13: Why You Can't Let Go of Sentimental Clutter

This week's episode starts with a home video night that turned into an unexpected gut-check. Watching old clips of the kids, the toys, the outfits, the different homes we've lived in, it became clear pretty fast: the thing that gets us emotional was never the object in the background. It was the memory itself.

This episode digs into why sentimental clutter feels so much heavier than regular clutter, and what to actually do about it, without needing to feel guilty for keeping a few special things.

In this episode:

• Why the box in the garage isn't actually holding your memories, and where the real memory lives instead, whether that's a camera roll, a photo album, a journal, or a story told out loud
• Four psychological reasons letting go of sentimental items feels so hard: extended self theory, transitional objects, loss aversion, and self continuity
• A simple exercise for deciding what's actually worth keeping from a sentimental season of life
• The story behind turning a giant box of forgotten shirts into a quilt that actually gets used
• Practical ways to keep, sell, or donate sentimental items with intention instead of guilt
• A tease for a future episode: bringing Mr. Making the Space Monday back on to talk about how differently spouses can experience emotional attachment to stuff

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Connect with Jackie:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/makingthespacewithjackie
• Email: hello@jackiepicchi.com

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This podcast is for educational and coaching purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, medical, or mental health care. If you're needing mental health support, please reach out to a licensed provider in your area.

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

So this week I've been watching a lot of home videos with my family. We're going back, scrolling way, way back in the videos file on our phones, and we're watching the sweetest little home videos from birthdays, from holidays, from just having fun around the house, and all these different homes and spaces that we've lived in. And they are just telling these beautiful stories through memories, and it has been so much fun. The kids are getting a kick out of it, and we are just loving it. But I gotta tell you, as a mom, watching these videos and seeing the different homes that we've lived in, all of the toys, the special outfits, the costumes, all their favorite little things showing up in these videos, it really just made me feel deeply in my gut for a moment what really got me wasn't even one big thing. It was just seeing all of it stacked up, the costumes that they used to wear, all of their cute little outfits and hair clips and the accessories, all of their collections of toys and their art projects, the things that were going on in the background. The toys, I couldn't even tell you, you know, where they ended up. I caught myself starting to spiral a little bit inside. You know, the whole, "Why did I get rid of that? I really want that toy back," kind of a feeling. Why did I donate it? Why did I give it to a friend? But then I just stopped myself, because here's what was actually happening. I wasn't sad about the toy. I wasn't even really thinking about the toy. What got me was hearing their little laughs, their sweet little voices, the conversation that was going on, really just capturing the entire moment. Watching the way they used to play with each other, run across the room, that's what I was feeling. That's what lit me up. That's the thing that was bringing me to tears. The toy was just sitting there in the background, not doing anything. The video was doing all of the work. and that's when it really hit me. This is exactly why I take an absolutely absurd amount of photos and videos. People make fun of me for it. I have so many, but I do it for a reason. Sitting there watching it all back, I realized that my instinct was right the whole time. I'm not hoarding videos and photos for no reason. I am building the thing that actually holds the memory, so I never have to depend on the object to do it for me. Welcome back to Making the Space Monday. I'm Jackie Peeke, and I help overwhelmed moms make space for what matters most. And around here, that means making space in your home, your head, and your life. So here's what nobody wants to admit out loud. Most of us do not actually let this stuff go. We keep it. We put it in bins, whether it exists in the garage or the attic or in a closet or maybe an outside storage unit, and we keep it for someday or the just in case, the my kid might want this later or their kids might want it. I can't decide right now, so I'm just gonna put it away. But let's be real honest for a second, okay? When's the last time you opened one of those boxes? Is it once a year? Once every 10 years? Or is it one of those boxes that genuinely has never been opened since you closed it, and it just moves from house to house, maybe into a storage unit, maybe you're in the same home, and it's never been opened ever again. Here's the thing, though. The box isn't holding the memory. The memory already happened. The proof of it lives somewhere else, and where it lives depending a lot on who you are and when you grew up. So let me walk you through the range because you're probably somewhere on this list. For some of us in the current generation, it's photos and videos on our phones, in the cloud, thousands of them saved and scrolled back through whenever we wanna feel something again. And for others, it could be printed photos. I grew up on the printed photos generation, the ones from a disposable camera, point and shoot, the ones that were put into an album