Decluttering with ADHD: Will Letting Go Ever Feel Easy?

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Article Referenced in the show: Object Permanence

In this episode of 'Organizing an ADHD Brain,' host Megs dives into the emotional journey of letting go and decluttering, specifically tailored for individuals with ADHD. Megs shares personal stories about parting with sentimental items, from baby blankets to old marriage photos, illustrating the challenging yet liberating experience of decluttering. She also discusses the concept of object permanence in ADHD and how it affects decision-making. Throughout the episode, Megs emphasizes the importance of making hard decisions, dealing with emotions tied to belongings, and not fearing regret. She encourages listeners to join her community for body doubling sessions and workshops on creating dopamine menus, aiming to help others organize their lives effectively. Additionally, Megs proposes a six-week dopamine menu challenge to reduce screen time and invites suggestions for suitable podcast sponsors.

01:07 The Emotional Journey of Letting Go

03:19 Personal Stories of Letting Go

10:45 Lessons Learned and Moving Forward

27:36 Community and Support

29:24 Conclusion and Future Plans

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Transcript

Yeti Stereo Microphone & FaceTime HD Camera: 0:42

Hey, beautiful people. Welcome back to another episode of organizing an ADHD brain. I'm your host Megs, and I'm really excited to be talking to you again about letting go. This is a common theme in our life when it comes to organizing and decluttering. And of course, decluttering is going to be the first step. into letting go and getting more organized. Some quick announcements for you. if you're ready to join my organizing an ADHD brain community, we're doing a body doubling session on Tuesday where you're welcome to come and do whatever tasks you need to check off your list. I'm also going to be leading a workshop on getting our dopamine menus done. if you go to my website, you can download the dopamine menu and a video how to that'll walk you through it. but I don't know a lot of people that have actually made their dopamine menu yet. So I figured that would be such a good way to do it in the community. If you haven't downloaded it yet, check it out. Just go to mindfulmegs. com or organizinganadhdbrain. com and you will find it under dopamine menu. I have the link in the show notes below. This week I decided to do this episode on letting go and talk about some of the things I remember letting go and if I regret them or not. I started to think about this more because often times it's so hard for us to let go because we think we might need these items. We think it belongs to something, or we think we could come to a point in our life where we might need to use it. And so we keep it. And then, there are so many items in our house that aren't necessarily there for our lives right now, they're there for our potential lives in the future, just in case. But what if we eliminated the just in cases? What if we decided that we could let go of the things that we might need in the future? And I'm going to give you some examples of the decisions that I've made along the way to help me get to the position of letting go in a way that feels a little bit easier. But truthfully, I don't know that it really does get easier. I'm not going to tell you and sugarcoat to you that, yeah, once you make the decision enough, you're just, you're able to make all the decisions and they're going to feel really good letting go. Now, letting go feels incredible. It really does. When you drop something off at a donation center and maybe it's an entire trunk load of stuff that you've had in your car, if you go through your closet and you're finally letting go of clothes, it feels incredibly good to let that stuff go. But when you are making decisions, one item at a time, it can feel overwhelming. In fact, most of my clients, when I was doing a lot more in person organizing, I felt so overwhelmed, I could see how mentally exhausted they would get the longer I was having them make decisions on the items that needed to leave their house. So I'm going to give you the details, and I would love if you could share some of the things that you've let go of too. I just want to be really honest with you. My ADHD hasn't gone anywhere just because I've let go and I've gotten organized in my home. It's still here, ready to play, and I'm going to talk to you about how that manifests in so many different aspects of my life. So number one. When I tell this story, I still think about the physical reaction I had when letting this item go. it was a bunch of stuff that I had gone through, including baby items of my daughters. Also side note, my girls have a friend over today and there's not a big possibility that I can ask them to be quiet and they're going to listen. they'll respect my wishes, but also then forget almost immediately. I don't actually remember making the decision to let this go. but I do remember this moment. There was this pink, soft baby blanket with little elephants all over. And I love elephants. And it was Cora's. Cora is five. And so she's getting older. And, we had all gone to the donation place together, dropped off a bunch of stuff, And as we were driving away, Cora saw this baby blanket on the top of the pile of stuff. and this is a bigger than normal donation drop off. we brought pillows and blankets and baby stuff and clothes. And there was a lot of stuff that we dropped off in that pink blanket was one of them. And Cora started screaming as we were driving away, seeing that blanket was at the top of the pile. That was my perspective. I thought that she had seen this baby blanket of hers from her childhood. And didn't want to let it go because that is the relationship that I have