194. Healing from Divorce through Decluttering with Amelia Pleasant Kennedy

If you have ever felt overwhelmed by a cluttered space, or judged yourself harshly for a lack of tidiness you'll find this episode insightful as I am joined by Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, a Certified Life Coach, Professional Organizer, Fair Play Facilitator, and the CEO of A Pleasant Solution. 

Amelia shares insight on the complexities of detaching our thoughts from our physical spaces and discusses the significance of recognizing green flags and positive signs of progress in our productivity journey. We look into the emotional art of letting go, the profound process of reclaiming space in our homes and our minds. 

At the end of this episode, you'll have the confidence to create your roadmap to reclaim your space and inner peace.

Featured on the Show: Amelia Pleasant Kennedy

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy is a Certified Life Coach, Professional Organizer, Fair Play Facilitator, and the CEO of A Pleasant Solution. As a Clutter Coach, she helps folks who are frazzled, busy, and overworked uncover the root cause of the clutter in their lives. With a keen ability to listen for what goes unsaid, Amelia coaches from a space of total curiosity and non-judgment so that clients build a deep sense of self-trust. Amelia is a caregiver for her mother, who’s living with dementia, a mother of 3 (including an elite athlete), a podcast host, and a lover of visual art, nature, books, and meaningful conversations.

Amelia is also the Chair of the Awards + Recognition Committee for the National Assoc. of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO). She holds Advanced Certification in Deep Dive Coaching and Feminist Coaching, and is an active member of the Institute for Challenging Disorganization (ICD), Black Girls Who Organize (BGWO), and the National Assoc. of Black Professional Organizers (NABPO). Her podcast A Pleasant Solution: Embracing an Organized Life talks about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned + sustainable lifestyle.

• Amelia’s Website
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• Amelia’s Instagram
• Amelia’s LinkedIn
• Amelia’s Podcast

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Transcript

Sade Curry: 0:29

Hello everyone, welcome back to the dating after divorce podcast. Today we are talking about divorce and decluttering, and you will understand by the time this is done why those two things go together. So I have here on Zoom with me my one-on-one coach, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, and I know you have to say the whole thing of the Pleasant has to come in there.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 0:57

And essential part.

Sade Curry: 0:59

It is. Amelia is a certified life coach, professional organizer, fair play facilitator and CEO of a Pleasant solution. But I know you as my organizing and decluttering coach. We have worked together for a year to get to this point in my journey and we're going to tell you all about it today. So welcome, amelia, to the podcast.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 1:22

Thank you so much for having me, and it has been the most delightful year. I have loved every second of it, so thank you. Yeah, I am a decluttering coach, I'm an organizer and I just I really feel like there's an internal component to the external clutter that shows up in our lives, and I can't wait to talk about that journey and that process with you.

Sade Curry: 1:54

Yeah, yeah, amazing. We I mean we knew each other prior to being together in our feminist cohort but then I think that was the first time we actually connected on a connect call. But we'd been in the same coach circles, same coach certification and you know, we had the connect call and I was like, as you talked about the work that you did, it was like something that I had always known that I needed, but like you articulated it so clearly and I was like, oh yeah, I've got to work with you 100%. I still remember that moment. I was like, yep, this wasn't in my budget, but I have to have to do this.

Sade Curry: 2:32

So for listeners, just to give you guys context for that moment with me, because a lot of what we're going to talk about today is really my journey through decluttering and how it really was a healing journey, a continuation of my own healing from divorce and my own healing from my childhood experiences. I don't even know where to begin to begin with, like I probably start with my basement, but actually I'll go back a little bit further. I think my whole life they had always been this like cycle, so in ways that maybe some people would think about, like an eating disorder or whatever was like things would get messy and then I would clean them up, and then things would get messy and then I would clean them, and I think it sounds like it's normal. It's kind of it is normal for things to like get messy and get cleaned up, but what wasn't normal about my experience was how I would then beat myself up about it. So basically, I've been beating myself up about not being quote unquote and I put it in quotes tidy, because there really isn't such a thing. This is all the things I've learned from Amelia. Now, there is no such, there's no standard, there's no objective yardstick for all of the things that I had in my brain and that I had been worried about my whole life. And so there was that component of just like when will I get to that place of like being tidy and being so. There was that just like lifelong component of like the thoughts that I had around what he meant to be tidy and need home has always been clean and generally neat and like. No one's ever felt like, oh my God, I can't go into her home, but my internal dialogue around it wasn't, didn't, wasn't that? And then there were now then incidents that happened in my life that came on top of that. I know some of the things we talked about.

