I have a lot of stuff in my house. I used to, and sometimes still, feel so ashamed of it all. Like I need to hide it from people and pretend it isn’t there. But cramming all the stuff into all the little nooks and crannies before people would come over made the problem epically worse. The people would leave, and all my stuff would remain hidden – but then the clean space would fill up over time. Then I would find new places to cram all of the stuff – it just created a cycle of shoving more in or getting more creative with where I could shove all the stuff rather than actually dealing with the stuff. I used to avoid having people over because I was afraid of their judgments.

Truly, I was actually afraid of facing my own judgments!

I was beating myself up for not doing better or not being a better, more organized person. I was mad at myself for not ‘figuring life out’. But that just made me mad at myself, which felt terrible, AND I still had all the clutter to deal with! Double whammy!!

Beating myself up for all the clutter or the untidy house made me want to do less to keep it tidy! It definitely did NOT give me the energy or attitude to deal with the stuff productively.

If you are beating yourself up for where you are or the state of your house, forgive yourself so that you can fix it!

You can’t get creative about solutions when you are constantly thinking of the problem. It doesn’t matter how big the problem is. You can still fix a tiny part of it! But you won’t want to if you are building up all the emotion around who you are as a person because of the clutter or even where you should be in life with or without all that clutter.

Your attitude about your stuff can change everything. If you have a lot of stuff, and you actually love it all (like, actually LOVE it!), then be proud of it! If you don’t actually love it all, take some of it out – no big deal!

If you’re not proud of showing off your stuff, maybe it’s time to say goodbye!

It’s kind of like sorting the fridge on garbage night. Imagine if you just kept shoving all the food further to the back of the fridge. Eventually, bad things would happen. Your fridge will smell terrible because of all the rotting food, AND things will fall out of it every time you open the door.

I bet that there is no part of you that would consider keeping all of the food in your fridge week after week, month after month, or especially year after year!!! It probably seems ridiculous!

So why do it with your whole house? Why keep everything, no matter whether you need it or not? Not everything is serving a purpose anymore. Like the food in the fridge, once it’s expired, you get rid of it. So again, why not think that logically with your stuff. I know that some things have a variety of emotional memories associated with them, but some things really don’t. Some things are literally meaningless. They are simply something you’re keeping because you may need it…eventually. But for now, it’s just getting shoved to the back edges of the house where no one can see it and where you can forget about it!

Whether people see it or not, if you know your space is cluttered, you will feel emotions with it. Those emotions will slowly eat at you while you beat yourself up over either not doing anything about your clutter or not doing enough. You know that you need to get rid of stuff – that’s why you keep thinking about it in the back of your mind!

The more you hold on to the sad and overwhelmed feelings, the more those feelings pull you down! The more they take over and prevent some of that creative problem solving that you likely actually WANT to do! I imagine that you want to experience freedom in your own house! You can have that!

So dismiss those emotions and just get on with it! You are the one holding yourself back from escaping the clutter! Beating yourself up keeps you stuck in the negative world you associate with your stuff. But everyone has a bit of clutter! No matter how minimalist you are, there is always something you can get rid of or be more organized with.

Forgive yourself, and start fighting for the life you want. The freedom you crave! The rooms you keep saving pictures of. Sure, it takes work. You will need to prioritize the hard work and make some sacrifices with your time. But if you can forgive yourself and get moving you will gain so much more!

Keep going until your home feels like you! Then keep repeating it all to make sure it stays feeling like you.

Thanks for coming home!