Ep. 109: Your Clutter Is Costing You More Than You Think

Clutter isn't just about having too much stuff—it's about what that clutter may be doing to your mind. In this episode, we explore the psychology behind why clutter can increase stress, drain your energy, contribute to decision fatigue, and make it harder to focus. We also share our own very different relationships with clutter, from compulsive purging to sentimental keepsakes, and how life experiences can shape the way we hold onto things.

Whether you're staring at an overflowing closet, hanging onto items that no longer serve you, or simply craving a little more peace in your home, this conversation offers practical strategies and science-backed insights to help you create more space—both physically and mentally. If you've been feeling overwhelmed or weighed down, this episode may be exactly what you need.

Episode Highlights

[0:03] – Why clutter is so much more than a housekeeping issue—and how it may be quietly impacting your stress, focus, and overall well-being.

[1:08] – We share our very different relationships with clutter, from compulsive purging to growing up around hoarding, and how those experiences shaped us.

[3:45] – The surprising sense of peace that comes from simplifying your surroundings—and the science that explains why it feels so good.

[6:53] – How visual clutter increases cognitive load, decision fatigue, and even cortisol levels without you realizing it.

[10:37] – Why major life transitions, grief, and emotional wounds often show up in the way we accumulate and hold onto our belongings.

[15:28] – The emotional pull of sentimental items, why it's so hard to let go, and how to curate what truly matters.

[20:10] – What we learned from downsizing, moving, and starting over—and why owning less can create more emotional freedom.

[23:48] – Practical decluttering strategies you can actually stick with, even if you're feeling completely overwhelmed.

[29:20] – A fresh perspective on minimalism, consumer culture, and becoming more intentional about what you bring into your home.

[33:07] – Why decluttering during busy seasons of life can feel impossible—and the small changes that make the biggest difference.

[36:19] – We leave you with a simple challenge to consume less, create more space, and protect your peace.

If today's discussion resonated with you or sparked curiosity, please rate, follow, and share Insights from the Couch with others. Your support helps us reach more people and continue providing valuable insights. Here’s to finding our purposes and living a life full of meaning and joy. Stay tuned for more!

Ever stayed quiet to keep the peace and felt yourself disappear? The Cost of Quiet is for anyone who avoids conflict and pays the price. Reclaim your voice, strengthen your relationships, and experience real peace. Order your copy and join the movement: https://www.colettejanefehr.com/new-book

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Transcript

Colette Fehr: 0:44

Welcome to Insights from the Couch, where real conversations meet real life at midlife. We're Colette and Laura, two therapists and best friends, walking through the journey right alongside you. Whether you're feeling stuck, restless, or just unsure of what's next, this is a space for honest conversations, messy truths, and meaningful change. And our midlife masterclass is now open. If you're looking to level up, get into action, and make midlife the best season yet, go to insightsfromthecouch.org and join our waitlist. Now let's dive in. Welcome back to another episode of Insights from the Couch. We're excited to talk to you guys today about a topic near and dear to my heart: the psychology of clutter, what it does to you, why it's important to tackle it, and just simplifying your life in general. The importance of all of this. So we're going to dig into some real science-based tips and what you can do if the clutter feels overwhelming in your life, literally or figuratively.

Laura Bowman: 1:48

Yeah, this is like a borderline pet obsessional subject matter to me, and always has been for some bizarre reason. I think I've mentioned that like OCD runs in my family. My dad, you know, by the end of his life was hoarding. He had an aunt who was like famous for hoarding. I have whatever the opposite of that gene is. I have the like compulsive needing to get rid of things, and also this like I would almost put it on a borderline compulsive tendency to like have a just right amount of things, to where it's it can become like a little bit of a fixation on like the amount of clothes I have. I just I do not want a lot of stuff. Stuff has always overwhelmed me, and cleaning has been a big part of how I sort of process and get my mental life back in order, but I've recently moved, and so this topic is like on steroids for me right now.

Colette Fehr: 2:50

In what sense with the move? How did that? Because I have also side note seeing your closet. You do have a lot of stuff.

