Ep. 258: Why Your Clutter Gives You That Lump in Your Throat

You pick it up.

You've picked it up before. Probably more than once.

You look at it. You think about it. You might even say out loud, "Okay, this is the time. I'm finally getting rid of this."

You put it in the donate box.

And then…somewhere between the box and the car you take it back out.

Again.

And now you're standing in the middle of your closet feeling frustrated and a little embarrassed, because what kind of person can't decide whether to keep a sweater?

You tell yourself you're being ridiculous. You tell yourself you should just be able to do this. You've watched the shows. You've read the books. You know the method. You know the rules. You even know the question: does it spark joy? And honestly, you're not even sure what joy feels like anymore so that's not helping.

But here's what I think is actually happening.

I think you've been trying to make an emotional decision using organizational tools.

And those are two completely different conversations.

So today we're going to have the right one.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Break Free From the Emotional Attachment Workshop 

https://www.jenniferroskamp.com/acl-june 

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Transcript

Okay, well, hey friend, welcome back to the conversation today. I am Jennifer Roskamp. I am a certified life coach and strategist. I am also founder of Accomplished Lifestyle. And if you're new here, welcome. You are in the right place. So I am here having conversations with midlife women who are done with fluffy advice, they're done spinning in survival mode, and they're ready to actually move forward. We talk about the real stuff: the mental load, the overwhelm, the identity shifts.

All of these things that come with this season of life, and we build real tools to help you lead yourself well. So if this is the first time you're here, well, go back and listen to some of the other conversations that we've had here. And if you've been around for a while, thank you. I'm genuinely glad you keep coming back. So today we're diving into something that I think is way more layered than most decluttering content gives it credit for.

We're talking about the things that you can't seem to get rid of. Not the expired coupons, not the random drawer full of batteries and takeout menus and pens that don't work. I'm talking about the stuff that actually matters to you or used to. The stuff you move from house to house, the stuff that sits in a tote at your basement that you haven't even opened in four years, but you cannot imagine throwing away. We're gonna talk about why that's happening and what it actually means.

So I want to start off by telling you about a box that has been around for a long time. It's a plain cardboard box, it's medium-sized, and inside it, I've since gotten rid of it. So inside of it, there were things from a business that I had started and never really launched. I never really did anything with it. There were notebooks filled with ideas. There was a logo that I'd had designed. There were printed worksheets that I'd created that nobody ever used.

There was a few products that I'd ordered and things that would make life easier in that business. And for years, that box just sat on a shelf in my storage room. And every time I would do a big clean out, the kind where you are determined and you're caffeinated and you have a trash bag in each hand. And I would get to that box and I would open it and I would look at everything inside. And then I would quietly close it and put it back on the shelf.

Jennifer (02:16.598)
And I would tell myself that I just wasn't ready to deal with it yet. But if I'm being honest, I think I was afraid of what it meant to let it go. That box represented a version of me that had a dream, a direction, a plan that felt exciting at the time. And getting rid of it felt like I was officially admitting that it wasn't gonna happen, that I had tried something and it hadn't worked out. That the person who made those notebooks full of stuff and ordered those things, she was gone.

And the idea was gone with her. And so it wasn't about the box. It was never about the box. And that's what I want to unpack with you today, because I think a lot of you have a box. Maybe not literally, but you have something and you've been carrying it a lot longer than you probably realize. So here's the thing that nobody talks about in the decluttering world. And it's this: not all clutter is created equal. There is clutter that is just about clutter, right?

The stuff that accumulated because you were busy and distracted and your kitchen counter is basically a landing strip for everything that doesn't have a home. Things like expired coupons and broken toys and duplicate spatulas, stretched out hair ties, three half-used bottles of the same soap. I mean, who knows, right? That stuff is annoying to sort through for sure, but it's manageable. There are no real there's no real emotional charge there. I mean, when you

When you toss a spatula, it's not a real emotionally hard thing. But then there's this other category. It's the baby clothes that you washed and folded and put in a bag when your last one outgrew them and you haven't been able to donate them because it it feels too permanent. It's the wedding china that you never used but can't let go of because it it feels like getting rid of it means something about your marriage. There's the journals from a season of your life that was hard and you don't want to read them.

But you also don't wanna throw them away because at least they're proof that you lived through something real. There's the craft supplies from the business that you were gonna start. There's the exercise equipment from the version of yourself who was gonna be someone who used it. There's the clothes from a body that used to be yours or might be again someday. These things are not the same as that spatula. And the mistake that most of us make.

The mistake that I think the organizing industry makes on the regular is treating all of these things the same way. We apply the same system. We up we follow the same steps. We make a yes pile and a no pile. And if you haven't used it in a year, it goes. And that it that advice, it does work for your junk drawer. But it completely falls apart when you're standing in front of a box of your daughter's daughter's kindergarten artwork because you're not managing inventory in those moments.