Sade Curry: 4:15

I'm going to mention, like probably three particular incidents that came into play in this journey. One was that I moved a lot as a child because of my parents, divorce and other things and schools, and that always left me with like, just a sense of like being disjointed in with my belongings. So my belongings were always. I couldn't always trust my belongings would be there when I came home from boarding school. There was a time my dad moved and tossed a lot of our toys and of course I was a child so I didn't understand and you just stayed with me. Then there was a relative that lived with me for a while and left abruptly on an adventure and left a ton of stuff from their apartment in my basement. So I had this whole apartment of stuff that they promised that they were going to ship out but never did so. Four years later that was still sitting in my basement. And then I had the biggie doing my.

Sade Curry: 5:14

My divorce took three years from start to finish. I moved out of the marital home and then there was pain also around losing my marital home, which you coached me on and my ex-husband would not permit myself and the children to pick up our belongings. It's like for three years, all of our stuff. We literally left with a car full stuff you would take on vacation because I thought we were coming back home when things got safe and we never did. And so he would not let us pick up our stuff for three years until the divorce was finalized. And then there was a court order that mandated and there was a list of things he had. So the court split everything in half furniture, all of our clothing and so everything got packed up in this big moving truck.

Sade Curry: 5:59

Like at this point, I had been living on my own with the kids for, yeah, three years. So we had all new, we had everything was new, we had all new things. And so now my basement was full of everything I've just described, so stuff from my relative, stuff from my marital home, which was 4,000 square feet, and now I live in a much smaller place. And so for several years that had just been on my mind, like everything I've just described, plus all of my thoughts and the expectation that I would be neat, which is we can talk about. Maybe you should start there with the socialization, how women are socialized. To think about this stuff.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 6:37

Well, I would love to take a step back to something you started with, which was talking about your childhood, because so many of us as adults, that internal dialogue, that blame, that negativity, I'm not organized enough, I'll never be as productive as I hope if I, you know, if I could or should you know all of that that happens inside of our brain.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 7:04

We don't always associate that to our lifelong journey and I want that's kind of something I want listeners to know is the state of your home now, the state of your business now, how you work and operate through your life? If you see yourself as disorganized or unproductive, not only can that change, but it has roots in our stories, our upbringing, our lives and whether it's moving or the childhood home or just the environment that you grew up in, all of those are impactful moments, that kind of compound together to create our current reality of how we think we run our homes and work and show up as parents or partners. So, yeah, that childhood story, I mean, and you know, inheriting clutter and all of that, it's all intertwined 100%. And I know I did, I had the thought I'm not organized.

Sade Curry: 8:11

I mean, I didn't have it in like it wasn't like a one, it wasn't completely black, like oh, I'm 100% not organized, but I didn't. I wasn't, I didn't pay any attention to the parts where I was organized, and that was something you really called my attention to over and over, because I kept forgetting you'd be like well, I think you're more organized than you think. And then very early, I think the first six months, you would like say okay, so what are you doing in this area and in this area and in this area, I'm like, oh well, yeah, I guess I'm pretty organized, but it was like that. I guess you could say Instagram home, and not just because there are parts of my home that are Instagram like, there's always parts that are like always you know what you're calling visitor ready, but then I wouldn't pay attention to those parts. It was always the parts that were like not Instagram worthy that I was thinking about, and that's so normal and natural.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 9:03

I know that you tell your audience like the red flags are really obvious when you're looking for a partner or when you're dating. Right, but we want to point our brain towards the green flags, the things that are really good about someone and the things that are working. But it's a conscious shift that you have to make to look for the ways in which you're organized or productive, or just that that things are working in your life for sure.

Sade Curry: 9:34

Yeah, yeah. Another thought that really shifted from I think this was one of the biggest releases was not making meaning out of where an object was. Oh my gosh, that was a huge breakthrough.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 9:47

Yes, yes there were oftentimes where you know we live life, mess occurs, objects get out of place. The kitchen will always, you know, mean cleaning at the end of the day, and you know, what I noticed was you were thinking that it should be different and we had to kind of unpack and untangle. Well, have you actually done the work, too, tidy up at the end of the day? Well, no, not yet. And we kind of jumped to that conclusion of, like, we're going to reach a destination one day when the laundry will be done forever. Yes, right, but that's not true. It's not possible. We are living our lives day to day, but it's natural for us to think that objects should be put away or things should be more tidy, or that, you know, if we just clean it up and get it perfect, then it'll stay that way. That's also a myth.

