Latest / Motherhood Uncut / Courtney Florey on Decluttering your Home (and life!) | Motherhood Uncut Podcast | Season 5 Episode 9

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Courtney Florey on Decluttering your Home (and life!) | Motherhood Uncut Podcast | Season 5 Episode 9 · Motherhood Uncut

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's Kate Kripke and welcome to the Motherhood Uncut podcast.
0:04
SPEAKER_01: Here we are committed to making sure that nobody ever needs to mother alone.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: We bring to you wherever you are the conversations that we need to have to survive and thrive in motherhood, but so often keep silent about.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: The things that make us laugh, cry, celebrate, rage about, and reflect on.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: The things that bring tears of sorrow and tears of joy, confusion and wonder, fear and gratitude.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: We want you to feel good about your mothering and to feel supported along the often clunky adventure of life as a mom.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: In Motherhood Uncut, you can expect eye-opening conversations with experts in parenting, mental health, and women's health, as well as moving and inspiring conversations with moms who are out there paving the way for their children.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: You'll likely agree with some of what you hear and also disagree with some of what you hear.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: All we ask is this that you come with an open mind and boatloads of compassion for yourself and mothers everywhere.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: Pull up a chair, pour yourself a glass of wine or a cup of tea, put on your walking or running shoes, turn up the volume in your car during your commute or the pickup line at school.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Just show up and mother with us.
1:11
SPEAKER_01: We have got you.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: Today I dive deep into internal and external clutter with mom and declutter coach Courtney Flory.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Today we attempt to unravel the interplay between internal and external chaos and what to do about it.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: I'm Kate Kripke and this is the Motherhood Uncut Podcast.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Glad you're here.
1:59
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2:32
SPEAKER_01: Hi, Courtney.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: Hi.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Mothering Uncut Motherhood, Uncut Podcast.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, listeners, I have Courtney Flory here.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: She is a decluttering coach and she helps modern women declutter their homes and live lighter, which by the way, just makes me feel lighter when I hear that entire title.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Courtney is also a mom.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: And I would love for us just to start, Courtney, by you telling us a little bit about you.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: How old are your kids?
3:04
SPEAKER_01: In like a nutshell, although maybe we will take this off in some direction.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: What has your process of becoming a mom been like for you?
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Let's just get to know you before we jump into this whole question about clutter in motherhood.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: So my son Lane is 15 months old.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: So I'm still a fairly new mom.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, this journey, man, it has been, I've learned so much in motherhood and, you know, in the work that I do serving moms.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I served moms before I even was a mom.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And I had this interesting, um, I had an interesting journey because I was a nanny for years.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, probably about five years.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I worked very closely with moms and their kids and their homes, right?
3:55
SPEAKER_00: Because I was there.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that definitely prepared me uh, you know, as much as I could.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Gave me um, you know, a little bit more than I would have had, um, not having done that when I did become a mom.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: And I I nanny'd for several years for a family with four boys.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: And so it was like when I found out I was having a boy, I was like, of course I am, you know, it of course.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a, you know, I'm I was destined to be a boy mom.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, oh my goodness.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: He and you know, the toddler, the toddler phase, full force, just you know, rough and humble, all the things it is, he keeps me on my toes, that's for sure.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: So I, yeah.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: One of the ways or the way, Courtney, that you and I connected initially was on Instagram, right?
4:43
SPEAKER_01: Because we both serve this same community, right?
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Those busy, modern, often high-achieving women who are really struggling in this adjustment to motherhood, or even if they have older kids, it's like the how the heck do I keep my head above water when there's all this stuff happening?
5:02
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I'm so excited to dive in with you today is this question about where do where does external and internal chaos overlap, right?
5:13
SPEAKER_01: What does it look like to be matching the getting those things into congruence so that we feel better?
5:19
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that in a moment.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: But I guess I'm curious for you, when you actually became a mom, so you, I'm sure you were so good at organizing that nanny as a nanny, so good at organizing that home and keeping everything sane.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: But what was the biggest surprise for you when you became a mom yourself about what motherhood is really like?
5:41
SPEAKER_01: Because we don't know till we get there.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: I think learning really learning how to be a mom.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Learning like what, you know, what does that even mean?
5:56
SPEAKER_00: We don't know, right, until we're doing it.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: I think we hear all of the things, you know, you can read all the books, right?
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Listen to all the podcasts, and get, you know, acquire all this head knowledge, but you're not doing it until you're doing it, right?
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And figuring out, okay, what's gonna work for me.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, of course, doing it together with, you know, my spouse, parenting together, figuring out what that looks like, figuring out, you know, learning my son and what he needs.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And just it, it's yeah, I didn't, I just think that's it's really not anything you can prepare for until you're like in the trenches doing it, figuring it out.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you hear that said all the time.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: I remember I would hear like, you know, moms of 10 plus years say, I still don't know what I'm doing, you know, I'm just figuring it out.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And that it's so true.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: It's so true.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: It's so funny when you're when I hear you talking about this.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like if there's a difference between doing and being in motherhood.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: And I think if you're a nanny, which so many people have experienced either babysitting or taking care of their siblings or being a you know, more of a full-time nanny for people, most of what you're doing in those roles is doing.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: You're providing child care, you're making dinner, you're cleaning up after dinner, you're drive, you know, you're getting kids or picking them up from activities, right?
