What does it mean to live more with less? I'm Katie Wells and welcome to the Maximized Minimalist

podcast. If you found yourself caught up in the hamster wheel of modern day motherhood and want to

rewrite the script, congratulations you're in the right place. I'm here to be your guide and help you take

back your motherhood

and achieve a simpler, more joy-filled life. Cheers to being a maximized minimalist. Enjoy the show.

Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the maximized minimalist. Katie Wells here,

and today we are going to continue the theme of this month, which is identifying and

reframing with today's focus on retail therapy. So if you've been tempted in the past to

shop, just so you can reduce your stress, you know, some would call this retail therapy.

Oh my gosh, wow, you are not alone. I'm raising both my hands

here. I mentioned back in April, kind of after the pandemic was unfolding, when I hit one of my

first, like, rough moments as I was processing everything and just dealing with it all and kind of

the new normal, just with what was unfolding in the world. I mentioned on my

social media, like, I felt like I was reverting back to, like, my old self, like my default

settings, which were pre-minimalist. And that was this. I was just so stressed out and overwhelmed.

During that time, like my new jerk reaction became to pick up my phone and want to tap by now on my screen

and buy something just to help me cope and ultimately to serve as a distraction from the way I was

feeling and just to give me that dopamine hit, make me feel good for a hot second,

and anything, honestly, to get me away from just this constant doom and gloom,

which was happening back then. And I think in a lot of cases, it's still happening now in August, right?

I remember sitting on the couch in my house. And I think, you know, I was on social media,

I'm sure which was started it. I saw a news article. My heart began to beat faster. I felt the

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