Ep. 95 Your Clutter Has Meaning with Star Hansen

[00:00:06] I'm Michele Simms and this is The Beauty in the Mess, a community where people who crave a shift in mindset, personal growth, and connection to like-minded people come together to start rewriting their stories. Through engaging, honest, and insightful conversations, the show will help you embrace the mess to recognize the meanings and the lessons it holds and discover its hidden treasures to help you start making a mindset shift. Let's listen, learn, and reclaim who we were meant to be.

[00:00:34] Hi friend, welcome to The Beauty in the Mess. I had a great conversation with Star Hansen that I'm about to share with you. Star is a certified professional organizer and clutter whisperer on a mission to help you banish your personal clutter monster, take control of your stuff, and help create a life that you're truly proud of. Star looks at the deeper meaning of your stuff to help you figure out why you feel overwhelmed by your clutter in the first place.

[00:01:00] And did you know, for example, that what room your clutter resides in actually has meaning? This is truly fascinating. I mean, very few of us are 100% clutter free. Star's best-selling book, Why the FMI Still Not Organized, has inspired countless individuals to tackle their clutter head-on and find lasting solutions. She's appeared on over 30 TV shows, has given a TEDx talk, which is awesome.

[00:01:26] I've listened to it two or three times now, and shared her fitted sheet folding secrets with Oprah and her fans. Her unique methodology has helped thousands of people get and stay organized when nothing else worked. Hi, I'm Michelle Sims, your host. I'm just a regular person who, along with my family, have had our share of messes that we too have had to overcome. Along the way, I got curious as to how others get through their messes and even triumph over them. Maybe there's a better way, a faster way.

[00:01:56] Maybe we can accelerate our journeys by learning from someone else. That started my pursuit. I think we can all learn from each other through the sharing of our experiences, lessons, and knowledge. So join me for episode 95 of The Beauty and the Mess, called Your Clutter Has Meaning, with Star Hanson. So without further ado, let's dive right into today's conversation. Hi, Star. Welcome to The Beauty and the Mess. I'm so glad to have you with me today. Aw, thanks, Michelle. I'm so happy to be here with you today.

[00:02:26] Absolutely. Now, I would love it if you would just introduce yourself and let people know what you do. Absolutely. My name is Star Hanson. I'm a certified professional organizer and clutter whisperer. I help people understand what their clutter is doing in their lives, why it won't go away. I actually wrote a book called Why the F Am I Still Not Organized? And that is my deal. I help you figure out why it won't go away and help you curate a life that is clutter-free and joyful. It's awesome, really.

[00:02:52] Now, if I understand correctly from what I've learned, you never really had a clutter issue yourself, at least not a major one. So what led you down this? I do today. Oh, you did? No, we're talking offline, you and I, because today couldn't have been more chaotic if it tried. I mean, I won't, I shouldn't say that because it could actually, but it's no, I, when I started my career, I never really had a clutter issue. I just really understood the process of organizing.

[00:03:20] And I had a lot of patience and compassion for people who had clutter. And I was never really bothered by clutter. I don't have judgment about it. I don't feel like icky when someone has clutter. I just, it felt like this really effortless natural flow for me. And I think what's interesting is the way that I experience people's clutter is the way I experience other parts of my life that may not have clutter, but I have chaos. So for example, growing up, I had a lot of eating disorders because I was a nineties baby.

[00:03:50] And in the nineties, they were like B bones or you are huge. And so when you're given that narrative and you're trying to come out of it, there's a lot of complications. And so the complicated conversation in my head oftentimes mirrored what I hear people talk about with their clutter. And so even though we're talking about two vastly different topics, the conversation is the same. The way we beat ourselves up is the same. The way we hide and kind of have that frenetic anxious energy is the same.

[00:04:17] And so I actually look more for chaos, patterns of chaos and clutter than I do just for physical specimens of clutter. Because I think that if I came into a cluttered house and organized it, but you didn't address the root cause of the clutter, even if the clutter neighbor never came back, which let's be honest, it probably will. It's going to materialize in a different location. And so I am actually helping people to eliminate the source of their clutter instead of just handling the topical problem. Wow. Wow.

[00:04:46] And even though the two problems are very different in some ways, like you said, they're very similar. And a lot of the origins are the same, right? It's self-worth, self-love sometimes. I mean, I'm not saying all clutter comes from that, but a lot of it probably does. Totally. And you know, when I talk about clutter, there's two different types of clutter. There's active clutter or activated clutter, and there's practical clutter. Now, practical clutter is just having too much stuff.

[00:05:12] It's I have more stuff than space, or I don't have systems set up to manage the items in my life. And that's really simple to solve, right? You're either going to increase the amount of space you use to store that stuff, decrease the volume of stuff you have, or set up a system that works for you or evolve the system. The high level thinking of clutter is very, very basic. It's just, it's a math problem. Like, oh, I want it to equal this amount of space. I have to make some adjustments easy, but then we talk about the activated clutter, and this

[00:05:41] is the more emotional part of clutter. And this is where in my practice with people, I talk about how clutter is trying to help you. I anthropomorphize it a little bit and just say your clutter is here. And if it shows up over and over again in the same places with the same stuff, it's trying to help you. And what I mean by that is there's ways that we use our clutter to have conversations with ourselves and other people in the world. So the first way that we often use clutter is to remind ourselves of something.

[00:06:08] You see this with post-it notes on the computer, maybe putting a quote that you really love on the mirror or a mantra or weights in your living room. Maybe you leave something out for your spouse that they didn't get done, that you are doing a little bit of a dig on by leaving it out. It might be you keeping a hold of a mistake you made at work because you really want to remind yourself to not make that mistake again. Or you hang a picture of a happy day because you want to remind yourself of the people that you love.

[00:06:36] Another way we use stuff around us is connection. If you lost someone that you love and you inherited all of their stuff, having that stuff keeps you connected to them. There's ways that just having those items feels really good. It can also feel really bad. It might be that you had to inherit it and it doesn't feel good at all. And you feel connected and you kind of feel like stuck in this. And so we use it to be connected to other parts of our lives, other parts of ourselves. Maybe it's a future version of yourself that you're holding onto or a past version.

[00:07:06] The people in our lives who passed away or who are not here anymore. We also use clutter for security. If someone grew up and they didn't have a lot. So I've had clients who maybe had one pair of jeans growing up. And then when they were able to create money and abundance for themselves as adults, they overcompensated and bought 200 pairs of jeans because they had so much trauma in their childhood about not having their needs met. You saw this during the pandemic, just show people toilet paper and they're going to be like, wait a second, just give it all to me.

[00:07:36] It's when we feel or when we actually didn't get our needs met, it's very normal to want to hold on to our stuff for a security blanket to make sure that our needs are met. And this isn't perceived. This is real. If you didn't have enough to eat growing up, having a fully stocked pantry is going to feel like an essential necessity. My great-grandmother lived through the depression and she had to have a full pantry to feel safe and secure. And that was her real experience. And the final way that we use clutter is for safety, right?

