Episode 403 – 5 Emotional Roadblocks of Garage Decluttering

Ingrid: Today we're talking about one of the most avoided spaces in the home. The garage on the surface, it's full of tools, boxes, and things we might need one day, but underneath that, it's often packed with delayed decisions, old identities, guilt, and transitions. We haven't fully processed. Garage has become emotional holding zones because they're outta sight and easy to ignore. In this episode, we're going to unpack five emotional roadblocks that stop us from tackling this space and share some advice about how you can move forward.

Ingrid: Hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid.

Lesley: And I am Lesley. Now, if you are here for the very first time today, or you've been listening in for ages, we want to say a huge thank you we have a little favour to ask.

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Well, Lesley, let's be honest, it's been a while since we've talked about garages.

Lesley: I know, and it felt like the perfect time writing grid because we're going into garage season in many parts of the world where it is time to kind of stop ignoring and start doing, isn't it? And so we thought we would revisit the garage. We have other podcasts on garage, but we're coming into it today with a slightly different angle, which is all about the emotional roadblocks.

Now, you know, we love emotions based decluttering. And so today we're gonna dig deep on those emotions and find out what's making you procrastinate over your garage.

Ingrid: Yes, and there might be people listening who are like, but I don't have a garage.

Okay, well then think about your shed or think about maybe your lean-to or another kind of space in your house. That's a bit similar where all this kind of garagey stuff lives. But for easy kind of, for easy listening, we're gonna say garage because wow, a lot of stuff in garages all over the world.

And some people don't only have one, but they have two garages and they can still not park a car in them. So if that's you, listen up, you have work to do.

Lesley: Yeah. The thing is about a garage is it is, it's a slightly different space to a lot of spaces in our home. You know, we, we talk about indoor storage spaces and outdoor storage spaces a lot of time in the inner hub. but the garage is kind of an outdoor space, but often it's like a sort of. Threshold going from the inside out.

Sometimes it's incorporated with people's houses, so it's kind of easily accessible from the house. Sometimes externally, you've actually go, got to go out, maybe into the cold and wet actually to get to your garage. So different garages are different and there's a difference between, inside and outside.

But I think. Garages are definitely something that we procrastinate over. Right. Ingrid? Like we, it's not, it's not like Woo. Yeah, let's do a garage. Whoop yip. Do that. That's not what we're saying. Right.

Ingrid: I think it's often because the stuff is heavy that's in there often, and because it's kind of bulky and because we haven't done it in a couple of years, things are kind of perilously stacked on top of each other and there's not really a pathway you kind of see yourself ready driving to the tip like five times back and forth.

But to bring all the stuff that you, know, and you kind of need good weather for, there's a lot of things. There's a lot of things.

Lesley: See that that sentence there from Ingrid is the exact, so obviously we've prepared it. We've prepared it. Talked about this before. So the line is the clutter feels heavier in the garage. Ingrid straightaway goes to physically heavy. In my head, heavy is the emotional weight of something. And so, that's the difference between the two of us.

I'm like, oh, she's talking about actual physical heaviness and not emotional heaviness. So both metaphorically and physically, the stuff in your garage is heavy. I think that's what we can say. So it spans both things. So we've got a lot to unpack today with these emotional roadblocks in a garage. And so let's get stuck straight in.

Ingrid.

Ingrid: Yes. of all, I think what we see a lot in a garage is that, oh, you know what, I'll put it in the garage and I'll deal with it later. We can't make a decision on this yet. But if I'm gonna park it there, it's a bit of like a halfway house and I don't have to make a decision on it if I'm going to keep it or if I'm gonna let it go. So lemme just put it in the garage until I make up my mind or something like that.

Lesley: It's a kind of, I'll deal with it later. It's delayed decisions. But you know, you talk about there's different ways that it goes with this. So sometimes we have made the decision. That it's no longer fit for purpose in our house, but we're not ready to make that final goodbye. Do you know what I mean? So it is almost d There's two twofold, isn't there?

