Transcription
This is the only decluttering video that you will ever need. Not because I'm going to teach you how to organize. It's because clutter has nothing to do with stuff. The root cause of all my clutter was me. It was decision avoidance and beneath that a lack of trust in myself [music] as a woman.
But decluttering has taught me that there is another way to live life as a woman from like clinging and gripping [music] to just letting go. And this shift has changed my entire life. But I think the thing that stands out to me the most that's changed is actually my marriage. Like the polarity between me and my husband because I was never very masculine as a woman. I think I just struggled with this perfectionistic type of everything looks really great on the outside, but on the inside it's tense. It's rigid. You have lots of rules for your aesthetic and your life, and you feel tired. And that's because the reason for all the heavy clutter in your life is you. It's your mindset.
Hey, I'm Madison Gray, and I help women remove what's competing with the life that they actually want. I'm in the midst of a full decluttering series on this channel. So, if you haven't subscribed, you definitely should. And of course, if you want to go deeper with me, my book and my courses are always ready for you when you are. You can find all of that linked below.
Now, let's talk about the elephant in the room. There are so many videos about leveling up your life, locking in, becoming unrecognizable in 90 days. I would know because I love those type of videos, but there is one thing that I'm always surprised that no one talks about. It's completely free. It's available to all of us. And it's a skill that's transformed every part of my life. You guys know, not too long ago, I was a cashier at Target. And now I've built this business that's given my family generational freedom. And the catalyst for all of that was not some like complicated, difficult to understand strategy. It was decluttering.
Clutter is the physical manifestation of scarcity. And I think for me, I can either shop from that place by leaking money and energy, or I can convince myself to organize from that place. I call it like my rage cleaning where I'm just like obsessively buying bins and containers and trying to like get everyone on a system. But I think at some point I realized that this cycle of like shopping and organizing was out of control. I was stuck in this perpetual loop where I was either like one more Saturday or one more purchase away from peace and happiness and shopping is addictive. We don't actually get that dopamine hit when we click buy now. It's the scrolling all the options. It's like filling up our carts. It's the looking for the thing that's going to make us feel less ugly.
If you're like me and like all of a sudden you buy from a place of insecurity, imagining these fantasy versions of ourselves and how life will just be better if we just buy a few more things for our house or have like one new skincare product. And I had a real shopping addiction. If that's something of interest to any of you guys, let me know and I can talk more about how I address that. But I realized it because I was using shopping to regulate my emotions. And I think it's interesting because vices don't always look dark. Sometimes they're really cute and stylish and completely socially acceptable. And that's why a lot of these things can keep us stuck.
I feel like the lights came on for me when I started watching my husband shop. When we're out of vanilla, he buys vanilla. But I am different. I shop to uphold a whole identity, my appearance, my home. It's all connected to this aesthetic. For the longest time, and this is so embarrassing to admit, but I really thought that other women wouldn't like me. Like, I wouldn't be able to make new friends if my life didn't have the right vibe. The problem with all of this is that we are ancient hardware living in a modern world. Our nervous systems were not made for this much information, this much comparison. It is too many decisions and way too much stuff.
I like thinking about like for most of human history, what did we want? Like what did the good life look like? A small tribe, good food around a fire, a warm cozy bed, beauty to see and make, and probably something meaningful to build. We did not need warehouses full of stuff to make us feel safe. And I think once you see that, you can't unsee that. You do not need all this stuff to be worthy.
If you're like me, then you can spend years watching videos and listening to books and podcasts as you shift things in your home from room to room. Decluttering without ever actually letting go, trusting it requires you to let go. If you're perpetually waiting, trying to get your money back, waiting for the right friend to come look through it and match it each and one of your every possessions with the perfect home. That is control disguised as care. At some point, you have to come to a place where you're like, I'm done getting all this stuff ready to go, and I'm just ready to let it go.
