transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Welcome to Declutter Your Chaos. I have an awesome show for you today, but first I want to make sure you know about my free two day workshop that's happening on April 29th and 30th. On these two days, I'm going to show you exactly what steps to take so that you can change the way you show up in your home so that you can get rid of the clutter for good. Go to declutteryourchaos.com/workshop, or click the link in the show notes to save your spot. It's totally free and I can't wait to see you there. Well, happy Tuesday everyone. I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. Mine was wild, wild. I had five dates this weekend, five, five dates in one weekend. By the way, this podcast is not for kids. So if you're listening with kids, maybe don't. A while ago, I think maybe, I don't know, a year or two ago, I said the F word on here and someone got annoyed because she was listening with her child. I totally get it. I would be very annoyed if I was listening to a podcast and some person just out of nowhere said the F word. So I'm telling you ahead of time, it's not for kids. There are plenty of other decluttering and minimizing podcasts out there. They were made by people who are much more straight laced than I am. So those would probably be better fit if you don't want any unexpected swear words. Anyway, I'm going to tell you about my weekend. And then we're going to talk about how to get some motivation to declutter your space. Because girl, it's all about motivation, right? I mean, getting the energy and the desire to just go in there and do it. But okay, so I want to tell you about my weekend. I told you a little bit about my divorce a couple years ago. And if you're still here, if you're still listening to this podcast, I think it's only fair that, and fun by the way, that I tell you about some of the post-divorce craziness. Okay, so I've been dating a lot since I got divorced. I had a boyfriend for a year, which I know I mentioned on here, and I really did think I loved him, but he wasn't the right guy for me. We broke up about a year ago. And so since then, I've been dating here and there. And I decided a few weeks ago that I was ready. Like, I was really ready. I was ready to dive in to a real relationship, maybe long-term, maybe even marriage. I don't know. Totally open to it. But one of the things that led me to this decision was this amazing book that I read, which I totally recommend. It was recommended to me by one of my clients, one of my amazing clients. It's called 4,000 Weeks, and it's all about how we have about 4,000 weeks of life. It's about how we spend our time in those weeks. There's this one small section of the book that talked about settling. They weren't really talking about dating apps. I mean, he did mention dating apps in the book, but he talked about how we date around, and we're looking for that perfect person, thinking that we're not going to settle this time around for anything less than perfect. And that makes sense, right? It's like, why did I go through this difficult divorce if I'm going to have anything less than perfect? Well, I'm not saying that you need to repeat whatever was wrong with your marriage, but I talked about how we're always settling, no matter what. Whether we settle for not starting our decluttering, whether we settle for a certain person over another person. But no matter how we are spending our 4,000 weeks, whatever we choose to do in that time is settling. And he said that we need to learn how to settle better. And that just kind of blew my mind. Because in that quest for the perfect person, you're still settling. You may not be settling for a person, but you're settling for how you decide to spend your time during that search. Let's say you search for somebody for a decade or a half a decade, or however long you decide to search. And you're looking for that quote unquote perfect person. Well, what you have settled for is a decade or so of searching, of dating, of waiting, of being alone, or whatever that looks like during that search. And I thought this was just so mind-blowing. Of course, you don't want to get into another unhealthy relationship, but do you really want to spend an entire decade of your 4,000 weeks searching? Because that is a form of settling. It's all about what you're okay settling for, right? So anyway, I went on these five dates, and two of them were pretty... Well, they were all great, actually. But two of them were just incredible, so fun. But here's the thing. This is what I wanted to talk to you about too. I ended up drinking this weekend. I don't drink that much. I'm not sober. I was never an alcoholic, and I don't drink that much. So when I do drink, I very much feel the effects of the next day, and then maybe the next three days. It's not worth it. So I had... What did I have? I had an old-fashioned. I had a glass of wine, and I had a glass of champagne, which is a lot for me. And, oh my gosh, I felt so yucky the next day. And by yucky, I don't mean just hungover. I mean like my... I had anxiety. I felt like I couldn't do my podcast. It was awful. I started beating myself up. I didn't meditate. I didn't work out. I ate a bunch of sugar. And I procrastinated like nobody's business. Nobody's business. And I was like, Amber, you need to practice what you preach. You talk about being all mindful and you're being a hypocrite and you're full of anxiety right now. I'm telling you this because it is impossible for us to hold ourselves to such a high standard all the time. We are going to go