Laura Bowman: 2:57

I and I'm always whittling. I'm like always whittling it. Okay,

Colette Fehr: 3:03

I mean, but you have a big, beautiful, very full closet.

Laura Bowman: 3:06

Thank you, but you, but it's very relative because when I sold my house, the bit, one of the biggest pieces of feedback I got was that my closets were insufficient. Ah, and my mom, who is like a famous clothes horse, like does not know how I function with the closet that I have, which I thought it was a just right amount of space, but but that's neither here nor there. On the move, I think what comes into focus, a couple things came into focus. A is just how much stuff you actually have, despite of what you think you have. You know, as you're packing and you're putting everything into a box. You realize, like, oh my gosh, like I have so much shit. A, and I didn't even wouldn't have even said I was the person who had so much stuff. And then number two, I had a stager come, like when I had a a realtor come in and like strip my whole house down, because when you sell a house, you've got to get it emptied out, and it it bothered me so much initially, and then I had like nothing in my house, like I had nothing on the counters, I had no photos, no lamps, everything was naked, and I noticed very perceptive,ly like it was palpable. How much more peace I felt.

Colette Fehr: 4:25

Yes,

Laura Bowman: 4:27

and I was like,"Wow! Like this whole idea of like a reduction of decisions or of load was so apparent. Of like, I don't have to do as much.

Colette Fehr: 4:40

Okay, so this is why I think this is a really big deal, and I will out myself too. We're probably both erring on one side of the coin here. I am obsessed with purging to the point where people in my life joke, both parents and my spouse, like you better nail your stuff down, or Colette will throw

Laura Bowman: 4:58

it out.

Colette Fehr: 4:58

My mom would never identify as a hoarder, she identifies as a collector who likes her things, but

Laura Bowman: 5:05

maximal

Colette Fehr: 5:06

definitely, yeah, she definitely errs on the side of having a lot of stuff, and it doesn't bother her. So, granted, you guys listening, some of you may say, you know, I'm comfortable with like more stuff out, or I think it's cozy, or you may say, I hate anything. Like my house is naked all the time. Like there, there's barely a picture. I like it that way, almost like a hotel room. I really, I love it. In fact, I don't want one paper on the counter, one box in the room. Like for me, it's just I feel clean. And organized and focused best. Where I'm going with this, though, is even if you're not someone like that, there really is research that shows this may be having more of an impact than you think. And we can get into some of those points, but I think the most common presentation for people who may have clutter is that you're in a home for a long time, it's not that you're messy or lazy, nothing like that. It's just that stuff accumulates, and you're busy raising kids, working, running around, and stuff grows. If I didn't actively purge regularly, my stuff also would have gotten out of control. And I had a similar experience when I moved, I was all haughty about it. I'm like, I'll have the easiest move. I have nothing, and I have a small house, and it was unbelievable the crap that like comes out of the closet, like porridge overflowing when you open the doors. So I think part of why we want to do this and talk about this is not like a judgment or that there's a right way. You know, some people probably think my house looks sterile and like no one lives there. It's more about what having stuff and keeping stuff and accumulating stuff without getting rid of it can really do to you psychologically. It's not good. So you already alluded to it-the cognitive load. Every object in your visual field is competing for your brain's attention, even the stuff you've stopped seeing. Right? If you walk into someone else's house and it's messy, you're like, "Wow, there's stuff everywhere. Like an active, busy family, but you don't see it anymore. It becomes invisible. But Princeton researchers found visual clutter competes for your neural resources and reduces your focus. So it's probably playing at you, and you don't even know it.

Laura Bowman: 7:34

Definitely, and I and I'm not somebody who has like a naked house. I very much want like a curated space. Like I want to live in, I don't.

Colette Fehr: 7:42

I want sterile. I want a prison,

Laura Bowman: 7:44

and I didn't think I wanted it because I would have said I would have hated that, and I was really really balked at it when it was first forced upon me. But I will say, as an experimental, you know, person in all this, I did feel like a very clear sense of like weight being lifted, yes, and it was interesting information.