I'll give you a real life example. I used to be very particular about our Christmas tree. I thought it was like just a passion of mine. I had Pinterest boards and aesthetic standards, okay? And every year meant like a whole new vibe and look, which by the way, please read between the lines, means throwing out everything I bought last year or not even using what I got last year and adding more boxes of things to my garage. Not to mention spending hundreds of dollars on decor that's only out for like 20 days. Yeah, whole other video. But home decor has totally become fast fashion. And my enjoyment of Christmas started shrinking. I was tense and just controlling over something that was meant to be fun. And this year, I let it go. The kids picked our tree and it was crooked and it had a cardboard star on top that my 8-year-old made. and the ornaments were like on one side of the tree only and we played Christmas music and my husband and I just like goofed around watching the kids. I don't think I even took a picture and it was my favorite Christmas tree we've ever had. That is abundant life for me. That is the kind of energy I want my kids to remember me by.
Decluttering is a trust practice. It's a skill because trust is something that goes against our biology. It's a process that will reveal things to you that are easier to just keep stuffed away in the closet. Old habits, dormant fears. It's this tangible way to get stronger, to actually take this concept of what I need will be there when I need it and put it into real life. I read recently that habits and addictions stick when the reward comes fast, usually in a time frame of like 6 hours or less. That is why for me shopping became so addictive. It's because you can feel better about something that you know you either feel behind, maybe you're having a bad hair day, you can buy a new hair product, you feel like your clothes aren't that cute, you can buy a solution and feel better.
Decluttering doesn't work like that. When you confront your clutter, it gets a lot worse before it gets better. First, I mean, and foremost, comes this moment of extreme discomfort when you're like, "My environment, whether that's like this environment or your home is not in alignment with the life that I actually want. That's not comfy." Then comes the work. You have to actually physically handle every item that you own. There is no shortcut around that. You have to hold and touch each thing and be like, is this for me or did I buy this for somebody else? Would I buy this again if I, you know, saw this in a thrift store? Am I keeping this just because I'm used to it? Like, I'm just afraid of the newness of what life would be without this thing. Does it confront fears that I have? Is it just here because I don't know how to get rid of it? In that first six-hour window, there is no reward. In fact, even if you were to somehow get rid of all your stuff, take it away, and then sit in the empty space, I promise it feels weird. It's empty. It's kind of unsettling. I remember after my first like big declutter, I can remember sitting in my living room and just not knowing how to feel.
So, if I could go back and speak to that me, I wish I could tell her about the freedom that comes when you stop impulsively acting on emotion. As the hours and days passed, my kids were exceptionally regulated. there was just less stuff that I needed to do inside like to actually manage. And so we spent more time outside. Our schedule started shifting because all the things that I habitually did, all the like physical cues for how I should habitually act weren't there. And so there was this beautiful but like also kind of scary new world for me to navigate. But eventually I had better ideas. I had a lot more energy. Thinking about this video, I realized that I had this friend that I met randomly that week at the beach that I am still friends with to this day. So, the reward did not come on the timeline that my old nervous system was used to, but it came and it was so much deeper and richer than that quick dopamine hit.
When fewer things demand your attention, your energy stops being fragmented. I used to be someone that had the hardest time making decisions. Whether it was like what I was going to wear or what I was going to order at a restaurant, everyone knew to like ask me last because I needed to just like start thinking. I would question myself about everything, wondering if it was like the right thing or if I would regret it later. But as I started to own less, I found that I can make decisions so quickly now. And I'm so in tune with what is right for me. And I know that if I make a mistake, I can just catch me if I fall. And I like me. God likes me.
Decluttering feels so uncomfortable at first. It doesn't give you instant relief. It gives you freedom on a delay. Once you start to experience that, that freedom that exists on the other side of control and holding everything together and trying to upkeep like a perfect aesthetic, that's when your brain and body as a woman start to just quietly, effortlessly heal and things start to rewire and you feel free on this level that I don't think very many people during their lifetime nowadays get to feel. It's what I want for all of us as women. But I don't know about you, I walk around and I see not very many women feeling that way.
If you made it this far in the video, I'd love to know if you want to see a part two about how to actually live this out daily. Habits, boundaries, living into that abundant freedom after you've let go. We'll see if you guys are interested. Hey, and if you like this video, I like you. You should stick around and subscribe.