[00:08:05] We use it to protect ourselves. I've had clients who've used clutter because they've had a break-in in their home and things were stolen. And if their clutter is around, people can't find the valuables. And so they feel more safe by having it around. You might use it if you've had some sort of like physical trauma or violation where it feels like it might be protecting you from someone breaking in and hurting you. When I was a kid, we grew up on a very busy street. And I always remember seeing anytime I would see the lights of the police officers go by

[00:08:35] pulling someone over. And I had a lot of anxiety about that. And I used to stack all of our toys on the bed. My sister and I would share a bed and we'd stack the toys on the opposite bed so that if someone came in, it would act like an alarm. And so these are just a few ways that we use clutter to help us. And so what's kind of really tricky is that we often blend the two together and it's hard to know. Is it practical? Is it activated? What's really going on? And that's one of the big reasons why clutter is so challenging to manage because there's a lot going on there. Right.

[00:09:05] And even with the practical and the activated, is that what you call it? Yeah. You know, if someone's over shopping like blue jeans and it's practical to an extent, but then you overdo it, then it's another issue, right? I mean, it's. Oh, yeah. So I had to buy tank tops last week. And what I should have done is write out a list of how many tank tops and what kind I needed. But I did not. I went onto the website and I thought they always offer me more at checkout for a deeper discount.

[00:09:35] I'm going to get one. And then they'll offer. They did offer me, but the wrong tank top. So now I have four of the wrong tank top. And I was like, what was I? And it's not because I don't know what I want. It's because we are being sold to every way from Friday. So you've got the practical element that people are using our own psychology against us. Exactly. To buy more things, to participate in this consumer driven society. But also like, yeah, there's a part of me that wants that deal that feels really good.

[00:10:03] You get that dopamine hit from the good deal. And so it is complicated because there's a lot going on and it's not all, oh, your trauma informs your decisions. Yes, that's absolutely true. And we have our psychology used against us. We also have pragmatic needs. We're trying to be strategic. There's a lot going on. And it oftentimes when it comes to our clutter, people are racing through it. They feel like they should have been organized five minutes ago or five years ago, and they're in a hurry.

[00:10:30] And when we move fast and with a lot of anxiety, we don't think clearly. And so by taking the time to go slow and strategize and be patient with ourselves and use the process of organizing as a way to get to know ourselves and to think of it as a healing process, a process of self-care and not a task to complete, that really shifts the experience we have with our clutter and the results that we're going to get from our organizing. So how do you tackle the big base issues, like say the death of a loved one?

[00:10:59] And unfortunately, we've had lots of that in our family. And there's almost an expectation by other family members for you to hang on to stuff, right? Here, you take it. And it kind of relieves, I feel bad if they're listening to the podcast, but it relieves their burden, right? Because they just passed it to you. But the expectation is you keep it, you hold on to it. And if you don't, you know, so how do you deal with a hat?

[00:11:28] And it's not that you don't want things of your loved ones. You absolutely do. But you may not want everything like boxes and boxes and boxes. Organizing is nothing if not boundary work. If you look at what organizing often is, it's finding containers and homes for things and deciding how many you're going to keep and where they'll live. And it's also deciding what we say yes to and what we say no to. It's a lot of boundary work. And it is so messy when we're dealing with grief because there's so much when someone dies, it becomes like a feeding frenzy, doesn't it?

[00:11:58] It's like people want what's valuable. They are going to fight about a hairbrush that's broken and was never used by the loved one. Like it's really startling how chaotic things get when someone passes away. And what I call the family historian, the person who tends to inherit it, they get to choose. You are the last line of defense. You are the decision maker. And it's so difficult because it's like having a peanut gallery who wants to tell you how to do

[00:12:27] things and they're not taking responsibility. So if they want to come and take things with them, good for them. They can totally do that. But if you are the historian, you get the last decision. And that's, you know, I think that's one of the hardest things is because it's so easy for people to stand on the sidelines and tell you what they think you should do. And the truth is our loved ones don't care what we kept. I mean, maybe there's a few things from their human experience they wanted you to keep. But generally speaking, it's like, don't keep anything that doesn't make you happy.

[00:12:55] Your loved ones want you happy. Your loved ones want you to live a life of joy and fulfillment. And, you know, I don't have any kids. My siblings don't have any kids. We are the end of the line. And it's very interesting to watch the end of the line come because, you know, at what point do my yearbooks stop being important? What point do my, you know, old memorabilia stop being important? Do my grandparents memorabilia stop needing to sit in a box being housed for what? For me to pass on to who when I pass away.

[00:13:25] And even for those of you who have children, I mean, ask any kid, do they want an Ikea bookshelf or the antique bookshelf? They're going to say the Ikea bookshelf. Well, you know, it's very well, there's some special, lovely, you know, cottagecore people who will probably choose the antique bookshelf. But most people want to get their own stuff. It's a more disposable world. And so it really takes this having these conversations to decide, OK, who wants to be the steward of these items?

[00:13:51] And if someone is not willing to take responsibility, I think that they forfeit their decision making ability around those things. Yeah, I would agree. But I think it also and it's because maybe a lack of boundaries, but it also instills guilt, right? I mean, you start harboring this guilt of having that burden of making the decision by yourself, which, like you said, in essence, they've already made their decision, right? Because they passed it on to you.

[00:14:20] Well, and notice who takes on the who becomes the family historians or the big hearted people who can see the value in things, right? It's like someone else is going to say, oh, just throw it away. Get a dumpster. I don't care. And the big hearted people are like, no, that's really good. I want to find a home for this thing from grandpa. And it's beautiful. But so this is why clutter is such a beautiful teacher because clutter shows us the things that we are hiding from ourselves and from the world around us, right?

[00:14:48] Like if I came to your house, if I surprised you right now and said, knock, knock, I'm hitting your face. I don't know if this is going to be shown in the recording, but no one wants me knocking on. I'm not a pop over friend. I'm not the person you want just showing up at your door because it's like, no, get out of my house lady. And it's because our physical spaces tell a story. It tells the story of our lives. Every single room in our home represents an area of our life. And the way that we interact with the items there tells a story.

[00:15:16] And it's why it's uncomfortable when people come over that we don't feel safe with because we don't want them to see some of our story. That story is for us. It's very personal. And so one of the ways that clutter is such a beautiful helper is it lets us have an external conversation with ourselves. Like when you're describing this feeling of guilt, the problem is not whether or not you should keep the items. It's how can you hold space for feeling guilty?

[00:15:42] When were you told that guilt was the way that you should process some of these feelings of doing what's right for you that someone else might know better than you and you should feel bad if you don't agree with them. And so clutter becomes this beautiful mirror of information. And look, it's pain in the butt. It's not enjoyable. It's very uncomfortable. And rarely do people start working with me and say, oh my gosh, this is so much fun. I try to make the process fun, but come on.

[00:16:09] Like it's uncomfortable to be shown the things that we've been trying to hide from ourselves and we don't want to look at and that are uncomfortable. And it is the only way to set yourself free. When we really see those patterns, we can set ourselves free and we can start to choose getting our needs met in authentic ways and heal the wounds that cause the clutter to show up in the first place. And I think you hit on something too, when you were talking about being the end of the line in your family, because I've had those exact same thoughts and I'm not the end of the line. Right.

