Decluttering Your Headspace

What better way to jump into Spring AND Season 5 than taking a minute to dig in and declutter our lives first!!!!

We don't mean declutter in the literal sense, like cleaning out your car or closet; we mean the important stuff, the oh-so juicy mental and emotional feels!? In much the same way, decluttering mentally and emotionally allows us to let go of old things hanging around our headspace, negative people, shame & guilt, or whatever is living rent-free in our head, and bring us into the present moment. Only then can we have clear space from which to create the next moment of our life.

But first, Cali and Barb are here to help you break down the attachment to those little houseguests in your head because sometimes that attachment can be super strong and we have to be ready to ask if they are worthy of your mental and emotional energy anymore.

Transcript

Cali  0:02  
You know, whatever those things are in the clutter getting really clear on why am I holding on to it? What is behind that? And then is that something I want to keep? I want to clear or get rid of? Or is it something I need to revise so that I can make this item an active item in my life in present time? Hi, Welcome to Season Five of clarity cafe, our safe space to take a little break from life and get some clarity and perspective. I'm Callie and I'm here with my clarity sister, Barb, we are so grateful for all of you on this ride with us. Season Five, Barb, Did you think we'd make it to season five so quickly.

Barb  0:50  
It's such a blessing and so amazing and so much fun. And then just a great experience. I have infinite gratitude for, for you, Kelly and for us taking the time to do this and the sharing that we've had with the community. In this exploration in this conversation has been so much fun. I'm looking forward to Season Five too. There's a five is a great number, right? There's five elements, there's the five major colors, there's this really feels like we've come to a circle. And all of these kinds of things are coming together and being able to have these conversations is so been so rewarding. So thank you for that. Absolutely.

Cali  1:27  
In this season, the majority of our podcasts are going to be from listeners that have given requests on different topics. So really excited to now we're really getting the speaking of circle that full like cycle of conversation with our community and back. And in our last season. Our final episode, we really talked about vulnerability and how it makes us strong, as opposed to weak. So if you haven't checked out that episode, definitely do it. Also knew in season five is we have a sponsor, and we are so excited to share. Bio reset medical is a sponsor for us. And what that means is they're supporting our podcast. Yes, all of you who've liked and shared our podcast, we really appreciate it, it's been really helpful to get us to grow. And now that we have a sponsor, it also helps us to continue to cover those podcasting costs and all those artwork pieces that we're making. So if you have any health issues, chronic illness, fatigue pain, regenerative medicine, coming from bio reset medical is unparalleled on this planet, so definitely Google them, check them out. And if you've got questions, DM us, we're happy to share our experiences and talk a little bit more about bio reset and all the great things and as the season goes on, we'll share a little more about bio reset, and how they're at the forefront of regenerative medicine, healing chronic Lyme and mold and illness doing amazing things with pain like peripheral neuropathy, back pain and knee pain. And really working on that whole being through nutrition and functional medicine. And then how clarity cafe and our sister podcast, a little bit of chill and limitless healing. We're all working together to handle that mental health and uplift aspect of the whole being. Well thing. So more about that later. Let's dive into our podcast topic today.

Barb  3:30  
So our topic today is one that's near and dear to my heart is decluttering. So we think about decluttering is like oh, the I've got some stuff I need to clean out of the trunk of my car, or I should clean out my garage. And those are great exercises. And then there's decluttering mentally and emotionally and bringing things into present time. And we talk a lot about awareness of you know where those voices are coming from and where those conversations that we're having and triggers are coming from. And one of the keys to that is really bringing those things that are hanging around from the past into present time so that we have that clear space from which to create the next moment of our life.

Cali  4:11  
I love that idea that we see all of these like decluttering shows and we all have these attachments to things don't we like there's a memory or an item from a previous part in our lives. And we're just so super attached to this thing. And then but we want to create something new and these shows there's always this conversation of like, well, yes, I want a newly designed living room. It's like but I can't let go of any of the things that are currently in there.

Barb  4:38  
I love those throw pillows from 1999.

