Show Notes
In this episode of Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice, Patricia and Nicole discuss their recent efforts to declutter their home, reflecting on the emotional and practical benefits of letting go of unnecessary items. They explore the challenges of self-imposed responsibility, the importance of delegating tasks, and the psychological costs of feeling obligated to keep everyone informed and cared for. The hosts also share personal stories, listener interactions, and encourage their audience to be kind to themselves, delegate when possible, and find joy in small accomplishments.
Mentioned on the show:
- Bookshop Affiliate Storefront (links below are affiliate)
- Become a patron! Patreon.com/eedapod
- Subscribe to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice Newsletter
- Our merch shop is open!
- EEDA Newsletter Vol 6, Res 26: LGBTQ+ Marriage Rights & Ambient Radio
- EEDA Newsletter Volume 3, Issue 2: Does It Have to Be You?
- EEDA Pod: Ways to Think About Time Anxiety
Find the full show notes and official transcript on our website: eedapod.com
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Sound editing by Jen Zink
Transcript
Music: [Intro Music]
Patricia: Hey there, everypony! Welcome to Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice, the podcast for folks who would rather curl into the fetal position than lean in. I’m your host, Patricia Elzie-Tuttle.
Nicole: And I know August is still technically summer, but spiritually it’s the start of autumn. I’m Nicole Elzie-Tuttle.
We’re recording the show on August 16th, 2025.
Patricia: Reminder upfront, this podcast is independently run and we’re hoping to be supported by listeners. Downloading, sharing, and giving us reviews and ratings are free ways to show us support. If you have a few bucks to donate, our Patreon memberships start at $3 a month. Even if you don’t wanna engage with the content there, it’s a way to donate to the show regularly. No pressure. There are three tiers to choose from.
Nicole: And if you’re looking for another way to support the show, any books we mention can be purchased from bookshop.org through our affiliate link. And we have a special shelf there for all the books we’ve ever mentioned on the show. You can find a link to that in the show notes or from our website.
Patricia: Yeah.
And finally we got the merch shop opened. You can find a link to the shop on our webpage at eadapod.com, and there are three things in there right now and I’m looking forward to adding more.
Nicole: Are they all stickers?
Patricia: Well, one is our cool rainbow, like, window prism.
Nicole: Right.
Patricia: And then the other two are stickers.
Nicole: And the stickers each have some glittery reflectiveness to them?
Patricia: I think one’s like holo, like holo reflective, and then one’s holo glitter.
Nicole: Yes. So everything is sparkles and rainbows.
Patricia: Absolutely.
Also, we are working on something new for the show, so we would like you to email us the self-help books you love or hate, and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com, we would like to know.
Nicole: Oh, what did we do recently? Oh, we walked all around San Francisco the other day.
Patricia: Yeah, we took BART in, we walked from the ferry building at the water. We walked along the water and then up into North Beach, the Italian neighborhood. We went to a bookstore and I got a copy of The Hunger Games in Italian so I could prac… like it’s a book I’ve read a number of times already, so I’d like to practice.
Nicole: And this was not just like you discovered a copy of The Hunger Games in Italian. There is legitimately an Italian language bookstore in North Beach.
Patricia: Yeah.
Where there’s aisles of books in Italian. So they’re either Italian books or books in translation.
Nicole: Yeah.
It was really cool to see that. Cause for listeners who aren’t familiar with San Francisco geography, North Beach is where the Little Italy neighborhood is.
Patricia: Basically, yeah.
Nicole: And it is a historic Italian neighborhood.
Patricia: Mm-hmm.
Nicole: With all kinds of great food. There was a Italian deli there, right? Which we can get…
Patricia: Yeah.
You know, there used to be a lot more delis, but Molinari’s is still the one, the main one now. And so we walked up there and got some great balsamic.
Nicole: Cause they’re not just serving up deli meats and sandwiches. They have like a lot of imported food stuffs as well.
Patricia: Yeah. Groceries.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah. Although the line is really long for the sandwiches, by the way.
Nicole: It’s a, it’s a take a number system.