Sade Curry: 10:55

Yes, that was the myth I've been trying to create and bring into reality like my whole life. I was like I had everything everywhere all at once syndrome. I love that movie, by the way, like easily my favorite movie in the last five years. I wanted it all to have already been done, but it didn't matter if I just had a meal or just had a cup of coffee at my desk and I put it on my desk and kept working. I wanted a cup of coffee to somehow. This is all my thinking. Listen, this was not conscious thinking. Okay, just so you know. But then I would be frustrated if I got up and went somewhere and came back and then the cup of coffee was still there, thinking, well, it should already have been taken down and put in the sink, like already. Not just that I should do it now, but I should already have done it, and that just created so much suffering.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 11:49

But you're not alone in that regard, because what I like to call them are micro decisions or micro moments in which, where you set the coffee cup down rather than following all the way through and taking it to the kitchen, and that actually creates clutter. Every micro moment where we don't return things to where they belong or their home, and then, naturally, we come back later and we're like wait, I can't find my car keys or why is the mug not taken downstairs? It's simultaneously the unconscious choice to place something on the closest surface totally normal and natural and then the tendency to come back later and be like wait, things aren't exactly where they should be, because our brain loves predictability and consistency, but we actually have to create that through our habits on a daily basis, but we're not aware of that.

Sade Curry: 12:48

Yeah, and I had the other thought too, when you talk about habits like I should already have learned this, which is fascinating, because that was what I was told as a kid. So like there was no moment in which someone said, okay, I'm going to teach you how to do this. But then there was always the expectation that I should know how to do it. So it was always criticism on the back end, like why did you? Why haven't you done? I don't remember how haven't you done your laundry or whatever. Or why didn't you put these clothes away? Why didn't you do the dishes? But there was no instruction on like hey, before I come back for work, do these things. It was always like why didn't you do it?

Sade Curry: 13:27

And I think that tape just kept playing in my head like my whole life. And I think when I came to coaching with you, I wanted to fix that, I wanted to get the habit, and then that way I would be like now I have the habit and now I'm good, but I couldn't really get there until I stopped making meaning out of where objects were. So the fact that I had all the stuff in my basement I had to stop making it mean that there was a problem. I had to stop making the coffee cup mean anything, and I think the way I, one of the ways I reframed it with you, was that it's just an object, a neutral object. It's just occupying this particular position in space. It doesn't mean anything about me, and I think the more I had made things about me for a really long time, like if something was somewhere, my character or my person or my identity was attached to it.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 14:24

And that's where you get into the socialization and standards and expectations, especially that we discovered and discussed in our feminist coaching certification. We forget to look at the way in which we're raised, the messages that we receive in our community, from our family, from social media, about what it means to keep a tidy home or be organized or be productive, and we think that we should know and have these skills. But they're actually transferrable. You can learn them and they can be taught to you, and if they're not, you can not have them right, be at a disadvantage and that's not a problem. It's just an area for growth that you can go out and explore and learn, with support for sure.

Sade Curry: 15:21

Yeah, and the skills are not. And I think this helped me a lot. When you told me, like these skills are not common skills, you were like I'm a professional organizer, like I have gone to learn this. I have gone to learn a way of thinking and a way of seeing spaces and objects and where things need to be in space to look a certain way. You were like you know, you saw the experiment, like you had this whole education and I was expecting myself to wake up every day with what you have gone to.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 15:55

And so many of us. We think that it should be inherent right. We think that we should know how to organize and keep a space tidy, and especially if you're living with a neurodiverse brain, those things might not come straightforward easy as pie to you. And also, we all have our own ways of organizing and creating systems, and that's what we did together. You figured out what made sense for your life and for your home and created a whole kind of to-do list for yourself that you steadily work through with my support, on decluttering and creating space. Yeah, it was profound y'all. She did some serious work.

Sade Curry: 16:43

It was work. I didn't realize how much work it was going to be. I didn't realize how deep I knew looking around like things weren't where I wanted them to be, but I didn't realize how deep in my person and in my thinking. But, you know, I didn't realize how much work it was going to be and I didn't realize how deep in my person and in my thinking our thoughts create our results, right? So there were decisions that I had just put off for a really long time what to do about my relative stuff? What to do about the stuff that you know, my ex, you know, gave, you know finally gave to me. What to do about my kids books? I had all these books from forever, my kids clothes from when you know.