Cali  4:44  
And it's just so we can get a lot of but I've got things in my house that I've got a attachment to that anybody who came walking along would take a look at and be like but why though? So I understand I speak both from someone has attachments and someone who I have a confession to make to all of you. I absolutely love decluttering and my friends know that I will come and declutter like a closet or bookshelves in a hot minute, I love to do it because it's so healing. And it's that important part of like pruning the things that aren't working for us anymore so that we can make space for new growth. So, I love to prune plants too. So see, it's there's a consistent piece there, Bb,

Barb  5:32  
yes, pruning plants, getting rid of the old papers or books or old throw pillows that are cluttering up our psyches as well. And I, I love that as well. It's such a nice clean feeling of that, being able to have that moment of being present. And I think a lot of the work that we do in talking about, you know, some of the other tools that we have in a little bit of chill and limitless healing, and even in bowel reset are all about bringing this stuff into present time not dragging our baggage with us and being able to have create from that space. And I also really love to declutter, but what I found is it's always easier to deal with someone else's stuff. Have you noticed that? It's really easy to declutter when it's not your stuff? Because you have less attachment to it? Oh, yes,

Cali  6:23  
absolutely. Absolutely. So let's talk about attachment. Because I think when we think about decluttering, there are many people out there from the minimalist movement to seeking joy. Marie Kondo has got a whole body of work of you know, holding on to a thing and say, Does this bring me joy, she's done some beautiful work there to Niecy Nash's done clean house back in the day, and she was like, brought comedy and was just phenomenal. It was like one of my favorite shows back then was, you know, who wants a clean house, it was fantastic. So the I even remember, the jingle, shout out to me see. So we can bring what we bring to the table when we're looking at decluttering, or getting some empowerment with decluttering is two things. One is our mindset. And two is to recognize what we're bringing to the table through our attachments. So if we think about something like, why am I attached to it? So Barb, what would be an example of something in your life where you found yourself kind of having to look at, wow, I really have an attachment to this. And why do we have this attachment? And then maybe can you talk about an example of where you had to look at why you were holding on to it? And then you're bigger? Why that helped you let go of it?

Barb  7:46  
Yeah, that's a great conversation to have is to look at but the the first level of why is this thing here? And then really, am I ready to let go of this or not? And and what does that mean? So I can think of a very tangible thing about that. And in the ever changing pursuit of, of your closet, right? Because your closet is this place where you stash stuff, right? So because there's you know, you can close the door to it, there's drawers, there's hangers, there's all kinds of things you can push to the back of your closet and not see, we do that mentally as well. But if we think about your closet, I know when I you know, in my corporate career, many phases of my corporate career, there were different kinds of dress codes, for lack of a better word, they weren't written down. But you know, you knew to dress a certain way, in order to be successful, even there's a whole, like Dress for Success kind of movement back in the 70s and 80s. About that. And so I know when I actually when I moved to California, I had all these up from Chicago, where the weather's quite different. And I was in a much more corporate kind of sales marketing role there. I looked at all these suits. And I thought, I felt so great when I made that presentation in that navy blue tailored wool suit. And I carried it around for a couple of apartments in California until I realized, I am never going to wear that suit again. And that suit symbol as a something to me, that is totally not what I'm doing right now. Why am I holding on to that? And I think part of that was like why if I felt good about what was going on in my life, then I was in a period of growth and learning and I was getting good recognition for that. And am I willing to feel comfortable in my life now that I actually have that same process or an even better process and just figuring out that it was okay to get rid of those clothes was really liberating for me. And then I found a really cool thing to do with them. I found an organization that helped to repurpose professional clothes for women who are going through transitions into, you know, potentially new careers for their lives. So they might need a suit to do a job interview in for instance. So for me, there was a couple of points there. One is, I'm ready to let go of this. And be in the present moment of what I'm doing career wise, I made a big switch from being in a corporate job to teaching yoga and qi gong for a while, that was a big different wardrobe change. And what was I going to do with those other clothes, they were wonderful. And they had a use for me. But they kept being in the back of the closet, because they represented this part of my life that was no longer relevant, and getting rid of them. And then repurposing them felt like a wonderful completion of that phase. And moving on to the next phase. And also recognizing, if I ever need this type of clothing, again, in a different position, or a different situation in my life, I can go find it somewhere else. And it'll be in present time and not dragging with me from five or 10 years ago. So there's a whole set of conversations that had to happen about coming into present time. And clothes are a great example of that, right? Yeah, we all have those clothes, that we wear the same clothes kind of every week. And then there's all the other ones that we're not really using, and how cool to lighten our load, because that's one of the things decluttering does, right? We lighten our load of what's in our closet, we lighten our load of the thoughts that might be hanging back there that we're unaware of, we start to, to pull those cobwebs out from the corners of the closet mentally, and emotionally. And it brings that kind of peace, and I am happy that they're no longer part of my life.

