106 | How to Clear the Effing Clutter from Your Home

Narrator 0:04

How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the Healthy Home hacks podcast, where we firmly believe enjoying optimal health shouldn't be a luxury. Healthy Home authorities and husband and wife team, Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. Listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right. Here are your hosts, bow, biologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados, Ron and Lisa Beres,

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Ron Beres 1:40

is too much clutter weighing you down. You know, heck, we've all been there. I remember the time, several years ago, my garage was piling up with boxes. And keep in mind, this was a two car garage. It suddenly became a one car garage, and barely a car garage after that. But we did some texting. We did some modification. If you are concerned about clutter, today's show is a wake up call for you to take action.

Lisa Beres 2:06

Yes, and guys, it's nothing to be embarrassed about. We've all had clutter at different times in our lives, depending what's going on. But if you've been battling your clutter for months, years or even decades, you don't need more bins, boxes or Instagram inspired organizing hacks, you need to look at the deeper meaning of your stuff to figure out why it's accumulated there in the first place. Your Clutter won't leave you alone for a reason. And no, it's not because there's something wrong with you or because you've been binging too much Netflix.

Ron Beres 2:37

That's right, our guest today is here to clear the clutter star. Hansen is the clutter whisperer, a certified professional organizer and author of why in the f am I still not organized? She's been helping people clear their clutter since 2004 she assists successful people who feel like a hot mess trying to figure out why their clutter isn't going away so they can finally clear the chaos and live a life of freedom, joy and peace.

Lisa Beres 3:06

Yes and Starr created the chaos to calm organizing community in 2019 to support people from across the globe in their organizing transformations. She's also a member of the National Association of productivity and organizing. Professionals, when I read that, it was like that exists, Wow, I love it. Type a get together. Stars, humorous and thought provoking. TEDx, Tucson talk explores what the monsters in your closet are trying to tell you. Her approach has been featured on own TLC, HGTV style, A and E and NPR. Welcome

Ron Beres 3:44

to the show. Star.

Star Hansen 3:49

I'm so excited to be here. Yay.

Lisa Beres 3:52

We're so happy to have you. Everybody needs this show. I don't care who you are, you've got a pile somewhere, and we're gonna tackle it today,

Star Hansen 4:00

yes, either it's external clutter, or it can also be the internal clutter or someone else's clutter, because some people are listening because they're bothered by another person's clutter. So

Ron Beres 4:13

to stare at me, she just

Lisa Beres 4:17

but I did date a guy once that had a lot of clutter, and it was a constant fight. I feel like that could ruin a marriage. If you have one that's like total clutter bug and not willing to fix it, and then one that's really organized, you got to work that out. That's a real issue.

Star Hansen 4:32

You know, where I see it too. Come up with clutter in COUPLES IS If one person has ADHD and the other doesn't, and the person who doesn't, the more neurotypical person, will just keep so frustrated with the ADHD person just saying, why do they leave their cabinet doors open or they don't put things away? And what we're missing in our society is this conversation of compassion, of flexing and understanding that everybody's brains work very differently. And so instead of just saying, Get it together, really start to figure out, how do we I don't know. Figure out how our brains work and really come to a middle ground of what it needs to look like to operate in the home together.

Lisa Beres 5:05

That's beautifully said. That's right, being compassionate. How were you raised? Maybe clutter was the norm, and you don't think there's anything wrong with it, and you're so used to it, you don't even know there's a better way, right?

Star Hansen 5:17

Yeah, and one of the things that I do a lot is I talk about how clutter is actually helping you. So there's so much conversation like I'm sure we're going to talk about this today, about all the negative behind clutter, how it makes us more stressed and creates negative energy that stagnation. But I also see that when people have recurring clutter, the clutter that keeps coming back over and over again, it's helping us. It might be reminding you to do something. It could be helping you feel inspired and creative in ways. It could be a sense, like, almost like a security blanket, like my needs are going to get met. I have enough things to make sure I'm safe. It could be a protection. Oh, that's deep, yeah, I anthropomorphize the heck out of clutter. It's interesting. Sorry.

Ron Beres 5:57

Would laundry count as clutter as you see a pile

Lisa Beres 5:59

No, oh, it does, but you can't avoid laundry.

Star Hansen 6:04

So you can't avoid it, but you can so it can become cluttered. So one of the things that I love so dr Darby, suxby says that clutter is in the eye of the beholder, meaning that it can look cluttered, but if it doesn't feel cluttered to you, it's not actually clutter, okay? And so you might feel it's clutter, but someone else is totally cool with it, so we have to kind of come and figure out our agreements together of, is this a problem or is this not a problem? Okay,

Lisa Beres 6:27

gotcha, that's really well said, because if we think of grandma's home with lots of knickknacks and shelves with lots of little things, we would today, because the home design today is very clean, very open space, and with these open space floor plans, you can't have clutter anywhere, right? You have to, almost, are forced to be neater, because everything shows like the kitchen. Back in the days when houses were very boxy, you didn't see the kitchen, so people could have the dishes like piling up and no one saw it. And

Star Hansen 6:54

it's not even about who's coming over to your house, it's who's seeing those pictures on Instagram, seeing that video, when you make that Tiktok like we're also the

Ron Beres 7:02

most important thing, star,

Lisa Beres 7:06

what others think of us.

Star Hansen 7:07

I mean, I hate to say it, but it is so. That's why clutter has so much shame with it, because we judge ourselves for having it. We feel the perception of judgment from other people, which is a very real thing. And then we feel this need to, like, put our best self online and be seen and polished and Perfect, yeah? And what if it's okay, like, I love Kate Hudson. We'll post stuff where she's got things out on the counter. And should, you know, people, like, look at the clutter. And I'm like, that's barely clutter. Yeah, totally time you don't have stuff on the counter. Is when companies coming over. Okay, let's be real, guys.