Sade Curry: 17:21

Like I just put off all the decisions, like I was just like the decisions felt really, really big and, of course, I was in the middle of dating and getting married again and I was in the middle of building a business and starting a podcast and social media and coaching clients. So there were a lot of reasons why I you know, I guess chose to put off those decisions, but I didn't. I think when we started digging into it, I was like oh well, this makes sense, like where I'm starting from makes sense. And I remember when I just started from the top, I started with the upper floor of the home and I went like, okay, decisions about my bedroom and my jewelry. And I think one of the it was interesting, the big things weren't too bad, it was the little things. It was like a little. It was like my jewelry and they're like let's organize this. And it was like, oh my God, because there was tiny little things on my junk drawer. Those were the things like freak me out.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 18:16

I'm curious if you can bring to mind what emotion you were able to shift into that allowed you to make those decisions, cause most people think they can jump right to the decision making and like, oh, I just need to make decisions and they'll set up a three hour marathon organizing session and then get overly exhausted because making decisions is as hard. But you actually need a particular kind of set of emotions to, or emotional space to be in to make those decisions.

Sade Curry: 18:53

Yeah, yeah, we definitely worked together to make some decisions ahead of time, Like if I said, okay, I'm decluttering the space. I think one of the questions you would ask was, like what are the categories? Right, and I remember that with, like, the smaller items in my bedroom was, I didn't know what the categories were. That was the thing, cause I hadn't even looked at stuff in a long time. So the first thing I did when I did that was so I guess the you could say the emotion at that point was maybe a little bit of space or maybe capable or adequate, where I was like, okay, I can make, take the first step of deciding what the categories are going to be, so that when I look through everything in this bin or in this box or everything on the shelf these are the, everything is going to go into these four categories discard, keep, give up, you know like and. So making the decision about where everything was going to go was like the big decision that made the way for all the other decisions.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 19:55

I love that because I often talk about and this is a tool that professional organizers use we actually start at the end. So, before you know, most people want to just dive into their project and use willpower and kind of push through, but that there's essential pre-work of like, okay, where are we going, what are those categories, what does done or organized in this one room or set of drawers or closet? Look like deciding in advance, cause then your brain knows exactly where you're going and it'll figure out how to get there along the way. So kind of I love that because you learned like to figure out where you were going before you started, because then you have some direction right For the process and I'm sure there's an analogy for clients for look yeah for dating. Right For clients who are looking for another partner.

Sade Curry: 22:11

We start with self-discovery. What does the relationship vision, what is the relationship you want, actually look like? And then that way we know who to say no to along the way, who to say yes to, who to say okay, I'll consider, you know, and that's important. That's the biggest time waster in dating is not having that clarity.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 22:28

Yeah, so I love that there's pre-work with clutter and organization as well, and some emotional processing that can happen along the way.

Sade Curry: 22:38

Yeah, and I know we watch on TV, we watch the homemaker, where the organizers come in and do all the things. But I really appreciated doing it this way, where you just coached me and then I went to do it. I mean, there were a few sessions where we did like a walkthrough, where you would look at things and then give me some ideas or tell me like what to do, but for the most part it was real and I knew I think I knew that this was about me. This was about how I wanted to see the world. I know my final I'm not minimalist yet. I'm not even minimalist. I think that's also where you're like, but that was my end goal.

Sade Curry: 23:13

But in order to even get halfway there, I had to get to the place where I was like I wanted to feel like I knew what I owned. I wanted to know what all the objects were that were in my home and I wanted to be able to find them. I wanted to be able to say this item is in this place and I can go straight to it, which that is really what we've accomplished. That's where I am right now and I discovered something about my own brain, because I like to be able to see things. So I don't like closed closets, I don't like cupboards, like something about that is like I don't like it.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 23:47

Yeah, that's a huge discovery and that's an important aspect of this work is not necessarily taking what you see on Instagram and Pinterest as the way to be, but to figure out your own way of operating within your own home, within your own space. And that's such a brilliant awareness because you're creating the system for organization within your home and so the ability to maintain it and go back to it will make sense to you rather than someone from the outside and I love professional organizers dearly, but when someone else does it for you, then you still have to learn to maintain right. It's a finished product, but that inner work of, or the skills of, knowing what goes where and why, with coaching, you figure that part out.