[00:16:38] But I'm thinking my kids aren't going to want these pictures of people that they don't even know who they are. They're not going to want the yearbooks. They're not going to want knickknacks. You know, I don't see them wanting any of it. So do I depart with it while I'm still alive? And I mean, these are thoughts that I have with myself. You know, what's kind of fun and not many people do this, but I I think it's, I think it's a real hoot if I can say, but I feel like it's like, it's interesting to say to your kids, Hey, bring a box, come walk through the house one at a

[00:17:08] time, tackle one child at a time, tell them they're each coming over. You don't want competition, but be like, okay, let's walk the house and tell me what are the things that would tell the story of me later? Like, I think organizing is so essential to the conversation of mortality and people pussyfoot around it and they don't want to talk about it. And I will say, let's talk death all day long because it's a big thing people think about. You know, it's like, I don't want to leave this for my kids to deal with.

[00:17:38] What am I, even me? I'm like, I don't know. I'll have a hundred more years left in me. I don't know. They're going to make us bionic in a few years. So what am I going to do with all of this stuff? And how long do I need to keep it? That's a mortality question. And so it's scary. And also these are conversations we want to have. We want to have these conversations before we're at a place where we can't handle things. And so even just saying to your kids, like, if you were going to tell the story of me and you were going to collect a few things that would tell the story of me, what would that be?

[00:18:06] And that's such an interesting, beautiful question and conversation to have because you're going to learn how they see you. Might be scary. Oh yeah. So it might be a little scary depending on how old they are. If they're under 26, probably don't do this activity. Maybe they're not fully developed. Wait for the full development. But if you can do that, if you can walk through, they can actually ask questions. They can learn from you. They can understand. You can, you know, if you suddenly see, oh wow, she really resonates with this part of who I am.

[00:18:35] You can then offer something additional. And it's just, I think we run from that conversation because we want to pretend like we're never going to die. And our clutter is a very clear reminder that we cannot take it with us and that we do leave things behind and we leave our loved ones behind and we leave our stories behind and our legacy and our stories. And so actually taking the time to have those conversations can be a really powerful and empowering activity that we can do as much as it's also quite uncomfortable.

[00:19:02] I think it's just as uncomfortable, unfortunately, for the child as for the parent, maybe. Oh, yeah. If my parents talk about death, it is uncomfortable. And, you know, I'm thinking, why are you doing this? I don't want to hear this. So then I project the same feelings onto my kids. If I were to say, well, you know, I'm not going to be around forever. You know what I mean? Oh, I do. When I go on big trips, I tell my mom, hey, the passwords are here.

[00:19:32] And she's like, nothing is going to happen to you. Yeah, I know it's not going to you. I just jinxed myself. It's never going to happen. But it really is. It's uncomfortable. And so I don't know why I'm on this soapbox now. I'm just I'm doubling down on it, clearly. But you can have this conversation in a lighthearted way that's not connected to a very clear ending. Right. Like, hey, one day I'm going to die. And that's going to be a thing that happens. And when that happens, this is what I want to go on. Right.

[00:20:01] Right. This is a conversation we pretty much need to have anyways. Right. Right. It's different than you getting a terminal diagnosis and then having to have this conversation. I mean, very true. That's like then we've just thrown some gas on the fire. We're like it sobs. And, you know, at least this point, it's like it's actually kind of lighthearted and a little I mean, it's not but it is. It's hey, this is the most natural part of being alive is dying. It's like after birth, it's death. And what if we don't look at it as this horrible tragedy?

[00:20:30] I want you to feel like you remember me because so one of the things when I'm working with people is we'll build memory boxes because one of the kind of rogue clutter types that find their way around the house is memorabilia items, items from people we love items, concert tickets, events, things like that, chapters of our lives. And often these don't have a place of honor. They're just scattered throughout and they kind of become decor, but they weren't really meant to be decor. We just know that we value them and we don't want to throw them away.

[00:20:57] But if you build boxes, so if you build a box for, you know, you, your spouse, and then your relationship together, maybe one for your kids, then you have somewhere to house these very important items. And I also tell people, you know, you can subcategorize and have your childhood in one memory box and have your college years in another one. I also do memorabilia boxes for people who passed away who were significant. I have one general ancestors box of things that I've kind of kept from my grandparents or my aunts.

[00:21:25] And then I have one for my sister who passed away. And what I love about having one from my sister is that I feel like it's me being able to visit her. And so it really is like the things that are in that box are very specific to the fingerprint of our relationship together. It's our childhood. It's our adulthood. It's these little, it's the, you know, some are really beautiful and some are kind of painful, but when her anniversary comes, when her birthday comes, I pull that up.

[00:21:54] And I feel like I get to connect with her and there's beauty in that and power in that. And not everybody deserves a big box, but some people will. And your children will want a big box from you. You're an important part of their lives. And so as morbid as it sounds, and this is why I can speak it with it freely because I've experienced it and it's not, you know, theoretical, it's experiential. We want to be able to honor the people that we love and continue to connect with them and

[00:22:21] not feel a sense of pain and trauma constantly because their stuff is scattered among our bills and with our kitchen gear. You know, if my sister's items were interspersed around the rest of my house, it would feel like I had landmines everywhere that were just going to send me into a, you know, an emotional PTSD flashback at all times. And by choosing to have them together, it allows me to honor her more. It allows me to get my own pain out of the way so I don't have to experience it unexpectedly.

[00:22:51] And it allows me to really feel connected to her on a deep level. Yeah. I love that because I do, you know, just thinking of myself, I do have a few things of different loved ones, but I've never like physically put them in a box together. They are dispersed throughout the house as I'm thinking while you're talking, I'm like, oh, mine are all over the place. And it can be beautiful. Like I'm also kind of a big fan of not keeping things just boxed up and preserved for perfection.

[00:23:18] It's, you know, all, sometimes there's like a little bag that my sister gave me. And I think about her with so much fondness. That's almost always sitting out on a shelf in my closet because I feel like she's winking at me when I see it. Right. But that's a fully curated item that makes sense to me there and makes me feel like a heart surge of joy. If I had some of her journal entries sitting, hanging, hanging up on my wall, I would feel like someone was stabbing me every time I walked by.

[00:23:47] And so those items need to be in a box or they need to be kept away from my daily experience. And this is what we really get to choose through our physical spaces and our clutter is we get to curate the experience we want to have. We get to set our homes up in a way that brings us joy, that supports our integrity, supports our values, support the path that we're walking and the path we have walked. And it's really beautiful when we can do that from a mindful place. Yeah.

[00:24:14] And I love allowing your child to go through and tell you what they would want because that way you can put their name on it or something. And when that time comes, they've already picked out, you know, and you're not hanging on to all this stuff or making them a big box that they don't want. Right. So, or, you know, I walked through the house with my mom and there was a few things on a bookshelf and I was asking her about them because I would have, if she had just left

[00:24:43] all that stuff to me and she was gone, I would have thrown half of it away. I had no idea what I was looking at. And when she told me, it was like, yeah, there's a pipe that I would have been like, that pipe probably belonged to my grandfather. It was not. It was like someone had given it. It was a gift. It was whatever. But this random black leather pouch was my grandfather's wallet. Wow. Like what? I would have thrown that away. I didn't, I had no idea. So even just walking through and telling stories.

[00:25:10] And honestly, if your kids are not ready or able or desiring to have this conversation, you can walk through with, you know, your camera and just record it yourself or a history of objects. Yeah. And like, so part of it is making meaning for the people we love. And part of it is just owning it for ourselves. I've seen a lot of people who have clutter because they don't want to get rid of things from the past because they're like, well, I want my kids to know that I was more than a mom.