Lisa Beres 7:43

So true. So true. Okay, so this is really so cool and such an interesting conversation we're gonna have. So there's clearly an underlying emotional reason why some people have loads of clutter, even to the extreme of hoarding, which I want like to get into a bit, whereas other people have a desk so clear and clean you could eat off it. So star, what is the deeper meaning of our stuff and why has it accumulated there in the first

Star Hansen 8:07

place? Such a great question, and it's such a big answer. I have an entire class that's just built around that question, because I think after my TEDx talk, people started messaging me, what does my clutter mean? Well, there's a lot of factors that come into play the room that it's located. So every single and this is kind of connecting to Feng Shui, and I know that you have a background in interior design, and so we're really looking at the meaning in our spaces. And so every single room connects to an area of our lives. So the kitchen, for example, could be nourishment. It could be family connection. The bedroom could be restoration, our relationship with ourselves, our partnership the office could be our money center. And so what we want to start out with is say, Well, where is the clutter? And we don't want to do the general like, my whole house is cluttered. Well, sure, but pick the clutter that's the most bothersome. Pick the clutter that makes you feel the most uncomfortable, and let's start there. So the spaces tell us the area of our life that is out of balance, and then the objects and how we have the objects and what the objects are tell us really how that clutter is serving us. And I always say I can walk into your home and know with a glance the state of your life just based on your stuff, and that's not necessarily only with the chaos. Like I've walked into people's homes who've hired me before, and they had nothing. Their house was just stark, minimalist. And I don't mean like a beautiful they chose to be minimalist. I mean, I was looking for plastic on the floor because was I about to be murdered. Kind of minimalist, right? And so that's a different conversation. A lack of stuff is as telling as an excess of stuff, because the lack of stuff often speaks to not feeling safe, to be seen, not feeling safe, to take up space or really get grounded in a business going deep.

Lisa Beres 9:53

I love that. I'm glad you brought that up. I was going to ask that too, because we've all walked into a space whether. It's a home or even a commercial space, or it's cold because there isn't warmth in there. There isn't like Nate Berkus, you know, the designer, him and his husband, they're very like your house should tell your story. It should show your travels. It should show family photos. It should feel warm and inviting and have a rich story that people come in and they know a lot about you, not too much like sharing these beautiful parts of you. And sometimes we walked into a space where there's cold, it's nothing, and you get that icky feeling. So that would be like, Would you say that's the extreme pendulum of the opposite?

Star Hansen 10:35

It can be. It makes me think of flight trauma response. So if we think about fight flight, freeze fawn, and the flight says it's not safe to be anywhere, I need to be ready to go at a moment's notice. And so, yeah, it really is. So when I hear people talk about Luke, ooh, the space feels gross or icky. I never feel that unless you have like, vomit on the ground, and then I'm probably not doing so well, but generally speaking, the clutter never feels painful to me, because I go straight to the compassion. So one of my clients in the past that I worked with, they had a flight trauma response, and it was terrifying, not scary. Terrifying, like survival, I won't make it. The idea of settling in and being seen in a home and taking up space was absolutely mortifying. And then what would happen is we still have needs, and then the clutter would basically just be everywhere because they hadn't taken the time to set up homes, because it didn't feel safe for them. So instead of creating organizational systems, they just kind of kept one foot out the door, and then the clutter built up because they weren't fully embodying the space. Yeah,

Lisa Beres 11:43

that's really true. And I think going back to like as a designer, one of the things is sometimes the design process is very messy, right? You've got fabrics everywhere, you've got samples everywhere. It can be extremely messy. It's like this chaos to organizing. So you look at the end product of a design and it's really put together and perfect and beautiful, but the process of getting there is very messy. It's messy. You're looking at countertops. They can be dusty. You've got lots and lots and lots of samples. It sounds like what you're saying too is when you're too buttoned up, you're afraid to sort of fully express yourself and even get messy, you're depriving yourself of that richness of that experience, right? Like cooking, cooking is messy. Yes.

Star Hansen 12:21

I mean, I always say, if I come to your house, in your kitchen, it's perfectly organized. I'm a little sad, because that means that you tidied for me if I come in and you don't cook

Lisa Beres 12:32

totally we used to have dust on our pots. We had a pot hanger in our before we started cooking. Oh, my sister in law would be like Lisa. Your thoughts are dusty.

Star Hansen 12:43

That's so funny. Well, but if you're a baker, for example, and I come over and the kitchen's buttoned up, I'm probably gonna think, oh, wow, they cleaned for me. I feel like I'm not in the family. I come over and you're making cookies and muffins, I feel like you're welcoming me into your family, into your home. It's rich, and by the way, I was laughing, Lisa, when you were talking about the chaos of creation. Because when I was a kid and I used to be given the chore of cleaning the bathroom, I never was satisfied just cleaning the bathroom. I would always mess it up. I don't know how my mother didn't kill me. Honestly, I would take her lipstick and draw all over the mirror. I would put lotion on the counter. I needed it to be disgusting before I wanted to clean it. I was like, It's too clean originally. Oh, my God, that's hilarious. But organizing is the same thing. And when I'm working with people in their homes, I will say it always looks the absolute worst before we're almost done. And there's this moment where it's just absolute chaos worse than you ever thought it could be. And within 20 minutes, I will have that place looking perfect, because, wow, chaos is often what breeds this next level. And the truth is, we can look at this and play this over our entire clutter. Also, if your whole home feels like a mess, it's because you're creating the next chapter. You are giving birth to the next version of you. It's not a symptom that there's something wrong with you or that you're flawed, it's that you are in the process of becoming the next version of yourself. Wow,

Lisa Beres 14:06

that is really cool. My office is messy right now, and I don't like clutter. I'm a Virgo. I love order, and I feel really good after the house has been cleaned and sparkling and tidy. But the truth is, it doesn't statement, it's impossible to keep it like that every minute of every day. Would you say, we're really trying? Would you say it's a balance? Like, it's kind of that balance, like the pendulum is going like this constantly?