We delay the ma the making of the decision, and then there are other items in there where we have made the decision, but we delay the exit plan. And so, but basically whatever it is, it's delayed, right? And that temporary storage area quickly becomes a permanent storage area, right?

Ingrid: Yeah, total dumping ground. Total dumping ground, honestly. And sometimes it's not easy as well, right? To decide on the best exit plan, especially if it's a tricky item. Sometimes it's been, oh, just a cup of cardboard boxes. So I just, you know, the weather has been atrocious, so I've not been able to put them memory of my recycling bins.

But with other things, it's a bit like, oh. It needs to be brought somewhere or put somewhere, or somebody needs to collect it from a house, or I haven't found the right place yet. I know I no longer want it, but what am I gonna do with these items? So let me put it there until I kind of find the right?

outlet as well.

So yeah, lots of buildups stuff. Often, not just from a couple of weeks or months. It's often a long time.

Lesley: I think you know, that procrastination or that I'll deal with it later kind of effect if you will. Really? 'cause we can close the door on it, you know, so we, it is that separate space. It is that kind of threshold from the outside in, often in people's homes. And so we can close the door of it. So the rest of our home might be perfectly fine and functional clu to free even.

But actually what's lurking is in the garage is more complex. And so when we finally. Get to the stage of going, right, I cannot delay these decisions anymore. I, I need to move on from, I'll deal with it later on. I need to tackle what looks beneath then it can be quite overwhelming. We need to have a plan.

And so I think, sometimes we just need to sort of sit with it a little bit because we've been avoiding it. So I wonder sometimes whether the first step is to actually. Go into the garage and to try and look at what's there, look at what's lurking in the garage and to sort of think about it. Don't worry about doing some doing, but just kind of almost confront yourself a little bit with it.

You know, we, we, we do, you know, things like count and confesses, we're often talking about self-awareness. We need to be aware. And everything, as you said right off the bat in the podcast, you know, everything is heavy. It can be precariously stacked, it can be in boxes, it can be hidden. You know, we need to know what's in there before we start tackling it a little bit if we can.

So sometimes it's just about taking yourself into that space that it's a possibility that you're going to decal to your garage, right?

Ingrid: Yeah. Yeah.

And I think, the first step in that plan is definitely having a feel for kind of like, okay, what's in there now?

Lesley: Yeah.

Ingrid: What are we, what are we dealing with here? And, and based on that, you can go, right, I need to find a day or two days, or I need help, or I need. to find out the timings when my local recycling center is open, or if my charity shop can collect.

I mean, that, that's all things later, but having a feel for what's in there kind of is, will really help you along the way. Now. Lots of, I'll deal with it later stuff in the garage, but also Lesley, another thing that we see a lot in the garage is, know what? I'm going to keep this just in case. I know I need to declutter it, but I kind of wanna keep it so I'm not completely sure. In. What if this thing that I've just bought new to replace it is gonna break? So I'm going to keep the old one just in case. Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy. That's slippery territory.

Lesley: Yeah, and, and this is, this feeds into, I mean, obviously all the emotions around decluttering in our house, feed into each other There. A lot of them are interlinked. This is certainly linked with the kind of procrastination one that I'll deal with it later, the delayed decisions that we've just spoken about, because we may have decided.

That we don't need it anymore. We've got a different one. You know that that example that you just gave, you know of a kettle, an appliance, something like that, that we keep just in case. The reality is if we bought something new to replace what we had before, why would we ever go back to what we had before?

Because we've already decided. Is not fit for purpose in principle. Now there might be a slight chance that a catastrophic thing thing happens and we now might need to go back to a kettle that's 30 years old and a bit manky with cobwebs in it and all that kind of stuff. But the chances are we're not gonna wanna do that.

But yet we still do it. You know, honestly, when we talk about appliances and garages, people are like, oh, yeah. That is me. It's something that we all do 'cause we just can't help ourselves. We're like, but that kettle, that appliance has still got life in it and I may need it one day. And we absolutely do not.

