Episode 423 – 10 Things Your Clutter is Trying to Tell You

Ingrid: Clutter isn't about being messy, disorganized, or lazy. Every recurring pile, drawer, or room that never quite gets sorted is trying to tell you something. And once you understand what, tackling it becomes so much easier. this episode, we will talk through 10 common signs and the deeper message behind each one, from the laundry pile that never seems to shift to the drawer nobody ever opens. This isn't about tidying tips. It's about awareness, understanding what's really going on underneath the mess, so that whatever you tackle next actually sticks

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.

Ingrid: If you like what you hear, be sure to hit that follow or subscribe button. Share us with your friends or leave us a review. It makes a huge difference to us.

Well, Lesley, we're doing a 10 Things podcast, which I, normally always love, but this is a deep one, isn't it? This is a deep 10 Things podcast. Ooh, what are we going to talk about? I'm excited.

Lesley: Yeah. You, you sound as if you're not excited, I'm gonna be honest. Just yeah, woo-hoo, yeah, we're going deep. Everything that Ingrid doesn't like, going deep. but yeah, we're gonna talk about the emotions really again, which is what we love to talk about, or what I love to talk about, going deep on the emotions, and really talking about what clutter's trying to tell you.

So sometimes it can be all too easy, can't it, to just look at the stuff and go, "Need to clear the stuff." And what we wanna do is go a little bit deeper and go, what is this trying to say about your life and the way that you're existing in your home? And so we've picked out 10 sort of common emotional barriers then, that we might wanna call it, or things that allow you to get stuck or hold you back, however you wanna, frame that.

And then we're gonna show areas where often that manifests, yeah? So we're gonna talk about the emotions, and we will give you some practical examples of where that shows up in your home. So without further ado, Ingrid, let's get cracking on our deep, emotional 10 Things podcast

Okay. So the first thing we wanna talk about is something that shows up a lot in people's homes, which is... it's two emotions really, and they're both interlinked, which is avoidance that stems from fear. So we... Sometimes our clutter piles up because we are avoiding what it represents, basically, and sometimes when we are avoiding what it represents, that means that we fear or we are worried by what it represents.

And so it's an interesting one, because it keeps us really stuck. So avoidance, fear is definitely one of those things that keeps us paralyzed. Now, it shows up all over our home, it does, and we really need to try and work through it. But we wanna give you a practical example of exactly where it shows up.

Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yes. we see this a lot around paperwork. So piles of paperwork in the hallway, f- full, post boxes that haven't been emptied from post, piles around, or next to a sofa or where we sit in the evening, piles of paperwork, or if there's a desk where all the stuff, the envelopes with information have been piled up and have not been opened, or even sweep bags.

plastic bags where it's just been like, "Oh, yeah, I'll shove it all together, and I'll look at it another time." And you see a lot is that this paperwork represents that's bubbling, the surface, right? It might be something that, you are worried about, bills coming in, and you've been struggling possibly with money, and you're finding it hard to open envelopes because you fear that there's another bill that you didn't a- account for, and then you worry about money, so you think, "I'm not gonna open it because if I don't open it, I don't see it and I don't know it."

But you know subconsciously it's there, but you still worry about it. It can be paperwork. It can be paperwork from a claim that you are waiting for. all of those things make that there are stacks and stacks of paperwork everywhere. So what we see is the paperwork. We see the stuff, but we need to figure out is it about this paperwork everywhere that's holding us back.

Lesley: I think, what we see quite a lot when we've been working with clients over the years, Ingrid, is, we've talked about fear there. Sometimes it's something that's happened in the past. And so if you, at certain points in your life, have become unstuck with money a little bit, where money has been an issue, you've been overspending, you've been in debt, whatever that might be, that it's really hard to forget that happened because it would've been very impactful in your life.

So even though we may be perfectly stable now with our money, then we still... our minds take us subconsciously back to that place which is why we typically avoid things. we're talking about things like, it can be health paperwork sometimes we avoid because we fear what's inside. It can be, tax paperwork, for sure, that we avoid because we don't wanna pay that tax bill or we know that it's gonna be a difficulty.

