Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - The MEANING behind your messy home. | Clutterbug Podcast # 94

Episode Date: July 4, 2020

If you struggle with a messy, cluttered home, there is a deeper reason and meaning behind that mess. In this podcast, we dive deep to get to the bottom of it.        You can find more Clutterbug content here: Website: http://www.clutterbug.me YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@clutterbug TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@clutterbug_me Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clutterbug_me/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Clutterbug.Me/   #clutterbug #podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're diving back into some of the exercises in my new book, The Declutter Challenge, and we're talking specifically about the meaning behind your mess. Hey, Clutterbugs, welcome back to the Clutterbug podcast. Today we're going to talk about the meaning behind your mess. This is Chapter 5 in my book, The Declutter Challenge. This is kind of a shameless plug, but also not a shameless plug. I'm not suggesting you buy the book. I'm just this is one of the chapters in the book.

And so this is about discovering why. you struggle to let go. So there's definitely a big difference between tidying, cleaning, organizing, and decluttering. Tidying is when you're putting things back in its home. Usually this comes before cleaning. Cleaning is actually removing dirt. So the scrubbing, the mopping, the vacuuming. Organizing is creating homes for things. So putting things into baskets, labeling it, finding things and being like, okay, where is this going to live? In this cabinet right here. and then putting those things in that cabinet. That's organizing.

And decluttering is letting things go. So today we're talking specifically about decluttering because most of the mess that you're going to see is because you have too much stuff. Definitely organizing makes things tidier. It makes easier to put up, put things away when you're done with it. Habits are super important, obviously, too. You know, cleaning up after yourself on a daily basis.

I'm not going to discount that as being important. but most of the time when I see people with a lot of mess, it's because they don't have spaces for those things to go in an easy manner. It's hard to even set up organizing systems because they don't have room. They don't have the space. They don't have the storage space. And the reason is not that they need a bigger house. Maybe they need a bigger house. But even if they had a bigger house, you grow to your fishbowl.

You just get more stuff. And so the issue is we have to live for the home. we have today. We have to live with the space that we have today and that always means letting go. But this is so hard. It goes against human nature in every single way to let go of stuff that we've gathered. We're hunters and gatherers. We are, you know, sort of made to collect things, to gather things, to feather our nest. And so after we've done this, it feels good to buy, it feels good to acquire. It feels really wrong to let go. We don't live. We don't live. We don't in the wild though and we don't need to spend all day gathering things and holding on to them for

our survival and so in this materialistic world that we live in it isn't something that we can just you know be like oh well this this feels good so let's keep doing it because it's hurting us it's filling our home it's putting a strain in our relationships and it's affecting our self-esteem it's affecting how we see ourselves not to mention our children. We're passing on this sort of cycle of clutter and making them think that it's normal to live in a messy house and be stressed all the time and not love the place where you live. And so we're stopping that today. And the first step is always decluttering. We talk a lot in these podcasts about creating habits, about cleaning schedules, about organizing.

but let's be honest. If you do nothing else, decluttering is the one thing I recommend. It's the thing that's going to have the biggest bang for your buck, but it's the hardest. So let's talk about why it's hard. What is that meaning behind your mess? So for some people, again, for all of us, it's human nature to acquire. But when it comes to letting go, a lot of people have different reasons of why it triggers that fear and that anxiety. For some people, it's financial instability, so they see it as the dollar amount. For other people, they're ashamed that they bought it in the first place. So they're spending money that they shouldn't or don't have. They have a shopping problem. And when they're decluttering it, it's sort of, they have to look at themselves in an ugly light. And so they'd rather

not acknowledge that that problem in the first place, so they avoid decluttering. Sometimes there's there's trauma, there's loss. And surrounding ourselves by our possessions feels like security. It feels like safety. Seeing what we have makes us feel like, oh, I'm okay. I'm safe. I have stuff all around me. I'm going to be okay. Other people really hate the idea of being wasteful. Usually these people are raised by parents who pride themselves on recycling, reusing, being really thrifty, always having something on hand to fix things, seeing everything for its usefulness. And so that's passed down. That's something that is sort of an environmental effect.

So everything that you own, you see as, well, I could maybe use this one day. This could be useful. I could turn this into something else. And again, all of these may be in the future, what ifs, are filling our home with things we're not using and we're not loving. Another meaning behind the mess is the sentimental attachment, the memory that's attached to it. And so many people tell me I have a bad memory. If I get rid of that thing, I'll forget that that ever even happened.

