Why Are We Keeping This Stuff?

A barking dog, a cord on the floor, a house that suddenly feels too quiet after the kids grow up, it all adds up fast. We sit down and get honest about the kind of letting go nobody glamorizes: the daily irritations that test your patience, and the deeper seasons of change that force you to grow whether you are ready or not. 

We start with something tender and real: aging pets and the heartbreak of knowing you might be nearing goodbye. From there, we zoom out to the stuff we keep because we think we should. Physical photos, old albums, yearbooks, wedding keepsakes, and boxes of memorabilia can carry love and history, but they can also become clutter and stress. We talk decluttering without shame, how the digital age changes what we save, and why “my kids will want this someday” is often a myth that keeps us stuck. 

Then we move into the hardest clutter of all: emotional baggage. We unpack anger, grudges, resentment, and how focusing on what is outside your control steals attention from the people who are actually showing up for you now. We also dig into paradigm shifts, mindset, and neuroplasticity, that practical idea that you can rewire your brain by practicing a new mental “route” until it becomes your new normal. 

If you’ve been craving a reset, this conversation is your nudge to choose peace on purpose. Listen, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review if it helps. Then tell us in the comments: what are you letting go of right now?

Transcript

Small Annoyances And Staying Calm

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to No Stage Lights, a podcast where we go behind the smoke and mirrors of everything from marriage to entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Chanel Carter.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And I'm Terry Carter.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hey guys.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Oh my gosh. What a day.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah, it's been a good one.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I get so frustrated with the smallest of the things, and I'm trying really hard to work on flexibility, grace, and just being a little more calm.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Frustrated though with what?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Just everything. I trip over a cord or the dog barks at the doorbell. Like it's crazy town.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

That's life, unfortunately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Okay, well, okay, Mr.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

No, no. I'm just saying those are things you can't control.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I understand that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And I know it does get aggravating. I don't yeah, it's just Willie's in a weird stage right now, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Willie's

Facing A Pet’s Final Chapter

SPEAKER_00 1:05

our dog, just so you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah. He's he's quite old, and I think he's moving into the next realm, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, he's 13. Yeah. No. Is he?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

We keep adding dog ears to him.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

He's he's twelve, at least twelve.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah. He's a sweet boy. He's a boxer. This is him.

unknown 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

But so originally this episode was about letting go, which I wonder if we need to talk a little bit about letting go of pets because oh he has been with us for so many years. But not only that, he has we transitioned into empty nesters this year. Or I guess early last year. And he was like, hey guys, here I am. I'm still here.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Now what?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

And uh so but we what are we gonna do? Are we gonna get another pet because we are gone?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

I don't see us doing that. He's letting go. He's my buddy. And I've never had a dog quite like him. And obviously I've had several well, you don't know that, but I've had several dogs in my life. And they've all been good, but man, there's something special about him. He's he's definitely my buddy.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Letting go of a pet is so difficult because you really a lot of times have to make that decision.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

When if you're he's up there right now going, wait a minute, what's this episode about? Where am I going?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Do you we had to make that decision with our other dog? And it was thankfully we had a wonderful vet who was compassionate and and a friend who was able to say, Hey, this is Well, it was to the point to where she was suffering.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

You can't yeah, I won't, I can't sit and watch that.

Empty Nesting And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 2:55

No. So letting go is the theme of today's episode, and letting go of a lot of things, letting go of anger, letting go of things that no longer serve you, letting go of personal belongings. Yeah, you were really on this this year.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

I am personal belongings. I'm gonna be letting go a lot of a lot of things

Physical Photos In A Digital World

SPEAKER_01 3:20

that I thought that we're gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

You were gonna keep forever. How do you feel about we had a conversation, but how do you how do our listeners feel about physical pictures? Are you hanging on to them? Are you letting them go now that we're in the digital age?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And I think that's the big key. Nobody has photo albums anymore. Nobody I know. Oh, I do too. I I think my brother still might have our parents' photo albums, and I think that's where my I don't think I had many baby pictures. I was the fourth, so I think it was kind of like they were over it.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Um well, I've taken enough of you to make up for that.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

But I remember all the way down to where listeners, if you're of around my age, you'll get this. You used to take these little triangular sticky things, and you'd put the corner of the picture in the little triangular sticky and you would like Yeah, no, I know you're gonna do that. That's how you would fasten the photo.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

My favorite thing to do at my grandparents' house used to be to get on the couch and get a comfy blanket and look through all of the photo albums.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I've got I remember there's specifically one album that is from the 1967 Blizzard.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