[00:25:35] I want my kids to know that I accomplished things and that I was a, he was like, it gets really exhausting to be the annoying person who asks you to clean your room and cooks you things that you don't want to eat. Like it's being a parent is a very thankless, exhausting job. And, you know, it's kind of like, I want you to know that I was more than a dinner nag. That was just please. Like, so it's, um, you know, like letting you have, or, you know, whoever's experiencing that experience.

[00:26:03] Like I want to honor and collect and immortalize the people that I love in these experiences, because no matter what with you goes a lot of history. And so a lot of times we hold onto things because we think that we need to keep it alive and we can keep it alive with a photo. We can keep it alive with a video. We can tell a story about it and pass it on to someone that we love verbally. We can physically give it to someone and you, we get to choose how that lives on.

[00:26:29] I wanted to ask you, like, uh, I know you've heard of ancestral trauma. It's kind of a buzzword going around right now, but is there such a thing as like ancestral clutter because yeah. And is it taught or is it, I'm assuming we teach it to, you know, like our parents teach it to us. I call it generational clutter is I call it. I mean, it can be ancestral also.

[00:26:53] I think I will say there are certain ways that the brain is wired that are actually hereditary. So hoarding disorder, for example, is passed genetically. ADHD is passed genetically. So those are two different conditions that actually cause chaos and yes, they're genetic. So there's a genetic possibility of someone getting that. If you know, if you pass that along to your children, for sure, it doesn't mean they have to get it. It's just, there's a possibility of it. Right.

[00:27:20] And the experience of it, like how you live your life and your family is what you know to be true. You aren't living in someone else's home. So you don't have the same perspective. Like with my family, every time we leave the room, we're like, but I love you. Love you. Love you. We say, I love you like a thousand times a day. I've had boyfriends who are like star. You've said it once today. That is enough. It's like, calm down. I'm just going into the next room. And I'm like, but that's what we did. Like, I'm not trying to suffocate you. I just, it's the word I use.

[00:27:49] But so what we know is what we know. And so how you are conditioned growing up for sure. The environment is you're going to take that with you, but you see people going different directions. My grandmother, for example, quintessential 1950s housewife, everything was just so she's still at the age of 95 keeps her own house. Oh, wow. 95. Let me send someone over. She keeps her own house. She does her thing. My mom went the opposite direction. She's a free spirit. You go to her house. She's going to paint a mural on the wall with you.

[00:28:18] She's going to, I used to come home and a wall would be knocked down and something new that my parents will like, like, are just really fun artists. They'll like just do a mosaic on the weekend. Like, this is just who my parents are. So they're the opposite. My mom hated growing up at a museum. She felt very stifled by that. She refuses to live that way. She holds onto things and someone might walk in and say, oh, this is a lot of stuff. It's not clutter to her. I don't feel like it's clutter. She just really appreciates it. I'm like a nice middle of the road.

[00:28:45] I like the kind of very clean aesthetic, but I am not going to be mad if you come in and start painting on my walls. I'll be like, well, let's see what else we can do. And it's, you know, so there's, there definitely are conditions that can be passed genetically. Then there's ways that we kind of mirror what we were taught. And then there's ways that we rebel. And you see this a lot with hoarding disorder. Someone who has a lot of stuff, their kids might be stark minimalist because they didn't like what they experienced growing up. And then their kids suddenly, you know, it's like then that gene gets passed down and they're like, it's here.

[00:29:14] And, you know, we also really want to honor the fact that trauma really does play a part of clutter. There's a lot when it comes to trauma that will express itself through our physical spaces. And that's not to be taken lightly either. Yeah. And I think if the trauma occurred in childhood, it's somehow even more profound. Maybe it's because it was a child trying to process what happened.

[00:29:39] And I don't know, but I know like my mom came from poverty and so, you know, food is a big thing. Like you said, having that pantry stocked, having food on hand. And then when COVID hit, it was kind of like a trigger. And we had a rough childhood, you know, she did with us as children. And, you know, and she's like, Hey, you need to make sure you put this back. And it triggers me, right? So then I grab stuff and I'm putting food on shelves. And, but I know it's from my history too.

[00:30:08] It's not just her history, but hers definitely played into her feelings. No. Oh, for sure. And I think when we have that kind of thing happen, when we're developing, it hits so deeply. And so for sure, we're impacted by that in a big way. People who grew up in the great depression, they, you know, my great grandmother really held onto that stuff and that she's not alone. There's many people who just, they don't know how to distinguish that kind of scarcity energy from the reality.

[00:30:38] And the other thing to name is we live in unprecedented times in the fact that I can have food delivered right now. I can be on this call with you. I can literally go while you don't notice and order food and have it at my door in 20 minutes if I wanted to. And I could also order thousands of dollars of items to be brought to my home. We are in this instant consumer driven society. They never knew that they've never. And I don't know that we will suffer the damage of an excess of stuff on a planet scale.

[00:31:08] We're suffering that right now. We may never know scarcity the way that they knew scarcity and we'll have our own version of scarcity. We are going to have scarcity of resources, not resources of physical or, you know, like natural resources versus resources of clothing. I mean, I think if the world stopped producing clothing, we'd probably be able to clothe everyone for the rest of humanity. That's probably true. You know, it's like, but we just, it's a very weird time to understand.

[00:31:34] And we weren't really taught how to manage the volume of stuff that we're having to manage, the volume of information we're having to manage, the volume of, you know, commitments. It's just, we've saved ourselves time and cost ourselves time at the same point. And it's really a complicated, stressful thing to be alive right now. I think you were right earlier when you talked about the bombardment of the marketing, right?

[00:31:57] Because I know several people that are addicted to QVC or HSN or whatever shopping channel they happen to be watching. Amazon. And it may be those dopamine hits. I don't know, but they can't stop. Oh, I see it with Amazon. People will get like 20 bucks to their house and they're like, I don't remember what I got. And it comes and they're not nearly as interested as when they bought it. It's just not as fun the second time around. Yeah. It's an odd dynamic. Yeah. That's for sure.

[00:32:27] So I know that you said that when we incur clutter or collect clutter, I don't know what the proper terminology is. Those doesn't work perfectly. That we've kind of lost trust in ourselves. And I was wondering if you could explain what that means, like trust in our decisions or trust how? When we collect clutter, I don't recognize that. Like let me. Oh, okay. Yeah. Where did, do you remember where I said that? It was on a podcast. I was listening to you.

[00:32:58] Got it. Okay. I go down lots of rabbit holes deep as you can tell. I love me a rabbit hole. So, okay. So going down that thread, I could see. So there's ways that when we follow our impulses, because there's an impulse and then there's the logic, the logical part of me wants an organized home, wants a reasonable amount of stuff, wants to follow this path forward and knows what I need to do.

[00:33:25] And just needs time, energy, space, bins, whatever to get it done. Then there's this other part of people that is the part that has a lot of anxiety or shame or fear or scarcity or chaos in some internal way. And when we let that version of us drive and that part that's driving might over consume, might not put things back. We look at that and we tend to judge ourselves. We look at it and we say, oh, well, like I can't trust myself. There's too much stuff.