Sade Curry: 24:43

Yeah, yeah, and the why. And I have very good reasons right now, even though some things in my home are not where another person might like my shoes are not in my bedroom and they're not in the shoe closet, like. I have a couple of shoes in the shoe closet downstairs and the coat closet downstairs, but I have my shoes now in clear boxes in the hallway. But I was like this makes sense to me, this works for me, like something about it's the hallway, not the downstairs hallway. The upstairs hallway outside my bedroom just makes sense and I don't even know that I could explain it. But first of all, I can see every shoe. So which was amazing to be able to do that, cause I think I had some of them in shoe boxes before that I just kind of stacked neatly in my closet and then I had others in other places and they were all in one place where I could see every single one. And there's something about that in between spot in my home that my brain is like yeah, this is the right place for us.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 25:43

That's beautiful, though, because when you free yourself up from those rules and standards, expectations, the way things things are, quote unquote supposed to be then you're going to reach that feeling of ease or alignment that is sustainable, and you'll always return the shoes there and maintain that because it feels good.

Sade Curry: 26:08

Yes, yes, and I think that's another thing I learned about. So I was really bad at this celebrating. Celebrate it y'all. I'm a better coach than I am client. Okay.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 26:23

We all are.

Sade Curry: 26:25

Like I was definitely a client working with you, yeah, so celebrating was a huge part and I really do appreciate you constantly bringing me back to celebrating my small wins.

Sade Curry: 26:39

I think it was just hard because it wasn't something that I had found reason to celebrate my whole life, Even when I had done. You know, because I remember my homes were always especially when I was a stay at home mom, because I had the time and space and that was my focus. My homes were always neat and tidy and all the things, but I never felt good, I never felt like I was there, even when on the outside I was there.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 27:07

And that's again very common right. Where our brains are built to seek, they're built to go for the change, to always be looking, always be searching for the next thing, rather than to be settled where we are. And so when we reach a milestone, no matter how small or how huge, it's hard to stop and pause and go like oh, I arrived at that place that I was trying to get to Immediately. We turn and we're like no, well, what room is next? And let's get into the basement and let's you know, don't pick something else.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 27:46

Yeah, it can be a challenge to stop and just pause for a minute and be like, wow, I did that.

Sade Curry: 27:53

Yeah, yeah, that felt good and I think, as I put in more, I think more of the small wins and the celebrations. I think after the first half, the first six months and the second six months, I was a little bit better and I moved a little bit faster. And this is when I think it's. The second half was when I really tackled the basement, when I got to like, okay, let's look at the big stuff that brings all the feelings up right and process some grief there. There was a lot of grief that you know moved through. There was some anxiety.

Sade Curry: 28:21

There was some what are people going to think, making decisions for other people who were not necessarily present to make the decisions and then just being willing I think willingness was a lot of the emotion I felt at that point where it's like, yeah, this basement is full of stuff and I'm willing to do what it takes or to feel the consequences of taking care of it. So, even if I threw stuff away and regretted it after, like, oh, we can talk about my books, because books were a big thing where I did the whole oh, but I still want to read this book, yes, yes, and I remember this has definitely stuck with me was. You said well, could I trust myself to get the book again? Could I trust myself to have the resources to purchase the book again if I wanted to Right? And I think that applied to a lot of different items.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 29:17

Yes, because, for example, books, journals, photos, all of those things going through that process, if you're a scrapbooker and you want to reach a destination, all of those things take time and we forget that we actually have to choose to consciously sit down and do the scrapbooking or digitize the photos or read the books or whatever it might be. And I remember talking with you about, like, how many hours are you going to dedicate to reading, which of course we all want to do but comparing that with reality and saying, like, well, if you create some space and have the title of the book or a photo of the cover, you can always check it out from the library or order it again when it reaches the top of your priority list and you have the dedicated time to do the task and sit down and read or go through photos.

Sade Curry: 30:23

Do you remember when I wanted to save my kids' children's books so that my grandchildren would read the same ones? Super, super common.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 30:31

I've done this a lot. I started off as an in-home organizer and then became a coach and it's really common and I actually went through this for myself because my children were young. We bought beautiful, beautiful picture books and you're like they're going to grow up and one day they're going to want them for their kids and that makes sense. Yet that might be 20 years away, it might be 30 years away and that's a lot of space to take up and time. And if you move during those transitions, you got to seal them up and they got to be protected. And it's always good to reflect on your own journey and think do I want to play with stuff that my parents kept for me?