Patricia: It is, yeah.
Nicole: Another thing we’ve been doing, and this has been really satisfying. We’ve been doing some cleaning and decluttering lately.
Patricia: Yeah. It finally got to the point of where I was just like, ugh, I’m tired of my own BS. And so we did. We started with a pantry clean out.
Nicole: Which was very satisfying.
Patricia: Very satisfying, and also very sad because I was like, wow, I didn’t even know we had this, and now it’s expired and… Kind of just like a little down on myself for like buying all these things and then not actually eating them.
So I did take a picture of all the things that we had to dispose of so that I could remind myself at the grocery store to not just grab things.
Nicole: Yeah, maybe adjusting away from kind of a, like, this looks good, I want to try it
Patricia: mm-hmm
Nicole: and then just stashing it in the cabinet.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And more towards like, okay, even though these chips look good, I have a bag of chips I haven’t finished at home, so I don’t need chips right now.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Kind of attitude and just buying things like that as we need them.
Patricia: Totally. Yeah. Trying to be more responsible and, and like you were also mentioning, trying to have more of a plan because like we have a number of like marinades for chicken that are still good, but I just kind of bought them because I quote unquote, like to have them on hand, and instead having more of a plan
Nicole: yeah
Patricia: for them.
Nicole: Like, okay, maybe we’ll get marinade if we’re getting chicken
Patricia: yeah
Nicole: to marinate it in.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And not just having three bottles.
Patricia: I think that one of the other things we’ve been doing is I’ve mentioned before, I’ve gone through a lot of books and we’ve actually been getting books out of the house. Whether they are selling to the used bookstore or giving to… One of my friends took them, they, they live in a neighborhood where there are a lot of little free libraries, so they are setting the books free that are…
Nicole: Y’all, this has been really satisfying as the stacks of books are leaving the nest.
Patricia: Yes.
Nicole: They’re, they’re fledging. They are.
Patricia: And then the other thing we did is we went through the record collection.
Nicole: Oh yeah.
Patricia: And this was mostly you.
Nicole: Yeah, this was mostly me and this was a lot of records I inherited. So these were like my father’s and my stepmother’s. I think there’s some that were, my mothers in there, probably a couple others around, who knows. And we’ve gone through these in a couple of passes over the last several years and slowly weeded out ones. So we did another pass the other weekend, got rid of things that we just, we knew we weren’t gonna listen to.
We didn’t have an interest in listening to them. And it turns out your cousin and her family love just listening to random records.
Patricia: But also they really liked the thing like we were getting rid of Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Loggins and Messina. All the places. America, Alabama, Kansas.
Nicole: All the travel.
Patricia: Someone called Honk.
Nicole: Yes, there was a record from a band called Honk.
Patricia: But yeah, we got rid of, well, my cousin took a bunch of records and now we have space and we have some of our records kind of categorized or lumped together. And then we have a couple spots on the shelf where there are records where you decided you want to give it a listen first before you decide what happens to it.
Nicole: Yeah, so, but those used to be all intermixed in. So now they all live together and we can just pull a random record out, listen to it, and decide if this is something we want to keep. Or let it go back out into the universe for someone else to enjoy.
Patricia: Yeah.
A little change of, a little change of mood here.
If you’re listening to this show, you probably know that gay marriage rights are under attack right now and being challenged. We’re not gonna talk a lot about it on the show. We are not lawyers, we are not professionals, even though we have lived experience. But I am a librarian and in one of my most recent newsletter issues, I actually have some resources.
I have an essay by V Spehar about, like, what is going on? Because the attack on gay marriage is also just kind of that on ramp to also do away with interracial marriage. To also criminalize homosexuality. Like it’s not just this one, this one thing. And so there’s an essay that explains a lot of it, and there’s also a podcast episode and a link because there is a lot of paperwork that if you are queer and married, you should have done like a lot of legal paperwork, but also some of that paperwork is important for straight people who are married. Or also important paperwork just for people as individuals, especially like queer folks without children, or even straight folks without children. There’s a lot of end of life paperwork and things you really should have kind of documented.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: So I’m going to link that newsletter issue, which is free, it’s not paywalled. I’m gonna link that in the show notes so that you have access to those resources.
