Is Avoiding Your Clutter Making You Unhappy
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[00:00:00] I am sure that you have heard about the invisible mental load of managing your home and your family and all the cognitive work that is required on a day-to-day basis as a busy mom. But there is another burden that is the mental load of your clutter and the material items in your home. And in this episode, I'm discussing how to know if it is making you stressed and unhappy as a mom.
Now, before we get into it, I want to add that while I was recording this episode, the heater in my office was making this clicking sound in the background and I could not get it out during the editing process, I don't think it lasts for very long, but I want to apologize in advance and mention that I will make sure it is turned off for future episodes.
Hey there, I'm Nicole from The Maximizing Momma and I am obsessed with creating a home that gives me more peace of mind, more time to myself, and more time with my kids. I teach you the [00:01:00] tried and true secrets to clearing your clutter, getting organized, and managing your household in a realistic and sustainable way.
This show is where we talk about things like motherhood, decluttering, organizing, creating routines, mindset, energy, and everything in between. Our homes are the foundation for the rest of our lives, and it's so important to have a calm, relaxing household so you can have the time, the peace of mind, and the freedom to truly enjoy motherhood.
So sit back and get ready to take charge of your home.
Hello. Hello, and welcome to the Take Charge of Your Home Show. I want to talk today about the invisible mental load of clutter and how to know if it's making you unhappy.
We know that clutter is something that millions of people are struggling with.
And the problem is that it can feel like it never [00:02:00] fully goes away. And since there's this huge movement to normalize messy homes, I want to break this down a bit. I am absolutely, 100% on board with normalizing a messy home, where there are things that are left on the tables and when the house just is not always very tidy. But the problem comes in because people are confusing mess with clutter.
And so because of this movement, people have taken that to mean that we should normalize a cluttered home. And as a result, they are avoiding their clutter and it's making them unhappy. There's a popular Tik Tok creator that I follow. I think I still follow her. I just haven't seen her posts in a while and I can not remember her name for the life of me, but she is very adamant about how she is not going to be doing anything to deal with her messy home anytime soon.
And that is what her entire account is about motherhood and how [00:03:00] she just kind of goes out on a day-to-day basis with her house kind of in shambles and. What I, the reason I'm bringing this up is because it's not really messy. It's cluttered. Well, okay. Her house is messy and cluttered, it's both. But she just refers to it as messy.
And the reason I'm pointing this out is because from my point of view, from an expert point of view, it's actually just very cluttered. And so. The mess is normal and it should be normalized. But the clutter, that's an entirely different story and it is something that we should never normalize because it's drastically impacting your peace of mind, your sanity, and your happiness, even if you're not aware of it.
And so the reason why I'm very opinionated about this is because I spent many, many years struggling with a [00:04:00] messy and a cluttered home.
And I had no clue that it was the cause of my stress and frustration. I just thought that I was unhappy and angry and always pissed off and frustrated because I'd had four kids in eight years, and because I lost my mom and because I had found out that my legs would be swollen for the rest of my life. I was very busy, I was always doing something, and working and trying to you know, just maintain my day-to-day life. And I thought that that was normal as a mom of four, with a chronic illness, who had no family here to support her. And it wasn't until I was forced to start decluttering after we downsized into my late mother's home, that I realized that it was actually all the excess stuff in my home that was causing me to be so irritable. So in today's episode, we're going to dive into how to know if your clutter is [00:05:00] making you unhappy. How to know if the invisible mental load of clutter is making you unhappy.
We know that clutter causes stress. Research has shown that living in a cluttered environment can significantly increase stress levels, leading to feelings of anxiety, irritability, and even depression. And the reason why this is is because having a constant visual reminder of things that you need to do it weighs on your mind and makes it almost impossible to ever be able to relax or unwind or just sit down and have a quiet moment to yourself.
And since we spend most of our lives at home, I forget the statistics on this, but it's something like 60% of our lives or more we spend in our households, that means we want our homes to be a place of relaxation, a [00:06:00] place that we can go to to escape, the chaos and the constant never ending demands of work and the outside world and politics and health and everything that's going on outside of our homes.
We want to have a home that we can go to, to escape that chaos. So clutter is stressful. We know that. But I don't think that many people are aware of exactly how stressful it is. I would venture to say that our clutter is the cause of our stress. Of your stress of our stress collectively, I would venture to say that the clutter is the reason why we are stressed as a nation.