Colette Fehr: 8:06

So along those lines, another point that we found in our digging that actually, according to UCLA, women who describe their homes as cluttered have higher levels of cortisol throughout the day. It really literally creates physiological stress, and it also contributes to decision fatigue. So clutter multiplies the number of tiny decisions your brain has to make. So you're constantly bogged down in all of these unspoken, unseen, intangible ways.

Laura Bowman: 8:41

Yeah, you're moving stuff, you're cleaning stuff, you're moving stuff from here to there. You're trying to figure out where things go, put things back. I mean, it's just think about the day to day and your relationship with things.

Colette Fehr: 8:55

Yeah, mine is my relationship with things is with them in the garbage can. I am obsessive about it, and I think for me personally, I think it's how my nervous system runs. Like I'm very particular. I don't want to see things in my sight line. We were driving in the car to a pool party the other day, and Steve was in the passenger seat. I was driving. He put his beach towel on the dashboard of the car, and I was like, "Take that down. And he was like,"Seriously? I'm like, "Yes, it's bothering me. Like, there's something for me where I'm very aware of it. If there's stuff in my sight line, it it it distracts me, so I can feel this on me. What they're saying in this research is very active, and you know I have misophonia, which is that hypersensitivity to sounds. So I have something with my nervous system where I'm really prone to this. But also, I used to clean as a kid. I write about this in my book as like a way to self soothe. You know, I would clean and organize. To this day, I'm so delighted by cleaning out my closet, throwing things out. I'm always trying to have less, and then of course I reaccumulate.

Laura Bowman: 10:10

Yes, and I'm fascinated by that process too because you know I'm I'm ready to like move into a new place, and I think that the natural way of things is like I need this or I need that, and I'm like, you know what? I really want to do this consciously. I want to take a beat. I have no idea. I mean, of course, I have some ideas of what I need. I need. It's a different scale this house, so I need different couches and things like that. But I'm not rushing. Like I'm going to like go through. Everything, because once you put everything into a house, that's a whole other level of like I'm gonna have to let more go. So it's like I'm really here for this whole like shedding process, and I don't want to rush it. I want and and I see like I think about you know my parents, my mom's moved a decent amount of times, but my in laws haven't moved since the'80s, I don't think. And you know, we're think we're talking homes up north with like basements, yeah, filled with accumulated amount years of stuff. And you know, this has become a whole thing for for people our age is like cleaning out their boomer parents' homes.

Colette Fehr: 11:18

Oh, I know. I think about it. In fact, my mom had a scare, a medical scare years ago. I've probably told you this. Yeah, and she was in the hospital, and they misdiagnosed her, and we really thought she was about to die. And I raced up. She was in the hospital in Greenwich, and literally, my mom. They told her I was on my way, and they were like, "Make sure you let Colette know that I might not die because she'll have the house cleaned out before she'll have like a dumpster in the driveway, and I'll lose all my stuff. And you know, I was really proud of her because she just moved out of the home I grew up in in New York and moved all the way to California and gave away like 95% of her stuff. She downsized from like a good size house to a small condo, and she had accumulated so much. I mean, in our basement was my bassinet from 1970-three Like not even just my bassinet, not my bassinet. My changing table, like my 70s print changing table, my little kitty table, my doll houses, like so many things. A sun lamp, because you know my dad's dermatologist. Like an old horrible bootleg that would probably give you cancer instantly. Sun lamp that I used to fry myself with in middle school and like burn layers of my epidermis. All of it was there. So she just she did an estate sale, and she got rid of it. How did she

Laura Bowman: 12:45

feel? How did she feel afterwards? So

Colette Fehr: 12:48

she thought she thought it was going to be really hard, and she said once she committed to the decision, it actually felt really good. I think she was feeling some of what you're describing. That now when you have circumstances like that forcing you into action, and you have to actually slip everything. You have a real motivator. It can be really hard when you're in a huge house to feel like you don't know where to start. And we're going to give some tips for this. But I think she felt relief, and she felt surprised by how good it felt. And but you know, people's default styles or their default styles. When I go visit her now in California, I mean, her place is really nice. It's definitely not as full as the other house, but she's got stuff around that I just whatever. She's been

Laura Bowman: 13:37

humiliating again.

