Dr. Rozina-Happy and Healthy Mind
Psychology of Decluttering; Valerie Huard Shares How To Declutter To Reduce Stress
Have you ever struggled with keeping your environment tidy as an unconscious effect of trauma or negative life experiences? Would you like to discover how to let go of past trauma by letting go of clutter? In this episode of ‘Happy and Healthy Mind with Dr. Rozina,' our guest Valerie Huard will be sharing her story of overcoming trauma and stress by breaking the clutter cycle and reorganizing her physical space.
Valerie is a published author, speaker, and expert who works with people all over the world. From trauma to triumph, Valerie Huard has seen it all. She will bring you on a decluttering journey to declutter more than just your space.
In this interview, you will learn:
00:00 min – Introduction
02:04 min – How decluttering helps in overcoming trauma and depression (Valerie’s story)
04:07 min – How Valerie started her decluttering journey
09:48 min – Scientific evidence on the relationship between trauma and clutter
Practical Tips and Tools for Decluttering and Destressing
13:29 min – Tip #1: Eliminate your emotional attachment to things (Wear a pair of gloves when decluttering)
16:11 min – Tip #2: Create an ambiance (Use a construction light when decluttering clothes)
17:32 min – Tip #3: Select a unique scent specifically for your decluttering activity
20:27 min – What kind of problems people face when they fail to declutter
21:25 min – Positive effects of decluttering
21:50 min – 4 Dimensions of Decluttering
1. Reducing the stress
2. Calming the mind
3. Discovering free time
4. Simplifying the living space
24:13 min – To watch Valerie’s FREE webinar, you can visit her website at https://www.dowellht.com/. You may also check out her book “Put That Stuff Down” at https://www.putthatstuffdown.com/order-form1602366012092
25:00 min – Special of the day: Emptying our mental garbage bin
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Dr. Rozina
[Music] so today's program is for people who have experienced some adverse life events or trauma in life and want to get rid of the lingering effect you see when people feel traumatized they become afraid of any change change means loss of control and that reminds them of trauma so sometimes they keep on hoarding things would you like to learn about a unique viewpoint of how to let go of that past trauma by letting go of that clutter then you are in for a retreat stay tuned and give us a thumbs up thank you friends for joining us today i'm sure you're going to learn a lot from our guest today valerie eward from trauma to triumph valerie has seen it all she's a published author speaker and expert who works with people all over the world she brings you on decluttering journey to declutter more than just your space and if this is the first time you're joining us my name is dr rosina i'm a board-certified psychiatrist helping people with stress anxiety and depression over the last 20 years i'm also a best-selling author and a transformative speaker i started this program happy and healthy mind with dr rosina because i truly believe a lot of suffering can be prevented with mind training so over here we share practical prevention for your mental fitness so you can function at your best without burnout and as these programs are for educational purposes i recommend that you refer to your healthcare professional for any treatment advice but what we can do is we can share some resources you can get all the resources shared in these programs by texting the word joyful to the number 38470 or visit us as at happyandhealthymind.com the purpose of this program is to bring health and happiness to more than a million people so if you find value in these programs like subscribe and share so more people can be helped to live happier and healthier life so let's ask valerie valerie tell me how did this topic become important to you thank you for receiving me doctors now so this stuff has become really really close to my heart because i have experienced something negative in my life but that truly my journey become positive in my life so if i come back a couple years in the past people i was not like unstoppable like today you know i was somebody suffering from trauma for years i was having difficulty with my friends that were studying and for hours and then they were going out party while i was needing a nap like my grandparents were doing so at one point they diagnosed me with complex ptsd and i learned a lot of things along that journey about trauma that it's not just from war situation and my doctor bring me on different route from therapy to medication to emdr but those were not effective with me and at one point the doctor told me you know what your life will just get worse with years i refuse to believe that that is so depressing it is i totally refuse to believe that because my plan was not to get stuck in my bed or on the couch so i was wanting to be able to have a life to contribute to the society to work have a family all those things in my life so i start a research for my recovery and in that research i try multiple things i try volunteering to get recognition i devote myself to my purpose i changed my diet to finally discover a way to stop falling into deep depression and surrounding to the traumas grip but i had nobody to guide me so that's why it took me a long time so at one point my my mom told me one day and that was really a crucial event in my life when my mom asked me val i don't understand why do you need that much pasta are you cooking for an army she was obviously sarcastic because my husband was doing his training to be an officer in the cannons and military when she left i opened my pantry and wonder why do i have 50 pounds of pasta in my pantry 15 can of peach 20 pounds of flour and just i'm just naming three things so i look around the house and my kids had more toys than the daycare so definitely there was a problem there that i wasn't realizing before that time so when my husband came home that night he told me that it will be posted away for a little while and that we will need to move after that so that's we're talking about big change in our life and with complex ptsd we don't like change right so to make things worse i felt terrible when the movers came and said that they cannot move all that stuff that we have you know they need we need to let go of minimum half or belongings oh my god yeah and i was even feeling worse