Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 743: Decluttering & Trauma with Valerie Huard

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Episode 743: Decluttering & Trauma with Valerie Huard · The Trauma Therapist

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Or welcome back to the Trauma Therapist podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible cells, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
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who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
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authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, all right,
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here we go five four, three, two and one, our folks,
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welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to happens My guest today, Valerie.
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Who are Valerie? Welcome? Thank you so much guy. I'm so
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happy to be here. Appreciate that. So from trauma to triumph, Allerie
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has seen it all. She's a published author, speaker, and expert who
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works with people from all over the world. She brings you on a decluttering
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journey to declutter more than just your space. Valerie is the found co founder
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of dwell ht dot com, which we'll be talking a lot about today.
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Valerie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so Before we get go in
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here shore, what the listeners? Where you're from originally and where you are
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currently? Yeah, I'm from Quebec Province originally, you know, near Montreal,
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and now I'm in Ontario, Canada. Okay, I'm still in Canada.
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Okay, So really interesting, Valerie. I don't know if I've spoken
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with anyone who's done what you've done. So break it down. How the
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heck did start for you? You know what? Unfortunately or fortunately, I
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suffered from childhood trauma and from there I got a diagnosis of complaint exposturemastic disorder,
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and that made me that I started accumulating a lot of clutter, both
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in my mind and in my home. All right, hang on, so
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what age are we talking about here? Like I'm talking age three to eleven?
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Okay, yeah, But what happened is I continue my life, I
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become an adult and then at some point, you know, I was going
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to doctors, to psychic psychiatrists, psychologists, mdr like tons of different modalities,
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but I was not getting any better. And the doctor at some point
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told me, you know what, I don't know what to do to help
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you. Did they did they know or recognize that there was trauma? Yes?
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I was diagnosed. I was a medigation. They did the MDR.
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They did lots of different modalities, and then what happened was really curious.
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My mom was wanting to help me, but yes, there were the trauma.
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It was therapist dealing with that. But one day she told me and
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she asked me, you know, wow, I don't understand. Are you
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cooking for an army? And she asked me that question because I had so
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much food in my house. I was are you cooking for an army?
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She said yes, okay, so I was holding food and then I looked
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to my house and they were more toys than at the daycare for the kids.
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I had more clothes than anyone needs trefise treecise, hot, precise down.
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So it was kind of my first moment where I realized, oh my
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god, I have clutter. But life continued and we are rather at the
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point where my husband jam Co found her of Doo. Well. We were
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posted because it was military, so as military family, we moved and the
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movers came and say, you know what, we cannot move you. So
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that was the first big shock. Why couldn't they move you because we had
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too much clutter. Now, if I may hear and forgive my ignorance.
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But is there a differentiation between clutter and hoarding? Yes? They are?
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Okay, So I was a lot of having lots of belongings, but I
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was able to invite people at home. People were able to circulate in the
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home. It's just that all my hidden area were so packed that you cannot
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add any razor. Okay, So all like the storage room for the system
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room and the electrical room and all those kinds of things were really packed.
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So what happened there is I had to let go of have the belongings.
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So JM has to move first, and I stayed behind with the kids.
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And that first night when he left, I cried and I cried for hours,
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and I hadn't done that for many many years. It was kind of
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an emotional reality and emotional shock, you know. And I was wondering question
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like am I hoarder with my life? Who I reunited with my husband?
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Why everything is happening to me? Is the world against me? How old
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were you at this point? At that point, I was around twenty five
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years okay, so pretty young? Yeah yeah, still pretty young. Yeah.
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So that bring me on the decluttering journey. So I started by decluttering
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half an hour a day and reading book about decluttering and things like that.
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And a couple of weeks after starting decluttering, I realized that I was more
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and more in touch with my emotion. So the fact of touching belongings.
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You know, when you touch your belongings, there's a link between the longings,
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the sense of touch, and the limbic system in the brain. So
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that was generating a wave of emotion and memories. And because I was doing
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it progressively while decluttering, I learned to manage my emotion that way, and
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I learned to declutter and let go of what I didn't need in my mindset.
