Reevaluating Possessions and Time: A Spiritual Awakening with Don Miguel Ruiz

Have you ever paused to consider the weight of the possessions you carry and the cost of societal norms? This episode promises to push boundaries and challenge conventional thinking as we journey with our guest, Don MacGallarie, who shares his profound spiritual awakening following a near-fatal car accident. We discuss how his out-of-body experience shifted his perception of self, and even delve into techniques you can embrace at home to access similar experiences. 

In the throes of a society engrossed in material possessions, we steer the conversation towards the concept of minimalism. We dissect its potential to offer freedom and escape from the obsession with stuff, an issue deeply rooted in the American psyche since the Great Depression. Together with MacGallarie, we share practical strategies to help you declutter your life and make more conscious decisions. We explore the normalisation of advertising, and why it's crucial to challenge yourself by asking if something is truly worth the cost.

In the final leg of our discussion, we dissect the complexities of free time. We uncover how to leverage our energy, create a sense of purpose and strike a balance between our free time and other commitments. Our goal? To help you make the most of your limited time. So, join us for an enlightening conversation filled with insights, lessons, and reflections that could transform your relationship with possessions and time. Don't miss out on this episode, as it will challenge your perceptions and possibly inspire a new way of life.

Transcript

heather ross: 0:01

Welcome to At the Table when we are connecting entrepreneurs, discovering missions and building communities with purpose Body, soul, mind and Business with Charlie and Heather, with Free Time Solutions.

Charlie Hoffman: 0:18

Good morning and welcome to the Table.

heather ross: 0:22

I'm Charlie, I'm Heather and it's Mindset Monday. Monday again and we get to choose and decide. These books, ellen, you all bringing some stuff up for me. Definitely, they're so good. I'm really digging the new one, the new one. It pairs great with the end of the voice and knowledge.

Charlie Hoffman: 0:54

This is our first Mindset Monday of season nine. Every quarter we start a new season Season nine of our podcast. That's really exciting. I think, season one was the whole first year. Then we've been doing it quite a relationship. Yes, right, that's pretty awesome. Thank you for hanging out with us on this Mindset Monday. Are we ready? Yes, let's start with the voice and knowledge, because I feel like this is.

heather ross: 1:26

Well, we've really enjoyed learning from Don MacGallarie's and we get to hear a little bit about his mom this week.

Charlie Hoffman: 1:35

A little bit, a little bit. So I am finishing up reading this book on our YouTube channel. I am recording it, but I am not recording myself reading both of them.

heather ross: 1:49

This, the chapters in Love People Use Things because the opposite never works are very long. They're like 40 pages. So, the end they have like writing assignments and other things, and other things.

Charlie Hoffman: 2:05

It's just not a good fit to read them to you.

Charlie Hoffman: 2:08

No, but this week we're talking about how Don MacGallarie's had his spiritual eyes opened, so to speak. The chapter of the name of the chapter this week is opening our spiritual eyes and it's chapter 11 of Reality, of Love All Around Us. So what happened was he was. He fell asleep at the wheel and was in a car accident and nearly died, and he had his at that moment, his first out of body experience. Some people call it their experience of heaven, or nirvana, or light or whatever. That is because there's no real way to explain what that is other than if you've had that experience yourself. It's that experience where you see yourself separate from your body, right, so I was in a car accident when I was 19.

heather ross: 3:15

This wasn't the first car accident, yay, and I went into shock and I could see myself on the stretcher. So it's those moments of like what is happening here.

Charlie Hoffman: 3:32

Right, yeah, yeah it's. I think it clarifies the perspective that we are not our body.

heather ross: 3:43

Yeah.

Charlie Hoffman: 3:44

Right, you see yourself, even in your own mind, as your body. When you close your eyes and you think of who am I, you probably see what would be a mirror reflection of yourself, right.

heather ross: 4:00

Then there's all those things like body dysmorphia, but that's not what we're talking about.

Charlie Hoffman: 4:03

That's not what we're talking about.

heather ross: 4:04

We're talking about. We're not seeing ourselves as the energy that's taking up the physical body, correct? Yeah, so we're not seeing our energy flow, the flow of what actually makes us us.