And my my brother and I guess my sisters had it dug tunnels out in the snow and made a fort when well, obviously after the storm, but there's pictures of our of our yard to where these these igloo tunnels go all through the front. It's very cool.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

We don't get snow like that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

No, and I was three when that happened, so I remember.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Do you remember it?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

No, I don't. So you have the pictures, though. Very, very much remember the 1978 blizzard, though.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Okay. I do not.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

I that was I remember driving down a road that goes out of Dwight, it's route 17. And I remember being in the car with my parents, and from the plows, the snow drifts and from them pushing the snow off the road, it was literally three car lengths or three heights higher than the car.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

That's how that's how the snow, that's how much the snow piled up from the plows.

SPEAKER_00 5:32

My parents had pictures of that. But that's what I mean. We've got these pictures that we remember, and are we letting go? What are we doing with our photos, our physical photos?

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Tossing them.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Tossing them?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Tossing them.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Because are we like kids aren't gonna scanning them in?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

I mean, maybe, yeah, scan them in, but I can tell you right now, this generation doesn't want anything to do with a physical photo because they they're just they were raised with taking pictures with their phones.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, but do you know that the the camera, like the throwaway when you take you take the pictures and then you take them to get developed, those are back in.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah. And as a novelty.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

And so are uh Polaroids.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

I'd be interested to see take um 16-year-old, uh, maybe Marley's age, 19. I'd be interested to see their home when they're in their 40s, after they've had kids and after they've had all this stuff. I'll bet that there's gonna be a lot less family photos hanging out on a desk or on a wall, or people don't print photos in their phones. Yeah. They might take that one special one. Sure. But that's gonna you're not gonna see a an abundance of you remember going in, I remember going in my friend's house and they'd have one wall, it'd be just freaking plastic pictures. Pictures of everybody pictures, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

We've never been like a hang the picture on the wall kind of family. You made Terry was like way beyond his time. He created this old window pane and turned it on its side and turned each of the eight little glass sections into a picture frame with a black backing, and then Pinterest a year later. You were stole my idea. You were it was Terry's idea. So letting go of photos, what about letting go of belongings, like things that belong

Keepsakes, Yearbooks, And Family Stuff

SPEAKER_00 7:25

to people that you love that are no longer here?

unknown 7:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

What are we doing with it?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

You know what? I'm at I'm at the point in my life to where I look at things, and this has just been recently. I know my kids aren't gonna want my stuff. Yeah. And it's a and if you if and I'm not the only one that feels that way because I've seen articles on this, and and it one of the it it just states, what are you doing with all your stuff? Are you leaving it so your kids have to clean it out? What the hell do I do with this? What that would I do this? It's all just junk to them. And they're not gonna what are they gonna store it themselves and then what? We just keep moving stuff. And it's senseless. I I have gotten down, I'm gonna literally, and the only reason why I'm gonna keep them is because you suggested it is my yearbooks. I've got two and I have my eighth grade and I have my high school, my senior year. We didn't buy yearbooks when I was No. No, we couldn't didn't afford it. Couldn't it wasn't a necessity. I never I wasn't the family that every year you had pictures. I it just wasn't at that time. Sure. We didn't do that. Sure. All that stuff. Everything. I got keepsakes and stuff like that. That hell, I had I don't even look I I don't even remember half the stuff I have in these boxes downstairs and in the if I'm not looking at it, nobody else is gonna. So I'm gonna take care of it and get rid of it.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Remember every wedding that we were ever in, we would get a memorable like a stein, like a stein or like a beer mug with the engraving and stuff. Are people still doing that? Or we have we do have one of our children.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Weren't flasks a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Flasks were a big deal. One of our sons is getting married, and so it'll be interesting to see. You know what? They I'm not gonna give any of their secrets away, but they have some really cool ideas for the ceremony, but that's memorable in your memory things that are gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Not crap, you gotta go store.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Right. Because what are we doing with all of the things that you know, weddings we were in 20 years ago or more?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

I can tell you I have nothing from a wedding 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I feel like you have stuff or you did you have a stein with engraving on it.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Then that's the next thing into the trash because again, I haven't looked at it. If I I don't need it, I don't use it. What what the hell am I gonna do with a stein? What am I gonna do with a stein?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Fill it up with beer, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

I mean yeah, if I drank beer.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

I mean Do people still have curio cabinets?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

I'm sure some y'all have a curio cabinet? I'm sure grandma with does.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

Well, I know, but are they a thing? Are we keeping keepsakes in the curio cabinet?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