through phases where we don't do the things that we know are going to make us feel good the next day. And that is okay. It's also about having the ability to accept that that is part of life. And to hold yourself to some perfect standard is just plain mean, if you ask me. It's just mean. We don't ask other people to do that to us. So why should we do it to ourselves? We want other people to give us grace, right? To still be our friend when we make mistakes. So why can't we give ourselves the same grace? If we have a weekend where we have three drinks and then feel terrible the next day and then self-soothe with sugar, well, you know what? That is not the end of the world. In fact, I think it's pretty powerful because it feels good to fall down and then get back up. It feels great, actually. The getting back up part, even part of the falling down part, like I had a great freaking time. So I think it is such a great reminder to give ourselves grace whenever we do things like that. And when we do stuff like that in our homes, it's just a microcosm for the bigger ways that we fall off and then we pick ourselves back up because that is part of life. And the more that we can be kind to ourselves during that process, the better off we are. Like we may shove stuff in a box because we have friends coming over to visit and we don't want them to see the chaos, right? But instead of shaming ourselves and spiraling into a, oh my gosh, will I ever get this together whole, which I know we've all been in, we can just say, hey girl, you felt better about your home when you didn't have all that crap lying around. It's okay that you threw it in a box and you're going to deal with it. And that's why you're listening to this podcast, because you may have several of those boxes and that's okay. Is it bad? No. It's called being a human. And in that instance, it's called showing the person visiting some respect by tidying up for them. It should be praised, not shamed. It should be thanked. So yeah, I had a good weekend. And honestly, if I spent the whole weekend meditating and working out and cleaning and doing all the things that make one feel good, of course I would feel better today. Of course I would. But we can always bounce back. And this really does relate to decluttering because it's all about how we spend our 4,000 weeks. All of it relates. Because this is our lives, this is our home, and this is our time. So another thing about this book that is just brilliant is how it talks about futurizing. I've talked about that a lot on this podcast because we all do it. We talk about, oh, well, when my house is decluttered, then I can feel calm. Then I can feel peace. Then I can have it all together. But, honey, your life, my life, everyone's life is happening right now, right this second, no matter what you're doing, whether you're driving, whether you're decluttering, whether you're upset, whether you're happy, it's all happening this very moment in the chaos, in the clutter, in the mess. Your life is happening. And you may think, well, Amber, it's really gonna start after I get decluttered, or after I get divorced, or after my kids move out, or after I get married, or whatever. The promotion, whatever your milestone is. But the truth is that it's happening right now. All of our 4,000 weeks are getting chipped away at. And this is why finding that place within you that you can come home to is so important before you declutter. Before you do anything really, but because this podcast is about decluttering, we're going to use decluttering as a way in, a way in to that peaceful place inside of you. It's like you could do it simultaneously. So you want to find that peace within you before you declutter, after you declutter, midway through your decluttering, because the peace can always be there. Nelson Mandela sat in prison for 27 years and trained his mind toward peace. You think that prison was peaceful? I bet he would have much rather been in your chaotic home. So rather than your environment influencing your mind, I want your mind to influence your environment. And I know that this is so much easier said than done. Of course, I know that. But I have a few hacks for you today to help you hold both the long-term result, which is the decluttered peaceful space, that's what we all want, right? We want this decluttered orderly peaceful space and the short-term dopamine hit that's going to make you want to do it. I mean, why can't we hold both? We need both to get this thing done. We need both the long-term and the short-term reward. So why don't we just give it to ourselves? Okay, so during this anxiety spiral that I had this weekend, okay, I can't believe I'm telling you this because it's just silly, but it's, I love, I freaking love peanut M&Ms. I love them and this is kind of embarrassing, but it worked and it's only embarrassed. It's not really embarrassing. It's just embarrassing because it sounds like I'm a dog or a child or something. But anyway, I got this new car pretty recently. And when I had to return my old car, my leased car, I had all this crap in it. It was just stuff that you have that you pull out from the center console or those little nooks and crannies in the trunk. It wasn't crazy, but it was just stuff that I needed in my car, that I wanted in my car. But I had to get rid of it really fast. So I pulled it out. I put it in this Trader Joe's bag. It's like one of these shopping bags. It was in the back of my car. And it was all this random stuff that needed to be put away or figured out, like little pieces to things, little plastic parts, pens.