You're managing identity. And those are completely different problems. And they require completely different tools. So let me say that again because I want to make sure that you heard me. Some things in your home are simply inventory. And some things are identity. And no amount of matching bins or color-coded labels is going to help you when you're dealing with the identity stuff.

And this is where I really want to slow everything down for a second because I think one of the most important things that you can understand, and it sounds simple, but it's not always easy, is that the object and the meaning you've attached to it are not the same thing. They are not the same thing. The memory is not the sweater. The relationship is not the dish. The dream is not the cricket machine.

The season of early motherhood is not inside that rubber made tote of tiny onesies. And I know that that feels that sounds obvious when I say it out loud, but when you're actually standing there holding that onesie, the one from the day you brought your youngest home from the hospital, it doesn't feel obvious.

It feels like the onesie is the memory. Like letting go of the onesie means letting go of that day or of that baby or of the version of yourself who was so scared and so full of love and so completely overwhelmed in the best possible way. But here's what's actually true: the memory lives in you, not in the fabric. The relationship that you had with your mom lives in you, not the casserole dish that she used every Sunday, every Sunday.


That dream that you had for yourself, the business, the creative outlet, the life that looked a little different from the one you're actually living, that version of you is not trapped inside that box of supplies. She existed. She was real. And she's not going to disappear if you donate the cricket. Now I want to be careful here because I'm not saying that none of these things are worth keeping. Some of them absolutely are.

But what I am saying is that the reason it feels impossible to decide is usually not because you don't know whether you want the object, it's because you're afraid of what letting go of the object means. And those are two very different situations. When you're afraid the object will take the memory with it, well, now that's grief. And the thing about grief is that it doesn't follow a logical timeline. It doesn't care that it's been three years, it doesn't care that the person is still alive.

Or that that season ended on your terms, or that you made the choice yourself. Grief often, almost always, shows up anyway. And when it attaches itself to an object, that object becomes impossible to move because moving it feels like the grief will move with it. And you're not sure you're ready to let it settle somewhere else. When you're holding on to something from a relationship that's complicated or gone, that's unfinished emotional business.

There's a r there's a reason that you can't donate your mother's dishes, even though you never use them, and they don't match anything in your kitchen. The dishes are carrying the relationship, all the love, all the complexity, all the things that you wish you'd said or hadn't said or still want to say. And until you have somewhere to put all of that, until the emotion has somewhere to land, that the object itself is gonna stay.

When you can't let go of the business supplies or the art supplies or the hobby supplies, that's often grief too, but it can also be guilt. Guilt that you spent the money, guilt that you didn't follow through, guilt that you wanted something for yourself and then life got loud and you set it down and you never came back to it. And now the physical evidence of that abandoned want is sitting in your closet, making you feel like a quitter every single time you open the door. So you close the door because that's easier than making the decision.


When you can't let go of clothes from a different body, that can be hope. It can be fear. It can be a deeply complicated relationship with the person that you used to be or the person you've been telling yourself that you're gonna get back to. Those clothes might represent a season when you felt more like yourself or a version of yourself that you're grieving and haven't said that out loud yet. When you hold on to things from a season of motherhood that's changing, that's the grief of transition.

Or watching a chapter close in real time and not being sure you're ready for the next one. Of feeling like the totes in the basement are evidence that it really happened, that those years were real, and that those babies were small ones, and you were the kind of mom that you were back then, and that you mattered in a particular way back then. It's grief, it's guilt, it's hope and fear, regret, identity, pressure, unfinished decisions. These are what the clutter is actually carrying for you. And

It's been doing that job for a long time. None of these things are actually about the stuff. All of these things are being carried by the stuff. And that distinction, that shift in how you actually understand what's happening, it changes everything about how you approach it. Because when you know what the item is actually carrying along with it, what it's actually tethered to, you can start to separate the meaning from the object itself.

You can honor the memory without needing the object to hold it. You can acknowledge the dream without needing the supplies to prove that it mattered. You can let the casserole dish go and still carry your mom with you every single day. That's the work. And it's not performed using a checklist. It's a conversation with yourself, one that takes time and honesty and a little more gentleness than most decluttering advice ever gives you. Now.

Most decluttering advice all starts with the same form of the same question. Should I keep it? Or it will flip it and say, should I get rid of it? And I want to tell you something straight up. That is the wrong first question. Asking, should I keep it when you are emotionally flooded is like trying to figure out if you're hungry when you're in the middle of a panic attack. The cognitive part of your brain is just not running the show right in that moment. You are not actually in a decision making space or capacity.