or dated on the back with a little note and pen. And for others, it's handwritten. It could have been a journal, a baby book with milestones filled in by hand, letters that got kept in, a special little box. And for some, it's not a photo or a page at all. It's the story that was told out loud, maybe a parent or grandparent telling a story over and over again, and it just lands every time. There's no picture, no page, just their voice and the memory of hearing it, and that works just as well as a photo album. And then there's our kids, right? Their generation is going to have the opposite problem completely. They've had a camera in their hand since birth, basically, right? Like every day, every outfit, every random Tuesday afternoon, it's all documented and filmed. They're not going to be standing in a garage wondering if they kept enough proof. They're going to have thousands of hours of footage and no idea even what to do with that. So same question we're asking just from a completely opposite side. And if none of that has ever been your thing, like I get it, that object might actually genuinely feel like your only proof that something happened. That's a real fear, the fear of forgetting how something actually felt, not just that it happened. But you're not starting from zero. You can build a memory keeper starting today, a photo, a sentence, a StoryView, telling something out loud. You don't need thirty years of a habit, you just need to start. So here's the one thing true for every single version of this phone, album, journal, story, or nothing yet. The memory was never actually in the object. It was always somewhere else waiting for you to go find it, and the box in the garage was never it. The box is just holding decisions that have felt too hard to make. So why does this happen? Why does a plastic toy you haven't thought about in five to 10 years suddenly feel like a piece of your soul the second you see it in a box? It turns out there is real research on this. Let's go through it. So first there's something called extended self theory, and this idea is actually pretty simple. Our brains don't fully separate like my stuff from who I am. So an object isn't just an object to your brain, it's tied to an entire season of your life, like a version of you that existed then and doesn't quite exist the same way now. So getting rid of it, it doesn't really feel like tidying a shelf. It feels like letting go of that version of yourself So maybe, for example, it's an old concert shirt from your early 20s back when you had all the time in the world, no responsibilities, things were fun and fancy free. It could be a piece of maternity clothing from when you were pregnant for the very first time, and everything felt so brand new and terrifying and exciting all at once. Those objects become a stand-in for a whole chapter, not just the item itself. So parting with those things can be really, really challenging. But again, just because you're parting with it, it doesn't mean those stories, those seasons, that time in your life didn't exist. The chapter already happened. It's already real. So here's the move. Here's an idea. Before you decide on any one item from that season, ask yourself this: If I could only keep one thing from this chapter of my life, what would it be? Not four things, not 100, not the whole box, just one. That one item becomes your anchor, the thing that does the remembering for the whole season. And if picking just one still feels impossible, because I know for me it has when I've gone through my boxes, here are a couple other ways to make peace with the rest of it. You could take a photo of everything from that chapter laid out together, one shot before it all goes. Seeing it all in one frame, it can give you permission to let the individual pieces go because the whole collection, it just got documented, not quietly abandoned and thrown away, right? Or you can write yourself one quick paragraph about that season. Write on your phone right now before you decide anything. You can just document it in words, not a whole journal entry, just enough to capture what it felt like to be back then. That paragraph does more remembering than the shirt ever could. So either way, you already lived that chapter. You don't need the object standing guard over it to prove that you did. Second, there's a concept called transitional objects, and this comes from a researcher named Winnicott. Think of it like this. When your child was little, they probably had one thing they dragged everywhere. It might've been a blanket, a stuffed animal, something that made 'em feel really safe, right? When they were trying to figure out how to be more independent from you. That's a transitional object. It's like a literal security blanket helping them feel brave in the world. And here's the part that gets me every time. The child usually finishes with it way before the parent does. It could be the special blanket that they've grown apart from. They don't want the pacifier anymore. But for the parents, for some reason, it is so hard to let go and part with it because it's a reminder of that younger stage, right? So here's the move. You don't need to keep all of them to honor that whole season. Pick one that actually meant something, the one that still makes you smile just thinking about it, and keep that one on purpose. Display it. Tuck it somewhere you'll actually see it or save it to hand to your child someday with a little story attached. The rest gets to go be useful somewhere else. Maybe it's another child in the family, another home, another kiddo's version of that same safe feeling. And third, there's something called loss aversion, and this one actually has a Nobel Prize behind it, so it's not just theory, it's actual proven science. So