Speaker 2:
[14:53] What else was there?

Speaker 1:
[14:53] Like hair stuff, cleaning stuff, a lot of trash, papers. Every time I looked in this bag, I was like, oh, hell no. I am not dealing with that stuff right now. I didn't even know what to do with it. So anyway, this bag sat in the garage for a couple months. And then I moved it to my closet and it sat in my closet for another couple months. And then I really wanted to use the shelf this weekend that it was on. I wanted to use that shelf for my purses. So I was like, well, I guess I'll go through that bag that I've been putting off. And it was annoying. And I kept getting distracted because I'd go to put something away and then I get distracted and start doing something else. And I was like, Amber, you have to figure out a way to stop getting distracted every time you go to put something away. So I got this. I had these peanut M&Ms and I left a few of them in different places all over the house. Like I knew I had stuff to go in the bathroom, in the garage and all these places. So I would leave peanut M&Ms there for myself. And then if I had to put something away in the bathroom, I would go in there and I would eat some. And then if I had to put something in the garage, I would go in there and I eat some. And so I got the bag cleaned out and I got my treat and I was happy. And I just wanted to share that with you because I kept on getting distracted and I knew for some reason that I wanted those M&Ms, I wanted them. I wanted to go into the garage and eat them. So it worked. And so today we're talking about ways that you can get yourself motivated and it does not have to be the peanut M&Ms. But this is a perfect example of this. But girl, if it takes candy, use it. Who freaking cares? Just use it. So I do have three ways that are not candy based that are going to help you. But before I give you these three ways that are not based on candy, I want to remind you of something. Your house is not going to reach some magical point where nothing ever comes in and out again. I mean, I've decluttered what, like, probably 80 percent of the stuffs, of my stuff since I started this whole process, and stuff still comes in and it still goes out, and you still get a new car and you throw stuff in your bag and then it ends up in your closet. I mean, it is not ever going to be quote unquote done. So we can stop pausing our life until our houses are perfect. We have to because our life is passing us by. And even when your house is cluttered, you're still living your life. You're still quote unquote settling. And that is okay. We need to learn how, just like the book says, we need to learn how to settle better. Even when your house is cluttered, you're still allowed to be happy. When your house is cluttered, you're still allowed to take deep healing breaths. You're allowed to relax. You're allowed to have a calm mind. And you can have peace within your body, even when your environment, your surroundings are chaotic. In fact, it's better to, it's better to have your body come first and your house come second. You do not have to wait until the clutter is gone to feel peaceful in your body. As a matter of fact, the anxiety that's in your body, it's one of the reasons why the clutter is still there. The more you can breathe into it and find a place of peace within yourself, the more you're gonna be able to move through the clutter and not avoid it and not around it. I know it seems counterintuitive. You'd think, well, I'm not allowed to feel peace until I create a peaceful space, but that's not true. You can create peace within, and then that will help you create peace in your space. But sometimes it takes more than just knowing that to get you going. Here are the three strategies. The first one is to give yourself structure within the decluttering session. I'm going to tell you all about that. The second thing is to make it mindful. I'll tell you how to do that. Then the third thing is to use audio, and we're going to talk about that too. Because sometimes people just need permission to make it fun, and that's what I want you to do. That's what this episode is about, making it fun. First, we're going to talk about the structure. Structured constraints. Okay, you already have the long-term goal. You want the decluttered space. You're tired of being surrounded by the stuff. But for some reason, there's always something more important. Something is stopping you. You feel like there's too much. You don't know where to start. You can't get the energy. But really, truly, you do know where to