because i was still going to garage shell every weekend to kind of find new treasure right so i felt stuck exhausted and hopeless at that moment we were on the clock to get rid of that stuff so the night my husband went away i put the kids to bed and sat down in front of my storage room and something unusual happened i started crying and i haven't for many many years where should i start how long would that decluttering takes does that mean i will throw out good stuff right so and then something special happened i started to declutter and realize that while i was declaring i was getting in touch with my emotion and i was having different memory to deal with it and i was feeling more energized so after a couple months i had to relapse because you know it's ups and down and returning to recovery and i decided to go on a personal development journey and that allowed me to discover beautiful people all around the world but particularly discovering myself all right and through this process i was able to make lots of connection and lower my stress level no more nightmare no more flashback done with the panic attacks even my dissociation my chronic depression and my self-harming behavior stopped that's wonderful so i was wondering why did that work you know yes i declutter and i feel better that's a fact but is there some study out there is there something talking about that and at the same time i was doing my class to onstage the house like you know before people move to put things in the right arrangement so it's easier to sell the house and i realized that people do not have difficulty with that they have difficulty with decluttering before doing that right and i studied in professional organizing and i realized oh my god almost all the client that i met talk to me about some trauma that they have in their life so there must be a link somewhere so i deep dive in internet and my husband too and we find out some study that relate trauma and clutter together [Music] and that was really kind of fresh in my mind because it was kind of telling me you know you're not alone if it's in a study that there's a link between the two it's because it's arriving to more than you right you know just a little mini story inside that you know when you're home and your mom call and say i'm coming visiting and you're rushing to take that basket of clothes that is not full put it in your bedroom and put couple things away close the bedroom and then moms arrive and you say hello so i wasn't having let me ask the audience at this time because this is such a common thing i want to ask the audience how many of you go through the face of this rapid cover up not actually cleaning cleaning but rapid cover up when somebody is coming home go ahead and put in the comment that you have you go through that phase too we'll be able to identify how many of us go through because i go through that too so the thing is i wasn't having clutter everywhere in my house like we see in orders tv show but i have little things here and there and more stuff than people even if that stuff was organized and that's why i had needed to cover up when my mom was coming so with those research we really found that link and that was fascinating so if you want to hear a bit more about that link it's really like when somebody had ptsd for example or some type of brain trauma injury the frontal lobe is affected and we see that on scan that they do with the people with ptsd and tbi where the frontal lobe activity is reduced the problem with that is this is where the executive function are what i mean by executive function is the capacity of being able to organize planning that we need to do something before another event being able to put things away being able to figure out where my things should go all of that organizing and planification it's in the frontal lobe that it is so with that less activity in the frontal lobe not surprising than somebody that is depressed or has ptsd can sit on the couch and instead of bringing the can of pop to the garbage put it on the side table it's kind of just going together and another thing is the problem is people start to put a little bit of clutter like that but the thing is more you accumulate clutters more you have things or belongings in your environment the more stress you experience because more things you have it's like when you go an affair there's all those boots and people yelling and information and lights and you come back home and you're completely exhausted right because of all that stimulation on the brain but when you have some clutter at home or i've seen some house with frame all over the the wall it is so much so many stimulation for your brain that your level of cortisol is going higher and therefore you're even more stressed and what do you do to kind of de-stress oh i'll go grab something new because i will have a little bit of endorphins and good hormones so i will feel good for about 20 minutes so you do shop therapy yes but by doing shock therapy i have more things therefore i'm more stressed and then i fall into a vicious cycle and when i say acquiring something it's not just shopping it could be garage sale it could be them doing garbage day i've seen a lot of clients that pass you know the just before the garbage truck and pick up the things that are still good oh my god because it is still acquiring something to bring into their nest whatever is free they can bring it but that creates a lot of stress so i'm like really excited to learn how to you know how to deal with that problem because we heard like you know you were in that phase and and it really helped you to let go of the past trauma but i think you know even people who don't have trauma also struggle with a clutter issue and so i'd really like to learn some of the practical tools that people can use to declutter and de-stress seems like stress and clutter are going hand in hand so yeah do you have some tips for us you can teach us of course i have three secrets that i develop with the time so the first one you need to know that when you touch something and you pick it in your end like take a teddy bear for example you know you have all kind of memory and feeling coming up i call them your your wave of emotion so when people start to declutter often they stop because they are not able to manage those wave of emotion all that memory oh it's grandma who gave it at my wedding or i received it when my mom died it was her before and all