99.9% of the time we've got, you know, and there's loads of other examples of the type of stuff in a garage that we keep just in case. Right. Ingrid.

Ingrid: Oh gosh. Yeah. It's like that leftover paint from, a room that you painted eight years ago. it is that piece of carpet. When you had new carpets in installed four years ago, you kept a tiny of strip in case somebody was gonna spill a coffee in the middle of a room. I mean, are you gonna cut out a piece in the middle of a room and put the piece that's been in the garage there? the list is endless, honestly, with all these just in case items, wall, wallpapers and, and, and wooden bits and, and I don't, you know, old little bikes and, and, and maybe even exercise equipment for, because you thought at one point, doing lockdown, let me get a, a, a bike that I can do some cycling on, or, you know, rollers that I can put my bike on to do some exercise in the garage in that bond.

But it's like. Why is this still here in case we go back, you know, it's all just stuff gathering dust and the, and the sad thing is. While we think, our just in case mentality is really good, thing is stuff deteriorates over time then it's no good use for anybody. And the last resort is to throw it away in a, in a, in a recycling center. While if you would've made the decision much earlier, somebody else, it could have gone through a reuse part of your recycling center and somebody else could have still got some more use out of it. So on the one hand, we're thinking, let's keep it so we don't throw it away, so we don't. Put pressure on the environment, but on the other hand, we're not helping ourselves because we're actually then keeping it in our house for five or 10 years to deteriorate even more.

And then nobody can get some life out of it. And I think once you start to see things that way, like, oh, actually holding onto all this stuff is no good use to anybody. can also maybe help you with your mindset. I've gone off to a tangent a little bit, Lesley, I think, it's really

Lesley: I think, I think, you know, it's okay to go off on a tangent, Ingrid, because it's so complex. I think a just in case mentality is fed by lots of other kind of sub emotions and so it, it's fed by regret and so maybe we've done something before that we've regretted in the past and so, and then we worry about regretting something in the future and these are the kind of things that are holding us back.

I think there's a scarcity mindset that that sits in there, you know, that really, really. Important and, and something that happens a lot in terms of just in case. I think there's financial guilt sometimes as well. This idea that we paid good money for it, so therefore we need to keep it and they're not ready to let it go.

And you know, and you guys know that we always say the money. If it's no longer you, you're not gonna bring that money back by just keeping it in your garage. You're better off, as Ingrid says, passing it onto somebody else, giving it a second life, somebody else who can use that thing. And I think that we, in our minds, when we look at just in case mindset.

We try and justify our just in case mindset for lots of different reasons, you know, where a lot of us are from, you know, post kind of make do amend generation and we can justify these things to ourselves because of the way that we've been brought up. And so what we do is we confuse being prepared for lots of d.

Situations with over retention, and we are in a decluttering membership. Okay? We are in a decluttering world, decluttering podcast, all that kind of stuff. Your goal, your desire is to have less stuff. And so we need to find that balance between being prepared and keeping too much stuff. And if you can be aware of your just in case mindset and where it's holding you back and where it's bringing more stuff than you actually need and know where is it more apparent than in a garage, then that's gonna really set you up.

For life, for a, a more successful decluttering journey. It it, it's finding that difference, isn't it, between having a realistic, and that's the key term there, backup of items should you need them, and an emotional security blanket. And a lot of us are definitely veering towards that emotional security blanket of knowing that we have got that stuff because that's the way we've been brought up.

That's what we've learned. And those habits are hard to break. And so just in case is something. Which is very complex. It's something that we delved into deeper in a podcast that we did. Episode 3, 3, 1. We talk about that just in case mindset for the whole podcast. So do go back to that breaking through your just in case mindset.

So we'll go a little bit deeper. So if you feel that you've got that just in case mentality and it's rearing its head in your garage, do go back and listen to that podcast 'cause it's a good one.