Colette Fehr: 13:39

I mean, there's only there's not that much space. She says no. I think certainly much less than she used to. Yeah, but you know we all have our own patterns. Like I'm always going to overeat, even on diet shots. I'm still going to overeat. I love to eat, so it's always going to be that I have to like reset that. I'm actually always going to purge, no matter what. If I lived in a 10,000 square foot house, 8000 square feet would probably be empty, and I'd be like walking around echoing. I just don't like stuff, but I'm glad to see that there's a reason why, like the science behind why it bothers me so much. I actually have forced myself to have like decorative items in my counseling office because it would be too sterile if I had it like my house.

Laura Bowman: 14:31

Just because you know it's like not the taste of other people.

Colette Fehr: 14:34

Yeah, it looks like a serial killer might live here. I don't even have a picture on the wall in my bedroom, so it's extreme. But you know, before we get into tips, one other point I want to make about this that my mom did once discuss with me, and I think is true for a lot of people, whatever their iteration, that you know she didn't, she wasn't like that an accumulator when I was young. We didn't have a lot of stuff in the house. She wasn't really a collector, and she said she thought after the divorce that she went through a lot of emotional grief, understandably, and that those things and collecting those things became surrogate attachments.

Laura Bowman: 15:15

That makes perfect. That's exactly what happens usually when hoarding or just accumulating picks up, it's because there has been like an attachment wound, or yeah, my dad, my

Unknown: 15:27

dad's

Laura Bowman: 15:28

hoarding went up after he lost his job. He worked as like on an electron microscope for a big steel company for years, and they like let him go early. Without like right before they could like give him retirement, and I think it it was wounding to him. It was like wounded his ego. It like left him confused, and it was like right a couple of years after my mother had divorced him, maybe maybe seven years after or something. But the the cumulative effect of those two injuries led to like a a real increase of his hoarding behavior.

Colette Fehr: 16:08

Yeah, you know I think that makes a lot of sense, and that a lot of people would relate to that. It's a way of self soothing, and for a lot of people, getting rid of stuff. And I do go through some of this. So as much as I say I don't want anything out. One thing I do hoard is memorabilia. I'm very sentimental. I have a

Laura Bowman: 16:28

memorabilia.

Colette Fehr: 16:29

Okay, I don't mean memorabilia in the sense that it sounds probably the wrong word. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of my like. I have notes that my friends wrote me in the ninth grade. I have love letters from my ex husband, letters from every boyfriend, letters from my husband. Of course, like all my children's artwork. Like I have a hard time now. I don't have it out on surfaces, but I have a whole closet full of old photos and stuff, and so this point of like you know a lot of people will hold on to things because they're holding on to former versions of themselves or times of life, and that's definitely it for me. I've thought about it and thought, you know, what am I keeping this stuff for? I really should just get rid of it. Am I going to keep dragging it from home to home to home? But there's something in me that I can't let go of. That

Laura Bowman: 17:30

I mean, it makes sense to me knowing what I know of you as like such a relational person that that's the stuff that you keep.

Colette Fehr: 17:36

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's it's it's just it's so. What's the word I want? Like, I just feel such nostalgia of it. It feels like giving away parts of my life. Yeah, but at the same time, I've been thinking about it that I should challenge myself to go through it and maybe pick curate,

Laura Bowman: 18:02

curate my favorite. favorite word. It's the word of the year. Curate. Yes, curate. Right. Be more intentional about what you keep. That's what I mean. That's my whole mission. I am fascinated by the way Americans consume. It's like the door dashing, the Uber Eats the Amazon packages. I mean, I remember just like looking in people's garages and seeing them packed to the ceiling, and realizing not only do they have a packed garage, but they have packed storage units that they pay for every month. Like the amount of sort of unconscious consumerism we all participate in to one level or another in this country is it is taking it's costing us something emotionally. We we aren't curated. We're we unconsciously consume a lot of things.