Sade Curry: 31:20

I thought about my children and I was like they for sure do not want me bringing any dusty stuff from my basement to their homes. I reflected on my I was my older too and I was like, no, they don't want this, this is all me, yeah it makes sense and in reality it probably won't work out the way that you imagined it will.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 31:44

And there's a little truth telling there, yeah, yeah.

Sade Curry: 31:47

That moment definitely freed me from a lot of like oh, what this? And then the great grandchildren, and then it'll be in our little chest, that will be passed down.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 31:56

And I was like they're not passing anything down, Like they're going to later look at you and be like oh, can you take us to the bookstore so we can get some new books?

Sade Curry: 32:04

Yes, yeah yeah, there are some things that I am keeping you know, but very few and extremely thoughtful and with their permission, so I actually like some of the times. A lot of the things that they ended up wanting me to keep had to do with their journals and things that reminded them of their current journey, of how their childhood applied to their current journey. So they were really more interested in, like their art and the little books that they wrote when they were kids, which volume wise was a little bit of a challenge. But they were more interested in the books that they wrote when they were kids, which volume wise was thankfully a lot, a lot smaller volume than the picture books I was wanting to keep and you bring up such an important point, which is the process of keeping something.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 32:52

Most folks worry that when they work with a professional organizer or clutter coach, that someone's going to tell them what they have to get rid of. But there's a part of the process where you you know you're making a decision and you're going to have to get rid of the things that you're going to be able to keep, and then what that means is that the, the, the, the deciding of what to let go of also involves the intentional deciding of what to keep, and it's actually going through that process and going through and sitting down and reflecting. That is the valuable moment, because, of course, you don't have to get rid of anything that is meaningful or powerful to you or anyone else in your life.

Sade Curry: 33:31

Yeah, let's talk about the cost of keeping something and things earning their place, cause that I had never thought about that before.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 33:41

Yeah, I think that's huge right. So we, whether we buy something or it ends up in our home, we just assume that it continues to be there in our closet or in our pantry or in our basement. But there is a beauty in reflecting on that particular thing and asking is it earning its keep? Does it does it constantly or often enough give back to me to deserve its place in my home? It's like is it paying rent, right? Like what joy, what benefit is it giving back to me that I am now still continuing to give it permission to hang in my closet or take up space in my basement or be in my pantry?

Sade Curry: 34:33

And I think it for me like looking back at that. It came back to me seeing myself, which I know. A lot of women we see ourselves as like renunchers and caregivers and everything is for someone else. But now starting to say, wait, these objects work for me. They do, yeah, everything. Not the kids and not the husband and not anybody else. They work for me. And then me thinking about how I want it to be, how do I want my kitchen to be, how do I want my pantry to be? And it sounds very me focused, but I needed to center myself in those spaces just for a minute because I'd never been centered.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 35:17

Yes, and I talk a lot about that right Shifting into the center of your life and your home. Because, again, we are socialized, we're raised to always be giving, always be available to everyone else. And instead of thinking like I'm creating a home so that everyone else can feel comfortable, there's a beauty in saying like, oh actually, this is my space and I deserve to feel relaxed and calm at the end of the day, and what choices can I make to make that happen? And then, of course, get everybody else on board, because yeah, which is a whole.

Sade Curry: 35:57

Yeah, it's a whole journey in and of itself, but I think we were able to craft a journey that didn't require like it didn't. I think one thing that I was able to do was really just there was enough work for me to do in my own healing and in my own thinking that nobody really needed to be on board. At least I fought this first part of the journey, and I was watching a show about minimalism and there are some families who have actually been able to create minimalism for the parents while letting the children keep all their toys, and so there's ways to be fluid and flexible in thinking about I'm centering myself, but I can also then just let other people be who they are and just have these Not just physical boundaries, but mental boundaries where there's some things I don't even look at. I walk past the children's rooms and I close the door. It's like that's your space. I just don't wanna look at it.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 36:57

Yeah, and what you brought up is that you get to define what minimalism means and looks like in your home. You get to define what clean or tidy or organized looks like in your home. We subscribe to these kind of larger understandings of those particular words but honestly, behind closed doors, the state of your home is about you and your life and you get to decide what it looks like and how it feels.

Sade Curry: 37:27

Yeah, yeah, and I can definitely say mine feels like home, it feels like me, it feels like, oh, it reflects Let me just really reflecting me and my identity, but reflecting choices. Like I can see, oh, this space looks like this and this is how I've made choices for this, and I like feels good, versus when I started working with you, where it was like it was like walking into a space. You know how like light waves bounce back, so literally it was like I walk into a space and every object, wherever it was, was sending me messages and my brain was just like, well, this shouldn't be here and that shouldn't be here. I need to decide about that, and you know when are you gonna get to that. And but like now, there isn't that anymore. So, whether something's out of place in that moment, it's like, oh, that's out of place and that's neutral, or everything's in place, which a lot of the spaces now are just really free of. I've just made so many decisions.