Charlie Hoffman: 4:20

Right, and he talks about his mom a little bit in this chapter, because she was the one that started referring to this out of body experience, or the separateness from yourself, from your body, as the dreaming. It's like that lightness that you feel right before you fall asleep. Right, that's delicious, that deli. Yeah, that's the same to me. And there, how to you know? Some people use meditation to do this. I don't recommend being on the edge of your life and practicing that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. But in meditation or in these moments of bliss, it's this light like weightlessness, it's the sephoria, it's the like, and sitting in that place of inner peace. You know, I've been able to do it more and longer through practice and using other tools, like we went to Seattle float and floated in space pause.

Charlie Hoffman: 5:32

And it is so cool I call space mods. They're really cool. They look like big white jelly beads they do, and it's just a couple inches of water and it's salt water in there and it's the same temperature and you're going in because there's that much salt.

heather ross: 5:49

Yeah, so yeah, and it's interesting that feeling of water versus the air because, you're right, it is the same temperature.

Charlie Hoffman: 5:58

It's the same. So the the line where the water and the air like touch your skin. You kind of have to focus to feel it. Yeah, but that's really all you feel is the line. You don't feel the wetness or the dryness because it's human in the pod, but you can have the lights off, you can have all stars going on the ceiling, you can have it lit up in blue. You can listen to music or not. I usually don't, but it's a pretty rad experience, highly recommended.

heather ross: 6:29

Yeah, if you haven't tried it here in the Seattle area, Seattle float.

Charlie Hoffman: 6:34

Yeah, I actually was struggling. I actually went last weekend with my husband to go float and I had been struggling with all the noise in my head, with everything. There's a lot of different things going on and I was literally in tears the day before because there's so much. Right, I was hitting overstimulated, overwhelm. So first thing in the morning we went floating super helpful, helped calm my brain, chatter down so that I can actually see the answers without it being cluttered.

heather ross: 7:11

Well, and I was thinking about it too, like how could you access some of that at home? And I was like well, that's why we do Epson salt bath Right. Yeah, this is like Epson salt bath, like Also by itself is a grounding element.

Charlie Hoffman: 7:30

Yes, it's a neutralizing element.

heather ross: 7:33

Yeah, so so, like there's so many layers to it and there's books about it too, I'm interested in reading them, but I'm kind of full at the moment, right. Those are really good books going on and I'm like, yeah.

Charlie Hoffman: 7:45

So back on track, so that those those things, those moments of peace and tranquility, and how to seek those. The points to ponder this week are there is another reality right here now, and it is more than the reality of light and sound that we normally perceive. In this reality, we can perceive the reflection of emotions coming from every object. In this reality, what is real is our love, because when you are doing everything with or in response to love, with love, you will be amazed. It feels really good. It does feel really good. I'm going to read one more of these. The energy of love is just like the light that comes from the sun, like sunlight. The emotion of love looks different depending on what is reflecting the love. Oh, so that's your little point to ponder. You chew on for a little bit. Go ahead and pick up your copy.

heather ross: 9:02

Okay, they come in a box to see if you're getting them all. Read them, with your family Life changing.

Charlie Hoffman: 9:13

Yeah, or even just talking about it with your family, is life changing.

heather ross: 9:18

my whole family has shifted over the last couple of years and then, as we make that shift, then our family makes the shift too, even if they're not reading it, because you're not picking stuff up or just responding differently.

Charlie Hoffman: 9:37

Yeah, it's part of that, dude, do as I say, not as I do. Yeah, not that. The opposite of that. What actually happens is like your kids will pick up on your habits good, bad or indifferent. Right, Right, it's interesting.

heather ross: 9:55

Yeah, and it's. It's interesting when it gets reflected back to you that someone else sees it.

Charlie Hoffman: 10:01

Like.

heather ross: 10:02

Oh, I see this in a different way, yeah, so.

Charlie Hoffman: 10:07

Chapter one. Chapter one of love. People use things. This opposite never works.

heather ross: 10:14

And chapter one's about stuff, our relationship with our stuff.