But what the thing that is for c- for certain with paperwork, is that the longer you leave it, the more money it's gonna cost you, or in the, case of the health stuff, the more difficult it's gonna be, and you may go to a darker, deeper place by avoiding it. So we want to recognize that avoidance.

We want to recognize where that avoidance stems from, rationalize it in our minds, and then start to try and break through those barriers. Sometimes it's easier said than done, but everything that we're gonna talk about today is about self-awareness. It's about recognizing this in yourself. Once you recognize it, once that piece of paper, once that piece of clutter rears itself again, you'll be able to go, "Ah, that's what that is."

Recognize that trait in yourself and then attempt to change it. So that is our number one. So it's a big one. We started with a big one, right? Talking about fear and avoidance. But now we want to go on to number two, which is all wrapped up in identity. Now, our identity, our sense of self, our thoughts about what we are, what we represent, what we were, what we want to be, is all there represented in the stuff that we have around us in the homes that we have. And so there are a lot of things in our homes that represent that, and we need to see them be- because sometimes trying to hold onto something that we either want to be in the future or were in the past is holding us back and is making that clutter grow.

Ingrid, where does that show up in our homes?

Ingrid: We see it a lot, Lesley, with, unused hobby supplies. it might be, sport, that we're talking about, like about sports that we used to do or sports that we used to do when we were young or when we were feeling, healthier. or it might be also, manifesting itself into craft supplies as well, which of course is also a hobby for a lot of people.

So craft that you used to do, craft that you used to enjoy and love but now you can't do anymore or you're not interested in anymore, but you hold on to all of the stuff because of loads of different reasons actually. But m- mainly it can be money, but it also a big one is that we feel that, yeah, we used to do this.

This is us, know? And then it's how, do you break through that? When you see all this stuff, how do you tackle that?

Lesley: 'Cause we can see that as a sense of failure. A lot of us see that as a sense of failure as well, don't we, Ingrid? Because we set out to be a certain kind of person, we were a certain kind of person, and then we no longer are. And every emotion that we feel with clutter is wrapped up with another emotion.

So it's never So we call it kind of the basic emotion, then we go, then there are deeper emotions that are linked to that. We talk a lot about that in the Inner Hub, these kind of sub-emotions that sit bubbling underneath the surface, and it's recognizing. It can take a while to work through these and understand them.

But I think definitely we need to recognise that, identity and where we are clinging on to previous versions of ourself, I think m- more than anything else. And I think that our number three now is very closely linked to that, Ingrid, which is a kind of, wrapped up in body image. And so we talk... We've talked a little bit about aspirational, talked about hobbies, the kind of things that we wanna do, and now we're talking about the way that we wanna look, and so that's a kind of a different type of emotion.

And a lot of us, many, people, it's a kind of scourge on modern society, isn't it, really? That so many f- so many of us feel so bad about the way that we look. Nothing is ever good enough for us, and we constantly berate ourselves for being overweight, for not having enough weight, for our knees being a little bit more chubby than they used to be.

All of these things. It's not uncommon at all. It's definitely more common than it is uncommon, I would say, particularly for women. And, I think that we have to recognize what is it about our wardrobes in particular, and you're gonna talk about that a little bit more, that is tied so closely against that fantasy version of ourselves

Ingrid: yeah. I think, so many people have just completely overflowing wardrobes with hundreds and hundreds of garments because we keep thinking we don't have the right thing, so we buy more and more. and how does it represent itself? In wardrobes where the doors can't close anymore, hangers that are falling off, clothes that now live outside of the wardrobes because they can't be put away because the wardrobe themselves are bursting at the seams, we now can't put the stuff away that we wear anymore. And in the wardrobe is clothing from and years ago, or brand-new stuff with tags still on that we haven't even gotten around to wearing, but we've now already found something else that we've bought now. And often people who buy a lot of clothing don't have one wardrobe, but they have multiple wardrobes over multiple rooms. it has an impact on h- having so many clothes on everything, on the way your bedroom looks, on the way your laundry cycle moves. Where is your clean dirty we- laundry? Where's your dirty laundry? When do you put it away? You can't put it away because the wardrobe is too full, so you get in a whole cycle of things. But behind all of that is, just keep shopping because I don't feel happy about myself, and I don't know who I am anymore. That's what we hear a lot as well, right? I used to know who I was when I was younger, but now my body's changed so much, and now I'm, confused on which colors fit me and what styles fits me, and because there's so much choice now as well. So much choice, and that's not always helpful

Lesley: No, exactly. So again, this, we said we were going deep, and this is difficult stuff. It's difficult stuff to come to terms with. And so stuff is never just stuff, as we've said so many, so many times. It's all about what sits behind the stuff. And now we're going in even deeper this time with our number four, which is all about grief and unresolved grief.