Sade Curry: 38:28

Yeah, the visual clutter is gone, it's gone and it's just like oh yeah, I know exactly where everything is, everything's exactly as I would like it, and you know, or if I need to fix something. So, like I said, the dog that she does will chew up her toy. And then there are pieces everywhere. It's like oh, that will only take me, you know, two minutes to sweep that up, which I think we did talk about time too.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 38:50

Yes, because that's what happens. Right. A project grows in size in our minds the more we avoid it, we become overwhelmed. But when we get honest and truthful with ourselves and set a timer right I'm gonna work on this for 30 minutes or an hour or a reasonable amount of time it's that mindset of small wins, small progress that then we can internalize and it reinforces Like oh yeah, I can do this, I have the skills, you know, I can figure this out. That really makes a difference. And that's the internal, permanent change because you get to understand that it's okay if the junk drawer comes back, because I can go back and fix it and it's only gonna take 10 minutes, not the 45 minutes that my brain tells me it's going to take, or the three days to clean out the garage or other things. But you did a tremendous amount of not just internal work but the time dedicated to taking those steps, and now you don't have to do that in the future.

Sade Curry: 40:06

Exactly. I mean culminated in the 4th of July. My 4th of July weekend was spent filling a 30 foot dumpster with stuff from my basement I just stuff from the marriage and just all the things went in there and it was full Like that was the largest dumpster the city had available. And people were like I don't really guess the 20 foot. I'm like, yeah, just in case, give me the 30 foot. And it was full and it just felt so good. I videoed myself like closing it with all the things inside and it really was. And I think this is why this is so pertinent to being on this podcast about divorce is because if you had told me, oh, when I first got divorced, or like, yeah, decluttering is a part of healing from divorce, Like that would. I don't think I've seen that conversation anywhere because I don't think we think that's a thing, but it turned out that it was.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 41:04

Yeah, and that's often what folks come to me for are experiences like life transitions. So, whether it is divorce or becoming a caregiver or grieving because you now have inherited someone else's clutter from their home right, there's so much in there in terms of emotions and storytelling, the way we attach to our belongings and on the other side is creating your new identity, the new version of you that is lighter and more free, and, especially with divorce, if you're moving into a new home or a new space, you have the opportunity to create it exactly like you want for yourself, because it might not be a shared home anymore, and that's a journey of itself figuring out who you are underneath of it all, separate from someone else's belongings and stuff.

Sade Curry: 42:01

Yeah, yeah, and someone else is thinking rules that we've come with about how to set up the home. I have one of my favorite clients just purchased a home. You know who you are. She's gonna be listening to this. I know she just purchased her home after her divorce and one of the things she said was no one can tell me what color to paint the walls. And she's just so tickled and delighted about that because her first marriage was in completely different story about making those choices. So for anyone listening, I would say consider whether clutter or belongings or your home still holds stories or suffering from divorce or from a life transition, from someone who passed away or childhood or whatever. Who knows Like these things come together in like really, I guess, really strange ways.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 42:58

Yeah, and I'm curious if you're willing to speak for a moment or two. You mentioned at the very beginning, kind of mourning, the loss of your marital home.

Sade Curry: 43:09

Oh yeah.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 43:10

I think that that's just very valuable, maybe for your audience to know that that is normal.

Sade Curry: 43:15

Yeah, and I think that was one of the reasons I didn't declutter for years All the stuff that came out of that home was because going and interacting with those objects represented a major loss. So literally walking through and saying, okay, I need to decide whether I'm keeping this set of bunk beds or not, am I gonna give it away or sell it or whatever. And I was also meant remembering that I had separated from my ex, not with the intention of getting a divorce, but with the intention of saying, hey, let's work on this. And he had said, yeah, let's work on it, and then felt for a divorce and that home represented my work and my savings and where my children thought they would grow up and all of those things. So, on all of the moments leading up to that I'll talk about this part, because this was especially painful at the time we had moved into that home.

