Ep. 163: Clutter Success Stories – Real Women, Real Wins

Today, we’re continuing our conversation about clutter — but instead of giving you more tips or to-dos, I want to share something even more powerful: stories.

Because sometimes the most encouraging thing isn’t a checklist — it’s hearing someone say, “Me too.”

These are real success stories from real women — all part of our Accomplished Lifestyle community — who took our Clutter Language Quiz, got honest about what was keeping them stuck, and took action in small but life-changing ways.

Let’s dive in.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Emotional Freedom Through Clutter Management
• 1:23 Success Stories of Clutter Clients
• 2:45 Understanding Clutter and Its Impact
• 8:16 Real Stories of Transformation
• 15:29 Emotional Freedom Through Clutter Management

Transcript

All right, so it is so exciting to talk to you about this. Today we're really continuing our conversation about clutter that we've had these past couple of weeks here. And if you've missed the last clutter episodes, you're gonna wanna go back and listen to those because we talked about clutter languages, we talked about clutter types. Last week I shared the 10 different clutter types.

that our brand new clutter type quiz is going to help you diagnose. It's gonna help you diagnose what is your clutter language? What is the reason you're stuck in your clutter? So welcome to the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast today, friend. Whether you're new or whether you've been here for a long time, I'm so excited that you are here. And I am so excited to talk to you about clutter again today because more than 80 % of the women that I talk to every single day,

say they have a struggle, they have a clutter problem. So friend, it is not just you. And by the way, if you know someone who also has a clutter problem, please, please, please share this episode with her. She deserves to see what's possible for her too. So in today's episode, instead of just giving you more tips or to-dos, I want to share something even more powerful. I want to share the stories because sometimes the most encouraging thing, it's not a checklist.

It's hearing someone say, me too. These are real success stories from real women. These are women who I have worked with in a coaching format in some way, shape or form. These are women who worked through our clutter languages and diagnosed, we diagnosed which one or ones she had, but this meant they had to get honest about what was keeping them stuck. But once they did that, they were able to take action.

in small but life-changing ways. So first I'm going to tell you about Laura and she was both a sentimental clutterer and the avoider. so Laura's main clutter language was again, sentimental. She was a sentimental saver and she also had a strong side of avoidance. And so for her, everything felt attached to a memory. Her kid's art,

her mother who passed away, her set of dishes, even the bins of baby clothes. They all felt like proof that she had loved well, but she was afraid to let that go. She felt like if she got rid of the stuff, that would mean it was signaling that she was done loving. And you know what? She just wasn't. But really when she discovered her clutter language as the sentimental saver, she told me,

I realized I wasn't holding onto the items. I was holding on to the grief that I never processed. For her, it was obviously the grief of having lost her mother, but it was also that kind of grief that a lot of midlife moms struggle with, which is the grief of their children growing older and life changing and life moving forward for them while in some ways she felt the same.

She loved her kids the same, but they moved on, they moved forward like they're supposed to. But that can be so hard. And so her biggest sticking point really was believing that letting go, that it would mean forgetting or that it would mean in some way dishonoring or moving forward from the people that she loved. And so for her, that big aha moment was when she said, I finally understood that the memories live in me.

not in all these boxes. What a powerful discovery. These memories live in me, not in all these boxes. Can you imagine? I mean, you can hear the freedom that that brings. So for Laura, she really started by taking pictures of some of the most valuable items and writing a few lines about what they meant at the same time. Then she released them with intention and she has the pictures.

And she has the journal that she wrote in. But she physically pictured herself releasing the grip, the hold, that unrelenting strangle that the stuff felt like it had on her. She released that. And let me tell you, there were tears involved, but that's OK. We talked about how we are emotional. In the episode I shared two weeks ago, we shared how oftentimes we are going to have to process

with the tears because we're also processing emotions at the same time. And so it's only natural that the tears would come and they did for Laura. But know that success for Laura and maybe success for you, it's not going to mean a spotless home. Maybe for you, just like Laura, it would mean walking into her storage closet and not feeling dread. It really was as much as it was a reclaiming of her physical space.

discovering her clutter language and working through it, working with it and releasing the grip. It was also reclaiming emotional space. It wasn't just the physical space. So that's Laura, the sentimental saver and the avoider.

Next, going to tell you about my client, Michelle. She dealt with overwhelm and perfectionism. That was what her quiz told her. So she described her house to me this way. Every room feels like it's yelling at me. I can't even think straight. Ever felt that way about your stuff? It's pretty common. And so while her room was screaming at her,

she would freeze, not because she was lazy, like she kept telling herself. She kept telling herself there was something wrong with her. She was lazy. You know, if you weren't so lazy, you would take care of this. So she would freeze, not because she was lazy, but because her brain was in overdrive. Her brain was a highway of thoughts racing, because that's what overwhelm did to her. And so,

She also struggled with that side of perfectionism. And so she also felt like if she couldn't do it right, she wouldn't do it at all. And so really for her, the biggest breakthrough happened when she let go this ideal that she had to have the perfect system. She had to have it all figured out, what she was doing and how she was gonna make her decision and what she was gonna do with the things she wasn't keeping and how she would, you know, all the logistics.