7:23
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of doing involved.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: But what we don't know is what it feels like to be a mom, which is way beyond the doing, because that's the the mental load, the emotions, all that stuff that if you're taking care of someone else's kids, you don't feel that crap.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: That is not yours.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: That is that mom's, right?
7:45
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's the fun part about being a nanny, right?
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Is you do, you know, you have the fun times, and of course, you know, you clean up the messes and you know, negotiate the fights and all the things.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And so there's that.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: But you know, at at five o'clock or whatever time it is like you're going home, you can say, see you later, and you can go and you know, do whatever.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: But when your mom, it's like, you know, you can clock out maybe at you know, 7:30.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll see.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I talk about on this podcast in my work all the time, and I guess I'm I think we're maybe moving into this question of clutter.
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, what do we even mean by clutter?
8:21
SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that I talk a lot about is how unpredictability, uncertainty, messiness, chaos, it comes with the territory.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: We can't do ourselves out of that.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: We can't plan our way out of that, right?
8:37
SPEAKER_01: We can't problem solve our way out of that because those things just are inherent in the motherhood experience.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: So I think one of the things that many of us who are sort of more who are who are doers, right?
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Or who live in our head or who are problem solvers spend a lot of time thinking about what I can do to make the unpredictable predictable, to make the uncertain certain, to make the messy organized, to make the chaotic calm.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Now I have a perspective on this, which is to say we can't.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Those things will come along for the ride.
9:22
SPEAKER_01: We can manage, we can there, you know, there are some things we can control.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to talk about what control looks like when it comes to organizing our homes and our lives, but we can have control over some things, but not everything.
9:34
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm curious for you and your life.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: This is a big question.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually really putting you on the spot here as I say it out loud, but how have you navigated those things?
9:46
SPEAKER_01: The uncertainty, the unpredictability, the chaos, the mess, like not the mess in the kitchen that goes away when you clean the kitchen, but the mess in life with young children.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: It's messy, right?
10:02
SPEAKER_01: It's clunky.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: How have you navigated those things?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: I think we have good friendships with moms who are in the same season of life.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: We're we're a military family, so we move, you know, and so meeting new people, you know, it we have to reestablish these friendships where we go.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have a great friend who is also a military spouse who has kids, you know, two kids around the same age, and just having someone to not, you know, so many different things either meet up and we walk or walk, just put the kids in the shoulder, let's walk and talk.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, process.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, I'm a verbal processor.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, being able to just talk, yeah, talk through things.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, motherhood, marriage, whatever, what life, whatever it might be.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, or picking up the phone and sending an audio message.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: It's too funny, you know, in the kitchen, kids like, hey, just you know, sending you this quick memo, just in the um just real life, you know, real, real things like that.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, getting outside, I know I mentioned walking, but fresh air, you know, moving, moving your body, that has helped a lot too.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, and reading my Bible for me brings a lot of peace as well in those moments where, like you had said, it's like so many things feel out of control, things feel messy.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: What can I what can I control or where can I ground myself and find some peace amidst the chaos?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: The chaos.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's fascinating data out there.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: I've talked about this on the podcast, uh, about the role that spirituality plays in mental health and well-being.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: And spirituality can be religious faith and practice, or it can be time in nature or meditation, right?
11:48
SPEAKER_01: But that having something, Bible, meditation, nature, mantra, whatever it is, to help us feel held in something larger than us when life is so chaotic is incredibly useful, preventative for things like depression and anxiety, and useful in grounding symptoms of depression and anxiety.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I think that's a whole topic in and of itself.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, but there is so much we can't control in motherhood that having a sense of it's going to be okay.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: I am okay.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm being held in something is so useful for folks.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Um let's really talk.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Let's dive in right now to this idea of clutter.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I think a lot of our listeners will be able to relate to, I certainly can, is that well, I'm gonna start by telling you a story.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: When my children were babies, they're now 15 and 17, but when they were babies, we did a remodel in our home.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And my husband, who's an artist, wanted, and I was like, fine, I just didn't feel like you know, whatever, to paint our walls museum grade flat white paint.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so for folks that don't know, museum grade flat white means you can't wash it off, right?
13:22
SPEAKER_01: It like you wash it and it gives a mark.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So it's like museum quality.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: And um, we had two young children.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: And you know what that means.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: That means that very quickly there were a lot of fingerprints over everything, and it became the walls became for me my um red flag as to how I was doing mentally.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: Because some days I would walk through the door and all I would see is the fingerprints on the wall.
13:55
SPEAKER_01: That's all I would see.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: And I would frenetically try to get them all, try to clean it in whatever way I could, make sure all my my kids' hands were clean so they wouldn't leave any other fingertips, like fingerprints, like make sure there was no food being in.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, kind of micromanaging in order to feel like the walls were being kept clean.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: On the days when I was resourced, I wouldn't notice.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: And so my early red flag for how I was doing mentally and internally was how much attention am I playing, paying to the fingerprints on the walls.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, I think I use that example just as this thing that can happen, which is that so many of the women who I work with will be feeling anxious, will be feeling overwhelmed, will be feeling frenetic, and they will automatically go into doing mode to try to get everything done, to try to organize the home.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Which can feel great temporarily.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I would say it's probably not sustainable organization, right?
15:07
SPEAKER_01: Because these moms tend to be all or nothing thinkers too, but it's right.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: So it helps temporarily, but it doesn't last both because we know what it's like to have a small child, you put all the toys away and two minutes later they're on the floor again.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't last because if there's something that's frenetic inside, we will see the outside environment as frenetic and disorganized and messy.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: So I guess I want to introduce this conversation or this part of our conversation from that place.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm so curious to know what your thoughts are on that, given your work, given your coaching.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: How do you make sense of this internal and external uh connection between how organized we feel and grounded we feel or how messy and chaotic we feel?
16:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I see a lot of women who are feel like they're drowning in clutter and a lot of the times they don't even get to or they haven't yet gotten to organizing or even doing it.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Like they know that they need to, they want to, but they're so stuck in they're either you know, feeling paralyzed because they just have so much stuff and they have no idea where to start, or they feel like they I mean, there's so many things, you know, they don't they feel like they don't have the time, they're not energized, it seems boring.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sometimes it's like another thing to do, right?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: It's another thing to do at the end of a long day.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, ex yeah, 100%.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for a lot of the women that I work with some of them, and I will say too, some of them have tried organizing, and just to and just to clarify too, so organizing and decluttering are almost one and the same, but I do define them differently.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Organizing in in the way that I talk about it, and what'll most people do is you know, putting things in bins and baskets and and putting it away, making it look nice, cleaning up, but decluttering is what we really focus on, where it's getting rid of the stuff, right?
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And so just to clarify that when I'm talking about it, there are a lot of women who will say, I tried to organize, I went out, I spent hundreds of dollars on bins and baskets and you know, did the thing and put everything away.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: And what happened?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Just like you said, you know, little two-year-old came out and dumped on the floor, or hey, I needed to find something, so I had to dig through everything and now everything's out again.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: It's like it, and they'll just say, It's just not for me, or you know, I'll never be an organized person, or I'm just not organized enough.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And what I always love saying is you actually don't have to get organized, you just have to get rid of some of your stuff because when you have fewer things, you have less to manage.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Now, that doesn't mean you're not gonna ever have mess in your home again, because sometimes we'll think, oh, if I just declutter, then I'll never have to, you know, pick up again.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And that's just not true.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: But it becomes a lot easier.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And the physical load, but your mental load is also lighter too, because you're not looking around at all the piles and the boxes and everything, thinking, okay, tonight, you know, I have to do this, or trying to rest, you know, put the kids down, you're trying to rest, but you're looking around, feeling like you can't.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: This is me.
18:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: If there's dishes in the scene, you know, some it's like, no, I need to do everything before I can rest.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: I cannot rest until those things are done because I'm thinking about it.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: I know it's, you know, I'm looking at it, I know it's there.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what happens a lot of time with clutter when we see it visually, and then we just, you know, it doesn't go away.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, it's not checked off that list until it's done.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it's so overwhelming, and then it's like, where do I even start?
19:15
SPEAKER_01: I I love so much about what you're saying.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: You talked about feeling paralyzed, which I think is a feeling that many of our listeners will be able to relate to.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, again, from a psychological perspective, paralysis is a physiological and brain response to threat.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: Fight, flight, freeze.
19:39
SPEAKER_01: Paralysis is freeze.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: And so what we want to remember is that that feeling of paralysis that happens when we look around and don't know where to start is that something in our thoughts is telling us something bad is happening here.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: Something dangerous is happening.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And again, we're not thinking in those words necessarily, but I do want to sort of remind our listeners, because I think this is a place that you and I can blend our expertise.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: We want to remind our listeners that that feeling of paralysis is coming as a threat response to something.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: So, what we want to be asking ourselves is what are we feeling threatened by?
20:17
SPEAKER_01: Are we telling ourselves that?
20:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, one thing we could be telling ourselves is I'm not an organized person.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm not organized enough.
20:26
SPEAKER_01: That kind of self criticism, it's not my home is disorganized, I am disorganized.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: That's going to trigger a threat response, right?
20:38
SPEAKER_01: Having a disorganized home doesn't have to be a crisis because there's something that we can actually do about that, which is where you come in.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: I am a disorganized person.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: Now we're talking about our sense of self.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what I want to really help our listeners be clear on.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: That I'm a disorganized person, cleaning the putting the toys in the bins and reorganizing your closet is not gonna help with that.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: It might help temporarily, but if you still, if we still believe that it's me that's disorganized, we're gonna keep trying to organize things and it's gonna be like being a you know a gerbil on a treadmill.
21:24
SPEAKER_01: The moment we can understand that there's a difference between those two things, if we have a disorganized home or a cluttered home, we can do something about that.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: And you and I are gonna talk about that in a moment.
21:36
SPEAKER_01: What can people do?
21:39
SPEAKER_01: If the idea or the thought is I am disorganized, or I am cluttered inside, cleaning up the dishes, organizing the juncture is not going to help that in a sustainable way.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
21:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: So it's a really interesting place to.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Get curious and to ask our listeners to get curious.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: So I also love the distinction you're making between organizing and decluttering because I mean how often is it that we just acquire so much shit at this stage of our life?
22:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's the other thing is that we can feel pretty bad, anxious, lonely, irritated, despairing, and think, I just need that thing, and then I'll feel better.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: So what do you talk to us more about what it means from your perspective to declutter an environment, your environment?
22:47
SPEAKER_00: So what I've learned over the years is that it's less about rules or following a specific method or system and more about honestly, I mean, it's for some people it might feel a little loosey-goosey, or you know, what do you mean?
23:07
SPEAKER_00: It really is about just getting rid of stuff.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have learned, and you know, what I teach is how to make decluttering simple.
23:16
SPEAKER_00: Let's not overcomplicate things.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: We do that enough, as is, you know, I'm great at that sometimes.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, wait, I have to remind myself.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: No, keep it simple.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, why are we making this so much harder than it has to be?
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And we do this a lot of the time with decluttering, other things too, where we make it out to be this big thing in our head, right?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: We keep pushing it off.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: I'll do it later.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: I can't, it's too much.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: When in reality, if we took small steps, you know, we could actually make a lot of progress, but we can get into that um later.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: So, what does it look like to declutter your environment?
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So instead of focusing on having a certain amount of things, because there are some people who might recommend, you know, give kind of more like hard rules, you know, three pairs of jeans, 10 tops, you know, and that can just feel unattainable.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: And I think for a lot of people, they feel like they either will never be organized or they could never be a minimalist, or they could never declutter because the rule, the rules just feel too strict, or it just doesn't feel like something they could do.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: It's really rigid.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: That type of thinking is so rigid.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: And from where I sit in the mental health field, any rigid thinking is a sign of anxiety.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: So only five pairs of this, get rid of all of this.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: I should do this, I shouldn't do that.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: That to me is a symptom or a sign that someone's feeling a lot of internal anxiety, right?
24:53
SPEAKER_01: It's so interesting as I hear you talking.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that can be really useful for people is to ask this very important question, which is what's the difference between wanting something and needing something?
25:10
SPEAKER_01: So to truly declutter, if we were gonna really declutter in a rigid way, which we are not advising people to do, someone might say, I'm gonna get rid of everything that I don't need, that I that I that I don't need, right?
25:25
SPEAKER_01: So anything that's a want and not a need, I'm gonna get rid of.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna leave us with very few things.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: We actually don't need a lot, right?
25:34
SPEAKER_01: I think that question, do I need this thing or do I want this thing is an important question.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: By the way, it's okay to keep something or buy something because you want it.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: But what happens, I think, in this time of life is that because we don't, or this time 2024, because we don't know how to sit with the deep discomfort that's happening inside, we buy into consumerism.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: And we think, well, I want to feel good, so I'm gonna buy that thing because I think it's gonna make me feel better.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: And then it might make us feel better for a day, but then we're right back to where we were, and then we just have that thing on the shelf somewhere.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I can talk what's coming up for you.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is something that I talk about a lot uh in just yeah, the work that I do, because you can get rid of all of this stuff, but if you don't check your habit of consume, you know, uh consuming, shopping, bringing things in, then you just end up where you started.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I'll have people say, you know, I decluttered and you know, it's been a month and now I have more.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: And you know, so it's not always shopping, sometimes it's just life.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you bring things into the house, you know, that happens.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: But um a lot of the time it is I will ask, okay, what are your spending habits like?
26:53
SPEAKER_00: What are you buying?
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're right, it's so it's tough.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: It's almost so tempting.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, social media, ads everywhere, TV.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what what have you?
27:03
SPEAKER_00: I think for a lot of my clients, it's it's social media, it's Instagram.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: We see the ads or influencers or just people sharing stuff, and we think, oh my gosh, that looks awesome.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: I want to try that.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a want, sometimes it's simply I, and we don't always realize it.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: But when you get to the root, sometimes it's a lot deeper.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Like I want to fit in, I want to belong, I want to feel confident in my body, and so I'm gonna, you know, get this, get these clothes.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I don't want to feel like an outsider.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: And those are needs, belonging, confidence, security.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: Those are needs.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: And it's so interesting how we can say, we might even use this word, oh my gosh, I need that.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: We see an ad on Instagram, oh my God, I need that thing.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: And what we're looking for is a feeling, and we're telling ourselves that that thing is going to give us the feeling we're looking for, of belonging, of confidence, of comfort, whatever that is.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: That I think probably is what leads to the most clutter of things in people's lives.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: That we have this knee-jerk reaction that if I buy that thing or have that thing, I will feel the way I'm wanting to feel.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: That's not how it works, at least sustainably.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: Again, don't get me wrong.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: I love how it feels to put on a new sweater.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: But in a week, I'm gonna be telling myself I need another new sweater, right?
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Or whatever the thing is, a new water bottle, a new whatever.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: You contain it's like Target.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: I go into Target and I'm like, I just need to go get toilet paper.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: I swear to you, I see 50 things in that store that I tell myself I need.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Didn't know I needed them until I saw them.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: And I think that you know, those decisions in the moment can cost not just money, it can cost us money, but our time, our energy.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's something that comes up a lot too, is when people are going rid of things, they'll get hung up on, but I spent money on this.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: I bought all these things.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: I feel like if I get rid of these things, I'm throwing the money away.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm wasting the money.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: And I always say the money was spent when you bought the item, when you decided I'm gonna purchase this, when you exchanged your money for the item in the store, that's when you spent it.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Two years later, you know, you haven't used it or whatever, and you're like, okay, I think I need to declutter it, but but I spent the 50 bucks on it.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, you already spent the money.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: You can either, you know, and then we go on to like, if you do you want to take the time to try and resell it and get, you know, 15 bucks for it?
29:58
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think I do.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, you can make a choice.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to hold on to it?
30:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, just almost in either fear or regret, or just feeling like, well, I spent the money and so I can't let it go.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, is that is that serving you?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, is living in that mindset helping, or is it just making you feel anxious?
30:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, you're tripping over stuff, you're coming to me because you're overwhelmed, but you're like, I don't know, I spent the money.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: And so I always encourage my clients to think, okay, yeah, it costs you X amount of dollars, but what else is it costing you?
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Your sanity, your time?
30:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, dealing with it every day, you know, picking up things, like, is that worth it to you?
30:40
SPEAKER_01: We're not taught to ask ourselves this question.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna stay right now with compassion.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Not with blame and shame, but with compassion.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: What part might I be playing in the things that aren't working for me?
30:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling overwhelmed.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling full, I'm feeling paralyzed.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, it's possible that holding on to that thing that you no longer use that you're tripping over every day is part of what's leading to those feelings, right?
31:11
SPEAKER_01: So the question that you what you're talking about is a very similar question that I ask my clients to consider because there's so much we can't control in motherhood or in life that we want to be able to really get so honest, again, with compassion.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: This is not a shame and blame.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: This is not when you blame yourself for having spent the 50 bucks on the thing.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: That's not helpful, but to really ask, how do I want to feel?
31:36
SPEAKER_01: And what are the choices I can make, the thoughts I can engage in, the choices I can make that are gonna get me closer towards that feeling.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: All of our listeners, I'm assuming, will be able to relate to this.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: I want to feel calm.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: I want to feel grounded, I want to feel organized.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: That's different than being organized, by the way, right?
32:01
SPEAKER_01: I want to feel organized.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: So for our listeners, as we talk about this disc the decluttering piece, you know, I think what you and I would agree on, we've talked about this before, is in a in a perfect world when people are really committing to their internal and external health and well-being, they're decluttering both internally and externally, right?
32:29
SPEAKER_01: So that there's a congruence, there's an alignment.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're not having the running around trying to have the perfectly organized, decluttered home while we're inside they're falling apart and feel like they can't think straight and right.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: And they're not trying to focus on trying to feel better when their external environment is chaotic because we need them both to be in alignment.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: What are a couple of, if you I think you've already mentioned a few, but what are a couple of tools or strategies for people who are listening that's like, yes, this is me.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: I have so much stuff in my house that's in my way, that's getting in my way of feeling the way I want to feel.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: What would you say to them?
33:11
SPEAKER_01: How would you advise them?
33:12
SPEAKER_01: Where can they start?
33:15
SPEAKER_00: So, first, take the pressure off to do it all at once.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: I know we talked about this, and I know if you're listening, you probably are high achiever, right?
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Who wants to do, who wants to dive in?
33:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, you've decided it takes a lot, a lot of the time, it takes a lot to get to that point where you're ready.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: You're finally ready to do it.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: And so now it's like, let's go.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Let's, I'm gonna do it all in a day.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And when we do that, we burn out so quickly.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think, you know, this can apply to so many things, right?
33:45
SPEAKER_00: We try and just, you know, we're we're trying to eat the elephant all at once instead of a bite at a time.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, take the pressure off to have everything done right away because it is gonna take time.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And I will say, decluttering is a journey.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: It's something that you will be on forever because we all we have to do it continually because we always have things coming into our home, right?
34:12
SPEAKER_00: It's not a one and done.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: It's not, I do it once and then it's over.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: It's something we work at.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it gets easier in time, especially once you've done, you know, you've done what I call the initial purge, where you've kind of you've gone through the whole house, right?
34:28
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, hopefully it's just maintenance mode where you still have stuff to get rid of, but it's not the 10 trash bags maybe that you took the first time.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: It's maybe one or two, and you're doing it more frequently.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: And it also becomes more of a habit.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I'm at right now, where um, you know, I'll see things and instead of like it's something it's interesting.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: I have to almost, I have to learn from my clients how they think because it's so ingrained now for me to just see something, a shirt in my closet, and just think, oh, I don't wear that, put it in the bag.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Um, instead of thinking, oh, you know, I'm gonna do it once a quarter yearly, I'll go through and do a big purge.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: It becomes just this natural thing where you're making these just quick decisions here and there.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: And so my hope is that, you know, everyone can get to that point one day.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: Um it's it's it is more sustainable, um, or I should say it's a sustainable way to 2 declutter versus all ones.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: So take the pressure off and start with a place that uh where decision making is going to be easy.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: So let's not go out into the garage and dig into the you know sentimental things.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: Let's probably not, you know, maybe that's not the closet, but maybe that's a kitchen drawer, a drunk, a junk drawer, medicine cabinet.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, somewhere where you your fridge, somewhere where you know, okay, I can get rid of expired food, expired medicine.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: It's not really gonna be a hard thing.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Decisions are gonna be relatively easy compared to sentimental things, um, and make some progress because you want to build that momentum.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: You want to, you want those quick wins, you want to feel good about it, right?
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Because after you've done it, you can visually see, and I love this about declutter, you can visually see that progress, right?
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's good right away.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you get your before and after photo if you want to, right?
36:20
SPEAKER_00: You just, it's like, okay, this is great.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you sit back and you think, okay, I can do this, I can make progress, and then you're done.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, you pat yourself on the back and you move on.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: And then the next day, it's not even a daily thing, but whenever, you know, whenever it is, when you're like, okay, ready to do more, you can do that next task.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, another thing is picking a small area, like a micro, maybe micro space.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: Not, you know, don't go in and say, okay, I'm gonna do my whole bedroom, but maybe you're gonna do the nightstand.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: And when it's done, you're done.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you're gonna build up that momentum and feel like, no, I actually want to do more.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: I feel really good, and you'll do a little bit more.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Other times you're like, nope, that's good.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: I I've done it, and you know, I'll move on when I when I get the chance.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: And you can do that.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: So I think starting there to build momentum is so key.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: And then you can work up towards the things that are a little bit harder.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: And by then, you know, you'll probably feel pretty confident and feel, you know, you'll feel empowered, like, okay, I've done so much, I can totally do this.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the things I love about what you're saying is that we're looking for a feeling.
37:28
SPEAKER_01: We we tell ourselves we're looking for an organized house.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: What we're looking for is a feeling.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: And we can get that feeling very quickly by decluttering or organizing a juncture or a shelf or right, it's pretty quickly that we can have that feeling.
37:46
SPEAKER_01: And the more we have that feeling, the more we want more of that feeling, the more likely we are to do it again.
37:52
SPEAKER_01: A question that I really uh love, and it's it's just a little bit of like psychology in here.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, limiting beliefs get in our way.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm telling myself I am a disorganized person, I will continually make unconscious choices that make my life feel disorganized, right?
38:16
SPEAKER_01: That's just that limiting belief confirmation bias, a lot of brain functions that work into that.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'm imagining a question someone could ask themselves, Courtney, is if I believed I was organized, what choices would I make about this juncturer or this pantry or this child's bookshelf?
38:39
SPEAKER_01: If I believed, if I believed I was organized, what choice would I make?
38:46
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like what I would think about when you're talking about the like clothing.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, someone said to me once, and it was like such an obvious thing, but such an eye-opener.
38:56
SPEAKER_01: They said, what would it be like to just put something away once?
39:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, you come home and you put your bag on the table, like you put it away on the table, and then you have to come back and put it away later in the shoe room or whatever it is.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: Like, what would it be like to just put something away once?
39:15
SPEAKER_01: Rather than having to keep coming back and doing the next step and the next step and the next step.
39:21
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's part of what you're talking about.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: Once you have enough decluttering in your space, enough organizing in your space, you can keep acting as if you're an organized person.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: Quote unquote.
39:36
SPEAKER_01: What would she do?
39:38
SPEAKER_01: What would that version of me who only kept things that I really wanted and needed?
39:44
SPEAKER_01: What choice would she make about this vase that I haven't used in wherever that I keep having to move on my shelf?
39:51
SPEAKER_01: That's me.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: I've got like, I've got like 10 freaking vases.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't need them.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: They're not expensive, but I keep moving them from one shape shelf to another and they take up space, right?
40:02
SPEAKER_01: Not a helpful use of space.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: But so much of our motivation to do things externally comes from how we're talking to ourselves internally.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: So I love what you're saying about, you know, really believing that it's possible, really giving ourselves permission to do one small thing at a time and to recognize pretty quickly that we're gonna feel better pretty quickly, even if it's not decluttering a whole house.
40:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's motivating.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: I what I hear you talking about, which I didn't realize when we first started talking about is you're really talking about proactive organization and decluttering, not reactive organization and decluttering, right?
40:48
SPEAKER_01: If I've had a bad day and I'm feeling anxious, I'm gonna try to organize and declutter my external environment as a reaction to how I feel.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: But you're motivating women to proactively think about what I can do in my environment that will make it less likely that I end up feeling overwhelmed and anxious.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a different motivation, right?
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is yeah, you've given me so much insight into my own work.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's so true.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: So I have a qu I have a personal question for you.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: This question of decluttering is probably one of the top things my husband and I argue about.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: It's hilarious.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: I am a keeper of things that from an emotional place.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: I have like boxes of art that my children made when they were like five that I don't need to be keeping, right?
41:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you know, I collect like little rocks that I find, or, you know, just I love candles.
42:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's stuff that like I feel some emotional attachment to.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: I married someone who is like an essentialist.
42:21
SPEAKER_01: He won't buy things he doesn't need.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: Rarely will he buy something he wants but doesn't need.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: His like his side of the bed is like there's nothing on the bedside table.
42:32
SPEAKER_01: My side of the bed is I have like six beds and three rocks that I love and maybe two pairs of glasses, right?
42:40
SPEAKER_01: So, what do you say to someone like me?
42:43
SPEAKER_01: What would you tell this?
42:44
SPEAKER_01: Is seriously something, and and I'll get mad because he'll be like, he will box things up when I'm gone.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, where's that candle?
42:53
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, put them away.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: He's decluttered my stuff and it makes me so mad.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: But what how do you what can you tell me?
43:02
SPEAKER_01: Because I know that I'm gonna have a different bandwidth for decluttering than he does.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: And I know that certain things matter to me that don't matter to him.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: How do you advise your clients in situations like this?
43:16
SPEAKER_01: And let me also say one more thing is I also know that I don't need to hold on to, like I know that I create clutter for myself.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't feel good either, right?
43:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: So what would you feel like if you had a, and maybe you have this, but if you had a finite space, a box, and uh, you know, whatever it might be, where you had those things.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: So I know you said some of the things you have out, and maybe you like to see them there, right?
43:46
SPEAKER_00: Like the rocks or different things that that remind you of that time or the memory, right?
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Because I think that's what it is for a lot of people.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's the stuff that it reminds us of.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: The feeling, the memory.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, so maybe, you know.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: And not necessarily boxing it all up and putting it away, but something that I advise to clients who have a lot of sentimental things or things that they want to keep, but they just aren't sure, you know, what to do with is having that finite space where they can have the things, you know, again, that fit in the box or fit in the space.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: And then after that, they have to make some decisions on okay, well, I don't have any more room, you know, in my box.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: So what can I pull out?
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Because maybe there's something new that I want to put in that's more valuable, or what can I make room for?
44:34
SPEAKER_00: Or oh, maybe there's not room in the box, and maybe it doesn't fit in there, you know.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: Um that way you still have some things that you love, right?
44:45
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not about, okay, I can't ever have anything sentimental, because that's not living, you know, a joyous life.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not about getting rid of everything.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: But if you're finding yourself, I'm overwhelmed, you know, I'm I'm creating more um work for myself, okay, then we have to find a solution.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: And so, where can you kind of meet in the middle, like what you said, of having those things that bring you joy and knowing, okay, there's gonna be things that are meaningful to me that aren't to my husband?
45:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we can all, you know, that applies to all of us.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: But how can I treasure and honor and value these things without, you know, um, causing more like creating work or causing more clutter for myself at the end of the day.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
45:30
SPEAKER_01: It makes so much sense, Courtney.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: And I actually, you're making me think of two things.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: One is that we're to now we're getting out of the all or nothing thinking again.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, where it's like it's not clutter versus no clutter, whatever.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: I don't want that, no one likes clutter, so maybe we could do it, it's not all things versus no things, right?
45:52
SPEAKER_01: But it's like it's reminding me in my work, it's how can we create lack of structure in your day within the structure of your day?
46:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: How can we create disorganization or quote unquote clutter within the organization of your home?
46:13
SPEAKER_01: So for me, I mean, I'll just speak personally.
46:15
SPEAKER_01: I have my our bedside tables have drawers.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: And again, my husband has like, I mean, I'm making him sound I I he has like glasses and uh earplugs and stuff, but they're like lined up in the freaking drawer.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: It's like mine things are just shoved, but it's mine.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't need to go into my drawers, right?
46:38
SPEAKER_01: From the outside, it looks closed, right?
46:41
SPEAKER_01: I have um a uh I'm I'm very I have a rare, very um steady meditation practice.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: And in my office back in Colorado, I have a um like an area where I put all of my special things.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: It's my area.
47:00
SPEAKER_01: He does not get to tell me what I can and can't have there, right?
47:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: So I think that that is a really wise both and it's like, yes, you can have the stuff, but think about where to keep it so that it's within the organization and structure of a more predictable home.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what we're talking about here.
47:23
SPEAKER_01: That's why I love this conversation.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: It is one way to make life feel more predictable, is to have some predictability about where to find things.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: Where are you gonna keep things?
47:34
SPEAKER_01: If you've got too much stuff, you're not gonna find those things.
47:36
SPEAKER_01: So the other thing I want to just mention, which really would probably take us a whole other hour to talk about, but I think it's worth just naming for our listeners, is you know, I think because we put so much meaning in things, because things hold so much emotion for us, we can feel a lot of fear around the idea of letting things go.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: And I do think in part, this is where the internal psychological mental health work goes.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: What am I telling myself about this thing?
48:11
SPEAKER_01: And why do I believe that I need to have this thing in order to remember that event or feel this certain way or stay connected to that person or whatever it is?
48:23
SPEAKER_01: Because in truth, it's just a thing.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: It's a thing that's holding emotion for us.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: And I think as long as we as long as we have this assumption that the thing holds the meaning and motion and emotion versus us holding the meaning and emotion, it's going to be terrifying to let things go.
48:41
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: And I do see that a lot where it is hard to get rid of things that um maybe heirlooms that were passed down from a family member who has passed away.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there I've had women say, I just don't know what to do with the item.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we're gonna use.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: It's doesn't fit the style of our home, whatever it may be.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like if I get rid of it, I'm dishonoring, you know, grandma or she might, you know, what if she was here, she'd be upset or whatever.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: And it can be tough because you're right, it is just the couch or the vase or whatever it might be.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: That's just what it is.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: And but because it does hold the memories and the emotions and the feelings and all the things we've talked about, it can feel like getting rid of that item almost is like getting rid of the person from your life, or you know, um it can, yeah, it can feel like they that connection or relationship isn't there anymore because you don't, you know, you haven't kept the thing.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: And something that I think about is well, would that person, and everyone's answer is going to be different, but would that person want you living in guilt and fear over something that was, you know, just an item that was theirs like would they want you feeling this way?
50:10
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they would, right?
50:13
SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's so good.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: It goes, it also goes into like ourselves.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: So I'm thinking about if you were helping someone declutter their closet, which I'm sure you do a lot of.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: We hold on to versions of ourselves.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't want to let that pair of genes go that are too small for me now because I want someday to be able to fit back into those genes.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: And I think, again, that's where we accumulate.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: It's sort of like, okay, there's so much grief.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: There's so much loss and grief that goes into change, whether it's changing of our bodies or changing from one home to another home, or changing from the loss of a person passing away.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: There's so much that we hold on to.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think when we carry that load emotionally or practically, we're going to feel more cluttered, internally or externally.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: And so I think there's a lot of courage and bravery that goes into decluttering.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: My mom died eight years ago.
51:24
SPEAKER_01: And God bless her, my mom was an amazing human and a powerhouse.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: But when my brother and I went to go clean out her stuff, I was like, here are all the glasses you've told yourself you've lost.
51:37
SPEAKER_01: Here's a freaking all over.
51:38
SPEAKER_01: There's a box of like 27 pairs of eyeglasses, or pens, or special rocks, or, and then the challenge was that I was left, my brother and I were left to dispose of them.