those story and emotion but this is because the sense of touch is directly related to the brain a part in the brain that we call the limbic system and i found a trich to be able to decatur without having those big waves of emotion you simply put on a pair of gloves and what it does you will still have memories and emotion but they will be smaller so you will be able to deal with them and take a more objective decision instead of an emotional decision on the object that is such a practical advice that would also save your hands from getting dirty by dealing with the clutter that has collected dust on it totally and i will tell you you know i was with a client one day we were doing her closet and with the gloves she decided to put you know those big yellow gloves to do the dishes and she was hot and she told me you know what val we we should take a break and no she told me i need to remove my gloves and i tell her we should need we should take a break and she said no no no i want to continue without the gloves so while she has the glove we were letting go about half a good 40 to 50 percent of the clothes the minute she take them off inside two minutes she passed 20 clothes fast like that that keep keep keep keep keep keep keep and i stop her i say whoa you're not decluttering anything now right so we laughed we had a good laugh you know and when she put back some gloves we after a little pause we were able to sort again the clothes that she just passed and she let go of maybe eight or ten piece of clothes so it's really making a huge difference i better put on some gloves yes what's the second trick the second tip i call it create an ambiance all right so you know when we are in the spring first thing we do is we for the people that has four seasons is we open the window to have some fresh air coming correct and we open the curtain so we have some lights coming in but that is brilliant because that change the color of the clothes or the color of the object that you have in your room it's like when you buy something a t-shirt at the store and you arrive home and you put it with your pens for example and you say oh it's not the color i was thinking it was it's because the light affect the color and the way you perceive your environment so what i ask my client is to use a construction light and completely open it and light the area that they are decluttering and trust me when you're doing your closet with that light you're not seeing your clothes the same way as in the morning so again you're able to take a more objective decision either you want to keep or not that item wonderful yeah that's such a practical tool i'm i'm doing that too all right one that's my last one for today when babies are born they are able to recognize their mother and this is because the sense of smell it is so direct related with the brain that babies have that sense really really strong right but we still have that strong sense when we are adult and i use aromatherapy with my clients so what we do is we select one sense okay and you need to keep the same one only in the moment you are decluttering you don't use it for something else okay and what happened is quickly your brain will understand that i did decluttering when was that sense and after that i was feeling better because my environment was less stressful so next session that you declutter your brain understand the same thing the third time you put it the brain is white it's bright it's primed yeah it will say oh i'm ready to declutter let's do it because i will feel better after so then it's become easier and easier to take the decision and to get set up to do the decluttering but you need to keep that sense only when you declutter that's really important and i highly suggest to take sense that do not have alcohol in it okay because people that are allergic that they say to perfume often it's to the alcohol that is in the sense okay more than the sense so i always say be careful with that so you kind of spray some kind of scent or you i use essential oils myself i use essential oils with a brand specific brand that is called doterra because they have some mix that are really balanced to manage the emotion okay and that do not have alcohol in it okay so it's even facilitate the process and at the same time has no alcohol net so my clients are not allergic to it so like d-o-t-t-e-r-a d-o-t-e-r-r-a doterra okay all right and then what what uh specific oil do you use balance balance it's called balance it's called balance all right yes yeah that's another practical tip i think i can also use wonderful let me know after your period of decluttering how you feel sure and i'll ask all the audience whoever is listening um please go ahead and try this these techniques and let us know how how it worked for you and so to kind of wrap it up let me ask valerie what do you think would happen or happens if people don't follow some ritual to declutter on a regular basis what kind of problems people face you describe you know how you were going through but a lot of your clients when when they are not decluttering what kind of problems they face the problem they face the most is they become overwhelmed and everything look like heavy their to-do lists look like evie just doing what they have to do in their day and i say have to do because it feels like a weight right so this is the stress that as a big and the bigger impact the word in french big take back on them so this is really what i see they get tired overwhelmed sometimes depressed and lots of anxiety and what kind of differences do you see in them once they do declutter it's always that oh my god it feels so good oh wow i see my entrance and it's clear or i can access my bed now or even i can sleep in my bed wonderful and how many of those people are able to stay decluttered the thing is we need to work on four dimension to be able to have the decatur in that stick okay we need to bring i call them my fourth dimension of decluttering that's why i say it's a decluttering journey okay it's not just one time right right and we need to work on reducing the level of stress we need to work on the mindset so all the negative self-talk that some people will tell themselves and after that managing the time because it's difficult at the beginning to say okay i will declutter every week for an hour where do you have an hour like that so we need to find that time to realize that after the decluttering it takes less time to do the chores