There was a study done showing that Americans are more stressed than they were three decades ago. And of course, a lot of that goes hand in hand with the digital age, the information age that we live in because this specific [00:07:00] time in history, you know, always being on our phones and always being on the go and being so connected to the outside world, that has led to us being less present, less connected, and less intentional in our daily lives.
And I can tell you from everything that I have been learning about our nervous systems behind the scenes, I've been learning a lot, by the way. I can tell you that the less present you are on a day to day basis, the more stressed your body is. So, of course the rise in stress levels is linked to this information age that we live in because we're connected to the internet. We're so connected to other people and to the news at all times. And of course, there is a lot more world issues to be stressed about. But I believe that our stress as a collective is also linked to our increase in material [00:08:00] items. I mean, think about it 30 years ago, we did not have access to two-day deliveries and online shopping.
And because of that, our parents' homes were not cluttered. Now, of course, there may be a few people here and there whose parents did have a lot of clutter. But for most people, for the vast majority of us, 30 to 40 years ago, our parents' homes we're just filled with a normal amount of stuff. And that is really when the influx of clutter began, when the rise in consumer ism began. And as a result, we started to bring more and more stuff into our home. And now 30 years later, There has been a rise in stress as well as a rise in clutter. So in the 21st century, our stress as a collective is at an all time high and so is our clutter. Stress and clutter are an [00:09:00] epidemic . And I, I believe that they are 100% related. Because the more stressed we are, the more we are going to shop and bring new things into our house. And the more we are going to continue to avoid our clutter. And then on the other end of the spectrum, When your house is cluttered, you will feel more stressful. So it's this vicious cycle that just feeds into each other. But we've got to find a way out of that T reduce our stress and reduce our physical clutter.
And this is so important because it's not just our own wellbeing that's affected by our clutter. It also affects our kids. Because if our clutter is stressful to us, just imagine what it's doing to developing minds. The only difference is that our kids cannot articulate how they feel. So they have no clue that all this stuff in your home is stressing them out. They're not even aware of that, especially if that is how they have [00:10:00] been raised since they were babies, they will start to believe that living that way is normal, and they will start to think that feeling that way as normal as well.
But I have seen firsthand what happens to kids as a result of too much clutter. And I can tell you from experience that it is directly linked to depression, anger, and trouble making friends, because kids will be way too embarrassed to have people come over to their house, to have friends come over.
And on a deeper level, clutter creates tension and conflict within our families and it makes it really hard to connect with our loved ones. So if you find yourself constantly distracted by the chaos, you may subconsciously try to escape in one way or another through numbing behaviors. That could be emotional eating. doom scrolling through social media, burying yourself in your [00:11:00] work, or even more addictive activities, such as drugs and alcohol.
And we all know that all of those behaviors impact your ability to make memories with your kids and enjoy this time of their lives, which in turn will create tension and conflict and lead to feelings of shame and guilt, because you feel like you could be doing a better job as a mother.
But then on the physical side of things, if you're constantly tripping over toys and struggling to find space to do things with your family, or even do your day to day activities, that can weigh on you and increase your mental load as a busy mom, which makes it hard to enjoy life in general.
I spent years having to clean off the table every single time we had a meal. Whether it was our dining room table at where our coffee table. At first, when I think back to my motherhood journey, at first, we [00:12:00] would eat at our dining room table, but then as the years went by, our dining table became a storage unit for paperwork. And so after that, we ended up eating at our coffee table for many, many years. And every single night for dinner, even if I went through the drive-through because I was so disorganized that I couldn't keep up with dinner, I would come home with a bag of fast food, or I would make something in the kitchen, but I w no matter what we had for dinner, I still had to spend 10 minutes picking things up off our coffee table, because it was always covered with random things.
And I knew that I did not want to keep living like that, I knew that I did not want my kids to see that as normal, and that is why I committed to making a change. And it wasn't until after I cleared my clutter and was able to maintain a tidy, clean table consistently that I [00:13:00] realized the extreme mental load that I had to deal with on a daily basis just by always having to move stuff off the table, just so we could eat.
And I had no clue that it was causing me to be so stressed as a mom. At that time of my life, when my kids were babies and toddlers and my oldest was eight, he is now 15. At that time I was not a present mom. And again, as I said, at the beginning of this episode, I thought it was because I just had four kids in eight years. And because I had just lost my mom and found out that I had lymphedema and I thought that that was normal.