And so many of us, most of us in fact, will have lost someone dear to us over the years, and often we have unresolved grief. We hold onto things because letting go feels as if we are saying goodbye or doing a disservice to the person. So by letting go of the item, we feel as if we're letting go of the memory, and by that, letting go of the person.

So it's all interlinked. So where does that show up, Ingrid?

Ingrid: That shows up all the time when you see a lot of sentimental clutter, right? And it can be, sentimental items from parents, from aunts, from brothers or sisters who might have passed away. It can be also from, children who have left the home to go to uni and build up their own home that we keep hanging on to. That empty nest syndrome that we find so hard to, to deal with and to, to let our children go and do their own lives. So sentimental items are huge in this category, and it's often that your, their, your own home is already full, and then you have to empty the house from your parents, or your mom or dad, or an aunt, and that's hard to do of course.

But then you bring all the stuff from them into your house because you're just not ready to let go of the person. But, it's easy to say, you're not letting go of the person when you let go of their stuff," but it's easier said than done, right? You have to... It,

Lesley: Yeah.

Ingrid: takes time. That

Lesley: It does take...

Ingrid: up your decluttering muscle.

Lesley: It does, and it takes lots of phases as well, so this is not something that c- you can do all in one go, or most people can't do all in one go. For many people, it's a phased approach, and so you can slowly but surely start to let things go over the years. And yeah, another deep one now.

We promise you after the break we'll start to become less deep, but for now, let's stick with our deepness, and we're gonna talk about shame. Okay? We, Ingrid and I, are so disappointed that shame is a thing in the decluttering world, but we know that it is. if we could eradicate one emotion, it would be shame.

It's that feeling of being embarrassed or ashamed of what your h- home is, and that's a really tough one to break. And and it shows up everywhere in cluttered houses. Ingrid?

Ingrid: Yes. And we see it a lot when people have, like a very cluttered room, like a room of doom or a dumping ground, or sometimes multiple rooms that are very full. And what we see then is that doors are being closed, because people are too embarrassed. no, that's, that... Don't go in that room.

It's, that's the messy room. ha." And they to laugh it off and almost be lighthearted, but we see the, shame around that, and really eats away at people, that, almost like that secret that they have that they're trying to hide.

Lesley: Yeah, it's interesting, and we've talked a little bit about identity, and I think that shame becomes, and the clutter certainly becomes part of that person's identity. You're right, often it gets laughed off with kind of humor, trying to make light of something that's deeply impactful.

Ingrid: Yeah

Lesley: it's really tough.

we say we... it's easier said than done. You can't just get rid of that feeling of shame, but I think that's where community kicks in a little bit, isn't it, Ingrid? once you find out that you're not the only person, or indeed when you let other people in, and, then it feels much worse than it is, a- as long as you've got the right person.

some people will judge, and you don't need that in your life. but if you find non-judgmental people that you can invite in and explain the way that you're feeling, or if you can find a community of people, like we do have here in the Declutter Hub, that can understand because they have felt the same feelings, then that shame slowly but shol- slowly but surely starts to dissipate a little bit, which is nice.

But shame is... Honestly, we... It makes us sad that shame, people feel ashamed of their clutter because that clutter has built up for lots and lots of different reasons, many of them out- completely outside of our control. And so we need to get rid of the shame in order to make those positive steps forward.

But sometimes it's what comes first, a chicken or an egg scenario. We need to start working on the other emotions before that shame completely disappears. So we promised you deep. You've got deep. we're gonna come back after the break, and we're gonna do a little bit more on the practical side of things.

Ingrid's feeling a, a breath of fresh air because she's like, "Yay, practical stuff!"