[00:33:54] I just see, I can't keep it all together. And we go instantly to the negative parts of ourselves. I have never met a disorganized person. Full sentence. I have never met a disorganized person. I have met people who feel overwhelmed with making decisions. I have met people who are struggling emotionally. I have met people who are feeling like they're hitting a roadblock or they're overwhelmed. But if I ask even the most cluttered person that I ever met, which I don't even know how

[00:34:23] to quantify that, but if I, if you said, oh, this is the most disorganized person in the world, I promise you there is order in that chaos. There is somewhere that they have something that is exactly where they want it. There is absolutely like some sort of clarity that they have in their stuff. And oftentimes clutter exists because not because they don't have, they don't know how to build systems. It's because they often don't lean into their natural truth enough and create enough systems

[00:34:51] or say it's okay to need somewhere to house this item that seems worthless to anyone else. We often don't say yes to ourselves, lean in and create a system around that because we're too busy shaming ourselves and saying, I shouldn't have this. Why did I do this? I couldn't, you know, I couldn't keep it together. I don't have any willpower versus what if you're right? What if it's right that you needed to collect all of those old yogurt containers because you have an idea? What if that's right?

[00:35:20] What if you do really have an idea that's going to be a game changer? Or what if your inner child just wanted some attention and you collecting those yogurt containers was right because the part of you that needs a sense of play wanted to be heard. And that was the only place they felt like they could be heard. And so if you stop and you say, what am I trying to accomplish with these yogurt containers? Oh, I want more play in my life. I want to take a painting class. I want to play. The minute you sign up for that painting class, the minute that you start to actually engage

[00:35:47] and play in your life, the yogurt containers become unnecessary because you're meeting the bigger need. And that's what we're doing is clutter is not proof that you can't trust yourself. Clutter is proof that you are trying to be heard within yourself. And so we want to start to really look at the clutter with curiosity, with interest, with patience, with compassion, because I've never seen someone have clutter because they're lazy. They don't know what they're doing. I mean, sure. Yes. I can absolutely understand that some people don't know how to organize.

[00:36:17] They were never taught. Absolutely. That's an easy formula. I can show you that. But generally speaking, someone who has recurring clutter, there's something bigger going on and we need compassion and kindness and curiosity, not judgment and shame. So is it just another form of scarcity when people say I might need that someday and they hang on to it? Depends. I was just talking about that. I have a community called the Chaos to Calm community, and we were literally just having this conversation this afternoon. So you have a yogurt container.

[00:36:46] You know that yogurt container is very valuable and you get yogurt every week. So now you've got 52 of them. So you've got these 52 yogurt containers and you know, you don't need that many, but they're perfectly good. And you might, you have some really good ideas of how you can use these yogurt containers. So you just hold onto them until it's time. But then now they're taking over the kitchen. It's too much, but you want to get rid of it. But shoot, you can't recycle them because yogurt containers can't be recycled. So what do I do? Do I need to go and find someone who will take this and turn it into a brick and use it for a new house? Like it's so complicated.

[00:37:16] It's practical. It's activated. It's like pragmatic. Where is this going to go? And why, you know, and then you might get into a soapbox about why does the world create so much plastic? And why do I have to only choose plastic if I want to eat yogurt? And it's so multi-layered. But what we have to do is the, and this will be very difficult to stomach. If you're new to the clutter journey or new to looking at clutter through this lens, you want to stop and just look, choose one item, choose one item that you struggle

[00:37:43] with and really unpack that item for yourself. What is the voice in your head? Tell you that you're going to do with that. What is the like little playful part of you really think it wants from that? And then how does that fit into your life right now? How many of those do you need? What do you, what would you thrive having the specific number of, and then kind of think about like, what would it look like if I got rid of this? What would it take for me to feel like I could release this ethically? And most of us don't want to take the time to have that conversation with ourselves or think about it.

[00:38:11] That conversation might be two minutes, but we tell ourselves it's going to be 15 hours and it's not worth it. And we should have been organized five minutes ago. And we don't have time for this nonsense. Who's this organizer? Who's telling me to talk to my stuff, but the conversation you have around that one yogurt container will actually give you answers to about 50 different objects. It's not just about the container. It's about who you are. It's about how you interact with stuff. It's about your value system. It's about how you exist in the world.

[00:38:38] And as strange as it sounds, this is an exercise that leads you to a lot of insight about yourself and your relationship with the stuff around you. Yeah. I've noticed that I can give stuff away a lot easier than I can throw it away. Yes, totally. I struggle with throwing it away because you think of the landfills and everything else, but I can give it away. I want someone to appreciate this. I want them to love it. I want it to be their favorite. Totally. Yes, it's absolutely. I just want somebody to be able to use it. If someone can use it, hey, have it.

[00:39:07] But to just throw it away is hard because then you think, oh, I'm just adding to the landfill. And what's on the other side? So the other side is our own relationship with ourself, what we assume about ourselves. Then that shame comes up or that guilt comes up that was often a gift from someone else. You didn't come to this planet being like, I shall be a guilty person. My whole, it's like, we normally were given that tool. And then you've also got things beyond that, right? We're often not that in touch with our rage or anger.

[00:39:35] And how annoying and agitating is it and enraging is it that we live in a world that forces consumerism of items that we will never need again versus like, what if we just went a little slower? What if we just did jars that could be recycled instead of plastic that's going into a landfill and cluttering our, like, that's not necessarily a you problem. That's a top-down problem. And that's when we get into this feeling of helplessness. Like, oh, like I should be able to, like, they really did a number on us a few years ago. And they're like, you take responsibility, you recycle.

[00:40:04] And I'm like, wait, how about you take responsibility and create things that don't cause so much waste? Like, how about we're not the ones in charge, you know? Yeah. They took all the glass away and gave us plastic and glass was healthier even. Yeah, exactly. And now it's like, now it's hard to have rage about that because what are we even going to do with that? Now we're up against machines. I can't go down to Mike's milk stand and say, Mike, please go back to glass because now I'm up against a giant industry.

[00:40:32] And so when it puts us into a state of helplessness. So now that yogurt container is activating an energy of helplessness, which is why we want to hold on to them or find the right place for them because that's what we're holding under it. And it's, it is just so complicated and you deserve to be heard. Your feelings are valid and it is frustrating and it is annoying and it is agitating. And you honoring what's true for you is the thing that gives you your power.

[00:41:01] And it's just one of the gifts that clutter gives you as it really allows you to get in touch with the truth of who you are. And we're like, we're really deep down the rabbit hole now, Michelle. I did not know we were going to go this day. I don't know. I don't often lead with this kind of complexity. So if your listeners are here, good for you guys. This is like, we did not pick a box of the label. It's fascinating to me because to be honest, there's guilt and shame around clutter, of course,

[00:41:27] but I never thought of clutter as anything other than just clutter until recently. Right. And I was like, oh, wow, there's emotions behind this. So it's fascinating to me to think that there's this whole other, I don't know what you want to call it, facet. Complexities. Yeah. To clutter. Yeah, exactly. And it is complex. Wow. And I think it's like people think, oh yeah, clutter's got emotions. Like, and they instantly go to grief or sadness, right? I got grief or sadness. Right. What about your rage? What about your anger?