I had no clue that the invisible mental load of clutter in my home, that was what was making me so stressed and unhappy, and always trying to escape and scrolling on social media and trying to tidy up for hours on end and retreat to my room. I had no clue that the two of them were [00:14:00] linked.
This is the invisible mental load of having a cluttered home. And I can guarantee that it is making you unhappy. So if you feel stressed out, If you have trouble sleeping, if you're snapping at your kids, if you're doom scrolling on social media, burying yourself in your work, or numbing in one way or another. Or even if you're always tidying and trying to make your house look more orderly. Those are signs that it is time to do something about your clutter.
This is something that is so important for me to mention, because I wish I had had someone to tell me this when I had four kids under eight. I was just talking with one of my coaches the other day, and she was sharing a story that was very similar to mine. She said that her kids when they were much younger, they would just dump all of their toys in their room and she didn't really understand why. Then she heard the [00:15:00] concept about how all the extra stuff in our home, it's too much, and it needs to be cleared away because we don't need to keep all of that stuff. How our kids are overwhelmed because they have too many things. And she said that she knew immediately that she needed to declutter and she went out and bought a course right away to help her do that.
My story was different in how I realized that I needed to declutter. As I said, a minute ago, we downsized into my late mother's home and all of our things literally would not fit into that house. And that's how I knew I would have to clear away the clutter. But I wish I had been told this seven years ago because it would have saved me so much time and stress and the mental burden that I carried for years, it would've gave me back time and sanity.
It would've gave me back time with my kids time and [00:16:00] memories that I ended up missing out on because I just didn't know better.
My house. Was not hoarder level and therefore, I didn't think that I needed to de clutter. And I had no clue that the problem was that all that extra stuff was weighing on me and taking up all of my brain space. I thought I just needed to be more organized because before we downsized, we didn't really have a whole lot of stuff. Okay. We had a whole lot of stuff, but it was it was like manageable. It was something that I could manage on a day-to-day basis by just tidying up for one to two hours.
And this is something that I see every single day in my line of work, many of my clients and students, when they first find me, they believe that since they're not a hoarder and since they don't want to become a minimalist, they think that decluttering won't benefit them. [00:17:00] And then they end up avoiding their clutter by always tidying up or trying to organize different areas of their home. And then when they do realize that they need to clear away the clutter, they still end up avoiding it by putting it off in favor of other household projects or just waiting for the right time.
And this is all happening because they're not fully aware of the invisible mental load of the clutter and what it's doing to their happiness, , their sanity and their kid's mental clarity.
So, if you resonate with anything that I have shared in this episode, that is your sign that avoiding the stuff in your home is making you unhappy, and therefore you need to make it a priority to clear it away and let go of some of the excess stuff.
If I could drill one thing into your mind, let it be this. De cluttering is not just about creating a tidy living space. It's about reclaiming your time, [00:18:00] your energy, and your sanity. and creating a home where you can relax, recharge, and reconnect with your family.
And this is why I have been creating a brand new class called Simplified Decluttering to give you the tools and resources you need to make decluttering simple so you can clear the clutter in just one afternoon. I'm going to give you everything you need to kickstart your decluttering journey so you can lessen the mental burden, stop feeling stressed, stop the constant tidying, and stop trying to escape the chaos. I'm really excited for this class because it will give you the foundations and the essentials to start taking charge of your home so you can have the freedom to spend your time on the things that truly matter, like making memories with your family and prioritizing your own moods.
After Simplified Decluttering launches to the public in March, it will [00:19:00] only be available on the back end as an extra purchase that you can add on when you join another one of my courses or programs. So if this is something that you want to get access to, I highly recommend that you join during this enrollment period. It will be available the first week of March. And when you when the VIP list, you will get an exclusive 25% discount code that will not be available to the public. All you need to do to join the VIP list is click on the link down in the show notes, enter your name and email and then at the first of March, I will send you an email with all the details so that way you can get enrolled for less than the price of going out to dinner with your family.
So that's all that I have for you today. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the Take Charge of Your Home Show for more tips, resources, and inspiration to help you on your decluttering journey. And I will chat with you soon.
[00:20:00] Thank you for listening to another episode of the Take Charge of Your Home Show. Go ahead and take a few moments to celebrate yourself for being here, doing this work, and really learning how to create a calm, relaxing home. Don't forget to check out the show notes and feel free to leave a rating and a review so I can know what you want to hear more about because you and your journey are what make this show a reality.
I'll see you next time.
