BONUS - Clutter, Decision Fatigue & Your Nervous System: Why Letting Go Feels So Hard

This episode is part of the Weekly Recharge Newsletter - to subscribe and grab a free silence self-doubt guide, click here - Subscribe to the Weekly Recharge Newsletter 

You thought you were avoiding clutter.
Turns out you were avoiding decisions.

In this Weekly Recharge episode, we unpack why physical clutter feels heavier than it should — and what it’s actually doing to your nervous system.

Clutter isn’t just “stuff.”
It’s unfinished decisions.
Open cognitive loops.
Silent notifications your body keeps registering every time you walk past that pile.

If you’re a high achiever who feels:

• Mentally overloaded
• Easily distracted
• Weirdly tense in your own space
• Stuck in “I’ll deal with it later” mode

This episode breaks down the real nervous system cost of visual noise, executive dysfunction, and low-grade decision fatigue.

You’ll learn:

• Why clutter increases cognitive load (even if you think you’re fine)
• How unfinished decisions keep your system in a micro-brace
• Why physical purging can become emotional regulation
• A simple one-loop practice you can try this week

Healing doesn’t always look dramatic.

Sometimes it looks like a trash bag and finally deciding.

If burnout recovery and nervous system regulation are part of your growth right now — this one will hit.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Newsletter Invite
• 0:27 Realization: Avoiding Decisions Not Clutter
• 1:39 The Purge Urge And ADHD Hurdles
• 2:28 Every Item Becomes A Decision
• 3:10 Clutter As Open Brain Tabs
• 3:50 Regulation Through Letting Things Go
• 4:47 One-Loop Practice For This Week
• 5:40 Related Episode Drop And Subscribe

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back. You are listening to the audio version of the weekly recharge newsletter. I am Renee Mansfield, the founder of Wayward Wellness Coaching. And if you have found your way through my podcast listening to this and you would like to subscribe to the Weekly Recharge and receive this in your email every Wednesday, the link is in the show notes for you to be able to subscribe. Otherwise, you can just continue listening. So I thought I was avoiding the clutter. Turns out I was avoiding the decisions. And what we'll cover this week. Why clutter feels heavier than it should, the nervous system cost of I'll deal with it later, how physical purging becomes emotional regulation, and a simple regulation practice that you can try this week. So last week I talked about the purge phase, how sometimes things can feel worse before they get better. Well, this week my brain decided we were purging. Not emotionally this time, physically. I woke up with this overwhelming urge to clear clutter. I just couldn't ignore it anymore. Not in a cute Sunday reset way. In a, if I walk past that table one more time, everything is going in the trash way. And let's be honest, this didn't come out of nowhere. Clutter builds the way resentment does. Quietly, subtly, one, I'll deal with that later at a time. Until one day your dining room table that you never eat at looks like a yard sale hosted by past versions of you. And here's the real reason why I've been avoiding it. It was going to take forever, it was going to be boring, I wanted to get other work done, and it was going to require decisions that I didn't feel like making. Which, if you have even a mildly ADHD brain, is the holy trinity of executive dysfunction. Because if your brain goes, this will take three hours, it will not be fun, we will have to think. Hard pass. But today I picked one task. And it took all morning. Not because it was physically hard, but because every single object became a nostalgia documentary. Oh my god, I bought this when oh, I bought this for Nick and he never uses it. And then the thought, do I still identify with this version of myself? Ma'am, it's a deck of cards that I snagged from a bank free B table at a convention that I just sang the national anthem at. At one point I almost did the classic move. The I don't want this, but I'm not really ready to throw it out yet, so let me just gently place it in a box mentally labeled as important emotional artifacts that will absolutely just live in another corner of the house forever. You know the box. The box that is just clutter with better PR, similar to the way a muffin is just a cupcake dressed up as breakfast. And that's when it clicked. Clutter isn't stuff. It's unfinished decisions. Every item is an open tab in your brain. Keep, release, upgrade, admit that 2017 was a confusing time. And when you don't decide, your nervous system holds the loop open. Which means every time you walk past that pile, there's this tiny micro brace in your body. Not full anxiety, just background tension. Like your house has 47 silent notifications. So today I made a different choice. Instead of emotionally processing every object like I was officiating its retirement ceremony, I started throwing things out. Actually out. And when something left my fingertips and it hit the trash bag, immediate relief. Not dramatic, no choir of angels. Just the subtle internal oh, we're not carrying that anymore. That's regulation. Not everything needs a journal entry. Sometimes regulation is just removing low grade stressors that your nervous system has been quietly babysitting for months. Visual clutter equals visual noise. Visual noise equals cognitive load. Cognitive load equals your nervous system never fully powering down. You don't feel chaotic. You just never feel settled. So here's your regulation practice this week. Close one loop. Not the whole house. Relax. Just one drawer. One shelf, one stack of papers that's just been temporarily sitting there since 2022. Pick it up. And instead of relocating to a prettier pile, which was plenty on my table, decide. And when you drop it in the trash, pause. Notice your shoulders. Notice your breath. Notice the half inch of space that just opened up in your chest. That's your nervous system registering completion. Healing doesn't always look like crying on the floor. Sometimes it looks like a trash bag and you muttering, we're not doing this anymore. And honestly, that might be the most regulated you felt all week. And the episode I mentioned last week is officially out. My conversation with Erica Coleman dropped, and we go deeper into even achieving and what it looks like to stop living like every day is a championship game. Because if everything is urgent, nothing actually lands. If you listened to the week's prior solo episode, that was the setup. This one is the expansion. Go listen. And if you haven't subscribed yet, do that. Especially if you're realizing that your nervous system is tired of playing in a Super Bowl every single Tuesday morning. As always, I appreciate you guys, and I'm always here if you guys have questions or even for a chat. Share the weekly recharge with a friend so that they can be regulated just like you guys. Enjoy your week.