Cali  11:37  
Oh, that's a great story. Thank you for sharing that. And I'm sure it's a lot of people listening can relate to that outfit, or that thing that we hold on to and, you know, it's not the clothing necessarily, it's like what it represents. So for some of us, we might have clothes for when we put on a little weight clothes for when we lose a little weight. And we ended up having like two or three sizes of clothes because, you know, weight fluctuates, for example. And so we might have an attachment that goes beyond just that item, often is the case. And it's in the tool of recognizing your Why Why am I holding on to this, it's important to just kind of get clear on Oh, I hold on to this because I have this pair of skinny jeans, if you will, that I want to be able to wear when I'm skinny, or when I get to my goal weight or whatever that is, for some of us styling weight up and some of us styling weight down, you know, but that emotion behind it is the why I've held on to it. And then like what do I get if I let this go. So and I love this piece. So let's just say there is like a, say, you know, we're struggling with weight, and we want to lose weight, and we've got this smaller size of clothing. Now let's be realistic. You know what that you know, if it's really really tiny, or you're looking at like your high school stuff, you might want to let that go because bodies change and grow and whatnot. But and styles change, by the way to Barb's point. But if we have something present time might not be getting rid of the thing, but it might be committing to taking care of oneself and to reach that goal. So it's bringing the goal into present time and then putting a time limit on Okay, look, here's a reasonable amount of time for me to lose this weight. If by this date, I don't lose this weight or use this item, I'm gonna put a little sticky note on it, and then I can get rid of it then and then I can fully let it go. As opposed to continuing to have that item be something that every time we see it, it kind of punishes us or makes us feel bad. We want to not surround us stuff with stuff that makes us feel like we're not meeting our goals. So understanding that there may be you know, books that we haven't read that we intend to read. But honestly, it's been decades and we haven't or that stack of magazines that we really want to get to and we think we should, but we just don't have the interest anymore. Because we're not consuming media through magazines or, you know, whatever those things are in the clutter getting really clear on why am I holding on to it? What is behind that? And then is that something I want to keep? I want to clear or get rid of? Or is it something I need to revise so that I can make this item an active item in my life in present time. And so that would be the first step in kind of addressing decluttering. And then I think we could talk a little bit about the types of clutter, right? So environmental clutter and mental clutter. Barb, you want to talk a little bit about environmental clutter.

Barb  14:47  
Yeah. I love the fact that you gave the third option there, which I think is so useful. We have this digital way of looking at things I'm either gonna keep this thing or I'm gonna throw it away and I'm never gonna have it in my life again and So we get a little paralyzed with making the decision. So then we start, you know, well, we'll just put that over there and the list of books that I really am pretty sure I'm going to read it even though I haven't picked it up for three years, that little pile over there starts to get bigger and bigger. And when we are able to actually take that piece and say, Okay, I'm going to make a decision here, I don't, I'm not making a decision to get rid of it or to give it away right now. But I'm gonna make a decision that with this set of circumstances, time elapsing, I will be able to make that decision. So first, I just want to call out that that's a really useful tool to help ground things that we're not able to necessarily make that decision right now. And then in terms of environmental clutter, I think one of the one of my favorite things to do in terms of cleaning out my environment is the kitchen and the spices, you know those spices that you get for one dish, and you use it and you love it, and then it goes to the back of the spice cabinet. And then you find it like a year or two later. And you're like, Oh, that was really good. But guess what is already opened is not very good anymore, and you can always replace it. So I love cleaning out those kinds of clutters that I have an attachment to I remembered that that was a really great meal that I made. And we had a really fun time with it. And it's no longer in present time because it's not fresh anymore. So all those exercises of cleaning out a cabinet in your kitchen, or cleaning out your sock drawer. How many just do it that this weekend, how many single socks do you have in your sock drawer, because you think those socks might come back someday, or you might want to wear unmatched socks. But you can only have so many of those. So I actually did go through and get rid of a few of the unmatch socks that were in my drawer that had come from previous incarnations of dryers that eat socks and all those places that socks tend to go and kind of laughed at myself from around the idea that I was still holding on to those expecting that it's orphan brothers, Sister sock would come home at some point, I think oftentimes, we're sort of waiting for those things to happen. And most of the time, that's, you know, just taking up a little bit of space, because how nice it is when you see your sock drawer and you can see all the socks are there. And it's exactly the ones that you're wearing. And it's not the ones that don't have mates or don't have a little hole in them, or whatever. Those feel like the ones in present time. And now you have room for some new socks and new ideas. Because by clearing out that physical clutter, there's room now we've created space for something good come in.