Charlie Hoffman: 10:20

Our relationship with our stuff.

heather ross: 10:23

It's interesting, right Right. As I was preparing for this, I was watching a little bit of different kinds of borders shows and one was just like people's, like big, massive collections that are taking over, taking their house on. This lady's clothes was like her own boutique, like she had so many clothes right Right and so, just like that relationship we have, you can't possibly wear out of that like Right, right, right. So you know, and so I thought that was a good preparation for my brain, for this and my, my purging in my home too.

Charlie Hoffman: 11:01

Some of some of the stats that they threw out in this book just kind of blew my mind, like, like, I believe it was this chapter, but it seems to be like 80% of our material possessions is just done taking up space, right, right.

heather ross: 11:24

Right, we're like it's not. And so, as they, they were kind of looking into what we're calling minimalism. They kind of break down some of the wording and they talk about how there's this overwhelm. That's kind of normal, for some reason that. And people are miserable and their sex life is non existent. Their careers are unfulfilling. They hide purchases from their significant others, they lie to each other about their spending, they ignore their own creative desires that you know. They're not in touch with themselves. They were. They take their relationships for granted, and then you tend to grow pro-cropetti and resentful.

Charlie Hoffman: 12:24

Right, I see the same Right.

heather ross: 12:27

And then we're ashamed of who we become. Like doesn't that sound like how? Why anybody gets divorced Like that right there? Like there you go, Right, so so basically they're. You know, we're overwhelmed by the things that we have around us, and then minimalism is how we get out of it.

Charlie Hoffman: 12:50

Yeah.

heather ross: 12:52

And I liked this that when people are getting into minimalism, they're looking at people that are, you know, ahead of them on the trail. They were living deliberate, meaningful lives. They were passionate and purpose driven, and they seem much richer than any of the so-called rich people she'd encountered before. And all they all attributed their meaningful lives to this thing called minimalism.

Charlie Hoffman: 13:22

Right, it's more than just stuff. Right, it's a, it's a relationship with the stuff and, like, as Americans, like some of the stats about Americans and their obsession with stuff, leaves me going. Oh.

heather ross: 13:44

God, and I mean it does. It does stem from it's kind of it's a great depression where we needed to hold on to things. But, when we didn't need to hold on to things, we didn't stop Right, and then, and then everything shifted Right. So now we're looking for that quick fix because we're not happy with ourselves.

Charlie Hoffman: 14:08

Right, we're trying to fill the void, but the void is within us and not in our home with our stuff.

heather ross: 14:15

Yeah, right, so as you practice, I mean it's the dumpster fire. I like anything that has a dumpster fire right when you're reading it. This book made me laugh, so it's entertaining for us, and Deb says it is Very straight livery, authentic feeling. Yeah, it's conversational, it feels conversational, so even though the chapters are long, they're broken up pretty well, so you can take a break as you're digesting some of the information.

Charlie Hoffman: 14:51

I like what he says about freedom, like our image of freedom and the American dream is like have a house, two cars, five kids and stuff.

heather ross: 15:04

Student loans and stuff, right. So you need to work three and a half jobs to pay for it.

Charlie Hoffman: 15:09

His challenge is when you think about freedom, you often think of doing whatever you want, whenever you want. Whatever, whenever. Can you pick up right now and go do whatever you want Because you feel like it?

heather ross: 15:27

I feel like this is kind of that tiny house movement, right, like if I have less things and I take up less space, I get to do the things I want to do and your carbon footprint is smaller and it's like a whole thing, right?

Charlie Hoffman: 15:44

This is what our coach Jackie talks about when she talks about the freedom life. She's an RV adventurer, so she's living a minimalist lifestyle so she can live fully in life.

heather ross: 15:59

I don't think that she would say I've never heard her say she's an analyst, and I don't think I even thought about it until I read this chapter that she is living that kind of a lifestyle.

Charlie Hoffman: 16:10

Yeah but she wouldn't comment.

heather ross: 16:12

It's about freedom to do what she wants to do, and it's about the freedom of her heart and what she's here to do.

Charlie Hoffman: 16:22

Right, because she's let go of everything else, her attachments to everything else already Embodied.

heather ross: 16:29

Yeah, embodied.

Charlie Hoffman: 16:30

So it doesn't mean you have to go live in an RV or a tiny house.

heather ross: 16:34

I don't know.