start. If your garage is super cluttered, there's your starting place, the garage. The closet is super cluttered. There's your starting place. It's the closet. Whatever is bothering you most, you know exactly where to start. It's about finding some peace within your body and letting go of the anxiety so that you can start. But giving yourself structure like, okay, if it's in the garage, you can say, all right, I'm going to do one box. That's structure. That has a beginning, a middle, an end, and a finite amount of time. An amount of time that you can wrap your brain around, right? So one box, one bag, one bin, maybe like a half a drawer, maybe a full drawer, maybe a section within the drawer, like if it's a dresser drawer, maybe just the shorts, you know, you just breaking off a structured part of the area. You can also do this with time. You can say, okay, well, I have 20 minutes, that's all I'm going to do. This incremental, like doing little bits at a time is life-changing. Creating a habit out of this is life-changing. And stopping before you're done, it tells your subconscious that it's okay. I can do this imperfectly. I'm still okay. I don't have to be a perfectionist. I can do 10 minutes, and I can put one thing away, and I can go on about my day. And that practice actually flexes, it strengthens that decluttering muscle. And it helps you come back to it day after day after day. And you will not believe how much you can get done. You can get so much done in a week if you come back to it every day. It's mind-blowing. It's never like, okay, okay, let's do the whole garage at once. That's not something that we ever do, not when I'm helping somebody one-on-one. We never say, okay, we're going to do the entire garage today. No, we pull out one box or one bag, and we say, okay, what's in this? Is it going away? Is it going in the house? Is it, you know, we talk about one little thing at a time, and it starts with one small action. So implementing structure within the decluttering session is going to give you so much freedom to begin and end, whether it's time or space or one thing, that is really going to help you start and stop. And that's what you want to be able to do. You want to start and stop and keep coming back to it again and again. That's how we make lots of progress. Okay, so that's the first thing, implementing structure. The second thing is implementing mindfulness. Now, this is where you stop waiting to feel like it, waiting for the energy. And instead, creating an internal state that helps you begin. We do this in my program every single week, every Thursday. We always do some mindful breathing. We get into the body. We feel our feet on the floor. We slow down enough to stay with the decision to put ourselves in a frame of mind where we can make decisions easier. Because when you're feeling anxious, when you have all of the apps and all of the crazy traffic and all the things from the world weighing on you, it's hard to make decisions. But when you come back to the breath and you come back to the body and you slow down enough, you can actually power through stuff. So you're not trying to become some like enlightened person while sorting through a junk drawer. I don't want you to think that I, I don't want you to misunderstand. You're not trying to become some like perfect enlightened person while sorting through a junk drawer. I don't want you to misunderstand me. You're just trying to create enough presence so that you can stay in the process instead of leaving it, instead of getting flustered, instead of feeling that anxiety that sometimes clutter can create. Okay, so the first thing is to create structure, whether it's space or time. The second thing is mindfulness. And then the third thing is fun. It's like, give yourself something to listen to. You know, buy yourself that audiobook that you've been wanting to read, or listen to that song your daughter loves. Put on a podcast. And I want you to do this with pleasure, with conviction, because this doesn't have to be unfun. A lot of people think, oh, well, I have to punish myself, you know. I got myself into this mess. I can't believe how chaotic my house is, and I need to punish myself, and I need to feel terrible while I'm decluttering. No, you don't, honey. No, you don't. You know what? Life happens. We have so much stuff coming at us in every direction. So you are allowed to make it fun. You can enjoy this process, and it doesn't mean that, oh, that was so fun decluttering. I think I'm gonna buy some more stuff. It's the opposite. That is not gonna