Colette Fehr: 18:53

Yeah, yeah. It's really it's become just a way of being that really isn't serving us in our like you know. Also, as I think about this, when I I moved into a smaller house when I got divorced, I had been in a big house, so of course I downsized. I had a huge garage sale that was very emotional and upsetting for many reasons. Like it was just a very almost traumatic when I think back to that garage sale, it really watching people pick over your things, and I'm selling it because I'm getting divorced, so it didn't feel good. And that was the point up until then. I always have been a book collector, and I know you are too. We're both such readers and lovers of books. In my first house, I built this library to showcase all of my books, and then I dragged all my books around. Now I read on a Kindle for like the last I don't know 14 years, but that was the first time I started getting rid of books because I was moving to a tiny house. So it was all just very and having people haggle me down on things that represented memories of my last moments as an intact family, it did not feel good. But then I moved to another house, a little house in another suburb near, or the same suburb, and I loved that little house. It was very much like a cottage. I furnished it with a lot of stuff from the marriage, and I did keep a lot, even though I had to downsize. But when I left that house, and I don't know if you remember this, and I moved to an apartment, I went crazy, and to the point. I mean, it was good, but I had an estate sale, and I sold everything, every single earth. Scorched earth. I mean, scorched earth. My plates, my dishes, my utensils. Every picture on the wall. Every American Girl doll. Every piece of furniture.

Laura Bowman: 20:51

What was driving that

Colette Fehr: 20:52

choice? I think at that point I was experiencing an emotional. First of all, I had gotten into a really bad financial time. Like that was right before I became a therapist, or no? Was it? No, it was right before I became licensed. Like I had been in grad school, so it was before I started working as a therapist. I think I just felt like I needed to start over. I needed to downsize. I had made a lot of mistakes. I bought a house I really couldn't afford. I mean, it was nothing extravagant, but I, I should have not bought the house that I bought. So I think I was just ready, and then also everything in that little house had come from the marriage, and I was just wanting. Even though it was years later, I don't know, seven years after my divorce, I was ready to just get rid of it all. Now, I wish I had curated and kept a few things. Most of it you don't miss, but there are a few things I'm like, oh, would have been really nice to have that, like beautiful antiques and like family stuff that I just like. So I went to IKEA, furnished my little apartment, the entire apartment, and I didn't retain anything. But I will tell you, it wasn't until many years later I missed anything. And the initial feeling of getting rid of all of that and stepping into a small new apartment with no stuff, I felt so good. It was a major mental health transformation. It helped me psychologically.

Laura Bowman: 22:28

Yeah, you know that's exactly what I think we want to like let people know is that your relationship with your stuff is one of these hidden things that it can be a huge mental health transformation if you change your relationship with the amount of stuff, the presence of stuff that you can really get a huge mental health benefit. Like right now, everything I own is in three pods in a storage facility. My God, I don't. I mean, my office has stuff in it, but like I don't. I have my couple clothes, which, by the way, I will tell you, I have like maybe 10 outfits to wear to work before I meet my stuff again. It's fine.

Colette Fehr: 23:13

I okay. This I swear to you. I am determined to become like a capsule wardrobe person. It is. We you don't wear most of your stuff. It's crazy. It's crazy how much if you walked away from it all, like I did with this move. I'm telling you, there's probably four things I've missed, and that was nearly 20 years ago. Was 20 years ago.

Laura Bowman: 23:38

Yeah.

Colette Fehr: 23:38

The rest of it, whatever it is, like, and you know, one day our kids are gonna have like I think about my parents. Even my dad is a gazillion model airplanes every day. I'm like, don't leave this on me. Clean out your planes. Yeah, he's like, yo, those are my planes.

Laura Bowman: 23:55

Or you know, we came. I came from the like maybe the well, maybe they still do it, but it's not in the same numbers anymore. But like some of the final generations, where you got like Waterford Crystal and China, I have

Colette Fehr: 24:08

all their

Laura Bowman: 24:10

silver bread baskets for your for your wedding. So

Colette Fehr: 24:14

essential.

Laura Bowman: 24:15

I'm packing this stuff up, and I'm thinking, why am I hauling this around? I haven't. It's been 20 plus years. I have not used. It sits in a cabinet.

Colette Fehr: 24:27

I know.

Laura Bowman: 24:27

Collects dust.