Nicole: On lighter news.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah. Let’s, let’s do that. Let’s, let’s sandwich this. Let’s talk about something fun.
Nicole: Yeah.
We got a new rating on Apple Podcasts!
Patricia: Yay!
Nicole: Thank you to user FrazzledFrizzle for your review and your very kind words
Patricia: and also your great handle.
Nicole: Yeah!
Patricia: Like FrazzledFrizzle. That’s so good.
Nicole: It’s really great. So thank you so much for your review.
Patricia: Yeah, and for listening.
Nicole: And for listening, thank you for being a great listener.
Music: [Transition Music]
Patricia: Today I wanna talk about something that is a struggle for me and other people who are competent, or that were frequently told to make themselves useful growing up. This is also for those of us who successfully keep a lot of plates spinning. I am the kind of person that if I see something that needs to be done and I have the ability to do it, then I do it.
And I know this sounds good on paper, but where this falls apart is that even though I may have the ability to do it, like I’m capable, I may not have the time, uh, the bandwidth, or the spell slots to do the thing.
Nicole: Yeah, there is… This, this says like they say, but I don’t know who they are. Just people. Just because you can do something doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it.
Patricia: Yeah.
I am really working on being better about recognizing kind of the idea, like, this thing needs to be done, or I want this thing to be done, but do I have to be the one to do it?
Nicole: And there’s a real heavy emphasis here on the, do I have to be the one to do it?
Patricia: And sometimes the answer is yes. No one can write my newsletter for me or read books for me, or like, Nicole, you can’t attend my work meetings for me.
Nicole: I’m sure your colleagues would love it at first until I would just kind of be like, okay, yes, I will take a note and, uh, I’ll ask Suzi to get back to you on that, or ask Patricia to get back to you on that.
Patricia: You’re like, remind me how many zeroes is in a million again?
Nicole: This is, is that a quantum number?
And for us, it’s funny, we generally have a clear division of labor in the home, which includes some things you always do and there’s some things I always do and there’s things we do together.
Patricia: Yeah.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I generally handle our administrative duties and finances. But then what I find myself doing, and this is all me, is not asking you to help because I feel like, no, this is my job in our relationship, so I have to do it forever and on my own.
Nicole: As though these are things that I as a fully grown adult am not capable of doing.
Patricia: I don’t know.
Nicole: Nope. I’m just a baby. Can’t do that.
Patricia: Can’t do that.
Nicole: Even though I basically do those things at work a lot.
Patricia: I was going to say like, that’s the hilarious thing.
Nicole: But really what this comes down to is like sometimes we’re just making up arbitrary rules for ourselves.
Patricia: I think that’s actually what like our first episode was about, was about, like, making up arbitrary rules for ourselves.
Nicole: Oh right! Yeah.
Patricia: Uh, my therapist the other day said, we’re often in cages of our own making and we have the ability to open our own doors.
Nicole: Yeah. Open the door to the cage. Let me in, I brought snacks.
Patricia: Let me, I like how you don’t lead me out. You’re like, let me in.
We’re in a cage now.
Nicole: Yeah, it sounds nice. We’ll hang out in the cage together.
Will someone put a blanket over it? That sounds cozy.
Patricia: Oh, you know what? I would love for someone to put a blanket over my cage right now.
My previous therapist, because yes, I’ve been working on this forever, asked me if some of the things on my overflowing to-do list actually need to be done at all, or am I just making homework for myself? Because I love an assignment. I love a little project. I love checking boxes.
Nicole: We talked about this a bit in our episode called Ways to Think About Time Anxiety, and that is if it doesn’t have to be done or doesn’t have to be done by you, can you delegate it to the floor or the trash, or as we like to say, can you delegate it to Oscar the Grouch?
Or if it does have to be done, does it have to be done by you? Like this could be at home, this could be at work.