here's the simple version. Losing something hurts about twice as much as getting something good feels nice. So if you're picturing giving away the toy, your brain focuses hard on the loss and barely notices the gain at all. So think of it like a scale that was rigged from the start. On one side, the toy leaving. On the other side, an empty drawer, the garage you can actually park in, one less thing on your mental list. Logically, both sides are real, but your brain automatically makes the first side feel ten times heavier just because it's a loss. That's loss aversion in a nutshell. Now let's bring it home. Picture the toy bin sitting in the garage right now. If you donate it, here's what you're picturing losing: the toy, the just in case, the little bit of control that comes with knowing it's there. But here's what you're actually gaining, and we skip right past this part every time. The shelf that isn't cramped anymore. Ten fewer seconds of guilt every time you walk past the bin. The little less noise in your head about one more thing you're supposed to deal with someday. That gain is real, and it's just quiet, so your brain doesn't clock it the same way it does with a loss. So here's the move with this one. Say the gain out loud before you decide, not just what you're losing, but what you're actually getting back. It feels small, but naming it out loud helps rebalance that rigged scale in your head. And last, there's something called self-continuity, and this one answers the house question too. So here's the simple version. Your brain likes feeling like there's one continuous line connecting who you were back then to who you are now. Same you, just a different chapter. And sometimes an object or even a house ends up feeling like the marker of that line, like there's the thing that's proving that chapter really happened. Here's an easy way to picture it. Think about running into an old friend that you haven't seen in like twenty years, okay? You don't need to pull out the old yearbook and hand it to them to prove that you know each other. You just pick right back up because history is still there, whether you're holding the yearbook or not, right? Self-continuity is just your brain forgetting that same logic applies to your own life. The house version of this is the same idea, just bigger. Think about the family that buys maybe your old house after you move, and within a year they maybe ripped out the carpet, they repainted, they redecorated, they changed something that was so important to you that held a lot of special memories. And it can feel like they're erasing you, like the memories can't possibly still count once the house doesn't even look like that anymore. But here's the thing. Your memories were never actually stored in the carpet or the paint color. One of my recent moves was one of the hardest ones, and I think it's because our home had so many rich memories in it. It was during a very specific period of time. There was a lot going on, and we really grew and evolved as people, but that house just held so many special memories. And I can still remember moving away from that home, how hard that was because I felt like leaving that home was leaving all those memories behind. But as I'm easily reminded of when I scroll on my phone and we're watching those family videos and we're pulling up the photos, I am deeply reminded, and I can go right back to that place and those feelings of all of those amazing special memories in the home. So that's the why. That's the psychology behind why a toy, a shirt, a house, it can feel so much bigger than the object itself. But knowing why it happens doesn't actually tell you what to do with the bin in your garage tonight. So let's get practical, and let's talk about what's actually worth keeping and what's okay to finally let go of. So here's the practical part. You don't have to get rid of every sentimental thing you own to feel lighter, but you do have to get intentional about it because there's a real difference between saving something and just storing something. I want you to ask yourself this: Does your child need four boxes of memories or one really special one? Because here's what actually happens. It's never just one shirt, it's like 40 or 50. It can be like a whole zoo of stuffed animals instead of one. It could be a million art projects from preschool all the way through school. And when everything gets saved, nothing actually feels special anymore. It just becomes more stuff in more boxes that nobody's opening. So here's how to get intentional about what actually stays. Pick your favorites, not everything. Out of all the stuffed animals, which one feels like it meant something? So maybe it's not even the one you'd expect, not the biggest or the cutest. It could be that little ratty one that got dragged to every doctor's appointment, all the vacations. It's the one. And out of all the artwork, there's probably a few pieces that genuinely just make you go, "Oh, I remember that," or are just so sweet. Those projects that you saw at open houses or back to school nights, or just the thing that they worked so hard on, they were so excited to show you, and lived on your refrigerator door for months at a time. Those are the ones. You're choosing what to protect, and everything else gets to go, though it may feel like letting go of the rest stings a little bit. That sting, it doesn't mean that you're choosing wrong. It just means that all those things really did matter You can also give it new form if volume is really the problem, and this is exactly what I've done with a few projects. I'm gonna talk about one recent one that's very special. So we had a bunch of shirts from all of the sports that were played over the years, and we kept literally every single one. So when