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So it was a really good experience and we were able to reunite the
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family and all of that later on. And then I decided to say,
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there's other people like that out there, and I need to help them.
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So I become a professional organizer and start working with people on decluttering and then
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specialized for people that ask clutter and trauma. Wow, okay, hold on,
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I on a second. So first of all, really, I mean
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fascinating and thank you so much for sharing this your story here. How what
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is the line between the two people? Yes, but also, Mike,
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Well, I guess my question is was there anyone who had drawn any kind
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of relation between your your your trauma and your cluttering. Not in the medical
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world at all, not in the medical world, or the psychiatric or therapist
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world, mental health world. No not. The question was never asked,
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right, and we're looking at me. Yeah, on the PTSD side,
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right, And I see that a lot with clients. They are seen on
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the hoarding side, and they don't ask the question about PTSD. Or I
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see people that ask PTSD and they don't ask the question about hoarding. I
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see that days in, days out. Now, are you saying that you
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were cluttering as there is the direct result of your PTSD? Yes, yes,
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and it was helping you. Was it a reaction? It was a
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coping mechanism, like building my nest, you know, my fortress around myself
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so I'm protected. That's one thing. The other thing is when you add
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a trauma, you know, the brain change the way it works and people
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become on a higher level of alertness, like the fight or flight response is
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always the ning deala is always in request, so the courts is all raised
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in the brain. But on people that do not ask trauma. They discover
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that it does not reduce as much as night during the night, so it's
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always stay too high. And what is fascinating about that is it's fascinating,
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but it's not fun. It's that it's slowing down the frontal lobe. And
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this is where are the executive functions. So we're talking about organizing, planning,
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sorting. They are part of the executive function focus also, you know,
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so when you arrived to make a decision about keeping or not ENLiGHT them.
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If you're not able to plan your decluttering, if you're not able to
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sort and to make decision and don't have focus over that, it's really really
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hard to keep a tidy home. It's really hard. So people start accumulating
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clutter because their executive function are slowdown. I'm not saying that they're not working
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at all. I'm saying that they are slowdown. So when you started decluttering,
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talk a little bit more about what you noticed in what you were experiencing
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for yourself. I start having anger, I start having peers, I start
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having joy, I start having more energy, like not being a crawling in
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my bed in the afternoon or on the couch, not needing a lap in
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the afternoon. So as I was doing it, my curtains old level start
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going lower, and my emotion were managed in a small dose at a time.
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So I learned to manage all of that and that completely transformed my life.
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And so on the one hand, you're the cluttering was a coping mechanism,
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Yes, but how in turn did that help you address work through the
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trauma. That's weird to say, but it kind of went by itself like
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it was really like organic. What I mean by that is, if I
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start by decluttering, I don't know toys. At some point, toys brings
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some memory from my childhood. It may be Legos, for example, and
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then I let go and I may have a flashback that happened, and then
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I deal with it and it goes and I learned progressively to be able to
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do not have any more flashback, do not have any more nightmare, do
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not crawl in the afternoon. So it's really a process, and I see
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that a lot with my client when we work on reducing their level of courts
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zol, they're really start feeling better and they're more equipped to face the mindset
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section of the trauma. And I'm not doing therapy with them. I'm not
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a therapist, like, yes, I studied equational therapy, but I'm not
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a psychologist or so I'm not doing therapy. But when we're talking, we're
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looking at I am here today and I want to be there in my life?
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What are the steps in between to get there? Right? And this
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is really what we're working on by letting go of different things, by as
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simple as washing your floor right, because some people to not do it right.
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I mean, it seems what you're talking about here, on one hand,
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could seemingly seem simple, okay, decluttering, and yet the way you
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described it is, you know, you started feeling, you started having emotions,
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and those are exactly the things a lot of times that people are trying
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to avoid. So in a sense, it means it makes sense to me
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that people going through this or would be wise to have some mental health component
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in the totally agreeing with that, But we use some techniques like wearing a
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pair of gloves when they declutter, and that's got the emotion weight that they
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received because they're not touching the object charity. Wow, so they still had
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emotion coming, but they're more manageable, so they're able to declutter forty percent
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more when they wear pair of Love and their list exhausted after a period of
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let's say twenty minute or an hour to cluttering. All right, So at
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what point, Valley, did you say to yourself, all right, I'm
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going to create a business around this. I want to help other people.