[00:41:57] What about your boredom? What about your irritation? What about you? Like, there's so many layers in here that we just stop constantly. And like clutter wakes that up, which is why we ignore it. That's why we stuff it down. That's why we don't want to deal with it because it is an invitation into you really honoring your truth, which is really uncomfortable for a lot of people. Yeah, I think it's fascinating that you brought up anger and rage because that's something I wouldn't have even thought about. And you just said we're so out of touch with our anger and rage.

[00:42:27] And I mean, it's almost like you're not allowed to be angry anymore or enraged. And so we do kind of just camp it down. No, because it's synonymous with violence, right? If I'm angry, I'm violent. And it's like, you can be angry and not violent. Exactly. We can be enraged and not violent. And one of my favorite tools is from Abraham Hicks. And they have what they call the emotional guidance scale. And it's basically a list of feelings at the very top are the ones that feel great, right?

[00:42:55] So like gratitude, joy, love, enlightenment. And then it kind of works its way down to the bottom where it's like despair, bang, rage, whatever. But what I love about it is, is this list goes from like good feeling to bad feeling. And all you have to do is find where you are on the scale, right? Yeah. So if I am enraged, right? That's a great place to start. And I can look and I can go one step up rage, or I can go one step below rage. And if I go, no, maybe let's start with anger.

[00:43:24] So if I'm angry, the next step up is rage. So no, oh wait, hold on. No, it's revenge. So rage into revenge. So rage feels pretty intense, right? It's like, what if you really let yourself have 60 seconds, not like the rest of your life, you're not going to like, hold on to this and be like, this is my new identity. Do you like it? But like 60 seconds, set a timer and be like, I'm going to let myself think thoughts and be in this rage for 60 seconds. And then I'm going to move into the next one, which is revenge. And I'm not saying to take revenge.

[00:43:52] I'm just saying to allow yourself the experience of what would that look like? You move through revenge and then you kind of can go up to boredom. Well, boredom feels much lighter than revenge or rage, doesn't it? And so you're just kind of working your way up. But what this does is it's not action. You're not taking action against someone else. You're honoring what you're feeling. And again, this is something that we don't do. We don't often feel all of the feelings. We just, you know, kind of ignore it or push it down.

[00:44:19] And so, again, clutter becomes a really good teacher when it allows us to be in touch with these very varied feelings and emotions and experiences that we often don't get a chance to reflect or hold space for. I think society kind of sets us up to be busy, right? You're supposed to be busy all the time. And you are. And so you don't have time or take the time to feel what you're really feeling and just, oh, I'll deal with that later.

[00:44:46] And you cram it down and eat a donut or whatever. I don't know. I was so proud of myself the other day. My days can be really long. I have a lot of long commutes. I have long clients. When I work with people in person, I do very long days because I like to, yeah, it's just my, the way that I work with people. It's just a very unique way. But that means that for, you know, can be 10 to 12 hours of my day. I might be really on and in a place where I can't go there with the feelings. And last week I was in the middle of working with a client.

[00:45:16] I felt this wave of emotion walk wash over me. My client was working on a project. I said, excuse me, I'll be right back in five minutes. Walked outside, walked around the block, held space for that feeling, acknowledge that feeling, just, you know, talk to myself, talk to whatever I needed to talk to you to kind of process it through. Five minutes later, I walked back in the door and I felt so much better and I didn't have to take it home. It didn't become bigger than it needed to be. It just needed to be acknowledged and heard. And I was so proud of myself because it would be so easy to ignore that and just keep working.

[00:45:43] And five minutes, my client, nothing bad happened for five. Like everyone deserves a break. I get a break for five minutes to handle that because I came back so much more focused and present because I was able to really honor my experience for myself. That's awesome. Yeah. Cause I don't think most of us do that ever anymore. I really don't. Sometimes I forget to do it. I'm like, we're so entertained. We're overstimulated and entertained all the time. I come home from work and then it's like, what's on, what show are we watching tonight? You know, it's like. Exactly.

[00:46:14] Oh, we need a little space for being present and seeing what's under the hood. Yeah. And it's hard to, even with other family members, I think it's hard to establish that, you know, just give me five minutes. That's almost unheard of. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and to feel like we're worth taking that time. And, you know, I think there's a lot of women, especially we aren't such natural caretakers. We don't even give ourselves the option.

[00:46:41] We just jump in and see what needs to be done and launch in. And we don't think about ourselves. And so it's really powerful if we can start to make room for us even five minutes a day. And I think that's something important to think about is it doesn't have to dominate your whole life. It's not going to kill you. It's just five minutes or it's just 30 seconds. And can you do it for 30 seconds? And sometimes that's enough. Sometimes. And I even say that with organizing, because when you have a whole house that needs to get organized, doing an hour doesn't feel like it's even worth it. I'm not going to make a dent.

[00:47:10] It's just, what's the point. But if you do 20 minutes a day, that's going to break you out of that overwhelmed freeze. It's going to move you forward and you are going to make progress. You do 20 minutes a day for a year. That's a significant amount of time. And you're going to learn about a lot about yourself and you're going to break through the part of you that didn't want to get started. And some days you'll probably maybe organize just for 20 minutes. Some days you might be agitated and leaving at 18 minutes because no, thank you, please. And some days you might go into a four hour session because what you needed was the invitation in.

[00:47:40] And like when we did the chaos to calm organizing community today, we did what's called the organizing playground. And we do an hour, you know, different amounts of time. But today's session was an hour where I basically jump on and I give people an assignment and then they get to work and they start organizing and they have up to an hour. And when I called time at the end of the time, everybody was like, what? No, we just got started. I need more time. Someone was like, trick us next time. Give us an extra hour.

[00:48:07] It's like that's probably not going to happen, but it's really like what we need is sometimes just to get our foot in the door. And then we kind of ignite from there. So are they like carrying a laptop around with them so that they stay on the camera? Sometimes. Yeah. Wow. Totally. So sometimes they'll carry their cameras or sometimes they turn their cameras off. Sometimes they are doing things on their camera. Today was kind of me saying, do the thing you've been putting off. So some people had to make phone calls. Some people sent emails. Some people physically organized spaces.

[00:48:35] It was today was when it's a short period, I can torture a little bit more. So I just, I was like, can we do something that you've been putting off and avoiding? And it leads to something else. But it was, yeah, I love our playground sessions. It's so much fun. It's just, and it makes, I remember the first time we did, it was during the pandemic. And I just had this idea. I was like, Hey, we're all stuck at home. Let's organize together. Let's just get on zoom and we're all going to organize together. And so we did. And I thought, Oh, we'll be on there for an hour. Eight hours later. Wow.

[00:49:04] Eight hours. We were peeling ourselves off the zoom because we were like, we should eat. We should probably go make sure our families are okay. But it was just so intoxicating to have other people there with you while you're doing these activities that normally feel annoying. And we're playing music and dancing and having a great time and stopping to chat about complicated items that we're finding. And it was so special and powerful. And every I've never had a playground session where people didn't want to keep going at the end of the time, no matter how long the session is.