Ingrid: Yeah, definitely. Now, Lesley, we've spoken about, I'll deal with it later stuff with just in case stuff. And now let's talk about aspirational clutter. All this stuff in our garage that we bought because we thought that's going to be life changing for us, or this is gonna be a hobby that I'm going to love.

This is going to be a sport that I'm going to enjoy doing. And then we don't. We spend so much money on it and we think I'm going to keep hold of it because you Maybe I'm gonna come back to it one day.

Lesley: And you might, you might come back to it one day, but is it worth it holding onto it? Just in case, which is just in case that aspiration becomes reality. So we talked about all these things being really closely linked, and so they're all closely linked because one thing leads to another. And so these are all the emotional roadblocks that we're talking about.

So, you know, and there's so many examples of aspirational stuff. You know, we've talked about, we talk about aspiration a lot in the kitchen with kind of the way that we cook. We talk about a lot in the bathroom about the way that we look. we talk about aspiration in the bedroom in terms of our clothing and the way things fit, and so that's everywhere, and that that then lends itself into the garage.

But in the garage, these things tend to be a little bit bigger. They tend to be craft stuff, DIY stuff, hobby stuff, exercise stuff that you've already mentioned. Those are the kind of things that we see in a garage. And again, a lot of these things are probably, we probably know that that aspiration is not gonna happen.

But we think it might, and so we put it into the garage with a delayed decision. Yeah. That's why they're all so linked. And the garage is such an interesting space. 'cause it's not about one emotion, it's about a series of emotions that lead us to the point of going, I'm just gonna keep it in the garage.

Do you know what I mean? Don't we? So

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: really important and so. You know, aspiration is a big one all over the house, but we need to recognize it. This again, is about self-awareness. This is about realizing is that about the person that I wanted to be, or the person that I do want to be in the future, and is it worth me trying to let that thing go and letting go of that aspiration?

Ingrid: Yeah, I think Lesley, it's really, you have to really be honest with yourself, right? And go, which person am I? Now, which person maybe was I? And where do I want to go? And if I realistically now look at the stuff in my house, and of course in this instant in the garage, this support who I am and where I want to go? Or is it just something that. Was who I used to be. But you have to be honest with yourself. And that's, that's something that's really hard to do. You have to be realistic. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to let go or let go of somebody that you maybe hoped you were gonna be and that it didn't work out this way.

There's a lot of, connections to emotions, to all of aspirational clutter and, and, and honesty to yourself and to. To what you are expecting in your family and in your home.

Lesley: Yeah, it's all about identity and anything that's related to our identity makes you feel vulnerable, doesn't it? When you're trying to examine those things, it's like really taking a therapeutic look at yourself and trying to evaluate what you have been, where you wanna go, and all of those. Things. This is not easy.

This is not stuff, this is related to us as individuals and the identity that we, that we have had or want to have. And that's why this is really difficult. But this is completely normal. So this is completely normal and this is a normal part of the decluttering process is being aware about these kind of things.

So yeah, we're getting quite deep with our emotional roadblocks, aren't we? So it's time to go for a break, but let's come back 'cause we've got a couple more to talk about.

Ingrid: Yeah, absolutely.

Hi everyone. Welcome back. You thought we were gonna be talking about.

decluttering garage. Just today when we're actually delving in deep and we're gonna talk about, we're talking about all of the emotional roadblocks that sit behind that stuff in that garage because it's. As you, as you all know, as as Probably listeners who've been tuning in for a long time, it's never about the stuff, it's about the emotions that sit behind the stuff.

So before the break we talked about, I'll deal with it later just in case, an aspirational clutter, and now we're gonna talk about, okay, the garage is sometimes. Quite an interesting room, right? Because normally one person takes charge of certain rooms in the house. I know in my house I am definitely not in charge of the garage.

Lesley,

Lesley: Probably happy that way. Probably happy that way to be fair. English. Yeah.

