Ep921 Safe Haven

Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt your shoulders tense up without knowing why? Or found it surprisingly difficult to unwind at home after a long day? The truth is, your physical environment is constantly having a silent conversation with your nervous system—and often, your surroundings are subtly working against your peace of mind.

In this episode, we dive into the practice of Environmental Audits: a practical, psychological approach to redesigning your living and working spaces to foster emotional safety and dramatically reduce decision fatigue. We move beyond aesthetics to explore how tiny, intentional spatial adjustments can transform your home from a source of micro-stress into an active partner in your mental well-being.

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Yo, it's your main man, Rahim, R CL man. Whether you like it or not, your nervous system is competing with your outer system, with your outer behavior. Your nervous system is either loving you or it's tired of your shit. Your nervous system, I didn't even say that right last time, is fucking you up because you are fucking it up. You are still giving it responsibilities and things to do of this nature and that nature. And every week, what I talk about in one of my videos, cleaning your environment, cleaning your area, cleaning up your fucking space, y'all. If you've been rocking with me, you know you gotta clean your motherfucking space, man. You know you can't be in the car with fucking cups and shit everywhere. You know you can't be in the office with shit just here and there. So today, man, we're gonna get into it, man. Like how to just demand a visual process that don't drain your cognitive energy, but what uplift it, make it stronger. You feel me? Over time, passive environmental stresses compound, like making us feel like less of a sanctuary and more like a what continuous day of demands. Like, damn, I got something else to do. Damn, like who the fuck is supposed to be washing this? Who the fuck is supposed to been doing this? But no, the whole time, what you ain't been conducting no audit. You feel me? You ain't been conducting no audit about how to identify these low grade fiction points in your life. Like, this shit is friction. Once you got some small to do, you really can't even focus on the big shit. Like, rather than just very interior design purely through an aesthetic lens, the practice try to like treat you as like help your mental well-being. You feel me? Like, you're trying to help your mental well-being, like intentionally shaping your home or your office to promote an emotional safety, lower your baseline anxiety, and to like just reduce your fatigue, man. We're finna get right into it, right? The first thing is, man, clearing the field, man. For real, like clear the fucking feel. And how you clear the feel? You want to remove high friction items, like work reminders from your pyramid. Visual lines allow your focus, your focus, and nervous system to truly rest, right? Like when you allow your damn area to be chill, you feel me? You ain't got a whole stack of bills that you owe. You dig now we all it's on digital, so it's just like really fucking. You dig back in the day, you probably have a whole bunch of paper probably start to get tired of getting the mail. But now on your phone, oh, you probably been deleted that app by now. So this shit is just a pouting, right? So look, man. The clear of a visual line of sight, high friction items and work-related triggers, clutter, active projects, stack of videos from your primary field of view in the rest zones to eliminate continuous background visual noise and cognitive strength, right? So it's saying, look here, man. You are straining your muscles, you're straining your brain once you are studied, putting things on your mind that are not good for it. You allowing things to just stack up, you allowing that build to keep going. You feel me? You are you've been passing the damn pile of clothes for the last three days. Sitting on them, laying on them, laying in the bed with the clothes, like just doing stuff that you are what compounding. You compounding your mess, man. Once you compound your mess, it just gets worse. Hard to catch up with, harder to do, harder to understand, harder to just like had it. Done with it. Quick. Because good, you gotta do some more shit. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, let me clean up. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, let me get this out of the way. Hold on, let me get hold, hold up, let me move this. You feel me? You you never fucking ready. By the time you get to move and all that shit, yo is about back tied. You don't, you weren't having the same frame of thought you just had a couple minutes ago. You feel me? All your energy didn't left an hour ago. Like, just get that straightened out, man. Let's clean your fucking room. Y'all see why I'm able to do this shit Monday through Friday? Because my room is cleaned every fucking day. I'm I would not be able to do this shit every day if I had a mess, a messy ass life. I owe a lot of people, I would not be able to because I'm like, damn, you gotta do this. You owe what's the name? You need to be paying him. You owe her, you need to be paying her. No, I'm on no motherfucking about it. I'm owing a motherfucker but school. You dig? So if you got that on your motherfucking temple, you ain't got all these, you ain't gotta worry about all this scree. You ain't got them BO's on your ass calling you every day. You ain't gotta be at work like everybody else. You feel me? So once you put yourself in that position, you ain't you moving different now. You feel me? Once you are put yourself in a position, you that means you done transferred your life to organization. You got some shit organized. You feel me? Like you can really see now, you can really do something that you really want to do now because you've been moving, right? And the next thing is, man, we're gonna what leverage the perimeter lighting, right? Shift from harsh direct overhead lights to low temperature, warm perimeter lights into evening signal lights, right? And ease your nervous system out of the high alert mode. So it's saying, Look, man, let me cut, let me cut these light down. You feel me? Let me let me know how to what set this whole week. I'm talking about being like therapeutic. You feel me? Like make it anywhere you go therapeutic, right? So if I'm trying to not make it no set the mood, let me cut my just I cut the big light off and just cut the lamps on, you feel me? Light a candle, you feel me? Cut the desk light off. You understand me? I had my LED lights, but I gotta get some more. I had them motherfuckers so long I get some more now, right? But you just wanna have that choice of whatever you at this bitch, this is it. Like I can come sit in this office all day and do work. You feel me? I can sit on my desk all day and just think. You feel me? And and and plan and and make moves, right? So when your mind is like that, you you it's because you have low friction. You dig? It's because you have pre created a safe haven for your brain and be like, okay, work time. You feel me? Once I sit at this desk, it's work time. It's no time to play, it's time to hit this button, it's time to get to talking, it's time to hit that pen and get the writing, it's time to do it, you feel me? So I gotta turn the bathroom and even to a goddamn to a safe haven. You feel me once I get on the toilet, it's time to read and write. You dig? I said, what can I? I gotta get on this toilet. One more time I can be on my phone or I can be reading. Let me go ahead and get on my what, reading. Let me go and get on my writing. You feel me? I can get on the phone later on when I'm just no lighting gag, but not with that phone when I first you know, hit on that shit, right? So the next thing and the last thing is, man, look, establish a single uh purposeful spatial pairing. Reserve one specific corner exclusively for decompression, keeping it strictly screen-free to form a strong psychological association between the uh physical spot and the immediate relaxation, right? So this is right right now, right? Y'all looking at the this is a physical, you know, spot of the reserve corner, right? This is my desk. Tell my kids, don't play over here, y'all. Chill out, don't play over here, don't be going through my motherfucking desk. Relax. Stay on my shit, right? This is my safe haven. This is why I like to come over here and grab a book. Oh, y'all need to see this today. Oh, I need to get a quote out of this one. You dig? Like just having it in my mind, having all these positive people in front of me. You dig? This is how I look at these people. These are all people, these are not just books, these is people. A lot of people wrote these books, right? So once you got that in your mind, once that's your, you know, this is your space, once your brain, my brain associates this with the smartness. You feel me? I implement some of these books every day, and I'm becoming a part of these books every day, right? You are the people you hang around. You feel me? I hang around books. You think so? You just trying your best to become the best version of yourself through hanging around other people who are the best version of themselves. These books, these people waited today was what fully developed some of them to make sure they got the best version of the book that they could get, right? So that's what you want to do, man. You want to design your your environment to benefit you. You want to design your environment to feel you, you want to design your environment to be in tune with what you got going on. You did? And I know I said that's the last one. We've got this last piece. Design a minimize micro decision, structure your immediate surroundings, so healthy choices and restful behaviors um require zero effort, preserving willpower for when it actually matters. So this thing like me, right? I cut my wallet mountain up, I put it right in the refrigerator. Right there's already cut. I ain't got no choice but to grab. I got the water, got the juice, got the melon. Melon. Boom. Easy. If I had to cut it up, I'm I would have chosen the juice. You feel me? But you gotta set it up so it's easy for you to do. I got when I stop podcasting, I push it to the side. When it's weekends, I put it on the bed. You feel me? I've been trying to get to the weekends, but it's my brain is still associating myself with the old me, right? So I've been having to go slow. You feel me? It's a slow motion. I got the script written, Raheem. I know what I want to say. Now I'm getting rid of the fear, Raim. I know what I want to do. Now it's time to hit that button, Raheem. You feel me? Now I gotta get the time frame on this weekend because the weekends are where I work the hardest. So I gotta get that time frame, y'all. Got to, and that's what I'm working on, right? But as long as I'm m minimizing my my fucking space to uh uh to it can benefit me, I'm I'm not gonna be worried about no bullshit. You feel me? That's the main thing. You don't want to be worried about no BS when it's time for you to do what you gotta do. You don't want to be worried about what I can't do or what I can do. You feel me? You want to be able to do it to the highest level, man. So y'all do that, man. Recognize what y'all got going on, man. Recognize what your surroundings is feeding you and and master it. You feel me? Master your car situation, master your house situation, master your bathroom situation, master your kitchen situation, master your living room situation. You feel me? Because you got a habit. Every time that you go in one of them rooms, it's a habit that you finna perform. If this habit is not good, let me get this bitch out of here. This every time I come lay down in this fucking room, I go to sleep. So every time I come in this room, I get on my phone. Or every time I come in this room, I got them get to eating stupid shit. Or every time I come to this kitchen, I get to fucking munching. You dig? Let me design this motherfucking environment to where, oh, I ain't even I can't even munch no more if I wanted to. I ain't about no, I ain't about no snacks. You feel me? You go to Walmart on the hunt for snacks for bullshit. Don't take that shit back to the house. Tell me you take the devil home. No, look at it like that. Like I'm not taking this shit to the house. I'm not taking the devil home because I'm gonna be mad later on. You feel me? You a grown man, you want to get on hard. Your dick can't get on hard because you would have been buying so much dumb shit. You've been doing so much shit that require your body to be in recovery mode and not what full throttle man stamina up strong, blown, ready to go mode. You dig? So, man, take care of your fucking health, man. If I say anything, man, that was something I said. I know I said something. So keep that shit on your mind. If it makes you want to eat and do better, good. You feel me? Do that, but man, stop playing with y'all fucking heaven. Stop playing with y'all surroundings, man. Clean up, clean up, clean up, clean up. And once you clean up the outside, you're gonna start cleaning up the inside too. But if you start from the inside out, oh's the outside gonna be beautiful. You feel me? You heard it from a horse's mouth, man. Y'all stop playing out and y'all start playing with like you manage the video helps y'all and you can go with me out. Like, y'all come in y'all, subscribe, and let's get a let's kill, man.