[00:49:34] Yeah. That's a good point. I think doing it alone is a lot harder than having someone there with you, whether it's on zoom or right beside you. So it's called body doubling, right? It makes us more accountable. It makes us stay focused. It increases the enjoyment of the experience. What's funny is I love watching how during the pandemic, so many people came up with the same ideas on our own. Like there's so many other organizers who have a version of what this is like where, but I love

[00:50:02] that we were all like, it's just amazing how humanity can all come up with the same idea in it, you know, in their own experience where it's not like, oh, I saw it on someone else. It was like, I get so happy whenever I find someone else has been doing this for a period of time. I'm like, isn't it the best? Isn't it awesome? Like, yes, because it really does work. And when you see multiple people doing it across different platforms, it's really cool to just know that it is a very effective way of getting things done. Yeah, I'm sure it is.

[00:50:29] One thing I wanted to touch on today really quick is I know in your book you talk about, and this fascinated me also, but you talk about different rooms are associated to clutter. Yeah. Can you expound on that just for a minute? Every single room in your home represents a different area of your life. And so what you want to do, and in the book, I go into this, I talk about how if you want to start to kind of decode your clutter and understand what it's trying to tell you and

[00:50:55] what it means, you want to look and see what room is cluttered, because that'll tell you the area of your life that might be out of whack. So I see this a lot sometimes. Like, so when I was single and I was out in the world dating, and if I went to a guy's house and he had one nightstand or a bunch of clutter on what would be his partner's nightstand, I was like, Ooh, buddy, we're not going out again. You have no room for me. Like you're not open. And so there's just, there's certain ways where your cluttering chaos builds, tells a story.

[00:51:24] And so it's really interesting. So in the book, and I will, I'm happy to give your listeners a free download of the book. If they go to starhandson.com forward slash podcast, they can download a free copy, but I go into the meaning of different rooms and it's a jumping off point. You know what your rooms mean, but so for example, in the kitchen, it's the center of nourishment and it can be a center of health, but some people don't eat at home or they, you know, eat out a lot, but maybe their office is in their kitchen.

[00:51:49] So then the kitchen can be in like a nutritional hub or a health space, but it can also be a financial zone, or it can be a communication hub for the family members. And so we look at each room and we see the different things that are active there. And then what happens is that tells us if that part of our life might be a little bit of out of whack and need a little attention. You also see it in a positive light. Like there's always an area in people's home that stays organized, no matter what there's

[00:52:16] somewhere in your home that you will not let chaos exist. And so even if it's in your version, it doesn't have to be like the Pinterest version. So that tells you a lot about that value system in that part of your life. And you'll see that it's like, wow, I really do. That part of my life is really functional. And this other part is calling for some attention and some love and some kindness. So do you see, like if someone has a worthiness problem, do you see patterns of like, okay, the kitchen is affected and the bathroom or do those kinds of patterns exist?

[00:52:46] For sure. Yeah. But they're like a little, like a fingerprint. So you'll see it with worthiness issues. You might see it in the clothing closet, for example. Oh, wow. So the clothing closet where we have, because that's our identity center. So it's how we reflect ourselves into the world. It's how we show ourselves the world. It also is where our armor is, right? When we get dressed, we put on the armor for the day to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe. The bathroom is also a really important area. That's where we release toxins and stuff.

[00:53:15] It's also our beauty center. And so a lot of women, if you're doing makeup or skincare in there, that can be a space where, you know, I've had many clients who've collected red lipstick, for example, because if they find that right red lipstick, they're going to be beautiful. Finally, they're going to figure it out, right? It's like collecting diets or collecting blue jeans or, you know, it's trying to figure this out. The other place is the bedroom. The bedroom is a major hub of relationships, but it's also our relationship with ourselves.

[00:53:42] And so if there's clutter in those three spaces, they can speak to a self-worth issue. But that's not to say that those are the only three areas that self-worth reside. It just depends on the person. Right. Yeah. It does tell a story. The clutter always, always tells a story. So how did you figure out that correlation from the clutter to the room? Is that just after working with so many clients or just? 20 years of doing this. It's you see a lot of. Okay.

[00:54:11] It's absolutely fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm intuitive and I, you know, I, I feel like I, like I really tap into people's energy and I can, you know, kind of feel what's going on in their home. And, um, but it is, it's just 20 years of experience of noticing the same things over and over again and tracking that. It's like, wow, that partner doesn't have a side table. They seem like they're really having a hard time. You know, it's like, I've seen couples where one partner doesn't have a side table and I'm like, when did that start? When did that change? And they're like, oh, like a year ago.

[00:54:38] And then I find out that one of the partners cheated on the other and it was like, oh, that power dynamic was off center. And it's now the other partner is like, I will have the power in this relationship. You know? So it's like, oh, wow. It's interesting. And you see enough examples of these over and over and over again. And you start to pay attention. You start to notice the little details that other people think don't mean anything, but I believe that energy is everywhere and it's always talking to us and telling us a story when it comes to our clutter. Yeah, I believe you.

[00:55:06] But so I'm also curious, I know you teach people, I believe could be stating it wrong. So correct me if I am, but you teach people how to work through the emotions associated with this clutter, right? And that's part of how you get rid of the clutter. I do. I have several online classes that people can take. So one is called the 10 steps to finally get and stay organized. And that class is the pragmatic 10 steps for how you can get organized.

[00:55:31] And if you want, you know, just a cheat sheet into doing it, organizingiseasy.com. If you go to organizingiseasy.com, you can download those 10 steps. You can also get them from the book as well. I have them in there. The 10 steps will teach you the pragmatics of getting organized because we can't get to the emotional side of organizing. If you don't feel like you have the tools to get organized. So we make sure first and foremost that you actually know how to organize because a lot of us weren't taught. But then we go into the deeper meaning. So then I have a class called the meaning of stuff.

[00:56:01] And that teaches you how to walk through and understand and interpret your clutter and how your clutter might be helping you. And then if those two have been helpful and you need a little bit of support as you move forward, we have the chaos to calm organizing community. And that's how people can basically do what I was just sharing, which is where we organize together. We work on our projects together. We do very deep classes, kind of like what we've done today. We went really deep today. So thank you for that. Maybe it's because I just taught that class. Oh, it's my pleasure. It's like I'm in the zone now.

[00:56:30] So that in the chaos to calm community, we actually do side by side organizing. We explore what's really going on. It's like the closest that you can get to having me in your home without me being in your home. So it's like a much lighter price point. And you get a lot of access to me and can ask all these kind of complicated questions about your stuff. So I try to offer a lot of options for support, everything from free to low end to high end just so people, you know, I just, if somebody wants to be on this journey and they want support, I want to offer something that is reasonable for them.

[00:57:00] That's awesome. So I'm just curious, do you have any plans in the future to teach people how to be like you? Yes, I do. I do. It's awesome. As you know, everybody like, so when you're a digital creator, it's like, so I think I could just sit around all day and create courses and products. And then I'm like, I get done and I'm like, now I have to market it. Like, that's like, for sure. The part that I'm like, I need like, maybe I'll marry a marketer. That'll be what it is. It's just, yeah. But for sure.

[00:57:29] I am so impressed and proud of the organizers in the world right now. It's so beautiful to go from where I started, where it was very pragmatic industry of boxes and labels and bins and filofaxes and, you know, PDFs or, you know, whatever it's, it's so different and now you go onto Instagram, you go on to TikTok and it's people talking about the deeper meaning. It's people talking about the emotional complexities. It's, we are leaving the paradigm of boxes will solve this. I just need X, Y, and Z to fix this.