I say it could be like 40 or 50 shirts, yes, we had a huge tote full of shirts, and every single one of them, there was a story. They were all worn. They were from the little sizes all the way to the big sizes, and this box lived in a closet that never got opened up. We were protecting them. We were saving them over time, and, you know, maybe through different moves, we'd pull it out, and we'd look at everything every once in a while, but it wasn't like every couple months. So what we had done is given this entire box of shirts to my mother-in-law, and she is a very talented quilter, and she turned it into this amazing, beautiful quilt, you guys. Like, I can't even tell you how special it is, and there are many services out there. I'm sure you've seen them online or on Pinterest. You can send your shirts away and have them quilted, and it's just a lovely way of cutting things down to something meaningful that you can use or display because, again, what's the value of having it in the box that doesn't get opened but maybe once a decade, right? So doing something with it can be really helpful. I also have boxes that I've made for my kids from when they were pretty little. So they have one box, and it has many different files in it for each grade level. And I have a rule for myself is that everybody gets the same size box, the same amount of storage, and I can only keep what fits in the box, in the file system, in the storage closet. It's really the rule. Nothing more than we can actually fit. And so, yes, every couple of years, it gets a little full. I remember going through art projects many, many, many times because I would just save all the art, and every couple years I'd have to really go through everything, and I would photograph it before it went into the recycle bin, and I would save the most special pieces. So each child has special boxes for themselves, but they all have the same amount of space allotted to them, and I only keep the most important things because I don't know about you, but if you've ever been given all of your stuff and you realize, gosh, I had a lot of things over the years, and you're not sure what to do with it... I had to go through my own things. My parents were so amazing. They saved all of my stuff. They gave it to me, and I had the choice to go through it, and I remember photographing a lot of items. I'm gonna turn it into a book so that I can actually thumb through and share those things with my kids, because, how often was I gonna take the box out and show them all of the things? I'd rather show it to them in picture form and have little stories that go with it. So I think you're catching my gist. There's a lot of different ways that you can take these items out of the boxes and give them new life, give them stories. And I mean, we can go on and on about this in an entire episode or a whole series, but these are just some practical ideas, okay? So just give yourself a container, not a whole house. One bin per child, one shelf. Whatever the boundary is, just pick one and let that be the limit. And when something new comes in and the container's already full, let's not make it a sad moment, right? It's actually kind of a nice one. It just means you get to sit down again and remember everything already in there while you decide what still deserves the spot. And I really like this idea of display or use it, don't just store it. So if it's special enough to keep, it really is special enough to see, right? So think of things going on a shelf or a frame, a shadow box, something that's worn again or used again. A special piece of clothing, you know, that doesn't need to stay in the garment bag. It can be cut up and used for other things. Turn it into a piece of artwork, into a blanket, into something special for your children. There's so many different ways to reuse and be practical with a lot of these things. There's so many different ways to reuse and give these items new purpose or a new way to share or use them. And if you need some ideas, gosh, you can go down the Pinterest rabbit hole, though I caution you because it might be overwhelming. But there's a lot of different ways to display things. I have some collections, and at certain points in my life, they needed to be stored up, and they were in the bins, and now I've only kept enough of my collections that I can actually put out on display, and I see them every day. It makes me very happy. And if it is something that brings me that much joy, and I'm not like, "Oh, gosh, I just wanna pack it up and put it in the garage and not see it," you know, that's giving you helpful information. It means it is special enough. It does give me special memories from my childhood, and I love sharing that with my own children and encouraging them to do the same thing with their things. And so for everything else, the toys, the clothes, the stuff that doesn't make the cut, this is where the guilt tends to creep back in the hardest because it can feel like you're choosing against your kids sometime or against your own past instead of just making a practical call. You're not. Letting the rest go doesn't erase the season it came from, okay? It just means you're not asking a bike or a swing set or a stack of onesies to hold the weight of that memory by itself. Sell it if it has real value and someone else could use it. I'm a big fan of this. I like to ensure that the items I have in my house that I'm not using are just getting the use that they're meant to have. You know, and honest flag here, this pile is usually bigger than people think, and I've got a declutter to cash guide that's coming soon to help you turn that pile into some money instead of really carrying all the guilt of the stuff, and there'll be more details on that soon. But you can also donate