Ingrid: Yes. So let's go for a break and we'll see you soon

Hi everyone, welcome back. We're doing a 10 Things podcast, it's the 10 Things Your Clutter is Trying to Tell You podcast, and we've done five before the break, so let's go on with number six. Lesley

Lesley: we said we'd go a little bit lighter. It's not that light, to be fair, 'cause it's still really hard, but per- maybe not as hard as shame and grief and things like that. but I wanna talk about disorganisation. You might just be a disorganised person by nature, maybe because you're neurodivergent and that's adding to disorganisation, maybe because you've got chronic disorganisation.

There's lots of things and lots of reasons why we're disorganised that are not necessarily... They're just part of the way that our brain is wired. But disorganisation shows up everywhere in our house. Where does it show up? It's everywhere, Ingrid? Give me one example of somewhere that it sh- that shows up that you're disorganised

Ingrid: Yes, it's when you have to buy duplicates of the same thing over and over again because you don't know anymore where the other ones are. You've mislaid them, things don't have a home. You know it's in your house somewhere, but who knows where, and it's something that you use on a regular basis, so you get frustrated and you think, "I'm just gonna have to buy it again.

I just can't find it, and I'm gonna need it." So you buy it again, spending the money again, at some point possibly finding the duplicate of the duplicate in your house going, "I knew it was there, but what is it doing there? It's not supposed to be there," but it was just mislaid, and you get into a vicious cycle

Lesley: You know what, Ingrid? It's easier said than done to fix disorganization. we sit here and go, "Oh, you need to fix that," but it involves a lot of learning, a lot of teaching maybe, going to the right places to actually learn appropriate structures to try and encourage that organization. Particularly if you're neurodivergent as well, you've really gotta think outside the box sometimes for the strategies that you're gonna use that are really gonna help you.

So disorganization is not a quick fix. It's something that can be fixed, definitely can be fixed. We can learn how to be organized, for sure, without a shadow of a doubt, but it does take a little bit of time and effort. And one of those things, which is our number seven really, is I want to talk about having a lack of system, where you've got no systems in place in your house.

So in order to overcome that disorganization that we've spoken about, we need to start to create systems. We need to start thinking about how things are gonna fit together, whether that's where something belongs, a place for everything and everything in its place, that Ingrid has said, or how you're gonna be able to find it easily.

So there's lots of different things that come into place in terms of putting systems together. We need to think about non-negotiables every day. What are the things that we're gonna do at home that are gonna help us to create those systems? So, there are functional systems in terms of where things belong, but then there are systems that you also need to have to do the things that you need to do to put the things back in the right places that you've already created a system for.

So Ingrid, where does that show up in our house? where doesn't it show up in our house? But give me an example of where it does

Ingrid: Yeah, we see it a lot when the kitchen counters are very, cluttered. who have clutter in their house often think, "Okay, yeah, kitchen counters, they drive me crazy because I'm in my kitchen probably at least three times a day to make breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, but I can't move anywhere, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to tidy up and sort out my kitchen counters."

Which sounds like, okay, that sounds like a good idea, but the problem is that how can you tidy something up when you've got nowhere to put it? So what we of- what we always, is you have to sort out your kitchen cupboards first before you can tackle the kitchen counters. You have to think about when do you load and unload your dishwasher, or when do you do the washing up?

Who is responsible for putting it in and taking it out, washing it up, and putting it away, and drying it all? When is this happening? But if your kitchen cupboards are overflowing, you've got nowhere to put it, so it's really important that you make sure that you start to think about, "Okay, it's not only that I'm not doing my washing up, it's also the fact that it stays out because it can't go anywhere because I've got too much Tupperware, and too many glasses, and too many plates, and too much out-of-date food." So one thing impacts the other, and it definitely involves thinking about, "Okay, where would I look for this? Where would I find this? What does make sense? How is my accessibility and my logics working here?" it starts with recognizing I've got... seeing I've got really cluttered kitchen services, and then going, "Okay, but how?

Why? What? Where, is the, friction in this process? How can I solve this? Why is this happening?"

Lesley: Yeah, and e- and even, so even at that level, Ingrid, even at trying to create a functional system, which is what we're trying to do, trying to create a place for everything ultimately, even that involves going deeper and understanding where it's going wrong. So again, it still links back to the self-awareness.