always had to items. And so I immediately started crying and I started questioning my very existence because I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm the worst mom in the world. How could I ever let go of this baby blanket? I do include my girls in so many of the decisions that we make, but because she was crying and I thought it was about the baby blanket, I started crying too, because it was genuinely very hard for me to let it go. And I made peace with it because There were no babies at that point in life that we could have passed it on to. There was no reason for us to keep it because I already have the sentimental items that I want to keep in a box for her. And it made sense to let the item go. Cora had started crying because she thought. That I had donated her brand new blanket that we had just bought from Costco. it was in that moment that I had to process some of the emotions that I was feeling in letting it go. And in this moment, I still feel some of those emotions. But I also don't regret letting that blanket go because knowing the amount of space I have in my home, it's just not something that I want to keep here anymore. And it still makes me sad a little bit, but I don't regret it. And it's important to realize that other people's emotions could trigger something in me, even though she wasn't crying about the blanket. She's crying about her new blanket that we still have, by the way. we've also acquired at least six more blankets since that incident, so I think we're good. Number two. we've been decluttering our basement for some time now. We don't have a ton of stuff down there, but we are getting prepared to move across the country. My husband and I decided that we want a little bit more land, and we want a garden where we don't have to spend a ton of money to water, because rain naturally happens on the east coast a little bit more than it does in Colorado. So one of the things I was decluttering and I was going through some old wall hangings that I had sitting in the basement and I hadn't made a full decision on them making a full decision as to say, this is something that I definitely want to hang up in the future, or this is something that I definitely don't want to hang up in the future. And what am I going to do with it? Does it sit here until inevitably I'll make a decision in the future, but I have to make a decision on it every single time I see it to say, does it stay or does it go? Or do I make a full decision? So as I'm going through and challenging myself to make a full decision on these items in my home, I had these canvas prints made. With my daughter's baby pictures on them and we also had a couple prints of Maternity photos that we had hanging on the wall at a certain time and as I am looking at them I realize you know, these aren't something that I want to display anymore I love that I have those maternity photos to look at But it's not something that I'm going to hang on the wall anymore. I then was trying to figure out, I talked to my husband about this, because it's very good for me to talk some of these things out, especially as I support people with ADHD letting go in their own homes. So I'm talking to my husband about it. And I'm like, maybe I could just cut it out. I'll cut off the wood frame so it's not as big and bulky and I can keep it that way. And he asked me, do we still have the picture somewhere? And I said, yeah, I do have the picture. I'm not letting go of the picture. I'm just letting go of the canvas, but for some reason, because the canvas is a canvas, right? Like it was printed and stretched and stapled and I paid money for it. It feels wrong to let it go and to throw it in the garbage. Plus, part of me is like, I can't throw my baby in the garbage, right? this is my beautiful, precious angel. And I realized that she doesn't go away and her childhood does not go away because I'm putting this in the garbage. It's just that it's not something that belongs in our home anymore. This is also something that may prevent me from buying certain canvases in the future. If it's something that's only going to hang on our wall for a couple months or even a year, Do I spend more money investing on these wall hangings or do I spend money on something that might last a little bit longer? I get to start making those decisions instead, regardless of what you decide, you're in control of that, but I don't need to store something that's no longer going to belong in our lives. When I tell that story, I still feel a little emotional about it. So it hasn't gone away just because I made the decision. But it's also not something that I think about a lot, and honestly, I probably think about it more just because I literally am a professional organizer for people with ADHD and I have to tell the story. I'm proud of myself for letting it go because it's something that I don't have to spend time making decisions about anymore. And my girl's memories are still alive and well. In the event that you are listening to this and you're like, I don't know who this woman is, but she is evil for throwing away the canvas of her daughter. I want you to sit with that because if you think that about me, it could mean that you think that about yourself. You have these underlying beliefs of what it means to let go and to keep things and what it means to you. Part of me letting go was I had to understand that I want to have less in my home. And in order for me to have less, I do have to make some harder decisions. And I might be sad to let something go, but it's bittersweet. It's not just sad. It's also growth in that I can appreciate the memory. I can appreciate that at one point in our lives. We were able to hang that sweet photo up on the wall, and now we're not there anymore. And that's okay. One of my clients asked me, what if she wanted that? What if your daughter wanted