Colette Fehr: 24:29

I know. I sold all my wedding china, all my sterling silver. Now I'd be like hawking that for cash if I had it. But I sold it all in the estate sale. So okay, let's talk about a couple tips because not everybody is going to move, and you know, small things, micro doses. But it is going to be better for you than you might think. And I think it starts with asking yourself, "What are you avoiding? You know, are there certain areas, projects, things that you keep saying,"I'll do that when" There's never going to be a win, you are never going to have time, so you got to start really small, as with everything. But I love the idea of this. You are not going to tackle the whole house. Nobody has a month like what you would do if you were moving. Right, pick a drawer and like really relentlessly like ask yourself what do you know? Do the Marie Kondo thing. Like, is this really? Does this really spark joy? Is this really so meaningful? If I never saw this thing again, would I really care? I mean, now I'm going into the Colette method.

Laura Bowman: 25:36

Yeah, no, but I I get it. I love, and a lot of times there's stuff that you just feel guilty. Getting rid of like it just is like it's too good to get rid of, but you don't really love it. And I love that that little slogan where it's like tradition, a guilt trip from dead people.

Colette Fehr: 25:51

I love that. Like it's like, is it just a tradition that you have to schlep this stuff from like point A to point B, or is it really just you know constipating your life a little bit. It is constipating your life, and I think you know we donate everything. Steve's so good about it; he'll take everything because I'm so like I want it out and I want it gone and I don't want it in my car. But then at least you can feel good about it too-that someone else will use these things. You know they don't have to go into the garbage. Although there may be stuff that can go into the garbage as well. But you're right. A lot of it probably is. Or I'll find something sometimes and think, "Oh, I should keep this, or "This is good to have. So I have a little rule that may or may not be helpful to people that I use, other than like an emergency thing, so I purge regularly, like once a season. I will go through and be like,"What can I get rid of? Like my desk drawers. I don't really mind if a closet that I don't use often is overstuffed, as long as I don't have to see it. But I go through like those extra closets probably at least twice a year. But I'll go through my own closet and my desk and my areas I use skincare items, right? Like all the bathroomy stuff. Get rid of it.

Laura Bowman: 27:13

Makeup.

Colette Fehr: 27:15

Yes. So my rule is, if I'm six, since I do it about every three months, if I've gone like two cleanings, like six months, and I still haven't used the thing one single time. I mean, unless it's like a winter coat, and I live in Florida, that doesn't count. An ice scraper, I live in Florida. I don't need that. I'm not defrosting my windshield.

Laura Bowman: 27:38

Yeah, I mean, and you can ask yourself, like, if I had to move this item. Would it come with me? You know that was one of the things that was very clarifying on the towards the end of my move is that, you know, there were things I held onto, like say in my bathroom, where it was like, oh, maybe I'll use this. But when it was came down to like, am I going to move this thing? Was like absolutely not. Yeah, you know what would be such an interesting experiment? Maybe they already have a TV show about this. I swear, in my next life, I thought about this. I want to be like a house

Colette Fehr: 28:10

cleaner, an organizer. I love it. We're

Laura Bowman: 28:14

starting that business sometimes. Yes, infinitely obsessed by people and their stuff. Like I think archeology is one of those things I would have like really loved to go into. That

Colette Fehr: 28:25

would be so good for you, and you're so patient and methodical. And like I'm terrible. I'm like, are we? Every time we did that when I was in school, I'm like, are we still dusting off one bone the size of a tear?

Laura Bowman: 28:38

Fascinating. Not to me. You could

Colette Fehr: 28:40

do the archeology. I'll be throwing things out.

Laura Bowman: 28:45

You're gonna throw something like precious out. That's we need.

Colette Fehr: 28:48

I would. I would. I mean, I have thrown out. I threw out. My dad tells the story too that our dog died, one of our Siberian huskies, and in one of my purges, I threw out her ashes by accident. My dad had put them in something weird. I mean, I am a little crazy, but I really think it would be a cool experiment for all of this. If you were told that you had to move and you only had four boxes, what would you take? And you could only, you could not take your

Unknown: 29:19

the

Colette Fehr: 29:19

boxes. Good size. I'm gonna give you four big boxes, or maybe it's five or something. But I mean, I think the point is, like, what if you had to leave? Yes. Like, what if I? I always talk about. I just recently wrote about it in Substack, right? Like, I can't move to Italy, so here's what I'm doing instead. But I do think about that one day, and so many people are doing that now, moving to Portugal or other places. You know, what if I move? What would I really take? I'm not going to schlep across the ocean. Probably 80% of what I have.