But recognizing, and I guess when we talk about this like rec, we wanna recognize that some of our listeners may be living solo at home. So, those things are just gonna default to you. So an alternative way of kind of managing this is, do you have any friends who can come over and help with that thing or that you can trade for?
Like, an example would be if you hate folding laundry and they don’t, they can fold your laundry. And if they hate dusting and you don’t, you can go over and dust for them. There’s really no rules to this kind of stuff. Like get rid of those arbitrary rules that we’ve talked about. But this is also a big part of the community building and care we’re always talking about. Things like this don’t always have to be exchanged for money. We can all just show up for, help, care for, and be a part of each other’s lives.
Patricia: Yeah, yeah.
My current therapist gave me a challenge recently, and there was a networking event that I was not putting on, and I was going to be a participant.
She challenged me to just show up and be a participant. No volunteering, no helping set up or take down, and that was really hard. That just goes against everything I know. And I wanted to put out a few caveats. That this is also something really challenging for black and brown femmes who always end up doing a lot of unpaid labor.
And I said I agreed to the challenge only if they didn’t ask for help. Like if there were plenty of other people folding up blankets or picking up garbage, then I could be at peace with that.
Nicole: This is one of those things that kind of depends on context too. Like I think about how in office settings, it’s almost always the women in femmes cleaning up after a potluck, or if there’s one bagel left, making sure it gets thrown away at the end of the day or something like that.
Patricia: Yeah. In those settings, I think about what would happen if the women in femmes just didn’t. Like, just didn’t take on that role of housekeeping if they are actually like their job is not, is not housekeeping.
Nicole: Now there’s a couple of elephants hanging out in the room of this conversation with us, and those are trust and the ability and willingness to release control.
In our relationship, it definitely took a significant amount of time for you to trust me to do certain things, and there are many people out there who cannot trust their roommate or spouse or other family they live with to do some things.
Patricia: Yeah, of course. Like with all self-help, your mileage may vary and we’re all in our own unique situations.
For me, the trust needs to be there before I can even think about releasing control. I remember earlier in the pandemic that one of the things I did to practice releasing control was I had you paint my fingernails, which is something I’m fully capable of doing myself, and I often do. But yeah, I asked you to paint my fingernails.
Nicole: For me a big part of what you’re talking about here comes down to like my level of perfectionism as well. Like, is it something that needs to be done perfectly or does it just need to be done? And if it just needs to be done, can I release control of that to someone I can trust to do it?
Patricia: Yeah. I remember when you first started doing our laundry, uh, folding towels. I would refold.
Nicole: Oh my gosh, you refolded all the towels.
Patricia: All the towels.
Nicole: And I didn’t understand.
Patricia: No, until I was like, hey, I really prefer towels to be folded this way. And then you learned how to fold ’em that way. And…
Nicole: Yeah, it was just the thing. No one had showed me how to fold towels that way.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: And so that’s not how I ever folded towels. And you were like, I want ’em this way.
Okay.
Patricia: Okay, yeah.
Nicole: Like I’m not gonna fight you on how towels are folded, but it’s also a thing I can do.
Patricia: Totally. Yeah.
I think the fascinating thing to me about nail painting, which I did not predict, and yet it makes total sense, is that when you painted my nails you did a much better job than I do.
You are so much more careful with me than I am with myself. I imagine if I painted your nails, it would be the same thing. I know that I am notoriously gentler with and more attentive to other people than I am with myself.
Nicole: You say that, but you have painted my nails before and you did a really great job. You even did some like multicolored striping situation one time.
Patricia: That’s right! I forgot about that!
Nicole: This was back when we were, uh, one of ’em was back when we were going to Disneyland a lot.
Patricia: Yeah, it was for Dapper Day.
Nicole: Dapper Day.
Patricia: Another way in which this kind of self-imposed responsibility for everything shows up is in my identity as The Infophile.
I constantly battle with myself to remind myself that I am not responsible for disseminating information to everyone. It’s also impossible considering the algorithms, and variety of platforms, and not to mention that everyone is even checking Instagram or Bluesky or whatever as much as I am. It is unrealistic for me to expect to be the person that keeps everyone informed about everything all the time in every way.