And as you said, we spoke about disorganisation, now we've spoken about a lack of functional systems, and again, this also ties in to something that you mentioned a minute ago, which is a lack of resets, okay? So we know that even once we create those functional systems, once we create, an opportunity for things to go away, that's the cupboard that it belongs in.

We've cleared down the kitchen surfaces, that's where the Tupperware belongs. We then need to create, time and energy into doing daily, weekly, and seasonal resets. And so sometimes, clutter shows up in a house because we are not resetting on a regular enough basis. So Ingrid, give me an example for our number eight of where a lack of resets would show up

Ingrid: Yeah, you see it a lot in hallways. when you come through the door in somebody's house and there's coats and there's shoes and there are bags and there's a stack of mail and there's, packages that have been delivered, dropped off in a corner, chucked somewhere. So a very chaotic hallway often signals a, a lack of resets. So there, the, it might be that there are not enough hooks or enough places, but it also shows if there's, a ton of shoes, maybe it's not only the shoe rack that's missing, it's also the overflow of shoes, and they're not being put away on the weekend back in the wardrobes upstairs. It's not just, "Oh, yeah, we're just not doing a, a, a tidy up here."

It's like there's no reset happening of this room. Everything just gets dumped there, and nobody knows where things are supposed to be going

Lesley: Yeah, so clutter manifests itself. It's not just e- an excess of stuff, it's stuff not being put away as well, isn't it? And just following on from that to our number nine, all of these things are completely interlinked, and all the things, these things are required in order to create an organised, clutter-free home.

Often we think about sometimes we don't have capacity, so we don't have time or... So e- either time or mental energy, both of those things would fit into the kind of capacity, framework, And so sometimes it's about that we don't have that capacity to be able to do things. Now, that's a really interesting one, 'cause the other things we can, put in place, right?

We can put systems in place. We can put reset time in place. But if we're struggling with capacity, we've really gotta go deeper and think, "How do we engineer capacity into an already frazzled home and lifestyle and situation?" So this is where priorities come in a little bit, and so we, have to understand that by creating time, taking it from somewhere else in our life, by giving the time to organisation, to resets, to tidying, to decluttering as well, that ultimately will free up time.

And so we have to create capacity and time from somewhere else. Easier said than done, and it can be hard to get there, but we know ultimately that having less clutter, having more organisation will allow us extra time to do the things that we want to do. to do the hobbies that we wanna do, to declutter the wardrobe, to clear the kitchen surfaces, to go through our sentimental items.

It's only positive. Once we introduce all of these things into our life, the only way is up, but getting there can be more difficult. So if we were talking specifically about a lack of capacity or time, Ingrid, where does that show up regularly in our home?

Ingrid: Yeah, we see it a lot when there's loads and loads of laundry piles in people's houses. Overflowing laundry baskets, piles next to the washing machine, a pile somewhere on a bed, a spare bed somewhere with stuff that hasn't been put away. washing in the washing machine that has to be run again because it was never hung up, or it was never put in the dryer, or it was never put outside, so it has to be washed again because it was forgotten about, or things happened and it just didn't, that it didn't make it to the next step. And laundry is actually quite a big cycle of movement of stuff. Laundry seems easy, right? Laundry seems like, oh, you just throw it in the washing machine, and then you put it on your body again. laundry actually has a massive impact on people's lives, especially if you've got a lot of people in your home. It's a, a job that needs to be also delegated to other people and needs to be divided. But where it often falls down is that putting it back into the wardrobe, that can't be done because of number two, or number three, the overflowing wardrobes, the overflowing drawers full of clothes. So it's all interconnected, isn't it?

And but once you start to get your laundry under control, you will see an improvement and actually more time, because if you're constantly hunting down for clothes, or if you're constantly buying more clothes because that laundry cycle is going awry somewhere, then you're spending more money, then you've got more clothes.

You think that the sort, the buying of new underwear, new socks, for example, will solve your problem. you're making your problem worse, but that's difficult to explain to people.

Lesley: Exactly. Exactly. But there's definitely a pattern. Like everything that we've spoken about is interlinked, as you're saying, interconnected, and they're all quite difficult things, and they're all things that are not gonna get fixed overnight. They're all things that we need to work at, that we need to understand, that we need to become aware of,

Ingrid: Yeah.