Laura Bowman: 30:01

Yeah, no, it would be. I'm gonna think about that as I unpack my home. About like, would I would this make the essential cut? And there is that whole like the minimalists who are actual people that run. They wrote a book. They do a podcast. I don't know if you've like heard of them. There's a whole different. What's

Colette Fehr: 30:19

their stick?

Laura Bowman: 30:20

Basically, that like stuff, you know, begin it sucks, and it basically ruins your quality of life. You know, it it makes you poor. It doesn't allow for you to focus on relationships or what's important. So they like basically it makes you kind of attached to the capitalistic machine where it's like you have to keep going. You can never make great choices for your life because you're so strapped to a house and all the shit you own. Like their stuff is their documentary. I really recommend to anybody who also is interested in this. But one of their tips is that pack things up, like take the stuff that you're just on the fence about and pack them in a box and throw them in the garage, and the the truth is, six months later, if you don't go for that stuff and you don't try to put it back in the house and you can't remember what's in that box, you don't need it anyway.

Colette Fehr: 31:15

Yes. Okay. So that's a version of what I'm saying, and I love that because that's what I do with my spare bedroom closet. I'll put stuff that I'm on the fence about clothing wise. Meeting

Laura Bowman: 31:27

zone, yeah, yeah. And then

Colette Fehr: 31:28

I like I go back later and I'm like, wow, I didn't miss this. I didn't wear this. I didn't. And meanwhile, I have some clothes I've had for 20 years that I still love.

Unknown: 31:38

Yeah,

Colette Fehr: 31:38

that have made the cut every time. Right. I mean, I have a dress I bought in Hong Kong in 1995. I will never fit into it again, but I loved it so much. I keep it. It's like a little museum piece, you know. But I don't have most of the other stuff from that time period that will be crazy. Like Charlotte has my older daughter has a a box of clothes in our garage, and she keeps being. I'm like Charlotte, I'm going to throw it out. You have to go through it, and she's like, don't throw it out. I'm like, it's been in there for like four years. There's probably roaches dancing around on your garments. You know, this being Florida, you haven't missed. You don't even know what's in there, so it's it's it's crazy. And you know, the idea of this distracting you and depleting your energy and focus and being a succubus of your time. Even my husband will. He has his own room that's a study in our house. It's like a guest room study, but basically he's taken over the room, and he works a lot from home, and he has a lot of stuff, and he is not-he's not a messy person, but he's a little hoarder light, in my opinion. Hoarder light, yes, yes, and I think he would agree. He'll never probably listen to this episode, so I'm going to say what I want. My office, on the other hand, is out in an open space, so I take stuff out and then I put it away. When we have the lady who comes to clean our house, he has to put all his stuff away in order for her to clean the room, and he does. And then every week he takes it all out again, and I'm like, what are you doing? You do all that work. Like last night, he was like, I can't come to bed. I've got to clean the room before the cleaning lady comes. And then he takes it a lot, and he said, every week I think, oh, I'm gonna clean it out, and I'm gonna get through it, and then I don't. So he's basically spending all this time taking it all out just to look at it all over the room and then putting it all back. Yeah, it's a metaphor for life.

Laura Bowman: 33:48

Yeah, it makes no sense, right?

Colette Fehr: 33:51

Yeah,

Laura Bowman: 33:52

you know, and I think about the benefits of this kind of purge. Like I remember just having young kids. Like when you're in that phase of life, I think being streamlined is could be so much more amazing. Like I probably have the most time now that I can like address all of this. But I remember that time of life, I felt like I was living in a blender with

Unknown: 34:16

all the

Laura Bowman: 34:16

toys and the crap everywhere, and it really impacted me.