Also if I, or we, are your only source of information, then that is a you oversight and not a me responsibility.
Nicole: Yeah. That’s aside from being a bad idea, it’s, it’s, it’s really not possible. You are not single handedly responsible for keeping everyone in the loop on everything all the time. You’re not the internet, you’re not Patricia Internet.
Patricia: I did have a horrible ex who used to call me Patty Google, but that’s another story.
Nicole: Oh no.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Who are they? I wanna hurt their feelings or their bones.
Patricia: ¿Por qué no los dos?
Nicole: And we’re obviously not talking about, like, gatekeeping information here, but also we aren’t your town criers.
Patricia: Hear ye, hear ye! Gay marriage is being challenged.
Nicole: Clang, clang. Clang, clang. Clang, clang.
Patricia: Like what?
We’re also not everyone’s teachers. Like I’m not just talking about Nicole and I, but also you, even if you’re a teacher in your day job, like you aren’t other people’s, other adults teachers. Like if someone has a lesson to learn, we don’t always have to be the ones to teach them.
Again, context matters. Are they sharing dangerous rhetoric, or are they a harm to themselves or others, or being weird in the family group chat? Sure. You gotta, sometimes you have to be like, you know what, that’s weird. But in general, like we’re not responsible for always teaching everyone everything.
Nicole: Sorry, I love that as just a response to people sometimes, of just like, that’s a weird thing to say.
Patricia: Absolutely. That’s a weird thing to say. That’s a, that’s an interesting thing to be confident saying out loud.
Nicole: What we haven’t said yet, and it needs to be a part of this conversation, is that a lot of this also comes at a cost, and that’s, you know, a psychological cost, an emotional cost. It can, it can cost you spell slots if you will. Not only is this cost coming from, you know, the horrors of being informed about everything that’s happening right now. But feeling like you and you alone are responsible for making sure other people know that information as well.
Patricia: I know that the pandemic and now the current administration has exacerbated this for me. It’s a recurring panic to feel like I need to keep everyone safe.
Nicole: Yeah, I learned this one the hard way in the 2016-2020 presidential era.
I really hurt myself at that time.
Patricia: Yeah,
Nicole: I was, by the end of 2019, 2020, I was, I was not doing so well in some aspects of my mental health trying to, trying to stay on top of things and trying to make sure I had all the information I needed to protect us.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: It was hard.
Patricia: And impossible.
Nicole: And impossible.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Yeah.
The thing is, like this information thing, it needs to work in multiple directions. It cannot be just one person, and this again comes back to community, right? It is not your job to keep everyone else safe. We all work together to keep each other safe.
Patricia: Yeah, someone very wise asked me, but okay, who does all this for you?
And thankfully, my answer isn’t no one. And at the same time, it’s a reality check to be gentler with myself. And I encourage everyone to ask yourself that question when you are going above and beyond. Who do you have that does that for you?
Nicole: And after you ask that question, make sure you’re sharing the load of whatever it is you’re doing.
That labor, that mental labor, that, those little bit of household chores, like…
Patricia: Yeah, start there.
Nicole: Share it around.
Patricia: Yeah.
Music: [Transition Music]
Nicole: Okay Patricia, what’s your takeaway for this episode? What do you want our listeners to walk away from this discussion remembering?
Patricia: I think it’s a recurring theme that mostly for my black and brown women and femmes, we don’t have to be the ones to do everything. We do not have to save everyone.
How about you, Nicole? What do you, what takeaway do you want people to have?
Nicole: I want people to remember that it’s okay to delegate things to the floor. Let Oscar take care of it. If it doesn’t have to be done, it’s okay to let it go sometimes.
Patricia: Yeah.
Nicole: Alright, that feels like it got heavy at the end.
Patricia: It did. Did. I think we’re all doing a lot.
Nicole: We are all doing a lot. Yeah. What have you been doing that’s been filling your cup?
Patricia: You know what, my cousin came over the day and I got to spend time with my cousin. I have, I have like 10,000 cousins, but one of my cousins came over and we hung out and she actually, like I said, took those records and a few other things.