51:51
SPEAKER_01: And I will tell you right now, that was a painful experience.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: And it also felt so good when we finally decided to just get rid of it all.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: But it's sort of like it's not just a gift to ourselves.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a gift to all of the people whose lives we share to declutter, right?
52:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
52:12
SPEAKER_00: I was just talking with my own grandparents um the last month, and we were talking about, you know, that specifically my my grandma's parents, when they passed away, um, you know, they were responsible for going through the house, right?
52:29
SPEAKER_00: And doing the estate sale and getting, you know, deciding what things needed to stay and go.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: And they said, and this is so, it was so um just made me so happy, but they said, we will not do this for our kids.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, my my parents, um, we will not leave them with all these decisions to be made and all this work to do.
52:49
SPEAKER_00: And over the past few years, they've done a lot of decluttering, which is so cool.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: But I think sometimes it is those experiences sometimes where you either you know have to learn the hard way or you just have to, you know, you do these things and you're like, that wasn't fun.
53:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do this again.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: Let's make a change.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, I'm so many things are now coming to mind that I hadn't even thought about.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: If only we're gonna wrap up in a minute.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: But it's like declutter when our kids get older, as our kids grow up, decluttering by letting go of old toys or old clothes or old books.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's like we want to hold on because of the memory.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: It's so it can be so hard and painful to declutter in that way and let things go.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: And yet, Courtney, I think what I hear you saying is that the holding on to those things over time is what causes the paralysis that we feel when we don't know where to start because there's too much stuff.
53:53
SPEAKER_01: And so it is this process, isn't it, of taking action to declutter one drawer at a time, one closet at a time, one box at a time, with doing some real internal work around how can I shift my thinking?
54:09
SPEAKER_01: How can I tend to myself?
54:11
SPEAKER_01: How can I manage my nervous system so that I'm willing and able to do these small tasks that ultimately are going to make me feel so much better, like the amount of time and space we suddenly have after we've decluttered, right?
54:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's so much that goes into that, the decision making, the doing the work, right?
54:35
SPEAKER_00: It's so much more.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: And I've learned this over the years, it's so much more than just putting stuff in a trash bag and driving it off to goodwill, right?
54:44
SPEAKER_00: It's everything that we've talked about, a lot of the insight that you've shared.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: It's digging up all of the stuff, not the physical stuff, you know, digging up that the mental, mental clutter, emotional, whatever it is inside of us that needs to come out and be addressed before we can really confidently make those decision decisions on what's going to stay and what's going to go.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we don't know until we've addressed what's really going on inside.
55:13
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: So, Courtney, if we have listeners here who are like, yes, I need help with this, I'm ready.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to declutter.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to get rid of that stuff I've been holding on to.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to organize that juncture.
55:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to figure out my playroom or my closet.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: And they don't know where to start.
55:32
SPEAKER_01: And they really want some coaching and hand holding.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: Where can they find you?
55:36
SPEAKER_00: You can find me on Instagram at declutter and dwell.
55:40
SPEAKER_00: Lots of content there.
55:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you can also find me at uh I run a membership community called the Simplicity Society, and that is where we literally declutter together.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: We get on Zoom and we get rid of stuff and we talk through it and we laugh and talk about motherhood while we do it.
55:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's fun.
55:59
SPEAKER_00: We make decluttering fun.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: I know it seems I always joke and say, like, it's not, you know, the sexiest churl on the list, but it can be fun when you do it with other people.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Totally amazing.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: So we'll put all of that in the show notes so that people can access you quickly and easily.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for this conversation today.
56:20
SPEAKER_01: And the last couple of moments here together.
56:23
SPEAKER_01: Is there any other advice?
56:26
SPEAKER_01: Anything you want to make sure that our listeners know?
56:30
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to decluttering, I want you to remember at the end of the day how you want to feel in your home, how you want your family to feel in your home, and how the things inside of your home are playing a part of that, because sometimes we don't always think they're connected.
56:48
SPEAKER_00: But as we've talked about, if you want to feel calm, you want to feel at peace, you want to feel more organized, yet you feel like you're drowning.
56:56
SPEAKER_00: And you may think the things in your house are helping you, right?
57:01
SPEAKER_00: Like we've mentioned, making you feel more confident or making you feel like you fit in or belong or whatever that might be.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: I just encourage you to take a minute to just look around and assess, kind of as a whole, just generally, how are those things making you feel?
57:18
SPEAKER_00: And if it's overwhelmed or behind, or like you're failing, or whatever it may be, because I hear that one a lot.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel like I'm failing because I can't keep my house clean, but I want a calmer space.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think about the value of those things and if it really is worth the space it's taking up in your house, the physical space, but also the mental space and how heavy that weight might be.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: Because if it's not worth it, then I say get rid of it and clear some of that space for what really matters to you.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: Again, yes, the physical space, but also the breathing room to have clarity, to have space to breathe in your home because some people feel like they can't.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: And I want that for you.
58:05
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
58:06
SPEAKER_01: Do the hard things now so that you feel better later.
58:12
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
58:12
SPEAKER_01: Love it.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: Courtney, thank you for your time today.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: So nice to have you here.
58:17
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
58:20
SPEAKER_01: Hey, if you loved this episode and enjoy this podcast, please just take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review, and send it to one mom out there who you think might benefit.
58:33
SPEAKER_01: When you do that, you help to make sure that no woman out there ever feels like they have to mother alone.
58:41
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.