happen. You're actually gonna just keep coming back to it. You're gonna feel better, and you can enjoy it. And of course, if you want to listen to a book, you can listen to this one that I've been talking about this whole episode called Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Berkman. I promise you'll love it. And I want you to look at it as a strategic move. I want you to relish in it, because you can hold two things. You can hold the long-term goal of wanting this decluttered peaceful space, and you can hold the short-term reward. The maybe the short-term reward is just the structure. Okay, hey girl, I'm just gonna do one bag, and then I'm gonna feel the reward from that. Or I'm gonna take a few mindful breaths. If you do that, your body's gonna feel good. You will feel better. You focus on your breath, you feel better, period. Or you can just put on a book. You could do all three. Oh my gosh, if you did all three of these, you are in for some success. Even if it's just one bag that you're decluttering, like that one from my car, or one box of stuff, you can make it fun. So plan it, enjoy it, and allow yourself to be really in it. Because during that decluttering of that box, guess what? That's part of your life. That 30 minutes or however long it takes, that's part of your life. Your life doesn't pause while you declutter a box. It doesn't restart when your home is totally decluttered. It's happening right now. So you might as well just get comfortable, put on some tennis shoes, put on a good book or a song, and just get into it and allow yourself to enjoy it. It is okay to like the process. Just because you're enjoying writing labels on a Post-It, or creating piles and sorting things out and making decisions about things, it doesn't mean you're going to want to do that forever. Just because you enjoy something doesn't mean that you're going to come back and do it. Oh, I better make more of a mess. So like I said before, it's like people think they have to punish themselves for this chaotic situation that they're in. You don't have to do that. You can be proud of yourself that you got here, and you can be proud of yourself that you're ready to let go. It just, it boggles my mind how we think that we have to punish ourselves because our homes are cluttered. It's like I have to be mean to myself to teach myself a lesson, so I won't be cluttered anymore, but it doesn't work that way. It's so counterproductive actually, because it creates resistance, creates avoidance. All that shame is creating avoidance. So when you approach it with compassion and patience and forgiveness and self-love, that's what you need to do. Approach it with self-love. You end up not only starting, but you enjoy the time. Whether it's a few minutes, a few hours, it doesn't matter. It's part of your precious 4,000 weeks. And you deserve to enjoy it. So I hope that this is helpful, guys. Oh, and I hope that you can join me next week on Wednesday and Thursday for my workshop, because I'm going to guide you through some mindful declaring. I'm going to get you set up. I'm going to go through some breathing with you, and we're going to set some intentions, and we're going to take some action. It's going to be amazing. And I cannot wait to see you then. And if you're enjoying this show, I would be so grateful if you would leave me a five-star review. Those reviews are like gold, and I've been forgetting to ask you guys to leave them. And when I do, you're so generous. And so I just want to say thank you. And I'd be so grateful if you did leave me a five-star review on either Spotify or Apple Podcast. And I hope you guys have a great rest of your week. Oh, next week, I'm going to be doing a multiple-day series on The Garage, because this month, it's all about The Garage. I don't know if you're following along with the month-to-month rooms on the podcast, but this month, we're focusing on The Garage, and then we're doing The Basement. So, we're doing all those big storage areas in the spring, because the weather should be okay where you are.

Speaker 3:
[32:49] It might be a little rainy, but this is a good time now to do it, because it's not too hot and not too cold.

Speaker 1:
[32:54] So, stay tuned for that. That's going to be happening next week and the workshop. So, I hope to see you there.

Speaker 2:
[33:04] There is a link in the show notes, so you can click on the link and get reminders about the workshop.

Speaker 3:
[33:10] You can get your Zoom link there. And I will hopefully see you then. All right. Have a great rest of your week.