Star Hansen 14:32

Oh for sure. Think about your office. Like your office is a great example. Your office is the laboratory. So you're a creator. You are constantly in a creating process, and so your office reflects that. So if you had nothing out, it would say that you were done, you were resolved and complete. And right now, I would imagine, if I said I'm just going to come in and throw all this away, you would probably have a panic moment of, don't touch that, because that's my next three things. Yes. So what we want to say is. Yes, what if it's okay to have chaos because, and there's actually been studies done that say that people who have chaotic desks actually are more creative, and they're more odd than

Lisa Beres 15:09

me, right? Ron,

Star Hansen 15:14

yeah, they're like, more able and willing to, like, break the rules, come up with new concepts, and people who have tidy desks are more likely to conform. Would you say that's like a right brain and left brain thing too, maybe, but I would say like, I think we can both tap into either one. I know people who are lawyers, who require creative time, and I know creative people who really thrive from having really focused, functional, menial tasks. And so I think it's both. I like the idea of saying that it's like a laboratory, and we're the science project, and the clutter is the science project. So if we're in a state of becoming of evolution at all times, there's going to be times where we're cleaning up in times that we're spreading out in times that things are exploding that we didn't ask for, because we're getting a reaction from the universe that's calling us into something else. And other times we try something and it fails and it feels like it just sits there, like sludge. And so if we start to look at it with more curiosity and interest instead of judgment of, oh, what does it mean that I have this clutter and I better clean it up? Well, sometimes you might need that insane splatter across your office because it's actually helping you give birth to your next activity or your next podcast

Lisa Beres 16:19

that is so beautiful. I've never heard this. This is the first time I'm hearing the positivity of clutter. I know a lot of listeners are breathing as high of relief right now. Oh, my God. Because if you've heard of I'm sure we talked about spirituality before this show. You've heard of David Hawkins chart of consciousness.

Star Hansen 16:37

No, I haven't. Oh, tell me things. Oh, okay.

Lisa Beres 16:40

Dr David Hawkins, he found a way to measure energy. And our emotions are all frequency, right? We have every emotion has a different frequency. And in this chart of consciousness, it looks like a rainbow. So the very top of the chart is enlightenment, and then the one below that is love. And these are the highest, highest, highest, vibrating emotions that we can have. And then you go ahead and go down, and you get to the middle range, and then you get all the way to the bottom. And the lowest, lowest frequencies that were measured were guilt, shame and fear. So the goal of this chart is that you're always trying to get higher. So when you feel shame about your clutter, that's what made me think of it. Because when we think of clutter, a lot of people feel guilt and shame, and those are really, really low emotions. So if you can get yourself up even just to, like, a neutral state, that's kind of the goal with this chart, because sometimes it's hard say you're in a fearful mode. Are you going to really go all the way up to safety in an instant? Maybe not, but you could get to a calm you could get to, like, a calm place, right? And so you're trying to just raise higher and higher and higher and higher. And it just helps you become aware of your emotions at all times and going, Wait, this isn't healthy for me to be sitting in this lower energy, you know. So

Star Hansen 17:47

I use that exact same thing, but with the emotional guidance scale from Abraham Hicks. Oh, it's probably the exact same

Lisa Beres 17:54

thing, honestly, right? It's like,

Star Hansen 17:57

completely just reinvented copy, exactly. Yeah, the top is like love and all of that beautiful stuff, and then the bottom is like disempowerment and fear. And when I tell this story about how I have this friend who lied to me, and I found it to be such a violation and such a betrayal, because why lies are so unnecessary? I just be honest. Let's deal with the messiness. So I had to work myself from Rage up, and it was so interesting to go from rage. And instead of judging the rage that I had, which is a reasonable reaction to someone who was essentially a bestie, my closest bestie line to me, it felt like such a betrayal to go from rage to revenge, for example, which who wants to go into revenge. But if I just sat there with a friend for a minute and I just brainstormed like, Oh, I wish that I could just call her and be like, I know, but, or I, whatever my version of that was, she's still alive. She is still alive.

Lisa Beres 18:47

She was left in a very clean house, barely.

Star Hansen 18:50

Her house is so clean she didn't even but it's like working my way up, like, it's like to revenge and then annoyance and I mean, just finding your way up, it was so blissful. Instead of just exactly like what you're saying, feeling like I had to jump all the way up, because that sounds like nails on a chalkboard. That sounds painful. And that's why, when someone comes up and is like, oh my gosh, be positive. You want to punch them because I'm not there. You're asking me to do a giant leap that I can't make right now, I just need to honor what is and move up the next rung, just one step at a time,

Lisa Beres 19:21

and even that, with that middle ground, what's that word, complacency, contentment, boredom? Yeah, that's better than those lower emotions, right? Yeah, yeah.

Star Hansen 19:31

I'd rather be bored than full of rage and revenge. Sounds way more interesting, for sure.