that to hang on her wall one day? And that's a great point. If she would ever like to get that photo put on canvas to hang up in her home, she absolutely can because she will have access to that photo. And I'll make sure that, that's something that she has an option to do. Just because I get rid of it doesn't mean that it's not attainable anymore. I'm still giving her autonomy to decide what makes sense in her life. I've made a rule for myself that I'm keeping the amount of items that I give to her when she gets older Consolidated to one or two boxes so that she can decide what makes sense for her to keep and what to throw away in the future. Number three, threw away an old photo album that was from my first marriage and this was a weird one because That's something that you don't throw away, but then it was from a time that I don't know that I'm fully proud of. I don't know that I'm fully, excited to say that I was married before or that it was failed, right? So when I looked at the album, I realized that it brought up a lot of negative emotions in me. And so When I decided to let it go, it's a part of me, but it's not necessarily a part of my past that I want to relive, so when I think about keeping things like that, do I want to sit down And show my kids this album or, talk about some of the things that happened on that day. I don't. and it's not that I'm erasing history, it's just that's not who I am anymore. And when I look at that album, it brought up negative emotions. It didn't bring up things that I wanted to relive joyfully. I'm not erasing the bad. I learned so much from All of the experiences that I've had, I've failed a ton, and I've learned from those failures so that I can build upon them. And my husband? The best man you could ever meet in your entire life. He's pretty cool. So did I learn? Yeah. And do I need that lying around anymore? No. So what I did is I went through and took out some pictures of me and my best friends so that I could look back and maybe some family pictures too so that I could truly enjoy some of the positive aspects of the day, but I don't have to also look at the negative things. Number four. I laugh about this one because I think I feel more regret. Then my husband ever has because I threw away a fermented shark in a jar that my husband had gotten from his best friend growing up and we've had it our entire marriage. And one day, as I was decluttering and making some decisions, I looked at my husband, I said, Hey, is it okay if I let this go? And without hesitation, he said yes. And, I felt awful for it. he told me a story about it once, about how his best friend had gone to Hawaii and gotten him a fermented shark in a jar. and then I threw it away. In the lead up to this episode, I brought this up to my husband and I'm like, do you have any emotional feelings when it comes to me letting this go for you? And he goes, no. And he goes, honestly, I never remember that it ever exists until you bring it up. And I was like, when I bring it up, is it emotional for you? And he goes, no. but I'm making it a bigger deal than it needs to be because I remember the story that was attached to it. That story never went away. And in the event that my husband forgets that his best friend got him a fermented shark in a jar from Hawaii, will he be okay? He will be. Will I be okay? Also, yes. But because I'm talking about it so much, I don't think we're ever going to forget about the shark in the jar. For the longest time underneath my bed, I had this tupperware of old t shirts. I had a bunch of old t shirts from high school and college. They were old college t shirts with my alma mater on it. They were old band t shirts. If you're something corporate fan, that was my favorite band growing up and I had all of their t shirts. One of them was even signed by the band. I loved them so much and I had heard from someone once that you could have a quilt made out of your old t shirts and you could turn them into something different because I knew that none of the t shirts or old shirts in this container were something that I ever wanted to wear again. I had made that decision, right? But I just thought I should keep them partly because everyone That I've ever known has always kept them. I never heard about people talking about letting things like this go and I remember this one time that a friend of mine had a daughter going to my alma mater to visit and she wanted to see if I had a t shirt. And I was like, Oh my God, yeah, I do. And I got so excited. I put it aside. I was like, I have this! Meghan to the rescue! I felt so good about having something that could be used by someone else. And then, she didn't need it. She never used it. And it was okay. I put it back away. And in the end, I let all of these t shirts go. Because they were taking up room underneath my bed. And I didn't necessarily want to keep them there anymore. I really just didn't want to keep them in general. And when I thought about making a quilt for all of these t shirts, I thought about, where would I keep a quilt like that? Would I ever use it? And I was like, no. I probably would fold it up and stick it in a closet somewhere. And maybe pull out if I had a guest over, but probably not. So instead, I have pictures of all the concerts I used to go to. And those are there. Me wearing the t shirts. And guess what? They just started touring again, and they have one of the same t shirts that I had in high school. But I didn't end up buying it it's not something that I need It's not something that I feel drawn to and now that I have so much less in my closet It's just not something that I feel like I need to collect So I let go of the band t shirts and every once in a while Especially when I saw them in concert back in September. I was like, oh should I have kept that? I'm like, no. It takes up too much room and honestly, when