Ingrid: Yeah, I am happy. I am not good at DIYing. I'm not good at fixing bikes and camping equipment. I do enjoy driving to the recycling center and bringing everything away that we can declutter. That is my job, but it's about my only job. But there's a lot involved in whose position and who's responsible for it as well.

And this can cause some friction, can't it?

Lesley: Yeah, it's about sort of. Being territorial. You know, there's real territory based around garages sometimes, isn't it? It's kind of, okay, you can declutter the rest of the house, but don't touch my garage. And so I think there's a kind of ownership, and as you say, that can cause real friction because what do we do?

So if we want to do declutter our garage, but it's effectively. Owned, managed, whatever we wanna call it by some, somebody else. How do we get to that point of creating that space in the garage in addition to the rest of our home? Particularly if we're on, if we're on a decluttering journey where we're making great strides, we don't wanna leave this huge space just because we don't feel like we've got ownership of it or don't feel like we've got autonomy to make those decisions.

And so. This, as in with all decluttering, is about conversation, isn't it England? It's about opening up that conversation, that dialogue and going, I know that a lot of the stuff in here is yours or, or you want it to be yours, or you believe it's yours or you think it's your domain or whatever. But it's important to me that we create some order in there and it's about.

Sort of making, having a conversation, making some guidelines, even if that's like, you know what, let me just organize what's there. Let me pull out some things that I believe should be on the hit list for decluttering. And then ultimately you can make that final decision. So what we don't wanna do is just go in there and start chucking somebody else's stuff out.

That is not what we wanna do, but sometimes. We, we are in a different place with our decluttering than other people in our homes, right? And they're not quite ready. And you need to put that in front of them. We need to think about doing it in a slightly different way. So quite often when we've got a reluctant partner actually putting the stuff in, small quantities in front of them and going, these are the things that I've set aside.

I think that might be up for debate. Can work. And sometimes it allows people then to see that actually there are things that are no longer needed in that space. And so, and that can be the same in a bedroom or in a wardrobe or some other space where you've not got autonomy over. But I think it's a really dangerous thing to start chucking other people's stuff away if they feel like they've got ownership.

That's rule number one, right?

Ingrid: Yeah. And, and I think that's really important to, you know, kind of remember our listeners as well, you know, start with your own stuff. It's so easy to kind of go, yeah, but that person has mesh there and that person has created stuff there and there's a room full of them stuff. Start with your own stuff and at some point, you know, you kind of get the hang of it.

Things start to get involved, and then probably you're gonna go, oh. Now I can, I, I, you start to focus on other areas that you're maybe not responsible for and what kind of wanna go, I wanna dive in there too, but it requires a conversation and I think it also, what can really help is to have a conversation about, okay, what is this garage? what's the plan here? What do we want from this garage? Do we want to be able to park a car in it? So can we agree on that or that's not necessary, but it needs to be a space where we can easily get the camping equipment or where we can get the stuff for the garden out of easily, or. the common ground here?

So what's kind of the, the, the, the, the main goal of this garage? Declutter. And can you agree on that? Instead of starting, right. What are we gonna throw away? Because that normally immediately gets everybody's like, you know, the barriers go up

Lesley: in.

Ingrid: on a minute, but I don't wanna declutter anything and go, okay, but let's first decide. What do we wanna achieve or how do we want it to look? Are we in alignment on this? And what do we think needs to happen? Which steps need to happen? And then you can kind of break it down into, into smaller chunks, as well, kind of how you're gonna do this plan. But yeah, I think that. This requires conversation and instead of immediately going in.

with ordering a, a, a container or a skip and going, right, I've ordered it, it's coming. Might be a bit too forceful.

Lesley: Yeah, tread carefully. Tread very carefully when it comes to territorial spaces like garages and sheds. That's what we're saying. And so, yeah, really important. It is really complex, the garage as we're, even as we're talking about it now, but it is so complex 'cause there's things that don't necessarily rear their head in other spaces in the home, but they do in a garage.