And she felt like she had to have all of those logistics and everything really packaged into this pretty little system before she started. so for her, the aha moment came when during one of our coaching sessions, she said, I realized the system isn't what creates progress. It's starting that creates progress. What a realization. Again, you can hear the freedom from her clutter unlocking.

And so we really gave her permission to begin messy, to make mistakes. And when she had permission for those two things, it was not cluttered. Her cluttered wasn't strangling her. And so she set a timer for 15 minutes and she started in just one place. And then a little later, she did it again and again and again and again.

And so success for Michelle, it really looked like being able to make her morning coffee without shoving things aside in order to get to her coffee, in order to get the mug, in order to get the coffee itself. For her, it looked like breathing a little easier when her husband walked in the door at night because she wasn't feeling the shame. For her, success also looked like progress.

without perfection and progress without pressure. So that's Michelle.

The third client I'm gonna tell you about is Dana, and she was the guilty keeper, and she was a little bit of an over-thinker also.

So the guilty keeper and overthinking. I find overthinking is probably present for more than 50 % of the women, whether it's their primary language or a secondary or third one. So for Dana, she said, I know I don't use it, but I feel wasteful getting rid of it. And also, what if I need it later?

What if my daughter wants it someday? These were the thoughts that were paralyzing her. And so she lived in this constant loop of what ifs and self judgment. And so for Dana, the real shift came when she said literally out loud, I'm keeping things out of fear, not love. I'm keeping things out of fear, not love. And again, you can hear and feel.

The breakthrough. Her sticking point really was believing that she was a bad person, that she wasn't managing her financial means responsibly if she let something go. And so her breakthrough action was that she created a single box. She got a single box where she could place things that she might

regret donating or getting rid of. And so she gave herself permission to say, to kind of create this in the middle box. So as she worked, she was getting rid of the stuff that she knew she needed to get rid of once she had that breakthrough, but she was allowed to have a few items that just, that she was struggling with. And of course the box would only hold so much.

So she was allowed to put things in there, if she came across something else she wanted to put in the box, but the box was full, well then, of course, she had to say, is this gonna go in the box and I'm gonna take something else out? Or am I gonna decide the box is full? I can't put this one in there.

But she also gave herself 30 days. And she was going to revisit how she felt about everything in the box after 30 days. Did she still struggle? What she found was really the things that she put in the box. Once she had her momentum going, once she gained clarity on the majority of the stuff and had confidence and could trust herself,

Really, that's what it boils down to, this lack of confidence. I see it in women everywhere. What that really looked like for Dana and for many, many women in regards to clutter is they don't trust themselves to make the right decision. I might keep something that I actually later say I should have kept, gotten rid of, or I might get rid of something that I later say I should have kept.

And so they lack this confidence in their ability to make decisions in their own life. They lack the confidence and the trust in themselves to actually be able to move forward. Because what if I do it wrong? What if I totally mess this up and we put all of this pressure on ourselves? And so what she discovered is once she started to prove to herself that, you know what, I can decide whether to keep stuff or get rid of it.

Then she had that momentum going and so she discovered that that box she didn't need it after all. So success for Dana, wasn't clearing her whole garage or her whole storage room or her whole office. It was really being able to walk past a pile that had been there lurking for two years and thinking, I finally dealt with this.

And really she called it emotional freedom. What I love most about these stories is that none of these women had it all figured out. And they didn't wait until life got easier or better or the timing got somehow different to start. They just took the next step. They did it with support. I was there with them. I was there to offer them structure.

and grace. And they had that they had to offer themselves the same things, support, structure, and grace. And we both held space for that while they were getting started. So here's one simple step if you're ready to take action on your clutter. If today's stories and

the last couple of episodes that we've specifically been talking about clutter and clutter types and clutter languages and clutter struggles. If that has stirred something in you, if you're feeling that little nudge to stop avoiding the clutter and start making space, I've got your next best step. Head down to the show notes and follow the link to take the clutter type quiz. It's going to help you

identify exactly why clutter keeps piling up, where your resistance is coming from, and what kind of strategy actually works for you. Not someone else's clutter hacks, not someone else's step-by-step process, and not the Pinterest version of what progress is going to look like for you. It's going to be a strategy that actually works for you based on

what the quiz discovers. This quiz takes just a few minutes and it's already been helping hundreds of women finally understand what's been keeping them stuck. This is here for you too. And you should absolutely take it because once you know your clutter type and your clutter language, you're able to stop spinning and something can start shifting and progress can start unfolding.

and momentum can take over. The link you need is right down in the show notes. So friend, thanks so much for joining today. Know that we are here every week helping you with practical skills, but also the mindset that always lies underneath those practical, actionable things that we talk about because whether or not you realize it, your mind always has to be on board.

first, because if your mind isn't on board, the actions won't unfold either. That's what we do here every single week. So thanks so much for joining. We'll talk again in the next episode. Until then, make it an intentional day.