Charlie Hoffman: 16:35

I just think about the energy you're bringing into your house and let go of things that are no longer serving you, even if it's things.

heather ross: 16:45

And they talk about like how to do it. Yeah, that's what I like. This book isn't just like talking to you about just have less stuff, just have less stuff, but you know, it's about giving you the tools to do it, to do it. So one of the first rules is the node jump rule.

Charlie Hoffman: 17:03

Everything you own can be placed in three piles essential, non-essential and junk. Since most of our needs are universal, only a few things belong in the essential pile food, shelter, clothing, transportation, vocation, education. In an ideal world, the majority of your stuff would fit in the non-essential pile, Meaning you don't need a couch or a dining table, but they're worth owning because they enhance your life, Right? But sadly, most all the other things will fit in the junk pile the artifacts you like, or miraculously think you like. Ask it to the page.

Charlie Hoffman: 17:44

Challenge you to really ask yourself these questions when you're going through your stuff.

heather ross: 17:52

And I like this because this is an individual thing and this could be something like. I feel like I've been working on the decluttering for a long time and I'm still amazed how much I come up with the declutter as I'm doing my process and going more and deeper in. I see I'm ready for this now, like I'm ready for the next level of tools, right, so I'm excited. Yeah, I hope you're excited too.

Charlie Hoffman: 18:21

So the next piece he talks about is how, as you're going through this process, things will come up. You will want to buy stuff and you'll try to justify it for yourself.

heather ross: 18:37

I mean, as we do, we're going to figure out is this a need or it's like you know, but I did like this down here.

Charlie Hoffman: 18:47

A Rolex won't buy you more time. I also like how he I call it a cost benefit analysis. He looked at how much do you make per hour and how much is it per time? Is that worth to you? Because you're trading dollars for time, no matter what.

heather ross: 19:06

Yeah, right. So then, when you buy something, is it going to bring that much value into your life, right?

Charlie Hoffman: 19:12

If you make $15 an hour and a cheeseburger is $15, you work an hour for that cheeseburger. Is it really worth it?

heather ross: 19:22

Or is it better to go to the grocery store and spend $15 and have, you know, four or five cheeseburgers at the, at the Rolex Great. And.

Charlie Hoffman: 19:32

I always ask myself when I go to buy something is this X amount worth of awesome?

heather ross: 19:38

I like that one.

Charlie Hoffman: 19:39

Is this X is like this shirt say it's 10 bucks, right? Is this $10 worth of awesome to me? Yeah, yeah. So anyway, my little tip for the day.

heather ross: 19:51

Then they go in to talk about how advertising has become so normalized to us, especially here in the US. Yeah, and even so I was. You know we're in advertising, so this was like juicy, yummy stuff from our brains.

Charlie Hoffman: 20:14

Worldwide spending on advertising has topped half a trillion dollars per year.

heather ross: 20:21

Trillion, Trillion. And then in the book they wrote out the full numbers so you could see how many commas that really is Like. So right out half a trillion Three. It's a big number.

Charlie Hoffman: 20:32

Yeah, there's like four commas there. Yeah, one, two, three, three.

heather ross: 20:38

So there's money out there, right Like the other ones.

Charlie Hoffman: 20:42

They're in it for the money, first off, second off.

heather ross: 20:46

They are in it for money Like they want to believe you, fries have like a million like a lot of ingredients, right. It's a potato. It should be a potato Right, like it's a 10, but they put a ton of ingredients in there. Right so their whole advertising is to get you to eat the fry. That's not just a potato, right Like, just like. Correct. So. And then they do that by billboards commercials.

Charlie Hoffman: 21:20

Like they pull at your feelings and emotions to get you to buy their stuff. Mcdonald's uses the facade that they're fun, right.

heather ross: 21:35

Right.

Charlie Hoffman: 21:35

McDonald's is fun. It's an easy way to grab a meal on the way home for the kids, or they make it more about the lifestyle associated with McDonald's, then I'm not going to talk about McDonald's, it's not in the book.