And I think. One of the things as well that we want to talk about. The final thing that we want to talk about, which is an emotional roadblock. Again, closely linked to aspirations sometimes as well. a little bit linked to delayed decisions as well, a little bit, related to just in case is about transitions.

And so quite often we keep transitions from our life in the garage. So let's give you an example of that. We might keep all the baby equipment from a baby that we've had just in case then, or you know, in the event that we then potentially have another baby further down the line. We're not sure about that at the moment.

What do we do? This is highly emotive stuff. You know, we might have stuff from a job that we loved that we keep, you know, we might have retired. We're keeping that stuff transitionally in the garage 'cause we're not quite ready to let that go. We might have maternity clothes, we might have. remnants from a business that we had that we've now since closed down, we might, we undoubtedly will have empty nester stuff in there, so we will po possibly have kids stuff in there as well that they've left behind them.

All of this stuff is about transitions in life, and it is highly emotive and really difficult to break through. Again, we talk about the empty nesting side of it and the kids stuff that's related to ownership, and there's territory dynamics. Everything is completely interlinked that we're talking about today, so it's tricky, isn't it?

Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yeah, I think so too. And I think we don't realize that often, right? We just think, oh, we're just gonna clear out the garage and then we. Come up all of these things to kind of right into our face and we're like, oh, I did not expect it. I thought it was just a couple of cardboard boxes and small tins of paint and, and Bob's your uncle.

But it, it's not like that. And especially if there's a buildup for a long time, it, it can be a lot more, More energy, more time than you expect, harder than you expected in, at first at all. and you might come across other things as well. You know, stuff from, from, an, an and house, from a relative that you emptied, that you put a few bits in the garage that you've forgotten about.

It might be even some books from a house move that you did a decade ago and you completely forgot about it. So you suddenly confronted with all of these older stuff. That takes you back in time and then takes you back to that time in life. And maybe that was a good time, maybe it was a bad time. So you get all these emotions on top of it.

So suddenly an, an easy decluttering job of a garage and throwing out a couple of cardboard boxes and being able to park your car in there again, suddenly becomes a trip down memory lane with all the, the emotions connected to it.

Lesley: Absolutely. I think, you know, it's all about when our life has changed, but our environment or our home hasn't changed along with it, and it is very confronting sometimes Now. What I wanted to say because I bet there's a lot of people going, but how do I do it? How you, like you're saying all these things and I think we're probably scaring people 'cause we're like, this is complicated stuff, which it is.

but how do I do it now? We have recorded several podcasts on garages. We've got 10 things to declutter from your garage, how to dec your garage, got loads of them. So just search garage. And you will find loads of other types of information about how you can actually execute on a garage declutter. So.

Don't worry. We have spoken about these things before at length, and you can go back to those, podcasts and get a little bit more information about how to actually do the doing, which is as important as doing the thinking. But today was about the thinking today was about analyzing where are my roadblocks and why do I find it so difficult to stick to my garage?

Why am I. Continually procrastinating on that. We think it's about the weather, but actually subconsciously about it might be about something much deeper than that, and that's what we're trying to break through.

Ingrid: Yes. So listeners, has this kind of, when you're listening to this podcast are, are you thinking, wow, I have never, never even occurred to me that, that all this, all these emotions were sitting behind the stuff in my garage. Let us know. Leave us a comment, tell us, because we would be interested to kind of, hear what has resonated with you.

And, and if you don't want, if you dunno how to leave a comment, send us an email on support@declutterhub.com. What we get interesting to know and hear from you. So we hope that this was helpful. This is, you know, this is coming out somewhere in April, so the, hopefully the weather is gonna be nicer and you're gonna actually go, you know what?

I need to do this. I need to sort this out. This is, this is something that's been bothering me for a long time. This is going to be the season when I'm going to get cracking with this, and you guys have given me a lot of things to think about. Let us know. We would love to hear from you, but for now, thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching. If you're on YouTube, and we'll see you next week.