Ron Beres 19:37

You know star we mentioned, we talked about living rooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, what usually is the most cluttered room in the house for

Lisa Beres 19:45

most people. Yeah, what's the biggest problem area? Oh,

Star Hansen 19:49

that's so personal. I mean, I feel like the kitchen counter, let's just name that as a big one. And the kitchen counter is, oftentimes, it's this coming and going space. It's a big communication house. Yeah, it's not just nourishment, although it can be. It's a lot of times our communication with each other. It's, oh, I need to put this here so I remember to take it out with me when I leave. The other area is often the bedroom. So the bedroom, like by the bed, the nightstands, the things that stack up there, it tells you a lot about that person's relationship with themselves, the relationship with the partner. I can walk in and just track instantly that I'm like, Oh, this couple is teetering on divorce. Just

Lisa Beres 20:26

Good thing our night stands are clean. Ron, that's right, we passed that test. But star,

Ron Beres 20:32

what would you have thought if you walked into our house 10 years ago? It's not this way now, but the garage was

Lisa Beres 20:36

so that was, like, that's a big one. Maybe

Ron Beres 20:38

that was 15 years ago, I'm making myself younger. Well, the garage

Star Hansen 20:43

is about it's the past, it's the future, and it's the unexplored. And so a lot of times what we have in there is we have things from our past, things that we haven't unpacked from the last move, or it's memorabilia items. It's the future, meaning, like very hopeful things, things I want to ski, I want to do this. I don't do it, but I have it in case. So it's this beautiful, helpful place that kind of launches us into the future. And then the other thing too, it can kind of be our repressed area, or it can be our overflow. So what I look for in the garage or the attic or the basement is, is there another room that's bleeding out into this room? Because then I'm going to dial straight into the meaning of that room. If the stuff from your kitchen is overflowing into your garage, that tells me something about the kitchen area of your life more than the garage. It tells me that that part of your life is kind of bleeding out into another space, right?

Lisa Beres 21:33

That's so deep? Yeah, we were starting our business. We were traveling. Every week. I never even unpacked my suitcase. I would leave my suitcase open and just switch stuff out. That's how much we were traveling. And what happened was, we didn't have that downtime to get caught up. And so what happened was the garage, we were just shoving everything in the garage, and the house was really, really orderly, right? The garage became like the dumping ground until we finally got sick of it and cleaned it up. But we said, never again while we do that, because the energy for us made us feel so icky. You know, it was just like, Why? Why have we allowed this to get so out of control? And it really was not giving ourselves that space, like when you're in a energy where you're just go, go, go, which a lot of people are today, right? Well, and

Star Hansen 22:16

how far into your marriage was that?

Lisa Beres 22:18

Would you say? Probably, like, six, seven years. Okay, right? So,

Star Hansen 22:23

right, yeah, one of the things that could be too, is an evolution of your relationship, an evolution of you in a home or the city. Like a lot of times, it's when we move. No one has energy, no one's like, excited to unpack, and so we just kind of like, hobble over the finish line. We're like, there, I'm in great sometimes, yeah, we need to re embody and so it could just be that maybe you all moved in there, and then you were just racing, like you said, that's what it was, yeah, and it becomes this tipping point where you just say, I can't take it anymore, because it's not vibrationally a match with us anymore. We've elevated, and the space is down here kind of holding us into the past. And all you're really doing again, it's not like clutter is showing that there's something wrong with your relationship, or something that's bad. You are having this beautiful, thriving life, and what you're doing is inviting your space to join you on this upper vibrational plane, so that you can actually operate in a much more aligned unit. Because, yeah, you not having a home for certain things that were just falling into your garage does not serve you, but you operating at this higher level where you have homes for things that you need it now you've upleveled your space to live at the same space that you are living from so beautifully. Said, Oh, I

Lisa Beres 23:30

love it. I was thinking about you see on Instagram now these influencers showing these organizers, especially the refrigerator. I mean, it kind of drives me crazy, because I don't know who can maintain a fridge like that, but it's like everything has a box and a bin and it's stacked and it's clean and it's perfect. And sometimes when I look at it, it almost feels like it's more about the organizing than the practicality of the refrigerator. You know what I'm saying? Like, is

Star Hansen 23:54

it more just about how the refrigerator looks versus like? Is this really serving well, how do you feel about that? It honestly makes me want to vomit like I'm not alone. You know, it's been a major thing with my business and with marketing, because I don't like before and after pictures. You're not going to find them anywhere. The thought of investing in plastic, and I can say this with you all, because I know you know it investing in 1000s of dollars of plastic, that it actually makes us sick between the off gassing and getting onto our foods like you're putting your apples in this plastic thing that's then leaching chemicals onto your I can't and also, unless you're a Kardashian who has staff, and let me just be clear, they're not doing it themselves. Kim is not stacking her pantry into they don't

Lisa Beres 24:35

even know how to cut there was like an Instagram where the girl didn't even know how to cut a cucumber. Right? Terrifying. So

Star Hansen 24:41

yeah, they're not doing it. So unless you have staff, and if you do good

Lisa Beres 24:44

for you, yeah, organize your cookie jar right there.