We haven't in a long time, but are you what are those little figurines that oh like precious moments?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

People collect precious moments still.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Oh, and I I'll bet the younger gen generation isn't.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I had the growing up girls. Do you know what the growing up girls were?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

I never collected those. So I have no idea what the heck you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

They were like little porcelain. What's the glass that's kind of rough? Is that porcelain or ceramic, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Porcelain smooth.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, no, so maybe ceramic. They were like toilet.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

That's porcelain.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Ah. Okay. Nope, not to not porcelain. They were ceramic and they were you would put them on your cake, and like they would hold the year of whatever you were turning. So I had them one through eighteen.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

They were like, I'll have to show you. We'll find them. Yeah. But they were called the growing up girls, and I had one through eighteen.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

But like, what do you do with that stuff? You either turn it into a paperweight or something to letting go.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah. What do you do about that? Letting go of stuff.

Anger, Grudges, And Emotional Baggage

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Now, what about emotional baggage?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Before we go to that, because that's going to be a whole different animal, but not so much letting go, obviously, letting go of the things that you've had in a box for 20 years or your keepsakes or your memorabilia or whatever. And trust me, I'm not encouraging anybody to go down to their basement right now and clean it out and throw all their stuff away. That's totally up to you. That's disclaimer. Not not my fault. Um so but things that I've acquired that I wanted so I used to do like this the amplifier I have downstairs. When that company came out, I wanted nothing more to have one of these amplifiers. I dreamt about it. They're so much, they're very expensive. And I just they're just beautiful, wonderful. And I finally got one and then I sold it, and then I bought the same one back.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

True story.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

And because that stopped me.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

And because it was incredibly heavy. It's it is so taking it was not practical.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

It's very heavy, but it's worth every pound once you hear it. But anyway, my point is doing the things that don't serve you anymore, that unfortunately I haven't played it a handful of times since I've had it back. It's just sitting there, it's thousands of dollars sitting there doing nothing. It it's paid for, it's not eating anything, it's not costing me anything to have it. So therefore it's not, you know.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

But we talked about this. We talked about how maybe a woman buying a purse that she's always wanted, they don't we don't always use the same purse over and over again. No, so sometimes it is up on the shelf and we take it off for a special occasion.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

And you're right. You know, I totally understand that.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

So is it is it in that category?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Um, it could be if I wanted it to be, but I have bigger wants that could finance. I have other things that that are serving me at this moment. I look at it as it's serving me, what's serving me right now? I got X amount, and and it I know this sounds morbid or whatever, but the hourglass, the sand's running. I got X amount of days. Well, the sands running for all of us. All of us, absolutely. Yeah. And again, I don't mean to be so No, I know vague about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

But I'm just saying my point is I don't give any, I'm not gonna, you know, I you don't want it to be somebody else's problem.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yeah, exactly. I don't want them to go, what or my biggest fear is they're gonna see it and they're gonna go, what is it? Here, give me 20 bucks for it and take it off my hands. And that would be a good thing. That's why it's important to listen things.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah. Speaking of sans through the hourglass, let's roll into emotional baggage. Maybe because that's really important. And we've talked about letting go of things or situations or even people that I hate, I love I have a love-hate with the term no longer serve us, because that's not always why you're in a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Well, and it does sound kind of mean, but like selfish, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yeah. How about in alignment with where you're going to be able to do it? Where you're at in your life. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Where you're at in your life.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

And how about letting go of anger and hate and resentment?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

And I think I've I I'll admit, man, I I struggled with that. You did.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

You did. I hold a grudge.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

I hold a grudge when I get burnt, I man, I don't forget it. And I think a lot of people are like that. But I think again in this new era that I'm in.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Like a new mindset.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah. I'm in a completely different life's too short, man. Um I I don't want to waste another minute being angry about something I can't change. Or that's in the past.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Well, we recently talked about past. And we recently talked about your quote that I loved so much about paying giving attention or paying attention to the people who are in your wheelhouse now that are giving you love and respect and appreciation. They deserve that back, and we're giving it to them, and we we get it back from them. I think anger and letting go of that can definitely funnel into that situation too.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Letting go of it, you're not you're not focusing on something that again is outside of your wheelhouse. So therefore, that's robbing something else that you could be paying quality attention to that's in your area, because there's no doubt about it. If you're if you're holding anger or if you're holding any kind of resentment towards something that was in your past or something on the outside, no matter what it is, you're bringing that into your forefront. Correct. A hundred percent. You're you're bringing that. Yeah, you are. So and whether you try to hide it or not, it's gonna show up in some way, shape, or form. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