You are in a feelings space. And feelings don't respond to logic the way that we want them to. That's why you can stand in front of a box of baby clothes, apply every piece of organizing advice that you've ever heard, know full well that you live in a small house and you have four other totes of baby stuff, and these particular clothes don't even have that much sentimental significance. And you can still not be able to put those things in the donate pile.

It's not because you're broken or incapable or bad with organizing or destined to live in clutter. It's because you're asking the wrong question. That's the problem. The first question is not, should I keep this? The first question needs to be: why does this feel hard to me? That's it. That's where you want to start. Why does this particular item feel like a big deal? What does it represent? Who was it when I got it? Or

When was it that I used it? Who was I when I got it? Sorry, that makes more sense. Who was I when I got it? Or when I used it, or when I first thought about getting rid of it? What happens if I let this go? Am I protecting a memory or am I postponing a feeling? Because those are wildly different things. Protecting a memory means that you're trying to preserve something real and you're using an object to do it.

Postponing a feeling means you already know that the emotion is there, waiting. And the object is doing the job of standing between you and having to feel that emotion. And the reason this matters so much is because the action that follows is completely different depending on which one you're dealing with. If you're protecting a memory, the conversation is about finding a better way to honor that memory. A photo, a piece of artwork made from the fabric, or a journal entry that

Actually captures what that season meant to you. Something that holds the meaning in a way that doesn't require you to keep the physical object. If you're postponing a feeling, the conversation is about getting honest with yourself about what that feeling is and deciding whether you're ready to actually have that emotion or feeling. Because no amount of decluttering work will get you past an emotion that you're still actively avoiding. I'm gonna repeat that.


No amount of decluttering work will get you past an emotion that you're still actively avoiding. You can reorganize the same box a hundred times. And until you sit with what's inside it, emotionally, not just physically, the decision won't come. And here's the reality: you cannot sort or organize or donate your way out of a feeling you haven't let yourself feel yet.

You can stack things in bins, you can label the bins beautifully, you can move the bins to a more organized location. But until you address what the stuff has been carrying, the stuff is going to keep feeling impossible. I walk women through this process step by step in my workshop. Break free from the emotional attachment to your stuff. And what I have found over and over again is that when women

Finally slow down long enough to ask the right questions when they actually look at what an item represents instead of just what it is, the decision almost always becomes clearer, not always easier, but clearer. Because once you understand what you're actually dealing with, you can then make an intentional choice instead of just reacting, or in a lot of cases, avoiding.

I do want to spend a few minutes on something that I think is the most important piece of this whole conversation, maybe. We assume that keeping the item is gonna be the safe choice. We assume that if we hold on to it, we'll feel better. Or at least we won't feel worse. But I wanna push back on that. I wanna challenge that a little bit because what I've seen in my own life and in the women, the lives of the women that I work with is that sometimes all we do when we keep something is preserve the decision.

We don't resolve it. We actually delay it. We preserve the grief. It it's it's sitting in no man's land. We preserve the guilt. We preserve the unfinished conversation with ourselves about what we really want or who we really are and what we're actually willing to let go of. And then we close the closet and we open it again tomorrow. And all of that, every single bit of it is still sitting there, waiting. Think about a season of motherhood that you're holding on to through objects.


Maybe your kids are teenagers now, or maybe they're grown. And somewhere in your house, you have totes of their baby things or cl clothes or toys or artwork, tiny shoes. And you know logically that you're probably never gonna do anything with most of it, but you also can't quite let it go. So if you identify with that, here's a question that I want you to sit with. What are you afraid will happen if you do let go of that? Because

Sometimes we hold on to objects of a season because we haven't fully grieved that that season is over. And as long as we hold on to the objects, we don't have to fully feel the grief. The totes in the basement essentially say, you know what, this isn't done. This isn't over. This is still here. This still exists. But sometimes, not always, but sometimes the most loving thing you can do for yourself is to actually grieve the season.

Actually let yourself feel the fullness of what that time meant. Actually say out loud or in writing or just somewhere in your heart that that was a season I loved and it's over. And I can carry it forward in me without carrying it forward in a storage unit. Now I want to be really clear about something because I don't want this to sound harsh. I'm not telling you to get rid of everything. I'm not telling you that keeping things is wrong.

Or that sentimental items don't belong in a well-organized home. Or that you need to clear it all out to become emotionally healthy. I'm not saying any of those things. That's not what this conversation is about. Some things are absolutely worth keeping. Some things deserve a place of honor in your home. Some things should be looked at and remembered and treasured. That is a beautiful and human thing to do. What I'm talking about is the stuff that's not honored.

The stuff that's shoved in a box in a closet and avoided. The stuff that you keep, not because it brings you genuine comfort or joy or meaning, but because getting rid of it feels like a decision that you're not ready to make. Because the feelings it represents are feelings that you haven't fully dealt with yet. That's the difference. Keeping something intentionally with full awareness of what it means to you and why, now that's a choice.