Which, of course, isn't true. Letting go of physical items doesn't let go of memories. You can write it down in a journal. You can take a photo of that thing. But at the end of the day, holding on to physical items you're not using or loving so that you can remember a memory is silly. because now you're in a place where you don't have room for new memories to come. You hardly have room for today, let alone have room for tomorrow, for your kids graduating university, getting married, having kids, being a grandma,

all of these amazing or grandpa, listen, I got to not assume that it's only women listening to this podcast. But my point is, when we're so focused on yesterday, it's really hard to enjoy today. and it's almost impossible to have room for tomorrow. So we need to have breathing space in our home and in our lives to invite new things to come. And another and one of the most popular reasons people are really reluctant to let go is perfectionism. It's a fear of doing it wrong, making a mistake, regretting a decision. It can be paralyzing for perfectionists if they don't have a clear plan, of what to do,

it could be, they just shut down. They're like, I don't know exactly what to do, so I'm going to do nothing at all. I don't know how to get rid of batteries. I don't want to put them in the garbage. Isn't there a battery drop-off place? Where would that be? I don't know.

That feels overwhelming. I'm going to keep all these old dead batteries until I die. They're going to live in my drawer until I die. And every time I need a new battery, I'm just going to try all the old burnt-out batteries over and over and over again because I'm crazy. No, you put them in the garbage.

I know, I know. You're listening to this. You're like, Oh, Cass. there's recycling, you know what? Sometimes it's okay to say I'm going to forgive myself. I'm just going to throw them in the trash. Hate me if you will, but we're moving on. There are more important things for you to spend your time stressing out about than the best perfect way to dispose of all your old things. So, okay, one of the things, I have to just say,

I do have to say this. One of the things that can totally help perfectionist, overcome the fear of making a mistake or doing it wrong, the overthinking, the over-analyzing everything, is to have clear rules before you even start. And so before you even touch anything, I want you to grab a piece of paper and think, what are the kinds of things that I can get rid of? Things I haven't used in the last 12 months.

Things I don't love. Things that I wouldn't buy again. items that don't represent who I am today that are just things from my past that I no longer am that person then why are you holding onto the stuff from yes that that person that you were yesterday so write down doesn't have to be those rules in particular you could have different rules but write down those rules because when you start going through your drawers your cabinets your garage your basement that storage room looking under your bed when you see start feeling that fear and anxiety about doing it wrong, making a mistake, having regrets,

you can go back to the list that you've already determined is logical, and it totally makes sense and ask yourself those questions to help you overcome that fear. Okay, so we're going to jump in. You're ready? You're ready for this? I really recommend grabbing a piece of paper and a pen for this few little exercises here because it is helpful, or you can do it in your brain if you're driving a car or whatever but let's talk first of all about being wasteful that fear of being wasteful and so I want you to picture something in your mind that you have that you know you haven't used maybe it's your rice cooker maybe it's your food processor maybe it's um that extra cordless grill no drill not a grill it'd be very cool to have a cordless grill no maybe it's that extra cordless drill

maybe it's, I don't know, clothes that you've outgrown. I want you to picture something in your mind that you know you're not using in your home. And I want you just to picture that I just came in there and took it and donated it. What's the worst thing that would happen if I got rid of your food processor that you haven't used or your rice cooker or your breadmaker or those clothes that you haven't fit into in the past two years? what's the worst thing that could happen? And the answer is probably going to be, well, you're thinking the answer would be I would have to buy it again. But let's be honest, if I got rid of your food processor that you haven't used in years,

and suddenly you happened upon a recipe that required a food processor, what's the worst that would happen? Would you go out and buy a new food processor? No. You'd probably use a blender, or you'd pick a different recipe, right? I mean, let's really look. at the worst case scenario. If your cordless drill broke and you needed a new one,

could you pick one up secondhand? Could you borrow from a friend? Why would you keep duplicates of something just in case out of fear of one day when the worst case scenario really isn't that bad? Because you may think it's just one drill, it's one bag of extra clothing, it's one extra food processor,

but all of those little things are filling your home. It's never about just the actual item. It's about the accumulation of all the items. And it's things you're not using that you wouldn't buy again and that you don't love. Why are they in your home? You think it's no big deal. It's not taking up that much space in a drawer or a cabinet or in a closet. But it is.

They're all taking up space so that you, don't have room to easily put away the things that you actually use in love, which is why that stuff is spread all over your home, which is why you're constantly tidying over and over again, which is why your kids aren't easily putting their clothes away or their toys, which is why your spouse is leaving things out because it's hard to put it away. And if something is hard to put away, we just won't do it. And that's the honest truth. and to make things easy to put away, we need space.