Star Hansen 24:48

And you know, this beautiful setup, this decanting is beautiful. I personally wouldn't waste my time on it myself, because I want what I want when I want it. I'm so much more into. Having freedom of movement through my spaces, and having my spaces serve me the idea of going grocery shopping and then spending two hours decanting everything so it looks beautiful. Now, if that's your jam and it makes you happy and it actually makes you eat your snacks, then do it, because some people need that motivation. But for me, it's not a high value. And I really do struggle with how consumer based. Our societies always trying to push us into buying stuff, and it's the promise that if we have the right stuff, we'll finally get organized. And you can use an old Amazon box as easily as you can use a $30 plastic bin to see if the system works for you and then decide if you want to invest in something more expensive. But the idea that some Bin is going to create this happy life is very short lived, and it's one of the reasons why I do my work the way I do, because I'm much more interested in your personal experience, your personal systems, and what's really going on under the clutter, rather than trying to just put a plastic box on it as a band aid,

Lisa Beres 25:54

right? That's like the root of what Ron and I do. We get to the root of your health issues through I mean, our Healthy Home thing is really getting to the root of so many of these health issues that people do not associate with their home, respiratory issues, hormonal imbalances, neurological disorders, cancer, all of this is connected to chemicals in your home. And if you're going to the traditional Western medication medicine system, you're getting fed pills and maybe surgeries and all of this stuff, but you've never really gotten to the root, right? So it's kind of what you're saying with the clutter. Even if you buy the prettiest bins, and you go to The Container Store and you spend 1000s of dollars and you haven't gotten to the root, you're going to recreate that clutter, correct? Yeah, you'll end up recreating it. Yeah, it's

Star Hansen 26:35

why. Until we understand how our clutter is helping us, until you really understand it and replace that need with something more direct and sustainable, the clutter is going to keep coming back. So for example, if you grew up in scarcity, if you didn't have enough, I had a client who grew up and they had one pair of jeans, and they felt a lot of shame in high school and just absolutely mortified all the time. And when she grew up, she was very successful. She had hundreds of pairs of jeans and know where to put them. And so at some point, we had to really stop and say, okay, these jeans are giving you a sense of security, a sense of enoughness. When is enough enough, it never is. When it's emotional and so interesting. She had to go down another path for really understanding, like I am not a 12 year old girl who's being bullied at school for wearing the same pants over and over again. She had to kind of bring, she had to honor her inner child and bring her into the current moment of, I am a powerful person who can manifest anything that I need, and let's stop living in that past. But she had to meet with a therapist and really confront her trauma history. And not everything is trauma based, but a lot of it, you know, I had one client who they had a break in, and the burglar came in, and they know where to find our stuff. We think we're so sneaky and hiding it, but they know where it is. They know all the spots. Yeah, they do. And so this client, no matter how many times we organized, he always backslid and always got disorganized again. And it took a little while to figure out that that clutter was protecting him. It made him feel like if someone broke in, they wouldn't be able to find his valuables because it was so chaotic, so it was actually a preservation thing. Oh, wow.

Lisa Beres 28:08

So you're like the clutter psychologist

Star Hansen 28:13

counselor, yes. Okay,

Lisa Beres 28:14

so on a lighter note, what's something listeners can do right now? Like, if you were just give everyone listening one tip that would probably apply to most people. What could they do right now, just to make us feel a little lighter and a little freer,

Star Hansen 28:26

turn on your favorite song, just for the length of that favorite song, do one thing that enhances your experience of your house, whether it be taking dishes back to the kitchen, or throwing things away or moving returns to your car or hanging a picture that you've been looking at sitting on the floor for six months. Do one thing that improves the space like it doesn't mean you have to make everything better like some people. I just say, take the clutter that's sitting on the other side of the bed and put it into a box and shove that in your guest room. I'm not telling you never to look at it. I'm saying improve the quality of your life today, because we have this perception that we have to do it all and do it right, and we should have had it done yesterday. Do it for three minutes. Do it for five minutes, put on some chapel Roan and just shake it out. And what we need is for organizing to stop. Feel like punishment. It shouldn't be a punishment. It needs to feel joyful, because most people who have struggled with clutter for a long time will have to take a while to make the clutter go away. And if you hate every moment of it, it's going to be painful. And if you can find a way to make it fun, it's going to just make it so much easier to move through.

Ron Beres 29:32

Wow. Well, hey, star, I'm a Virgo, just like Lisa is, and I do not like clutter, but I don't think I'm as cleanly to a degree that Lisa is or is detailed that way. So for example, what I'm saying, I'm trying to figure out if you were to diagnose you, diagnose this behavior of I want things to look nice. My desk is clear. There's no clutter on it. However, the desk drawers will have, like, you know, a chaotic mess, whereas Lisa's is the opposite, like she has little compartments for her pens and for her paper clips and all these different things that she needs there. How would you diagnose that? Is that like, hey, I'll pretend a. Faker who wants to clutter free or no, I'm big. Nothing

Lisa Beres 30:04

feels fake. That's just how we are. No, you

Star Hansen 30:06

know, I think so it could be masculine and feminine difference, right? So women hold on to a lot. Do you think about it? Where the we stay home, we're like, the only part of our species that could actually even have a semblance of multitasking. No offense to the men listening, right? So we are like, I'm always thinking five steps ahead. And so same thing, like future me is very looked out for, because I'm always prepping for her. So I'm the same where I'd have these foundational systems really set up. And my guess is the masculine in you is like, let's get it done. You're just here to create things and do it. And that is not a priority. And it's actually not a priority, because you can

Lisa Beres 30:40

punch them. Just nailed that. That's exactly how you are run. Yeah, time with things that you feel are unimportant. We're always time on dumb things. And then think, why did I do that? Yeah, so that's the multi so

Star Hansen 30:51

that dopamine hit. It feels so good. I

Lisa Beres 30:53

want to say this because anyone listening, you know, when you've cleaned anything like a closet cleanse. Okay, let's say you're doing your closet and you're doing that, this is going to sell. This is going to donate whatever. Hopefully you're not throwing away any of your clothes. Hopefully you're definitely doing something good with them. But I feel like a million bucks every time I go through my closet. It's just like, wow. And I can see all my clothes, and I know where everything is, and I've got the shirts and the pants and everything organized. So is that a dopamine hit? I mean, do we always get that when we clean anything, whether it's a cabinet or