Sade Curry: 44:16

We'd only been in that home for a few months, so that was the 4,000 square foot had seven bedrooms, five bathrooms. It was like, okay, everybody's dream home. But we hadn't sold our old home, so that was on the market. I think we had just signed a contract and I moved with my five children into my friend's basement, because my thinking at the time was just not where things ended and I was pretty much a people pleaser, still believed a lot of lies that were told to me and things like that. And so I remember coming to the title office and signing the sale of the home. Instead of what I look back and now I said, instead of moving into my second home with my children, I sold it without knowing that I wasn't going to ever go back to the other home and I think just the regret and the blame and the loss and the grief around that was really painful.

Sade Curry: 45:15

So it wasn't just the loss of the marital home, it was actually the loss of like two homes. And I was like dang girl, you should have me. I think that was the. What I kept telling myself was you should have been smarter, you should have been smarter, you should have been smarter. Now I am, and when clients work with me on divorce, I'm like listen, do all the things that I didn't do. But I think that was the. It was just the grief was bigger than it would have looked on the outside, like a lot of people are just like oh yeah, I just got a divorce, blah, blah blah. No, there was a lot there.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 45:44

Yeah, that internal soundtrack will get you every time. Oh yeah.

Sade Curry: 45:48

Yeah, and I think once we untangled that and I released the regret and came into acceptance and compassion, I had to find the compassion for the me who was just. I was just so tied up in caring for my kids and I wanted to make sure they were okay and I wanted to make sure they were safe which is one of the reasons I had laughs was because they weren't safe. It really wasn't even about me necessarily. They weren't safe in that moment and she was doing the best that she could and she did the right thing. Yes, you know, she really did do the right thing for the humans involved. What a gift. Yeah, I can give her that credit now.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 46:28

Love it.

Sade Curry: 46:29

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate the work you did. I appreciate your patience in our coaching sessions and just your ability to hold space and your ability to validate my thinking and validate your belief in me and my ability to do anything that I set myself to. So I wanted to just share this breakthrough this year long breakthrough with my audience, because I know there's someone out here listening, going through similar things that I went through and thinking about clutter or dealing with clutter. So it's been my privilege to introduce you to the audience and have you helped me share my story.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 47:09

Oh, it's been an absolute honor and for the listeners out there, even if you don't decide to get a dumpster, you can start sort of one decision, one drawer, one area at a time, and I encourage you to do that. But you shared with me something towards the end of our coaching sessions, which is that you wouldn't have been able to fill that dumpster at the beginning of our year together. So I just want to highlight the work and the effort and the patience and compassion that you showed yourself for untangling all of those stories over the course of our time together. And then, when it happened, what happened?

Sade Curry: 47:54

Oh my God, it was magical. It was just like I just kept taking pictures of the dumpster. I have pictures of the dumpster from every angle, like from the top of the house, so you can see from the top.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 48:06

You were so proud and I was so proud because and I think I said to you you'll reach a point where you're just going to walk through your home and scan and look at everything and go. Could that go in the dumpster?

Sade Curry: 48:18

Yeah, I did. It was towards the end because there was just so much stuff. But I did get to that point where I was just like what else can go? There's still like half a foot of space and I'm allowed to fill it all the way up to the brim. What else can go in there? I did get to that point. It was like it was so good, it was so good.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 48:35

So if you believe that it's not possible for you, chade, you were an amazing example. Oh for sure.

Sade Curry: 48:42

I would have. I should have been voted least likely to fill a dumpster with her stuff For sure, Like nothing at the beginning of this journey indicated where I would have gotten to. Nope, no. So thank you. Please tell the listeners if they want to work with you or even have a conversation. I will first of all just plug your newsletter. Get on Amelia's email list, because her emails are like gold. So do what you need to do to get on her email list, Even just your email from today. I was like, oh yes, I think you had a line in there, follow the adventure. And I was like, yes, I love it.

Sade Curry: 49:14

I love it Just the way you teach and lay just a little piece at a time, is just so helpful.

Amelia Pleasant Kennedy: 49:21

Thank you, I truly appreciate that. Well, everyone can connect with me a pleasant solution in all of the places. So I also have a podcast called A Pleasant Solution Embracing an Organized Life. My website, a Pleasant Solution, Instagram, Linkedin, all the places. Yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

Sade Curry: 49:47

Yeah, all of the links will be in the show notes and, if you get on, I mean there's an email list. She has workshops from time to time on the cluttering paper, all of these things. It's super helpful. I encourage you to follow her. Amelia, thank you for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate it. It was my honor. Thank you, listeners. We appreciate your time and attention and we will see you next time.