Colette Fehr: 34:20

Oh my god! Oh my god! You have no idea. I'm getting a visceral reaction now, like PTSD from the toy phase. For someone like me, that was miserable, and actually, I made myself miserable putting away every toy. Like you can't. It's like whack a mole, and the toys take over with their ugly plastic colors. Like I absolutely hated it when my kids were old enough not to have toys. So happy! I couldn't

Laura Bowman: 34:48

wait to get rid of that stuff. And I remember I went to like an antique on like this museum antique tour where I was like I had my third kid. My house was a total like totally off the chain, and I was touring like beautiful homes of Orlando, and we went into this like home that I think like two gay guys lived in. It was like perfectly curated, and I like got back on the bus. I was like weeping. I was like, I I need my life to feel like organized, like pretty, like put together. Like it impacts space impacts me so much, and I think it impacts a lot of people.

Colette Fehr: 35:29

Yeah, yeah. And so you know, even though you and I may be very pro purge, and if you guys aren't, we're not saying this is the right way. But I think we are really saying from a psych. Psychological standpoint, wherever you fall on the spectrum, doing some cleaning and decluttering is really-it's not just about how your house looks at all. It's really creating psychological space. Yeah, it's really going to alleviate heaviness and confusion, and it's a reflection. Like the guy who wrote the book, you know, make your bed or whatever it was called, right? I read it a long time ago and I loved it. And I can be really lazy about making my bed, but I realized, you know, your bed-it's the way you start your day. It's-it's a statement about what's happening on the inside, and you don't have to do it all. Pick one tiny thing-a drawer, a closet. Set aside an afternoon. You're gonna feel genuine dopamine from completing a task, from getting through something, and that'll make you want to do it more. That sense of accomplishment of completion, and it really feels good to get rid of stuff, and instead of filling it with new stuff, you can fill it with development, dabbling in activities, reading new books, making new friends, going on new adventures-stuff that is going to fill you up in a good way instead of weighing you down.

Laura Bowman: 37:00

Amen. I completely agree. And my final piece of like advice, just to play with this, is stop consuming or slow consuming way down. Like this is Kate Flanders that we had on the show, like the Year of Less, where she did like this self-imposed shopping ban.

Colette Fehr: 37:15

That was a great episode. Is that what we called it, the Year of Lass? What was

Laura Bowman: 37:19

the name of her book?

Colette Fehr: 37:20

Well, go read her book, but also listen to that episode. I loved that.

Laura Bowman: 37:25

She became very conscious and aware of like what she was going to consume and what she wasn't going to consume, and and if you're if you're not going to do a shopping ban because that's not always plausible, make it more conscious.

Colette Fehr: 37:40

Yeah, you know,

Laura Bowman: 37:41

you know, like make a sort of like okay, I'm going to buy this amount of clothes in this season, and then I'm really not going to buy any more until the next season. Like, put some boundaries on consumption.

Colette Fehr: 37:52

I agree in general for clothes for stuff because I think we can all get a little addicted to retail therapy as a way to numb or soothe our general malaise, you know. Get me in a Target, and I'll buy$300 worth of stuff I don't need just because it looks so cute the way they have it merchandised, and I don't go in there anymore for exactly that reason. I think it would be a really cool experiment. I'm going to think about this to take the next six months of the year, like the rest of this year, nearly six months, a little less, and just not buy anything.

Laura Bowman: 38:28

Yeah,

Colette Fehr: 38:29

get rid of like how amazing that might feel. So I'm gonna mull over the possibility of that challenge. But wherever you are in your process, create some space. This is about regulating your nervous system, healing, opening your mind for new stuff, really getting rid of the weight that stuff that even if it's in a closet and especially if it's out and you're looking at it, it's weighing you down, and it's worth tackling even a small project. So check out that minimalist documentary too. I'm gonna watch that. That sounds fascinating. And yeah, and I hope you got some great insights from our couch today, Laura and I. Will be cleaning all weekend, and thank

Laura Bowman: 39:14

goodness. You know, higher up for your edits. Stay

Colette Fehr: 39:17

tuned. Stay tuned for round two. We'll see you all next week.

Laura Bowman: 39:21

Okay. Bye.