I put on those t shirts, they fit awfully. like they shrunk in weird and different ways. They didn't feel good. I had gotten the band t shirt signed, but I didn't keep it preserved. I kept using it and washing it. And I have a hat that says roadie on it and it's signed by the band. And I have, other things that I got from being a street team member at one point. So look, I'm a dedicated fan, and if I don't have a t shirt, it doesn't mean that I'm less of a dedicated fan. I can still move on with my life. I told this story in our group coaching in the community this week, So this would be example number six, and I'm sure I have more of them, but I got rid of a bunch of Halloween costumes and I used to live in Salem. I love Halloween. I love dressing up We just always have a really good time on Halloween. Plus, our neighborhood on Halloween is so legit. I've seen some social media posts about how Halloween has changed. Not in this neighborhood. It is hopping. Let me tell you, people drive here from other places just so that they can trick or treat But this past year, I didn't have a Halloween costume and I didn't want to spend money on one. And in that moment, felt awful about it. I'm like, ugh, if only I had a Halloween costume space that I could go back to and pull out an old costume that I wouldn't have had to spend more money on. But I let them go. Some of them I sold, some of them I decided to donate, and here I was, costumeless. So, in my resourceful brain, because our ADHD brains are incredible, I went and created a costume from scratch. And I did a little research, too. I looked on Pinterest, I looked at different things. I was a lumberjack one day, and I drew myself a mustache and a beard, and I wore one of my husband's flannel shirts. I also did a makeshift Taylor Swift costume because I have sparkly boots and those aren't going anywhere because I made space for those, but I found costumes. I was able to dress up because I'm resourceful and I already had things in my home that were able to be used for this costume. what's really interesting about this is that we like to be prepared for everything. So we keep everything. just in case. So now in the event that something happens, we can be like, I have that because of course I do, right? I keep everything. You need a wire. Let me go to my box of wires. I am bound to have that somewhere. It's just going to take me about 30 minutes to look for it because there's a lot of wires in there and they are not organized. But what if we weren't prepared for everything? What if? You didn't have the wire that was needed. What would happen? You'd have to go and replace it, right? But how often does that actually come up? is it worth keeping everything so that you can be the hero once or twice during the year because you have exactly what someone's looking for? And now do they depend on you for having everything because you're always coming to the rescue? What if you didn't have everything? And what if that was okay because We were never supposed to have this much. In a world of Amazons and Walmart Plus and Target Circle, we have everything at the click of a button. And in that, we keep buying more, because now we feel like we need to be prepared for anything. Which is fascinating, here's what I have discovered about ADHD and letting go. I'm gonna post an article in the show notes below about ADHD and object permanence. It's very interesting, and I'm going to talk about my own experiences with clients that proved this to be something that's very important to consider. According to this theory, object permanence problems make people with ADHD more likely to forget important tasks, objects, and people When they are not present. But object permanence is only a theory of ADHD and not an accepted symptom or diagnosis. I talk about object permanence because when the item is in your hands and you now have to make a decision on that item, we have so much connection to that item. We're like, Oh, I could definitely use this in the future. I'm going to keep it just in case. Oh, if it's a piece of art, Oh, I'm definitely going to keep this because it's so important. My child drew this. If it's an article of clothing that used to fit us, it might fit us again. I'm going to keep this just in case. Most of the time we're keeping all of these things just in case until we get to the point and you're listening to this podcast for a reason, right? Because you have too much stuff or you're disorganized and things don't have a place to live. But in most cases, we have so much stuff just in case. that we can't find the stuff that we actually need to live our lives. And so then what happens is all the just in case stuff, all these delayed decisions and all the decisions waiting to be made are in the way of us making a decision on the things that we need right here in this moment. And they're in the way of us actually finding The tape that we need. So instead of being able to find the tape, we go out and buy more. They're in the way of buying that book of stamps that we bought last month, but now we can't find it, so we just go out and buy more. And it's in the way of that really cute shirt that we know looks really adorable on us. But we have no idea where it is because we have too many other clothes standing in our way. I talk about object permanence because the decision you're making in the moment feels excruciating, and as soon as you make the decision, it's done. And I share with you the experiences of some of the things that I remember because they did cause an emotional reaction in me, and it was hard. And to this day, I still feel some hard emotions as I am making decisions, and as I think back on those other things that I let go. But in not one instance have I felt regret. I'm not regretful of letting go or making those hard decisions because it has truly allowed me to live a