[00:57:58] And I'm, I'm really impressed by the people in the industry who are really doing the work to help spread healing instead of additional shame. I agree because some of the organizers I had seen in the past, and this is quite a while ago and I quit paying attention to them. Right. Because they were just like what you said, it's like, get a box, throw your stuff in a box, put a label on it, put it. And it was, I mean, yours is very different.

[00:58:22] You have empathy or you're digging to the root cause and they didn't is what I felt like. Artists, you know, like that at that time we were coming off the HGTV high man. There was like a very specific way of doing things. Even if go back and look. Yeah. I'm not picking on anybody. I just, I noticed the difference. Yeah. No, I know. I look back at like some of the first TV shows cause I've done over 30 TV shows and there's a TV show that I had with TLC.

[00:58:50] And you know, what people don't know is that when you're on a TV show, you have, you have a few people that you are accountable to as the talent. So when you're the host, you're the talent, which makes me not more important than the guy who's setting up the lights, right? I'm just a body that can be replaced with someone else who can do a similar job. Right. Right. And so what they don't, what you don't know is that I'm accountable to the show, the producer, the sponsor, the network. There's a lot of people who will dictate what I do and say and how I behave on that show.

[00:59:18] So there's one show and I am mortified to this day because I walk into this house and look, if I walk into your house, I don't care if you have dead bodies piled up. I'm going to go, okay, great. Show me more. What else do you have? Okay, great. All right. I mean, dead bodies. Maybe I'll be like, am I safe? Nine one one. Yeah. But generally there's not, you know, there's nothing you can show me. That's going to freak me out. I'm just going to take it in and be like, okay, great. And what I notice about your space is normally who you are.

[00:59:45] So I actually often I'm like, oh my gosh, the color of your walls or wow. What's that? Or I'm like fascinated, not in judgment, but on shows that makes for very boring television. So they're like, okay, star, when you walk into this house, we need big reactions. So for this show, I walk in and I was like, oh my God. Oh my God. Because, and I just kept saying, oh my God, because I actually don't have a reaction. So I just thought, what do people say when they see something that's startling? They say, oh my God. So I just kept saying it over and over again.

[01:00:14] And so it's like so embarrassing because I didn't feel any certain way about this stuff, but the network needed a reaction. And so I gave them a reaction. And then I got just paled and like impaled in the comments of people being like, why is she so judgy? And I'm like, because they made me. That's sad. Because I was young and I was excited to have a TV show and it's not, but it's just, it's one of the reasons why I really don't do TV that often, because I like to stand in my

[01:00:42] power and be authentic and television is fake. If you didn't know television is fake, everyone, it's not real and it's really complicated. And so, yeah, it's just, the world has changed a lot and we are able to help people now. It used to be that if I wanted to help people on a mass scale, I needed a TV show. And I suffered through the, oh my gods to get to the part where I could tell you what your clutter means in a subtle hidden way on a major network. Well, now I can just make a video or I can do this podcast and I can just let it all hang out.

[01:01:10] I don't need to do the fake, oh my gods for 10 minutes to get your, to play up the drama, to get you to pay attention. We can just go straight into the real stuff. And so the world has changed and I am really happy with a lot of the ways that the world has changed when it comes to this. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. That makes me feel better about what I watched because they were just like, you need to make a decision immediately. Don't think about it. Just make a decision. You know, it's just crazy stuff. And people are crying and you can tell they're struggling. They would send me. They send me who we're working with.

[01:01:40] I know I have pictures and everything in advance and I'm on the plane writing out the three rules I'm going to give them because they have to be sound bites. They have to be things we haven't used elsewhere in the season. They have to have this like whole agenda. So it's not like, I'm sorry if I'm bursting anyone's bubble. It's TV is not real. It's, you know, it's like, there were so many great ideas that I had for families we'd work with and they're like, oh, you did that in season two star. We can't do that again. So it's like, we're just, it's a show it's entertainment. And so it's, it is very different. So definitely feel good.

[01:02:09] It's not like, it's not for the faint of heart. It's very complicated and not real. I'm really about. I'm glad you're letting everyone know because. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it really is better to go slow and do it right. Then it would be to have a team come and, you know, come through there. The bull in a China shop is what it really is like. So if we don't experience it, we don't know. We just see what we see. So we help, but we can only help so much on a low budget and racing through.

[01:02:38] There was a show my parents and I watched a few months when I was visiting them. That was like behind the scenes of like, like the untold stories of these shows. And I watched it and I was like, yep, yep. Oh, I wish they would have interviewed me. Hold on a second. Cause it is, it's very, it's heartbreaking, but it's a show and it's TV and it's the entertainment industry is a little, is interesting. It's got some interesting stuff going on in it. We'll just say that. Oh, yeah. I'm sure.

[01:03:04] So is there anything we haven't talked about today that you want to make sure that the listeners here? I mean, I think we've gone everywhere. If your listeners are still here, congratulations. Go have a drink of water. Like let your, just turn all the music off. Just let your brain assimilate what's happened to me. Like it's, you really like, this was a great conversation today. I normally would throw something else, but just a reminder that if you want a free copy of the book, go to starhanson.com forward slash podcast, and you'll get a copy of my book. Why the F am I still not organized?

[01:03:34] I do not cuss throughout the book. So don't worry. I'm not like a pot. I mean, I am a potty mouth, but I don't in the book because I respect that not everybody is. So, um, and they can also get a, a download for my free quiz. They'll listen to the monster in your closet clutter clearing quiz. So you can understand what monster is hiding in your closet, keeping you disorganized. Organized. Yeah. And you're, you have a Ted talk also. That's excellent. I recommend that go listen to it. I do. I do. Thank you. I forgot about that. It's yes, that's true.

[01:04:05] It's awesome. Yeah. I've watched it twice now. So, oh, that makes me so happy. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for being with us today. And as besides what you've already told us, as far as where they can get the book, is there any other places you want them to be able to find you? Oh, you can find me on Instagram and Tik TOK star.hansen and my website starhansen.com. I have a blog on there. Everything is searchable. I make everything searchable so that you can find what you want and not have to dig through

[01:04:35] epic adventures of things you don't want. So we try to make it short and simple for you. That's awesome. Well, I love your mission. I love what you're doing. I love what you're teaching all of us. Thank you. It's absolutely wonderful. So thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been such a great chat with you today. Thank you. Bye. Bye-bye. As we wrap up today's episode, I hope star sharing her knowledge, experience, and wisdom has helped you in some way.

[01:05:02] I think it's fascinating that clutter ties into self-care and self-love and there is significance in just taking 30 seconds a day for self-care versus doing nothing at all. Well, consistency, doing a little bit each day and breaking huge tasks into much smaller and more manageable tasks goes a long way as well. And did you catch the significance of which room your clutter is in can change what it's trying to tell you?

[01:05:27] And that clutter is your way of getting your own attention for things that need addressed? It truly amazes me. I hope you enjoyed today's show. I would love to hear from you and know your thoughts on this subject. As always, I hope this episode helps at least one person. And with that, I hope you have a blessed week, my friend. Thank you for listening to The Beauty and the Mess. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share it with a friend.

[01:05:57] And if you haven't already, please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on your favorite pod player. If you have any questions or comments, any topic ideas you would like to hear about, or you think you would be a great guest on the show, you can reach me directly at thebeautyandthemess.com. Thanks for listening.