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How did that go? That wasn't twenty fifteen? And at the beginning,
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it was really to help other military family to be able to move and be
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able to be reunite, because you know, in military there's tons of trauma.
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So that was my first focus as a military family. And then I
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start having other clients in the city and things like that, and all of
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my clients were having trauma, all of them. How do you know?
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How did you know they just opened up to me when we were doing the
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decluttering. Is it because I'm conscious of trauma and I have a natural ear
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for that? You know? I still did all my mental health course inside
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my OT studying, So is it because I was aware of that touch?
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You know? But it really kind of become natural in the conversation. And
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then we reach out to different doctors and people that did research to try to
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figure out is there really a link between trauma and clutter because and there's not
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a lot of research how they're there's somebody study that if people touch a cup,
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they are more susceptive to purchase the cup, They are more attached to
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the cup and things like that, like a mug, you know. But
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the thing is, we're talking about too taboo here, we're talking about trauma
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and we're talking about hoarding or clutter, and there's no money how they're to
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do research. This is sad, but there's not that's interesting to me because
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there's obviously, you know, there's shows online about hoarding and stuff like that,
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and that was a question I was going to ask you, is there
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a link between hoarding, which seems to be on the far end of the
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continuum right of clutter. I believe so from my experience. But there's no
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data, got it, there's not enough leys. I had a lot of
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client and we have over twenty eight thousand people purchasing our book. But the
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thing is there's no data collected scientifically about that. All right, let's just
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pause here for a second to thank our sponsors. All Right, we are
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back. You mentioned the book. Talk a little bit about the book.
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So we had our first book, Put That Stuff Down, that was out
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and published in twenty eighteen. But we yeah, but we have our second
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one coming, Put That Stuff Down to that will be way more complete,
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and that one is it's on the print right now, so it will be
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out really really soon, like probably in the next month or so. And
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in that one we really include some of the explanation about the missing link between
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clutter and trauma. We're also explaining our fourth step, holistic the cluttering journey
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that allow people to really be able to feel better, to really be able
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to move to the next step and create the life they want by taking control
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over their home and their life. So, okay, the book is called
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Put That Stuff Down. We'll have that linked up at the show here at
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the Trauma divers podcast dot com. And when does Put That Stuff Down to
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come out. It will be out officially in June, okay, but people
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can already prepre by it preorder it. Okay. So my guess is that
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people who are coming to you are quote unquote ready to start, not necessarily
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Okay, how do you approach this with them? Someone comes to you and
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says, look, I think I need some help. My place is a
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mass whatever. What do you do. The first thing, I educate them
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because when they come to me, they often I've seen either or not or
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hear about the book or someone talk about them, and they want to know
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about what has that rings? Why why I finally find that somebody is understanding
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me, because often they have tried to explain that that they are feeling that
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way, but they feel that nobody understand or they some have deal with their
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trauma and the mental health side, and they say, but I was never
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able to take control over my home, and I never understand why. And
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when we dig and we go through either looking at when the clutters start and
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things like that, it's often linked to either a big triggers related to their
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trauma or the trauma itself. And just going back to what you said,
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which I thought was very interesting. You talked about how cluttering was a coping
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mechanism for you. Yeah, and I was also like acquiring belongings because of
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it can be called shuppoholic, you know, like as an addiction. But
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it's not necessarily with money that I was acquiring belongings. That's why I make
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a difference. You know, you can acquire belongings by shopping online. But
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you can go to garass shell or you can go even do the garbage.
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There are some people that go do the garbage day and take the things that
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are still good in garbage. So that's why I see acquiring belongings right right,
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So you mentioned the fourth step process. Can you just briefly go through.