it if it's useful but not valuable enough to be worth your time to sell. Somebody's kid is gonna need a bike more than your garage needs to babysit it for another three or four years, right? There's something genuinely nice about your kiddo's old bike teaching a whole new kid how to ride and the excitement that it's gonna bring to them. So here's what I really want you to walk away with from this episode. It's okay that these things pull on your heartstrings. I know watching these videos and seeing these pictures totally do almost every single time and that's not a flaw in you. It's just proof that those seasons actually meant something to you. So a toy, a shirt, a house, none of those things would tug on you at all if they didn't represent something so special and so real at its core. So here's the shift I wanna encourage you to make. So instead of asking, "Can I just get rid of this?" Right? I want you to just think about it differently. I want you to ask, "Is this box the best way to honor what this actually meant to me?" Because most of the time, the answer is no. A box in the garage isn't honoring anything most of the time. It's just delaying decisions, and it's quietly taking up space while it does. So there's a lot of really clever ways to do something with the stuff in the bins if they're not already in photo or video form. Maybe this will become a project for you. Maybe you're ready to part with the box of, I don't know, you know, costumes that you've saved for your kids over the years, and you can take some photos, turn it into a photo book, and write little stories, and maybe put the pictures of them over Halloween throughout the years. It can be so many different things. I'm even thinking about a way to do cards. I've saved pretty much any card that's been given to me over many, many, many years, and I'm really overflowing, so I'm, been busting at the seams with cards. And I love cards because they're usually handwritten. There's a sweet note on them, and I'm trying to figure out a way, instead of keeping them boxed, I'm not reading them. I'm not seeing them. I'm just keeping them because the idea of them being so special, I really do wanna do something with them. So I'm thinking about an art project of some form, and you guys know if you've been following me on Instagram or listening to my podcast for a while, I'm in my analog summer right now, and that just means more hands-on creative projects, less technology, phone time, scrolling. I really wanna do stuff with my hands and be creative, and one way to just be really conscious as a consumer and also just utilizing what I have in my space is to use these things that are right at our fingertips, right? A lot of us don't even realize we have it all right here in the walls of our home, and it could be a really fun project, especially with your kiddos, right? A lot of our stuff, I'm thinking, you know, as parents, most of this is about stuff that belongs to our kids. Maybe it's some of our special stuff from when we grew up, or maybe it belongs to a parent or somebody else. But we have opportunity to really turn these into treasures. So I'd love to know what you come up with. If you were willing to share, you have some great ideas, my ears are always open. Send me a DM or an email. I would love, love, love to hear about what you're doing with your things or if any of these ideas in this podcast has helped. So really that's the whole heart of this episode. You don't need every box in the garage to prove that your life happened or that season happened. You need a few things held on purpose in a way that you'll actually see or use or share, and everything else already did its job. It got you to the memory. It doesn't have to keep doing that job forever. And honestly, that's exactly what I was reminded of sitting on the couch with my kids watching those old videos. It wasn't the toys in the background that got us. It wasn't the outfits or the costumes or any of the stuff. It was all of us together laughing at the same time at the same clips, remembering those same moments, and feeling that the whole season came back to life for a few minutes when we were watching. That's really what lit us up inside and out. That's the memory doing exactly what it was supposed to do, and it didn't need a single box from the garage to make it happen. So putting this episode together, I realized how many different versions of this story there are. Everybody's got their own thing, their own box, their own chapter they're holding onto in their own way. And honestly, I think this might need to be a reoccurring conversation here on Making the Space Monday, maybe even more specifically, a conversation between spouses, because a lot of couples get stuck right here. So this is honestly a really good excuse to bring Mr. Making the Space Monday back on the show because we have very different relationships with holding onto stuff, and I think hearing both sides might actually help a lot of you see your own house and maybe in your own relationships just a little differently and how to work together through all the stuff. And if this episode resonated with you and you want a next step, grab the One Space Reset Kit. It is a very short guided reset to help you clear one space at a time. So if you're finding it challenging to even get started to take that very first step, this is really helpful to get that momentum going. You can find the link in the show notes, and if you enjoy this episode, be sure to follow the show so you don't miss your Monday reset. Make it a great week A quick note before we close. This podcast is for education and inspiration. It's not a substitute for therapy or medical care. If you're needing mental health support, please reach out to a licensed provider in your area.