Keeping something because you can't face the decision, that's avoidance. And avoidance has a cost. It costs you space. It costs you mental energy every time you brush past it, past it. It costs you that low grade emotional weight of carrying unresolved things through your daily life every single day. And here's what I know: that weight adds up. It doesn't stay contained in the closet. It leaks into your mood and into how much of your capacity gets drained.

Into the general sense that your home is a place of unfinished business instead of a place where you can actually rest. This is not about minimalism. It's not about owning less just for the sake of owning less. We want to be talking about becoming someone who is not relying on her physical surroundings to carry the emotional weight of her whole life. Because here's the other thing. Every time you open that closet or that basement door or that corner of the garage.

That emotion, grief, guilt, shame, pressure, whatever it is, it's still there waiting. It's the guilt about the unfinished business business. It's the grief over the passing season. It's the complicated feelings about the relationship. It's the frustration with yourself about the abandoned dream. The thing is this: keeping the item does not make those feelings go away. It just gives them a physical location. It gives them a physical address.

And they'll live there rent-free, taking up space, both literally and emotionally, until you're ready to deal with them. Peace does not always come from keeping something, even though we think it does. Sometimes peace comes from finally understanding why you were holding on to it in the first place. And then making a decision from that place of understanding, whatever that decision ends up being, whether you're it's something you're keeping or it's something you're gonna get rid of.

Now, if you've been trying to declutter the emotionally heavy stuff using the same advice you use for the junk drawer, I hope I've introduced a different conversation. Let me make sure that you have four key takeaways from our conversation today. Number one, not all clutter is the same, and treating it the same way is why you're stuck. There's functional clutter and there's emotional clutter.

The stuff that feels impossible to deal with almost always is going to fall into that emotional clutter category. Organiz organizational tools work great on functional clutter, but emotional clutter needs a different approach entirely. One that starts with asking questions like, why does this feel so hard? Not whether or not you should keep it. Number two, the object and the meaning are not the same thing, and you can keep one without keeping the other.

Again, the memory isn't in the sweater. The relationship isn't in the dish. The dream isn't inside the box of supplies. When you understand that meaning lives in you, not in the object, you become capable of making an intentional decision about the thing without feeling like you're erasing the memory that it carried. Takeaway number three. The right first question is not should I keep this? It's why does this feel hard for me?

When you start here, you move from reacting emotionally to actually understanding what you're dealing with: grief, guilt, hope, identity, fear. These are the real things you're working with. And once you can name what's underneath, the decision becomes clearer, even if it doesn't become easy. Number four, keeping something doesn't necessarily resolve the emotion. In most cases, it just preserves it.

Every time you close that closet door or that tote or that bin of things, the feeling is still there, waiting on the other side. Peace doesn't always come from holding on. Sometimes it comes from finally understanding why you were holding on in the first place. And then making a decision from that place of e of awareness rather than avoidance. So again, if you've been trying to apply the generic clutter decluttering advice, if you've got emotions wrapped up in your stuff.

No wonder that emotional or no wonder that advice, the step-by-step processes, the questions to ask, no wonder none of that stuff has worked. It's not because you're bad at this. It's not because you're too sentimental or you're too disorganized or you're too whatever it is the story is that you've been telling yourself, but because you've been using the wrong tool for the wrong problem. You don't need another bin or labeler. You don't need a better system. You don't need someone to tell you to just let it go as if.


That's a thing you can do without understanding what you're actually letting go of. You need a different conversation. One that honors the memories attached to these things. One that respects the emotions without letting them run the show forever. One that helps you make decisions that feel grounded and thoughtful and eventually free. That's exactly what we're doing inside the break free from the emotional attachment to your stuff workshop.

In the workshop, I'll walk you through the process of identifying what these things really represent, separating the meaning from the object itself, and making intentional decisions about guilt without fear and without feeling like you're betraying a memory just because you choose to release the thing that was holding it. The link to join the workshop is down in the show notes. And

I wanna be honest with you. The workshop is not about becoming a minimal minimalist. And it's not gonna give you a step-by-step process when you roll up your sleeves and actually get things done. We're not talking about owning less for the sake of a lifestyle aesthetic. The workshop is all about understanding yourself and becoming a woman who no longer needs her stuff to carry the emotions she was never meant to carry long term.

Because when you can finally separate what something meant from what something is, you get something back. You get a a few different somethings. You get clarity and you get space. Maybe a few other things, but at least you get clarity and space. And the quiet relief of a decision that was made intentionally. That's huge. Instead of just sitting in this big pile of avoidance, that's gonna change everything for you. And so

I'll see you inside the workshop. Check the show notes down below.