Charlie Hoffman: 21:55

I'm sorry, but I find it really interesting that the United States is the only country in the world allowed to advertise pharmaceuticals. Let me say that again the United States is the only country in the world allowed to advertise pharmaceuticals. It's freaking crazy. The campaign for Viagra took a relatively facet problem and created a raging $3 billion per year market for a blue pill. That's how it's written in the book. I find that hilarious. But $3 billion a year for a little blue pill that was actually made to treat something completely different.

Charlie Hoffman: 22:49

Yeah, something completely different. But then, when they found out that it had this awesome side effect, they decided to market it differently and advertise it differently, right? So advertising drugs, yeah.

heather ross: 23:06

Yeah. Legal drugs, yeah. So our next rule for minimalism is just-in-case rule.

Charlie Hoffman: 23:15

The just-in-case rule here he talks about how you might want to have a few things that you don't necessarily need all the time for just-in-case. Think of it like a small toolbox with a hammer and a screwdriver. Those are essential things. Right, they're essential and just-in-case, but then there's stuff that you're keeping just-in-case. Like you have 12 sets of sheets for your bed, do you need 12-seats? You can't have all 12 sets of sheets on your bed at the same time Is this in the pee here?

heather ross: 23:49

I don't know.

Charlie Hoffman: 23:50

I would beg to argue that really, you only need two One in the wash and one on your bed, right and sometimes you can get away with one, you can get away with one, so one or two is like Plenty. Plenty Right, and I'm just using that as an example.

heather ross: 24:05

As an example, Right, and I liked his 2020 rule. So it's like if it's an item that's $20 or less and you can get it within 20 minutes of your home if you needed it. Could you let this item go and only get it if you needed it?

Charlie Hoffman: 24:25

Right, I like that, I was like to Anything you really actually need in life I'm sure you could find on Facebook markets for less than 20 bucks, right, right, let's be real. People are getting rid of stuff all the time, or even for free. Good world value village, yeah Right, you don't need to buy things brand new either, so I found that really cool.

heather ross: 24:54

So there was an experiment, or where Sao Paulo didn't allow billboards Billboards, yeah, that's really interesting.

Charlie Hoffman: 25:11

In 2007, sao Paulo introduced its clean city law, where more than 15,000 billboards were taken down. To do an additional 300,000 intrusive signs pylons, posters, bus and taxi ads had to go. The strangest result in ridding the world's third largest city of these advertisements. In a poll done after the removal, a majority of the Palo Santos people actually preferred the change. What a novel idea. Ask people what they like instead of letting profitability dictate the city view. And there are cities throughout the United States that do not allow billboards. They're few and far between. I mean, even here, locally in town, there's a farm next to a billboard and they have no light pollution signs next to the giant light up billboard.

heather ross: 26:18

The billboard next door. Hey, this isn't good.

Charlie Hoffman: 26:20

Right, yeah, I feel like those giant light up billboards, especially at night when you're driving, are super distracting, very distracting, and they like it's like watching a TV commercial as you're driving down the road, like you're not supposed to look on your phone. Why are you looking at the billboard? No-transcript. That seems too logical to me, right? Minor details so, but we have accepted ads into our everyday life, so pay attention to what that looks like for you. I actually don't have cable and haven't had cable in like 15 years, right, so I don't, I don't get advertised to do in that manner. But when I'm listening to music, there's advertisements. When I'm scrolling Facebook, there's advertisements. When I'm on my phone, there's advertising. You're still getting advertisements at everywhere else.

heather ross: 27:12

Right, yeah, Choosing. Can I talk about those subscriptions now that let you choose not to have advertisement.

Charlie Hoffman: 27:19

Right. That's why it's appealing. Yeah, more people are paying for subscriptions to not get advertised to.

heather ross: 27:29

A half a trillion dollar business. Yeah, and part of that is that people don't want to be advertised to. It's pretty crazy. So I really like at the end of these, this chapter, there's like Six Eight, oh they have questions to ask before buying along with then also like how to apply this into our own lives. Yes, and I love this because they're like. They're they broke it down into like three different like options to like give you ideas.

heather ross: 28:06

Yeah, and then where to start, depending on where you do, you want to do your whole freaking house and pack it up like you're moving and then see what you actually use. Do you want to do a?