they say 20 less time to do the chores after decluttering and then the fourth dimension is the space or the belongings so the first one was reducing the stress okay second calming the mind then discovering free time and then simplifying the living space okay and then you are simplifying that is where you're doing decluttering so you're decluttering your mind as well as your surroundings exactly and your three tips i remember was wearing the gloves when you're decluttering using this construction level light and the third one was using the ambiance that promotes thinking about you know decluttering and feeling good such a wonderful wonderful tools do you have any take home message for our audience today i would love that everybody at least declutter a junk drawer today at least that let go of at least one object so one at a time you suggest people do one at a time not one closet or one room or one i will tell people to start with half an hour okay so just one dryer and but keep take the habit of doing it more often instead of doing like a big weekend where do you do the garage and after you're completely exhausted and the garage will peel up again yeah yeah so you just keep on doing it small a smaller period of time but regularly exactly so how can people learn more from you or reach you they can see one of my webinar for free at dowwellhd.com this is d-o-w-e-l-l-a dot c-o-m or they can find my book at tiny dot i-e t-i-n-y dot i-e forward slash ptsd wonderful put that stuff down exactly ptsd is post-traumatic stress disorder as well as put that stuff down wonderful acronym thank you for sharing and as always my audience can find all these tools shared by different guests all past episodes at happyandhealthymind.com and so you can sign up over there and get access to all the tools um shared over the last year in these programs and now it's time for the special of the day today's special let's kind of keep the focus on the feeling of overwhelm i use a technique called empty the mental garbage bin and when people apply that they feel this is relief would you like to learn that of course i'm excited to learn about it all right so like in the like uh in the physical space we we emptied the garbage bin on a regular basis what would happen if you don't empty the garbage bin bin tell me if you have not emptied the garbage bin it will smell a lot it would smell a lot and and then it would kind of create this environment of illness and sick feeling similarly our mind also keeps on collecting a lot of thoughts and a lot of stimulation that keeps coming to us and so if we don't have a regular practice of emptying a mental garbage bin then it gets too full and then you're not able to think through and then you feel overwhelmed so let me use an example like you know somebody was telling me recently that she feels so overwhelmed with all the demands she's getting from uh from the school from her home from her you know general uh life requirements that she feels overwhelmed she's feeling so much overwhelmed that she's not able to enjoy the things that she used to enjoy she can't think about the things that you know she can look forward to because of that feeling of overwhelm and she's kind of start doubting her own abilities if she can do certain things when i shared this technique of emptying the mental garbage bin it really helped her feel this relief and so what happens is when you let out all the things that are built up in your head it kind of creates a small space for your brain's computer to be able to process what other things you can do right so if you want to do it what i suggest is put a timer for maybe 15 minutes half an hour whatever time you want to write take a notepad that you can tear the pages out and start the timer and put the pen on the paper and right right right right whatever comes to your mind right right right right and once you are done writing uh or once you are once the timer is over then you stop writing you tear the page out and you make small small pieces and and throw it away and uh can you guess what is happening with your brain when you are doing this process exactly the same thing as a computer you know the garbage can you have on a computer when you empty it you gain some space some speed and some clarity wonderful the same thing happens with our brain's computer so it it kind of cleans out it's like you know you have a blackboard and there's a lot of scribbly if you want to write something you first wipe a little portion right so that you can write on and whatever you're writing on would be decipherable so um so if you want to apply this technique put a timer put a pen on the paper write right right when you're done tear it out and throw it away that tells your brain that this was just your thoughts and you can get rid of them and then usually when people when you're kind of in a negative mode and if you build up negativity or negative thoughts then you want to follow up with a doing a gratitude journal so then you can write down in your journal today i'm grateful for well i was able to get rid of this thing or you know something else totally irrelevant like you know i'm grateful for being alive or being able to breathe or being you know simple things that we take for granted and what that does is that it would bring you from that negative thinking to the positive and then you can move on and do whatever you wanted to do what did you think about this technique well it's wonderful i love it yeah it's kind of similar to yours of decluttering the environment this would declutter your mental environment so let me leave the audience with this question what is one thing you choose today so you can continue to build your resilience live your best life function at your highest potential without burnout and be happy and healthy on that note thank you for joining rosa thank you
#Psychology #Decluttering #Valerie #Huard #Shares #Declutter #Reduce #Stress
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Great content, I learned so much useful advice & things I can put into practice for when I'm decluttering. One thing though that I couldn't really hear was at the end whe Dr. Rozina was talking & that darn music phew its so loud & fast it made me nervous too. Thank you for helping people like me, blessing to both of you ladies🙏💐.
hello, I stopped going through the hiding phase and just gave up. Now only certain people are allowed over and I feel not only over-whelmed but isolated! 🙁