Star Hansen 31:25

often? Yeah, dopamine is a major part of our experience when it comes to organizing. It's that little part that says you're on track. Keep going, keep going, which is why it's important to give ourselves small organizing tasks at the beginning. Instead of I had to do my entire garage this weekend, like if I'm in your house, it might take us five days together with a professional to do your garage. Why in God's green earth would you think you could do it in four hours? Right? Instead, do one shelf, do one drawer. But I would love to kind of tap into the closet, because I feel like your listeners might get into this, because the clothing closet is our identity center, and people struggle a lot of times like it's probably one of the pieces I should have mentioned with the most difficult in the house, because that's where identity is. And as we age and as we evolve in our lives, we change, and we are confronted with this expensive section of our home that we've invested a lot in. And what do we do when it changes, or, like with the pandemic or aging or whatever, people whose weight fluctuates, there's a lot of identity in there, and it's really tricky, and so it's a high emotion area. And if we can look at the closet as a space of evolving our identity with ourselves and how we project ourselves with the outside world, that can be very helpful. And if you are experiencing like overflowing baskets or boxes or shelves. That's oftentimes either you hanging on to a version of yourself that you're not anymore, or trying to be a version that you are not actually going to be. And the power comes from sitting in the pocket of who we are. I know for me during the pandemic, my body put on a ton of weight, and I am not an unhealthy person like I am very aware. We've talked about this before we started recording. I've been doing a lot of the naturopathic healthy stuff for years. I eat well, and my body is just hanging out at this weight, and I've been not buying clothes, because I just keep thinking, No, I'm not gonna buy clothes, but I'm walking around wearing tattered things. It's not okay. And finally, like, not so long ago, I was like, I'm taking myself shopping and buying clothes for this way. I'm done. I'm just

Lisa Beres 33:24

where you are now. Meet your yes and you are Yeah. Love me, because

Star Hansen 33:27

the truth is, my body is so strong and powerful and healthy and vibrant, why did the s extra pounds even matter? It doesn't give her what she needs. And then if and when I lose weight, someone else will be joyful to receive the clothes that are no longer mine, and, oh, that's really good, yeah, we want to embody the truth of who we are, yeah,

Lisa Beres 33:47

yeah. Because I think there's like, we're going back to that shame. There's so much shame, and I didn't realize that with your closet too. And I mean, we all do it, it's like, well, I might wear this in five years, you know? And it's hard. We are attached to, maybe the memories that the clothes bought us, or whatever, but it's difficult sometimes to you know, I know I heard one time, if you haven't worn it in the last six months, you're probably not going to wear it or whatever the rule is. And that actually always helps me, because I'll go and then, you know, the minute you give it away, you want it, the next day, that little thing happens.

Star Hansen 34:19

And it's so tricky because it's also one of the biggest consumer driven places. How many seasons are there? The fashion cycle is insane. It's the fact that they've decided to cancel skinny jeans. I am offended by that. I just discovered

Lisa Beres 34:31

this too. I'm a little behind. I'm like, wait, I can't wear my skinny jeans. Oh, my jeans are off.

Star Hansen 34:35

And Lisa, they want us to stop wearing our ankle socks. And I will tell them. I will tell all the youngins out there. I'll see you in the fall, and we'll talk about bringing those back we know what we were doing right. Really helps us to ground into the truth of who we are and loving our body and loving ourselves, and saying I am not going with the flow. I letting the consumer driven society tell me that I need to be buying. Things all the time. I'd rather buy the right things than constantly be chasing something that is never going to be caught, right?

Lisa Beres 35:05

It's expensive, it's wasteful, and also, you know your body and you look good in certain styles. And who cares if it's in style or not, if you look good in that and you feel comfortable, let that be your style, right? Totally. It's again,

Star Hansen 35:18

it's this vision of comparing our insides to other people's outsides, the idea that we look and oh, they look better. They have this, or I should be doing this, or I need to be on trend. No, you don't. You need to be on trend for who you are and what feels right to you. It's not about some rule. It's about what in your soul feels good to you, and doing that and not apologizing for the person you are really standing in your power.

Lisa Beres 35:40

Thank Wow. Amen, and not apologizing for not having everything designer, like, I'm a girl that does not, it's not that I don't believe in it. Well, I guess I really don't believe in it. I think, like, you can buy a pair of glasses for $50 that are just as good as $1,000 pair. I mean, if you look at the material, they're the same

Star Hansen 35:59

designer. There's like two designers in the whole world. So we're just being we're just being played.

Lisa Beres 36:03

People didn't they show run. We saw some video that said an actual like, it was, I don't want to say the name brand, but a name brand person everybody would know actually cost them 60

Ron Beres 36:15

bucks, $2,000 purse, yeah, making a

Star Hansen 36:19

waste. If they don't sell it, to keep their kind of like, street cred, they have to, like, annihilate all of that. They destroy the clothes. Really is painful, painful.