We need clear, defined homes for our things. And the only way we can do that is by letting go of the stuff that we're not using and loving. So that's a really good exercise is to ask yourself, what's the worst thing that could happen? Is it really that bad? Is it worse than having a messy cluttered home and being a bearer? about your space is is getting rid of your immersion blender that you've never used and suddenly you're making I don't know creamy potato soup and you have to pour it in an actual blender instead of using the immersion blender is that so bad that it's worth every single time you try to get a

spatula you have to struggle in your drawer is it is it really worth that and the answer is no and so that's why this exercise is so important to write down a few of those things and then what's the thing would happen if I let this go and and write that down and you're going to see that it's not as bad as you think we also want to talk about the fact that you are not what you own and I think I've talked about this in another podcast but it's is your identity tied to your stuff are you collecting things because you see that as part of your identity I mean for me for a really long time it was craft supplies I saw myself as a crafty person so every time you know I would have afternoon off I'd go to Michaels and I'd get necklace making kits and scrapbooking supplies and

clay and paint and then pastels and all the things and every time I would have to make space and declutter it would feel like I was giving up a piece of myself even though I wasn't using it let's be honest like charcoal's and stuff that stuff is messy I'm not going to use that I owned it and I never used it because I don't like getting my hands disgusting and dirty but getting rid of it felt like okay but that's part of my identity and I've had so many clients who have said this to me about books or makeup or cooking gadgets if they love to bake they love to cook it feels like that's part of their identity so it's so important that we separate that that we first of all have this awareness to say that thing that I have an excess of though I love it and that is part of my

identity, having an excess of the items that, the supplies and the items that complement that is not part of my identity. And I'll still be a great chef without having every single gadget that I've ever bought off of infomercials, right? Or I'll still be a really healthy person with five water bottles instead of 15. I'll still be a crafty person without holding on to craft supplies that I don't use. I'll still be a well-read and well-educated person without holding onto every single book, even the ones I didn't like. So that's just something that I want you guys to think about. And the last thing I want you to think about is your childhood connection. Our parents mess us up, guys. They mess us up. We're messing up our kids. It's just part of the circle of life.

but whether you have a parent who was a clean freak who called you messy who really sort of reinforced this overly cleaning thing which made you resentful of cleaning or you had a parent that had too much stuff that wasn't great at housework that didn't lead by example and now you're struggling to learn let's talk about that let's acknowledge that and realize that our parents try their best. We're grown-ups now and we can't blame our parents for our issues that we're having today. And we can move past that. But it's so important to have that self-awareness because sometimes we have thoughts in our heads that were put there by our parents, like thinking everything is really useful. Perhaps you had parents that grew up in poverty and they really prided themselves on

recycling and reusing everything. But is that important to you? Is that something you pride yourself on? or is that something your parents prided themselves on and has passed down to you? Maybe your mom loved collecting cherished tetties or Royal Dalton or something else, and you have a huge collection too. Do you really love that? Or is it important to your parents and you therefore feel like it should be important to you? Do you have China from your wedding that you've never used because it's a tradition that that's important to have?

Right? let's take a look at the stuff that we have in our homes that we're not using and ask ourselves, is this, am I feeling obligated to keep this because of a learned behavior? Or do I really want to keep this? And separating that is going to be so monumental for you when it comes to actually letting it go. And so empowering. Like I am a freaking grown up now. I don't have to keep Royal Dalton because my mom,

grandma kept it. I don't even like antiques. Why the heck do I have my grandma's cedar chest at the end of my bed filled with junk? Right? It's okay. It's okay to be our own person and to really let go of that guilt and that burden and that expectations that our parents have placed on us and set up our lives for ourselves and teach our kids to be their own person too and not pass on that cycle of clutter down to them. So my new book The Declutter Challenge is filled, this is a shameless plug, is filled with exercises like this talking about the mental aspect of decluttering because there are so many reasons why it's hard. There's so many reasons why we struggle to let go. And at the end of the day, it's just stuff. It really is. It's just stuff that

we've bought at a store. Half of the time we didn't even really want to buy it. It felt good. and we're filling our homes with it. And if we are not taking things out of our home at the same rate that we are bringing it in, we are filling our home unnecessarily with stuff, which is making our lives miserable, which is making every single day harder. It's harder to find things. It's hard to put it away. It's harder to keep our home tidy.

And it's making us feel like crap about ourselves to have a house that is messy. So it stops today. And it stops by starting. letting go. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. I really appreciate your time and I'll see you guys next time.