Cali  17:40  
For me, it's just I really enjoy that process. And I go, wow, I get to make space and i get i Who knows what's coming next. But I love cleaning the closet actually do you know, things will get cluttered in a drawer or cupboard and then it'll become unusable. And then I might avoided avoid it. But when I actually sit down and clean it all out, and it's all clean and functional, I don't miss the stuff that I gave away or donate it, you know, I just don't. However, there is another piece here, which is mental clutter. And this one may not be as easy as opening our eyes and looking around the room and going wow, that's just pile of stuff there and a pile of stuff there. That's clutter, let me deal with it. But we also have that mentally. And so we think about the minimalist movement, of having very simple environments filled with very few things, but very important things to us are very useful things to us. A little bit of chill, clarity, cafe, limitless healing, you know, in a way, it's all about mental decluttering. So that we can just have simple environments that are peaceful and usable, to create experiences that are based in the present moment. When we are really mentally cluttered, it can impact our experience of everything happening around us right when we bring our past into the present. And we're worried that the things in the past are going to happen again, or we're feeling like we got to protect ourselves at all angles or you know, we just have a lot of stresses, it really depletes our ability and kind of robs us of being able to be present with ourselves and people around us. And just taking what comes in the moment and being a little more adventurous or a little bit more easy to have some giggles or easy to just you know, especially being around kids and stuff who are super present, you know, if we're really present and mentally decluttered we can meet them where they're at and have some really quality experiences. I mean, it goes with adults too, but it's kind of easier, more palpable with kids because they're kind of at a different vibe than adults typically are. So just understanding why do I bring this mental clutter into present time into my present moment, I'm afraid this is going to happen or Gosh, I'm still dragging with me the pain of that thing happening or you know, or your future tripping, right? Like, oh, the future, I'm worried about this the bills, the jobs, the relationship things, whatever it is, just recognize where you're at. Look at the why, why am I bringing that into this moment? And then bringing our attention to what's actually happening. So if you're outside and you're at a park or something, you know, what's the grass feel like? Can you take the shoes off and touch the grass or smell the flowers or look at the trees or admire the sky. And really just bring your senses into the present moment is a very simple way to begin to declutter and then check out our other podcasts about mentally decluttering and decision making and shooting on ourselves all that fun stuff, you can check out a little bit of chill to get some tools and visualizations for how to kind of mentally declutter, there's a lot of work that you can do, to kind of overall move the needle in that. But if you're in a moment, and you're feeling like you're not able to fully connect, or slightly disassociated, use the five senses here, we're back to the beautiful five BB season five, the five senses, right? And use those to bring yourself into the present moment. We actually have more than five senses. But we'll just, I'll leave that for another podcast, right,

Barb  21:33  
BB 100%. Well, and I think, you know, I love this idea of being back in your physical body and sensing. And it's one of the reasons why breathwork is so important. Like, oh, sometimes if I find myself getting a little bit future oriented, or a little bit past oriented in, in, I can sense that in my interaction with other people. Just be like, Oh, hey, you know what, hi, just kind of take a breath, and say, Hello, metaphorically, or, in reality, just say hello in to the present moment. Because that helps the other person in that conversation also get present, because one of the things that we have to remember is, if we're bringing this clutter from all of our life experiences, or projecting into the future, which all of us do, it's just part of being human and being in a body, that the other person and the other people are there in you're interacting with are also bringing that. So think of those special moments when, when you're with your bestie. When you're with your daughter, when you're with whoever you are, and you're having a moment where you're both really present. It's so special. And I think of that a little bit I'll leave with, leave you with this conversation and thought about, like, why we love vacations, right? Because we get away from our physical environment and our work environment and some of the pressures that we feel that pull us into the present and past. And we're on a beach somewhere where we can feel the sand and we can feel the sun and we can hear the ocean and have those moments of like, this is a special moment. Because every moment is special. If you're in the current moment, if you have that awareness of the current moment, so just feel feel better taking a breath.

Cali  23:17  
Oh man, love that. Love that. And you know in our next episode, we're going to talk about going for what you want in life. And sometimes you might have people that we feel are kind of holding us back or getting a little stuck in that conversation. And so we're gonna dive in another listener request. So thank you so much for requesting the decluttering topic and can't wait to dive into the going for what you want in life and how not to allow other people's perspectives or inputs to block us from that.

Barb  23:49  
And thanks again for being part of the clarity fam. And we love hearing your comments and all your likes and shares and reviews and keep them coming DMS more ideas because this is a super juicy season moving forward to be able to address these topics. So thanks. Thanks, thanks, take what works for you leave the rest and be well

Cali  24:12  
be well.