Lisa Beres 36:27

I Yeah, the waste of clothing is a whole nother show that I would love to do, because it's a big topic too, and how that absolutely companies. We know we have an insider who worked at a major department store and said they actually cut up all the clothes they don't sell. Wow, you're like, there are people who need those clothes. Why not donate? Because if they donate, then it loses the value, right? Then that's a good point value. Well, I want to get into hoarding. I mean, I don't know what percentage of people hoard, but is that just a bigger version of what we're talking about? How does that happen? Okay, no, so that's

Star Hansen 36:58

a mental health issue. So hoarding disorder is recognized in the DSM five as its own designation. And thank you for phrasing it the way that you have, because the term hoarder is not something we want to be using. We can say they have hoarding disorder, or they do hoard like hoarding is a behavior. It's not an identifier. And so thank you for phrasing it the way that you did, because that's really beautiful, and it's again, we want to eliminate the shaming conversations and ideas for people. And so hoarding disorder is, I think a lot of what I've shared does resonate with people who hoard, but the truth is, it's a mental health diagnosis and so saying, and here's the thing, they have to be diagnosed properly by a medical health practitioner. You can't diagnose yourself. You can't diagnose your friend. There's a great book called buried in treasures that I love, if you or someone isn't that so great, and then support spaces around but if you or someone that you love has hoarding disorder or struggles with that, it's a great read because it will help you feel seen to have your loved ones. I think one of the things that is the most heartbreaking in our world is a little bit like what we talked about at the beginning. It's when people don't meet each other where they're at if people look at someone with hoarding disorder and say, wow, they must be lazy or They're filthy, or just get it together, you need more self discipline. That's 1,000% never the case. Most people with clutter I know have a desire to be clean in such a high degree that what stops them is not the fact that they're dirty. What stops them is the layers of cleanliness would need to be so much that it overwhelms them to actually apply it so they're not dirty. And what we had heard

Lisa Beres 38:30

that on an Oprah episode years and years ago, this lady was very brave to get on the show and showed her house, and it was like one of those houses where you had to go through a tunnel of clutter just to get anywhere, and it was really bad. And she was so buttoned up on the show, she looked like an anchorwoman. I mean, she was perfectly quaffed and gorgeous clothes. And Oprah said, What is the reason that you don't clear it? And she said, I would need it to be so perfect, like it was a perfectionism issue, which I was like, blew my mind.

Star Hansen 38:59

And someone with hoarding disorder, their brain is not neurotypical when it comes to clutter. If I said to someone who has hoarding disorder, what's more valuable this phone or this pen, they would have a hard time telling me which one was more valuable, because their categories are a little different in their brain, and they would have a really hard time letting things go like I've had clients who heard who go into the trash can when I leave and pull things out that we'd thrown away. It's a different level of compulsion. There's so many different layers of this. And so yes, if someone has hoarding disorder, I mean, I can't imagine making fun of someone who has depression, for example, they have no problem making space for them. And yet, because hoarding disorder has a physical demonstration. People are just so brutal about it, and

Lisa Beres 39:43

I don't think people know that. Thank you for bringing that to everybody's attention, that it is a disorder and not just a choice, right? It's not a

Star Hansen 39:52

choice. So, yeah, and it's oftentimes, you know, you'll see people who either it can be genetic and it, for sure, can be trigger. By trauma. So I've seen a lot of people who are functional, and then they experience a trauma, and then things just go beyond a place where they're able to do it, and it takes sometimes, like I always say, organizing is the icing on the cake. If you have hoarding disorder, you might need medication. You definitely need therapy. There's a lot of things that you need in place before you start to move the stuff around. The stuff just to it,

Lisa Beres 40:21

yeah. And Ron, you dated a girl who whose mom was, like, borderline, and you said she'd stock up on, like, toilet papers on sale. I'm gonna buy like, 20, right?

Ron Beres 40:30

The mom was very normal, right? But if you can look in any of the closets where the clothes closets or anything, you would see just piles of bottles, you know, 10 bottles of the same thing, like hydrogen peroxide, or whatever it might be, because she's buying on sale. And we all know the reason why she did that. She was fearful because she didn't grow up with a lot of money, and so she took advantage of every single sale, and did never want to be without, yeah, and so that was and she too, she was very buttoned up, if you were to look at her normal but she had this secret where she'd buy and hoard anything she can find on sale. That's

Star Hansen 41:00

why we want to talk about hoarding as a behavior, not an identifier, because her behavior was to hoard these items. And why did she do it? She did it because of security. She did it because growing up, she didn't have her needs met, and there was a part of her that felt safer having the stuff. And so the answer is not to tell her to stop buying stuff or to shame her for that, but to say, how do we deal with the trauma that's causing you to not feel safe, to not feel enough, to not feel like your needs are going to be met? And really talk about the elephant in the room, which most of us just want to ignore, and slap a label on and say, Oh, they're hoarding. I'm sorry. You're looking at someone who went through a lot of trauma and she's doing what it takes to survive. No,

Lisa Beres 41:39

I want a minute cry that is so sad. And like, Yeah, let's all be compassionate for all of this stuff. You know? I mean, what do they say? Like, most people are suffering in some way, shape and form. People are going through a lot, and we don't know when we meet somebody, what's this? Quote, treat everyone you meet as if they're going through a harder time than you, or something like that, right? Compassion, like as a world, we need more compassion, period. Yeah. Well,

Ron Beres 42:04

one final question we're getting into the fall, you know, school starting, summer's ending. Give me tips and resources you can provide us and how we can get started to organize our life and get ready for the fall holiday season. Ooh,