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Yes. The first one is called reduced stress. This is where we
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work on really letting go of the courts is all the letter. The second
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one we call it the letting go mindset, where we talk about emotion,
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We talk about relationship because the relationship with the belongings, you know, we
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talk about authenticity, different subject like that. We talk also after that on
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discovering free time, where we really talk about routines and habits and how it
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is important if we want to be able to declutter. And maybe the discovering
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free time is about routines and habits because when you want to declutter and when
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you want to be able to maintain your home, you need to have some
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of them install. Otherwise people declutter and the clutter is coming back. The
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declutter. You know, they do the garage in the fall, they it's
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so good, but in the spring the garage is already full. Wow,
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we see that a lot, so or they one, how do you work
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through that? Can you give us an example? Oh? Yes, So
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the first thirty to sixty days that people are working with us, like we
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have some group program where we meet on Zoom and they have an online curriculum
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to follow with videos and they also have a board book, so they have
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the different commonalities to learn the best. And then they go to they watch
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maybe ten to fifteen minutes of video a day, so they are some learning
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and they come on the calls, ask their question, talk about how it's
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related to them, and have that discussion and understand cement the learning, you
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know. And then after the thirty to sixty days, then we move to
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the mindset section where we discover emotion. We talk about those subject that I
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was talking to you about. So then we learn about Okay, I want
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to let go, so I'm ready to let go of I don't know that
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as simple as that basket of on pair socks. Okay, that may have
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accumulated on pair socks for ten years, but in them there's those tiny socks
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of my kids, and that reminds me of that beautiful years when my kids
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were young before the divorce so or before the trauma, so they have difficulty
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of letting go of them because of that connection. So we talk about how
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it's possible to let go of those on pair of socks, and then we
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do some accountability and they finally let tho of them and come back to us
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and say, yes, I did it, and they're so happy, and
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we celebrate because celebration is so important in our process because when they are able
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to let go of something, we need to make the decluttering lookking great for
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the brain instead of oh my god, I need to declutter. So we
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make sure that by celebrating we generate those endorphins and good hormones that the brain
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understand, you know what, decluttering is not too bad. I want to
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declutter next time. So it's become easier and easier to get started, because
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often people say I want to declutter, but I'm not able to start.
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I'm procrastinating. I postpone into tomorrow. Let me just reminded what I'm speaking
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with Valerie, who are of do well ht dot com. Again, we'll
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have that linked up at the show notes page Traumadeppers podcast dot com. The
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book is called Put That Stuff Down This is really fascinating to me. So
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do you also work with people who hoard? Yes? I do you work
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on the continuum of hoarding? Yes, if you could use that term,
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yeah, because I discovered that is the same process right right now. And
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then we kind of put you on the spot here. Can you kind of
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give us a thumbnail sketch of a client, someone who came to you and
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how you worked with them and what they experienced and how they were able to
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move through this process. Yeah, so let's think about let's I will name
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her Irene for example. And when Irene joined us in November, it was
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November twenty twenty one, so she was in Canada and she was having the
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problem of having her keating not working, and she couldn't let somebody get in
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because they were about six inch of things everywhere on her foot and of course
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piles that goes higher at some place. But she was so ashamed that she
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cannot open the door to let somebody in to repair or heating. And we're
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talking in Canada in November, right, So that's means she was having a
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temporary heating system electrical but working all the time with some papers around. So
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that was a fire has a heart that was really dangerous. So we work
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with her to make her really reduce a level of critical by helping her using
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some different techniques like meditation, heart brain currents, the doers reset nontheless.
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We have about ten techniques that we suggest into her program, and by practicing
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them often and including that in a routine, she was able to reduce a
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level of stress. So this is the first thing you do, Yes,
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this is the first thing. You know, my mind is going well.
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The first thing is to clear up the space, but not even is to
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stress stress. And look how beautiful it is. I know that the level
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of course is always reduced when they arrive on a call, in a zoom
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call and they tell me, you know what today, I sort my mail
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right away when it arrives, and I put in the recycle the one I
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do not need instead of piling up. So those little tiny actions that we
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know we need to do, but that we don't do when we're overwhelm and
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overtired and on alertness, so they are able to do them. So when
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we arrive at that point, we're able to say, okay, let's talk
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about letting go an emotion, and they are starting to declutter some of the
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belongings at that point. So at that point that client Irene was able to
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clear or floor. Okay. During the period we were doing the mindset section,
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and then we arrive on times and routine working with her like for example,
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looking, okay, how is your bedtime routine? In looking, Oh,
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I'm going to bed at three am because I'm not able to sleep before.