Lesley: triggers.

And so finally, we've spoke about the fact that this is a lot. We know that this is a lot. We've done nine already. And so our number 10 really I wanna talk about decision fatigue. So even just what we've spoken about there, decision fatigue, overwhelm. the decluttering process is difficult.

It's not about stuff. It's not oh, just declutter your stuff, throw it away, job done. It's not. It's about factoring a- in all of these different things. And just the very thought of this might be enough to send you running for the hills because you might be like, "I've not got the time, the energy, the capacity to make these decisions or to try and work on these things."

So we are f- experiencing fatigue, whether it's emotional fatigue, probably physical fatigue as well, and that stops us from doing it, right? And that often shows up... Ingrid, where does it show up?

Ingrid: we see it often when people have boxes of stuff in their garage, or bags of stuff in their spare bedroom, or in their basement, or in their loft. Often after a house move, sometimes years, like I moved eight years ago, but it might be that the move was traumatic, it might be that the whole and unpacking was terrible, and were maybe in the middle of building a building project, so boxes got put in the garage to deal with another time, and then life just happens, and then you still have got all these boxes that you haven't unpacked, but you've got no idea what's in them. and it can be even, when you've maybe downsized, and maybe that was really hard to do. Or maybe, gone through a divorce and your partner stayed in the old house, or you both had to move out, and it was a fraught time, and you just got on with the bare essentials and you thought, "I'll unpack those boxes another time."

And now you're six years down the line and you're like, "Where's the time gone?" And now you, and you still have to be confronted with all of this old stuff. It's all decisions, but you can't throw the boxes away either because you're like, "I don't even know what's in there." we definitely advise against just going, "Yeah, just get a skip or a container and just throw it all away."

Don't do that. It's gonna be one of those things that has to be sorted out.

Lesley: it does have... It does certainly, it does have to be sorted out, but the chances are that after several years, and we see that so many times so we're not being, we're not exaggerating when we say this, that you- you've existing perfectly fine in your house without any of those things in those boxes, which means that you've either bought duplicates or you didn't need it in the first place, or it's superfluous.

Plus, some of those things might be sentimental items as well, so that's why it's worth going through those boxes. So there's quite a lot of things in here. we talked about a lot of different emotions. We talked in the second half, we talked a lot about organization or disorganization and how to fix that, and what plays into being an organized person, which is capacity, which is time, which is functional systems.

And so I think that it's really brought us to the point where we understand that our clutter is telling... is more than just the stuff. It's telling us things about what we are feeling, and it's about understanding that. Once you understand it, then you can go, okay, I need to try and make that not a thing in my life."

And then slowly but surely, you can start to learn strategies and techniques that are gonna help you, slowly but surely, start to work through that clutter so those piles are not there anymore, so those boxes become opened, so those wardrobes are not overflowing, so that we're not buying those duplicates and spending more money.

All of these things are gonna help us long-term, but it's not as straightforward as it might seem in the first place. But it's possible. So I don't want this to be a doom and gloom podcast at all. We know it's difficult. Sometimes we need to go in deep to show how difficult it is for some people, not for everybody.

Some people will be like, I've got a little bit of clutter, but I'm not feeling any of these things that Ingrid and Lesley are saying," which is fine. That might mean that you've worked through those things already, or that you're at a different stage of your decluttering journey. But if you're sitting in the doldrums, is that a word?

Going, "I just don't know what to do because whatever I try, I can't seem to make this work." Or if you've got this pattern of behavior, which means that you chuck a few things out, and then it just builds straight back up again, that means that there's something lacking. There's something that we're not quite getting about what's going wrong, and that's something that we really need to explore

Ingrid: So listeners, we hope that this podcast has been helpful for you. And if you're sitting here thinking to yourself, "Oh my gosh, you've hit the nail on the head. This is exactly how my clutter makes me feel. You- you've g- you've covered all of the things, but what do I do now?" Come and join us next week for our September reset sessions, because we can teach you so much on how to do this and what to do next.

All the information is on declutterhub.com/september, and we're starting this Monday, the 7th of September. So check it out and come and join us. We look forward to seeing you there. And thanks so much for watching and listening, and we'll see you next week