we have to block out time for the things we really want to do in order to get them done. And they have to be a priority. And so if you're a busy mom, it's really easy to let yourself take the backseat to everyone else. But it's more important for your family that you take time for yourself ⁓ because your family will pay the price otherwise. And you feel also so much better about the job you're doing when you're doing it from a rested, nourished place.
Hunter (44:17) Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Well, Kristine, you are my model for living gracefully into the future. I love the wisdom and everything that you're sharing. Kristine Carlson has so many in your books with Richard. The whole “Don't Sweat the Small Stuff” series is all out there, dear listener. And the latest one is “Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Every Day”. As I said, in every day book, you can dive into it's everywhere books are sold. Well, it has been such a pleasure to talk to you and I appreciate the way you've shared this work with the world and continue to share it's been, it's really made a huge impact on so many people. So thank you for doing that and thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Kristine Carlson (45:04) Thank you Hunter, beautiful to see you today.
Hunter (45:12) Hey, I hope you appreciated this episode. Don't sweat this most stuff, is a reminder I need all the time: you know, to make those practices and those habits of thinking and habits of wellness. It's so, so important.
So I hope this podcast helped you. Maybe you know someone it could also help. If so, please just text it to them. You can just share a screenshot. That's what I do with my friends, text it to them and tell them to subscribe because there are so many great episodes. And yeah, and I hope it helped you have a little more ease, a little more peace, a little more gratitude maybe in your life today to give you some stability in a crazy world. Next week, we're gonna be talking about the work life juggling act. So if you are aworking parent next week's episode is for you. And we've got so much more coming up. That's really great. So make sure you stay subscribed and thank you so much for listening.
Hey, let me know if you, you know what you think I'm at mindful mama mentor on Instagram is a great way to just tag me. Let me know what you think of the episode and yeah, I hope you have sunshine, fresh air, hugs, and maybe just sit back and do nothing for a little while and remember that you know, it's more important to care about a few things well than everything and feel helpless. So just take a break from the news and the media sometimes and I'm gonna be trying to do that and focus on things like, wow, isn't it amazing that all of the plants and animals, flowers, me, you, everything is created about the same stuff that just exploded out of stars. I feel like I thought about that more when I was younger and I'm forgetting to remember that. So anyway, I'm saying it to you so I can remind myself basically. So let's both practice that. I'm wishing you a beautiful week and thank you for listening. Namaste.
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