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If I go to sleep before, I will have nightmares. Okay,
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let's tackle that. How is your red room? Oh, it's full of
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clutter. Okay, we'll try to have your bedroom with a little bit less
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of clutter room and we'll try to fall asleep. Go at BIB ten pm.
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Now during this time excuse me, but during this time are you bringing
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up the word trauma? Are you interfacing with the therapist? Where does that
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come in? If at all? They often bring it on the zoom call,
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But we're not talking about the trauma itself, right, We're talking about
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the effect that the trauma as on their lives. And so for example,
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she can tell me on the call, you know what I feel that I
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fell back in flashback when I want to tackle my closet. Okay, what's
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scaring you in your closet, I have that T shirt that we made together,
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like as an example, and then she talks about the story, and
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that was the T shirt that they made, for example, on their first
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day together. The together is with somebody that become her abuser in the future.
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But she still have the T shirt inside her closet, So we don't
27:25
talk about letting go of the trauma and all of that. But then I
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will ask you, Okay, if that T shirt is scaring you, wouldn't
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you feel better if that T shirt is not in your closet anymore? Oh?
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Yes, I will be able to go open my clothes in my closet
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and put back my clothes in my closet when I need that. Okay,
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So we let we take We put on some gloves, and we let go
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of that T shirt And that often freedoms so much. They feel so much
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relieved, so much pressure, that they feel way happier and peace of mind.
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And after that they were able to declutter that closet because there were that
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element in the closet that we need to pinpoint and get out, so they
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were able to now tackle their closet. So that's really when we work on
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mindset. And then as I was saying, we talk about the routines,
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and that's the same client I was talking to you. When we were working
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on the mindset, Like maybe two months after being in a program, our
28:33
eating system was repaired because our flowasting, so the person came and repair it.
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And then our google when we talk on mindset was I want to have
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my grandkids come home. So we work on that. We let go of
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some of the belongings. And I will say that when we arrive in the
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deep decluttering, that's after looking at the routine. We arrive in the deep
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decluttering, it goes well. People are lego. We have checklists on how
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like how many pair of pants should somebody have? How many you know,
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do we need three size of three size downs? Or how many pairs of
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shoes? That's another subject. So but the thing is what is fascinating is
29:19
as they let go, they learn to lego of the heaviness of the trauma
29:25
in their life and they take control over their life. And when they take
29:33
control over their life, they are now able to create what they want in
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their life. So that same person irene after ten months in the program,
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instead of being on disability having difficulty breathing in her place because of the clutter
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that was dusty. She has no more breathing problem. She was able to
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invite her grandkids to come to have a dinner together. And she was even
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not disability anymore. She was working part time. This is changing life.
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Wow, all because we declutter? Wow. Yeah, man, I know
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it's sorry like that that I have so um All right, So people listening,
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if they want to get it, is this all online? You're doing
30:25
this all online? I do that all online? Okay? So I have
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people all around the world. Most of my clients are in the United States.
30:33
Okay, So we if it's possible to put in the show notes a
30:37
link to my program so people can see what the programs looks like if they're
30:41
interested in working with me. And also that's on our website, but I
30:47
will provide a special link, okay. And also the possibility if they pre
30:52
ordered the book two, they will receive the book one in audio book and
30:57
in e books for free. Okay, awesome, awesome, Well look,
31:06
Valerie um Man really interesting. Like I said, I haven't had anyone on
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the podcast who's doing what you're doing. And I'm just really impressive and it's
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super inspiring that you're out there doing this. Thank you. Yeah, it's
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really my client that inspired me daily. Yeah, well I understand that what's
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the best way for people to get in contact with you. It's really with
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Delaine that will be in the bio on it. There's all my social media
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that are there. Everything will be inside Delaine that we will provoke. Okay,
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and just again, your website is do well ht dot com exact.
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Yes, awesome, awesome, our valerie pleasure having you on here. Thank
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you so much, thank you all right, bye bye,