life. That doesn't feel so overwhelming anymore. I'm literally getting emotional right now, and I think it's just because I've put so much effort, not only in this podcast, but in letting go the way I'm living my life now is totally different than the way that I've ever lived my life before. I actually canceled Amazon last month and I'm fine because. I now think a little bit more before I'm making a purchase. I have a lot more to say on the things that we impulsively buy because I think that they're made so cheaply nowadays and I feel like we just, it's so easy to get things that even if it has a four and a half star review, we're going to buy it, but most of the time those reviews are being left within the first two weeks of having something. And then things are breaking within eight months of us having, but then we keep it because we feel like we're going to fix it, but in turn we just go out and buy a new one to replace it. So now we have two, one works, one doesn't, but nothing leaves our house. The only constant in life is change. I say this all of the time. The only constant in life is change and you get to make a choice as you're moving forward in life. Do you let go of the stuff so that you could make room for the life that you want to live? Because you have goals, you have things you want to achieve, or do you hold on to all of that while you're also welcoming in this new life that you're living? If you hold on to everything, you're going to drown in physical stuff. And if you're listening to this podcast, it's likely because you are, and you don't know where to start, and that's okay. I'm just here to say that this podcast today, the reason why I put this together is that your decisions aren't going to be easy. And I think we hesitate from making those decisions because we're waiting for it to be easy. what if it never gets easier? Are you never going to let go? No, you are. You start with the easy stuff. What's the easy stuff? Office supplies. I know we love office supplies, okay? Don't come at me. I love me some sticky notes. And you know what? You might make a mistake. You might let something go that you didn't actually want to. And, are you going to be okay? Abso darn lutely. Because you will find a way to live without that item. Because you will be so proud of everything else you let go along the way that you don't regret. that all of the items that you've let go makes up for the one that you regret. And like I said, I don't have any regrets because I see this incredible way of living on the other side, having less. And I don't mean minimalism, but just allowing yourself to live with the stuff you need and not with the stuff you think you need. something that I'm working on that I wanted to share with you is putting down my phone more. I've noticed that my scrolling time has increased quite a bit. And I mentioned in the beginning that I'm going to be working on my own dopamine menu and using that as a way to fill up my world with a little bit more than what social media is doing and maybe anything else that's distracting me on my phone, like emails or things just pulling me in different directions. I am going to lead you on a challenge. Over the next six weeks to see if you can do the same so in order to participate in this challenge It's totally free go to my website and download the dopamine menu There's a video how to follow along if you want some additional support go to my community. It's 27 a month there's a monthly group coaching session. We also have two monthly body doubling sessions. Some of them are where we're silent and just working on tasks behind the scenes. Some of them, like I had said, I'm going to be leading a workshop through different ways you can get things done. And on Tuesday, we're going to go through creating our dopamine menu. there's also a coupon code for 5 off your first month. And it is podcast. so go check that out. If you want to be around like minded people who are also interested in letting go. If you need some more personalized one on one support, I am a coach, and I would be so happy to support you through this journey. And anyone who is coaching with me gets access to the community for free for three months since it's a 90 day program. I'll keep you in the loop on other ways to participate in this dopamine menu challenge over the next six weeks, but it's going to have a lot to do with our screen time and measuring it, and There could be a prize in it for you when you participate. Lastly, as I continue to move forward in this podcasting journey, I'm trying to figure out a way to sponsor the podcast that makes sense for our ADHD brains. I'm not a huge proponent of recommending organizing supplies or bins and you can go back to my podcast episode on why bins won't solve your clutter problem and I'll talk more about that. But I'm trying to figure out what's going to make sense. And so if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear those ideas. I know that there's certain headphones that can help us with distractions, maybe sound machines at night. I'm just trying to figure out what makes sense and something that I truly love that could make a difference in your life that I could recommend for you. it's important to me that I'm not telling you to buy something just to buy something. So let me know if you have any recommendations. You can text message me through the show below, but also remember, I can't text you back, so you won't get a response from me. Or you can email me if you go to the dopamine menu request, you can actually even put a note in there after you sign up for the download, which is awesome. I'm just really honored to be your host. I've only shared a tiny percentage of the things that I have learned through decluttering and organizing with ADHD. So stay tuned. I'm so happy to have you along for the ride. I will see you next week.