And I was guilty of that. I've been guilty of that. And I'd like to think that I'm Yeah, I feel like you've turned a corner.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

You have we have both leveled up, I think, quite a bit with emotional regulation, maturity, and mindset. I think we truly are starting to understand that love is the greatest gift of all.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

And sure sounds like a song. Are we gonna break in the song?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Is there? I'm sure there's no love is I want to so bad.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, where did you get that? You brought it up. Awesome. We are on a new set here. You don't know that because you didn't really see us on our set, but we have rebranded completely, remodeled our set, and I didn't think that the I thought we were letting the horn go.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

No, it's gonna be with us.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

Somebody someday's. I won't let go of that. What is this for?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

I'm not letting go of it.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

But we you're right. We have leveled up to a different, you know.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

And everything from the past, I wish it well. And yeah, you know, I know because I want them to be in them and in whatever the fact, whatever it is, not necessarily a person or anything.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

A situation.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

A situation, whatever that is. I want that to have room for their circle.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Correct. Yeah, for their wheelhouse.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

I love that. Yeah, because energy's a crazy thing. Like it might not feel like you're dwelling on something, but you you're right. You do you pull it into you know, I talk a lot about energetic timelines. And and what timeline, this is very similar to like when you're talking wheelhouse, I'm talking timeline. Where are you right now? And are you pulling things in from old timelines?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Because it's hard to let go of those things and you and you don't realize that you should. In fact, I think I wonder if sometimes even if it's not negative, I wonder if sometimes we hang on to things because we think we should, because that was our past and that's what we were used to.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

In a good way or in a positive way.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

In a a neutral. We subconsciously hang on to things because they we think that was our norm. So therefore we try to, even though it's no longer in alignment, well, yeah. We try to fight that and bring it with us. Well, that's and then and then you get frustrated because it's like, isn't this working?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

That's when you start getting into paradigms.

Paradigm Shifts And Rewiring Your Mind

SPEAKER_00 19:05

That's when you start getting into shifting a paradigm.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

That's when I start opening a bottle of wine. Because that sounds like really heavy.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

You know what a paradigm is.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

I do.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yes. And that the paradigm is your paradigm is I'm gonna kind of botch this, but a set way of thinking that you were born with, that you're just intuitively like some people think, you know, money is evil because they grew up like we had to learn how to eat, how to talk, how to walk. Someone taught us that. Well, somebody to also taught us their impression of their thoughts and impressed it on us, and that became our subconscious thinking.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Became our norm.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Our norm, like you just said. And so you're kind of like dabbling in this. How do you change your paradigm? And I'm gonna tell you really quickly like a micro trick. I talk about this all the time in Glowgirl when I'm speaking with a younger audience. I talk about how we went down this highway for years and years. What 20 years we went down the highway and the highway went straight. And then they did construction, and all of a sudden the highway went to the right. Your car is just knows to go straight. You just subconsciously go straight, you go straight. And you get to that curve and you're like, oh crap, this is new. But after a while, now it's our norm. It's the norm. Same as your brain, same as the paradigm. If you continue to shut out that noise, then kind of fight the urge for your car to keep going straight. Because here's the thing, if you keep pulling straight now, you're gonna crash into the field. Yes, fight the urge to continue on the on that mindset or that road you're on, then practice the new thing every single day.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Be open to change. Be open.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, and that is a great way of kind of letting go. You're like, okay, now I've let go of this set way of thinking, maybe, like you said, this anger or pulling things in. And now I can talk about shifting paradigms all day. I love it. I love neuroplasticity in the way our brain our brains actually are like weak where you can rewire your brain. You can actually like deaden a highway in the brain where it no your thoughts no longer go that way, and they go this way, and that becomes your new way of thinking. That is incredible to me. In a whole other in a whole other episode.

What Are You Letting Go Of?

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Which brings us so quickly to the end of the This was a thumb.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I talk a talking about just the positivity of just being able to change and being okay with.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Well, it's exciting.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Well, because if you stay where you are, stage is where you stay very

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Yeah. And it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

God love you. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

But yes. And so what are you letting go of? Maybe it physically or emotionally, mentally, or in your link. We want to know what are you letting go of? What do you want to let go of?

SPEAKER_01 22:18

We'd love to see in the comments.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Yeah. What are you struggling with letting go? Then right now we're going to let you go because we're out of time. But thank you so much for tuning in to Nostasia Late. I'm Janelle Carter. I'm Terry Carter. Have a great day, everybody. Yes, sticker.