Star Hansen 42:18

I love that. So the thing that I want you to think about as we go into the holiday season or back to school or whatever kind of fall brings for you, is the idea of setting yourself up for success by creating a home that serves you. So I like to curate my spaces so that when I have a need, that need has been thought through and met in advance. And so what you can do is go into each room of your home are the most important rooms I always say, Are your entryway, your laundry room, your kitchen, your bathroom, maybe. And say, what is the one thing that I really need in this space that I don't naturally have? And then make that need happen. So in the entry, for example, if you're always coming in with junk mail, have a trash bin in the entryway so you can toss that junk mail right away without putting it on your kitchen counter and integrating it with all the active stuff. If it's your bathroom and you feel like I really need to get a sunscreen that works for my whatever it is that you've been putting off that's making you have a layer of chaos, like a lot of people have 200 samples of things because they haven't fully committed. Go shopping and commit to one, find one, plan an hour of research and find the right one, so you can let go of all of those extras. They're just sitting there like little beacons of hope. If it's in your kitchen, same thing, what are you missing that is required there to make you feel most nourished and empowered, like if you have kids, do you need a little snack station in the pantry so that they can reach it and they can actually get their own snacks, rather than you having to do that domestic labor. If you're someone who, in the holiday season, like, really loves to have the cozy winter stuff, bring that stuff out. Like, meaning, if you're gonna have tea every single day, why don't you create a cute little tea station, so instead of having to dig through and pull out your three favorite mugs from your 20 million mugs that are in the closet, I already have one right set it up so it's adorable and feels cute. Like organizing needs to be a mix of function and beauty. It really should be a blend of both

Lisa Beres 44:08

beautiful, function and beauty, because you want to feel good when you walk around and look at your house, always right? So Ron, I know Ron hates the laundry pile, which is a never ending pile. And he's even said he thinks we're the reason he hates it. It's in the laundry room, but it, every time he goes in there, it drives him crazy, and it's exposed so it doesn't have a lid. So I said, maybe we need to get some container that has a lid, because I go run, it's always going to be there. There's always laundry, right? And you feel you like when there's no laundry, which is never and so do you think that's a good idea getting a bin that covers the laundry? Would that help?

Star Hansen 44:46

Or multiple bins? Like when I hear a pile of laundry that tells me that it all gets lumped in together and then sorted later, it's all kind of kept together. I don't care if you have 12 laundry bins, if you have 12 different categories, get 12 bins. Because what'll happen is, if you just toss stuff into the category and then you never have to go and categorize later, it'll be easier to do laundry. You won't avoid doing it as much. You can have lids on it. Absolutely, there's like a million options, but create the categories like, I'm someone who definitely has like, my delicates are together, my darks are together, my jeans are together and my whites are together. And other than that, I don't care. So I need four different sections for my laundry system for it to really function and not be a giant mass that I continue to avoid. So ask yourself what your main categories are, and then get containers for those categories so that you don't have the giant tile, right? Great tip.

Lisa Beres 45:36

Ron likes to throw everything in one. In fact, my hot pink tank top just, just turn the beautiful new white towels. I'm

Star Hansen 45:43

so sorry for your loss.

Ron Beres 45:45

I'm so sorry it was hidden inside a towel for that. Yeah, now pink,

Star Hansen 45:50

very Barbie, ask, very cute.

Lisa Beres 45:52

I was like, Ron, what this in here? It was just, you know, the mail. It's

Ron Beres 45:57

now my handyman towel.

Star Hansen 45:59

I am the worst, like, if I have a boyfriend who does my laundry, it hurts my teeth. Like my request is, don't touch my laundry. You're gonna dry this stuff. I know I hang dry, yes, the wrong way. I just I get annoyed. I'm like, don't waste your time or my energy doing it. I will do it myself. There have

Ron Beres 46:17

been times where something nice of Lisa's has fallen into the towels again, too, and the dryer. Or then, that's why I debate, I go tell her that it was dried in the dryer. Or do I just hang it

Lisa Beres 46:27

up? Yeah, sometimes they'll try to sneak

Star Hansen 46:29

she will know. We all know. We know, right,

Ron Beres 46:34

right? Or so I make it look like she did it. Oh, no, that was your right. Now the marriage

Star Hansen 46:39

crumbles apart. It's so hard. It's just hard. It's like, walk away from the shared laundry. It's so difficult.

Lisa Beres 46:47

It's difficult. And then men don't, I believe men don't like to read the tags, because don't we as women, just go, just read the tag. That's how you wash it. Ron's like, how does this get washed? I'm like, read the tag. That's what I do. I have to read the tags on everything. And he's like, but I appreciate you. I appreciate you doing the laundry often, often. So I'm no one to complain. I have a good thing.

Star Hansen 47:07

You need a laundry hamper of no touchy like everything else, but this is no Touchy,

Ron Beres 47:11

touchy, right? Fester.

Lisa Beres 47:13

We need a bigger laundry room. Okay, well, this was so amazing. Is there any last thing you want to leave listeners with that we

Star Hansen 47:20

didn't cover. Yes, I would love to gift your listeners a copy of my book. Why the f am I still not organized? And they can get that if they go to star hansen.com forward slash podcast, and that book will walk you through what your clutter means, where your clutter is, what's going on the blocks that stop you from getting it together. I dumped my entire heart out into this book because I wanted people to know how to find their way out of the clutter pattern.

Unknown Speaker 47:42

Oh, wow, beautiful. Well, you

Lisa Beres 47:44

are walking your soul's purpose, that is for sure. Yes, you are in alignment. Thank you so much for being with us, star,

Star Hansen 47:51

thank you for having me. This

Lisa Beres 47:52

was such a treat. This was so fun to learn more about Star and her decluttering services. Head to star Hansen, that's H, a n, s, e n.com, and we will put the link in the show notes

Ron Beres 48:04

absolutely and as always, head to healthyhomehacks.com for all the links and show notes, and be sure to subscribe to the show. It's an amazing show. Look at this interview, subscribe so you don't miss another episode, and get ready to up level your health. We greatly appreciate your support. Review us. Please give us five stars. Bye. Everyone, bye. Everyone,

Lisa Beres 48:23

happy decluttering.

Narrator 48:28

This episode of the Healthy Home hacks podcast has ended, but be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed of, and don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content. See you on the next episode you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai