This week on Full Frame: The Simple Way to Happiness

Full Frame

The Minimalists

This week on Full Frame, we’re taking a walk on the… simple side of life. Happiness and purpose, downsizing and decluttering. Wouldn’t life be better if your life was more simple – decluttered from all of the “things” that are taking up room in your life without ever really being of any use?

That’s the question an increasing number of people are asking themselves. From millennials and eco-enthusiasts to typical families, the minimalist movement is growing each day – one clutter-free drawer at a time.

Minimalism focuses on cutting out the excess in order to make room for the things that matter most in life. But the secret of the minimalist lifestyle isn’t in owning fewer things; it’s about prioritizing purpose and ultimately reaching that ever-elusive “happiness.”
But is it just a fad, or is it a movement that is here to stay? Join us this week as we explore what’s so great about owning less and why our guests say that “having it all” has very little to do with your material possessions.

Tune into Full Frame on CCTV America at 7:00 PM EDT on Saturday, July 4, 2015.

Clutter-free with Joshua Becker

For years, Joshua Becker was distracted. He was surrounded by family and loved ones – the things in life that brought him joy and purpose. But it was his possessions that seemed to be the center of his attention.

Until one day when he started throwing it all away – 70 percent of his family’s possessions, that is.

Becker quickly found he had more, even with so much less. No longer was he preoccupied with buying the latest and greatest “thing.” Now, he says, he sees rich experiences and a purpose to his life in his minimalist lifestyle.

Becker is now the force behind Becoming Minimalist, a blog with a not-so-minimal fan base. He says his blog has inspired countless people to unlock their true happiness and to realize their aspirations through intentionally owning less. Becker is also the bestselling author of Clutterfree with Kids and other books including Living With Less: An Unexpected Key to Happiness.

Becker sits down with Full Frame host Mike Walter to talk about the joys of a minimalist life and puts a new twist on why the best things in life really are free.

Follow Joshua Becker on Twitter: @joshua_becker

A Recipe for a Simple Life

Millburn & Nicodemus

 

While many are fervently in pursuit of “the American Dream,” Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are advocating for something different – the individual dream. Not one filled with things, but experiences.

Millburn and Nicodemus are the embodiment of the minimalist lifestyle. They stripped down their lives to embrace the things that truly made them happy. They own less – less than 300 things – and live more.

But just a few years ago, their lives couldn’t have looked any different. They were doing what all other millennials thought they should be doing to be successful – climbing the corporate ladder and buying sprawling condos and designer clothes. But Millburn and Nicodemus say that instead of experiencing the joy and happiness of the American Dream, they were miserable.

Millburn and Nicodemus say that the secret to finding their own vision of happiness – not the story sold by corporations – is to live deliberately and intention-driven lives.

Millburn and Nicodemus now tour the world and share their stories on their blog, The Minimalists. They are the authors of Everything That Remains, their most recent book, and will also release their first documentary later this year.
Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus join Mike Walter from Montana to share their recipe for happiness and give you some ingredients to embark on your own minimalist life.

Follow Joshua Fields Millburn on Twitter: @JFM
Follow Ryan Nicodemus on Twitter: @RyanNicodemus
Follow the Minimalists on Twitter: @TheMinimalists

Decluttered and healthy with Courtney Carver

Courtney Carver 1

Minimalism is about living with less, simplifying your life, and finding happiness. But what about health benefits – can minimalism improve your physical body as well as your psyche?

Like many other Americans, Courtney Carver was stressed and overworked – shopping for fun, constantly accumulating things. The debt, she says, piled up, only adding to her stress.

But after receiving a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 2006, Carver decided she needed to change her life.

She started with her diet, removing the foods that put stress on her body to improve her health. This quickly expanded to all aspects of her life, minimalizing furniture and the family debt. With her new minimalist lifestyle, her stress quickly faded and Carver says she is now healthier than ever.

She runs Be Less with More, a simple living website, where she helps readers become a minimalist in their own way. Minimalism, she say, looks different for everyone.

Courtney Carver sits down with Mike Walter to discuss the hidden medicine of living a simple life. Check out this week’s episode of Full Frame to learn Courtney Carver’s seven simple steps to becoming a minimalist.

Follow Courtney Carver on Twitter: @bemorewithless

Zero Waste with Bea Johnson

Bea Johnson Waste 2

How much do you throw away each year? How about each day? The numbers are mind boggling. But what if the waste you produced in a single year fit into a quart size jar? That’s what one family of four is doing.

Bea Johnson takes “reduce, reuse, and recycle” to an entirely new level. She brings her own bags and jars to the grocery store, making sure to only shop in what she calls the unprocessed perimeter of the store. She makes her own household cleaning products and even her own makeup.

Johnson started her path towards a zero waste lifestyle in 2008. Now, she recycles and reuses as much as she can, composting the rest. In one year, her family threw away only a few fruit stickers, an old passport cover, and other miscellaneous objects that couldn’t be recycled or re-purposed – less waste than most of us generate in a single day.

With a little effort, this lifestyle, she says, has come to her family at no cost. In fact, minimalism is forcing her family to save money.

Seeing the numerous benefits on the wallet as well as the environment, Johnson encourages others to take on the minimalist and zero waste lifestyle. She is the author of Zero Waste Home.

Tune into this week’s Close Up as Bea Johnson gives Full Frame a tour of a zero waste life.

Follow Bea Johnson on Twitter: @zerowastehome