Some of my mom’s stuff that we were getting rid of, and speaking of which, I think the decluttering has helped fill my cup because I feel lighter. Like I’m still looking over at like our pantry cabinet or whatever, cause we don’t have like a actual pantry room, we just have like a cabinet with stuff in it and then on top of it. But it’s all organized right now and it brings me a lot of peace just to look at it.
Nicole: Yeah, I feel like it was something people talked about a bit like during the lockdown era of COVID, thinking about ourselves, kind of like we’re, we’re zoo animals and our exhibit and like our exhibit’s overcrowded. Our enclosure, our enclosure is a bit cluttered and it is causing us stress.
Patricia: Yeah.
So let’s take care of our enclosure. Add some enrichment.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Nicole, what’s been filling your cup?
Well, I guess it’s enrichment. Um, but I think last episode I talked about how I did some gardening. I replanted where my chaos garden lives, and in the last like week or so. The plants that were potted that I stuck in the ground have gotten over their transplant stress and they are just like vibrant and coming to life and throwing out flowers and they’re just very happy.
And that has brought me a lot of joy because these are plants I’ve cared for for a couple years in pots and it worried me a little to see them stressed out when I put them in the ground, but now they’re so happy and so green and like, that’s been bringing me a lot of joy.
Yeah. One of them I think, is it the sticky monkey flower?
Nicole: Yeah, it’s a hybrid sticky monkey flower.
Patricia: Right. So what happened was you bought it from the nursery and you immediately put it in the ground and it lost all its flowers.
Nicole: Lost its flowers. It dropped some leaves.
Patricia: It dropped some leaves, and it was just kind of chilling for a while.
Nicole: It was a little brown.
Patricia: But now it’s just bursting with flowers again.
Nicole: Yeah.
Every day I go out and there’s like at first there was one flower and then like the next day there were like two or three more, and the day after that there were like four or five more and it’s just like every day throwing out exponentially more flowers. Or I don’t know, geometrically more flowers? I’m not really sure.
Patricia: Math is hard.
Nicole: Yeah.
Patricia: Well, that’s our show for today. We’d like to thank our awesome audio editor, Jen Zink. You can find her at loopdilou.com. We’ll leave a link to that in our show notes.
Nicole: You can find the full show notes and transcript at eedapod.com. That’s E-E-D-A-P-O-D dot com. There you can also find a link to our Patreon, our bookshop link, and a link to the ongoing Enthusiastic Encouragement and Dubious Advice newsletter. You can also find us on Instagram and Bluesky at eedapod and email us at eedapod at gmail dot com.
Patricia: We are nothing if not consistent.
Nicole: We would also appreciate it so much if you would subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or YouTube or wherever else you get your podcasts that allow for ratings, it really goes far in helping other people find us.
And also, thanks again to FrazzledFrizzle for their review on Apple Podcasts. If you would like to leave us a comment, you can do so at any of the places that we named, or you can email us and make sure you tell us what kind of potatoes you like.
Patricia: Yeah. Oh, and also tell us about, uh, the self-help books that you like.
Nicole: Oh!
Patricia: Or dislike.
Nicole: Yes. Tell us about your favorite or least favorite self-help books.
Patricia: Yeah.
We would also appreciate anyone who can subscribe to us on Patreon. Support is going to help us keep the show going, especially without ads. You can find us at patreon.com/eedapod.
In the meantime, we hope you find ways to be kind to yourself, drink some water and read a book.
We’ll be talking to you soon.
Nicole: I kind of wanna just, like, delegate myself to Oscar. Hear me out.
Patricia: Oscar, take the wheel.
Nicole: Did you ever see Oscar’s house?
Patricia: No, I didn’t.
Nicole: It’s not just a garbage can down there. Like he’s got, it’s like a TARDIS in there.
Patricia: It’s a TARDIS, yeah.
Nicole: Like there’s a whole home down… It’s not a garbage house, it’s a garbage home.
Patricia: Oh my god.