Charlie Hoffman: 28:17

couple of rooms at a time, or do you just want to focus on one space?

heather ross: 28:22

I like that. That was really respectful too. Like there's a story in here about like the girlfriend and the boyfriend. He was not able to do that with his like clothes right, so they packed up everything but his clothes, right. So respecting each other's boundaries with this because, it's hard.

Charlie Hoffman: 28:41

Mm, hmm.

heather ross: 28:42

This is a hard process. It is a hard process I wouldn't know I wouldn't be crying at all.

Charlie Hoffman: 28:47

He talks about the do's and don'ts of stuff, right, and to finish out the chapter like understand your benefits, establish your rules, create your stuff, budget, mm. Hmm, I like it. Relinquish your stuff and find your support, because you know what. If you're doing this by yourself, and good on you, but it's.

heather ross: 29:13

It's really hard to be your own leader. Yeah, and accountability piece is the difference, right, it keeps you motivated. Yeah, because not everyone's going to be Heather and Charlie, right, right, so, and we don't expect you to be us.

Charlie Hoffman: 29:29

Right, like, maybe you have a bestie who can be your accountability partner, maybe your bestie shouldn't be your accountability partner. Yeah, really. Like yourself, good boundaries.

heather ross: 29:42

Maybe your accountability partner for this is a professional organizer or something, right, yeah, I think I'll put the box. Great, great Ciao. The truth is that if you aren't happy with yourself, no thing will make you happy. No thing, no thing.

Charlie Hoffman: 30:04

Nothing it's going to fill that void.

heather ross: 30:06

So you're already enough, and if you've been watching for any time, you should know that Now it's applying that right. Like, how does that look in our lives, mm hmm.

Charlie Hoffman: 30:20

Be your beautiful self, mm. Hmm, we love you. We wish you the best and stay tuned for the new cause of the quarter Coming up next. No mistake.

heather ross: 30:35

Mm, hmm.

Charlie Hoffman: 30:35

Ciao.

heather ross: 30:40

As entrepreneurs, we have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact in the world around us. In a time when the world is shifting towards supporting local businesses and embracing community driven initiatives, it becomes even more important for us to give where our heart leads us At the table. We believe in the power of giving back and that's why we have our cause of the quarter. This quarter, we are proud to support Perfect Pals, a local organization dedicated to rescuing and providing care for stray cats in our community. By supporting local causes like Perfect Pals, we not only make a difference in the lives of those in need, but we also contribute to the growth and well-being of our local community. We believe in small acts of kindness, and they can create a ripple effect of positivity, inspiring others to do the same. As we shift our focus solely from supporting large corporations to championing local businesses and giving back, we not only strengthen our community, but we also foster a sense of connection and unity. Together, we can create a thriving ecosystem where everyone can flourish. So let's follow our hearts and give where they, where it truly matters. Join in supporting Perfect Pals and making a difference in the lives of these furry companions. Together, we can make our community a better place, one act of kindness at a time. Thank you for being part of our journey and for embracing the spirit of giving. Together, let's create a brighter future for all.

heather ross: 32:27

Are you tired of juggling endless tasks, struggling to find time for what truly matters? We have the solution for you Introducing Free Time Solutions, your ultimate partner in reclaiming your time and maximizing your potential. At Free Time Solutions, we specialize in helping businesses like yours thrive in a digital world. From social media management to website optimization and branding, we have the expertise to elevate your online presence and streamline your operations. Imagine having time to focus on what you love to do, what we take care of your business With our dedicated team of experts and innovative solutions. We leave you free to pursue your passions and achieve your goals.

heather ross: 33:18

Whether you are a small business owner, entrepreneur, freelancer, we offer comprehensive services tailored to your needs. Our goal is simple to give you back time and freedom to do what you do best, while we handle the rest. So join us at the table and let Free Time Solutions empower you to take control of your time and unlock your full potential. Visit our website at wwwyourfreetimebackcom to learn more and schedule your consultation today. Free Time Solutions, your partner in success. Let's make the most of your free time together. Thank you for joining us at the table. Stay tuned for weekly readings on Sunday Mindset Monday discussing our weekly readings on Monday and on Friday, our interview and, potentially, guest host. Stay tuned.

Charlie Hoffman: 34:24

Thank you for joining in on the fun. Be sure to like and subscribe for more.