Have you ever dreamed of creating a space just for YOU? This is your episode! Today Kathi Lipp is joined by fellow book lover Amy Betters-Midtvedt. On the daily, Amy uses humor to share her expertise in all things home and parenting but today, they talk about decluttering to create a sacred space. For Amy, it’s for her beloved books. Listen in as Kathi and Amy discuss:
Managing the push and pull of deciding what stays and what goes
The benefit of having a reward at the end of your project
Longing for a place of peace from which you can love others well? The Clutter-Free Home is your room-by-room guide to decluttering, reclaiming, and celebrating every space of your home.
Let author Kathi Lipp (who once lived a life buried in clutter) walk you through each room of your house to create organizational zones that are not only functional and practical but create places of peace that reflect your personality. Kathi will help you tackle the four-step process of dedicate, decide, declutter and “do-your-thing” to reveal the home you’ve always dreamed of, and then transform it into a haven that reflects who you truly are meant to be.
If you’re also feeling overwhelmed by the care and upkeep of all the stuff under your feet or sense that your home is running you, instead of the other way around, come discover how to create a space that doesn’t have to be showroom perfect to be perfect for you and the people you love. life. Order your copy of The Clutter Free Home here.
Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.
Meet Our Guest
Amy Betters-Midtvedt
Amy Betters-Midtvedt is a writer, educator and mom of 5. Her passions include piling on the couch with her family to binge watch the Office, buying all the books she possibly can, trying to finish a conversation with her husband without being interrupted and writing to help people find the joy in their everyday lives.
Sorting and shifting through a life time of memories and mementos can be emotionally and physically overwhelming for our parents and older relatives. But space is a finite resource. So how can we best start this process of helping our parents or older relatives declutter? In Part 2 of this two part series our host Kathi Lipp and her co-conspirator in decluttering Tonya Kubo discuss Korean food and simple, stress relieving strategies to help your parent or older relative declutter such as:
Defining the three options for decluttering help
Documenting the process to record their memories?
What to do when they want you to take some mementos home with you. Be prepared, they WILL want you to take some mementos home with you!
Kathi and Tonya provide a variety of tips and techniques in this episode. Listen in and discover hope and help for the parent, older relative, and you on this clutter free journey.
The Clutter-Free Home: Making Room for Your Life
When it comes to your home, peace is possible…
Longing for a place of peace from which you can love others well? The Clutter-Free Home is your room-by-room guide to decluttering, reclaiming, and celebrating every space of your home.
Let author Kathi Lipp (who once lived a life buried in clutter) walk you through each room of your house to create organizational zones that are not only functional and practical but create places of peace that reflect your personality. Kathi will help you tackle the four-step process of dedicate, decide, declutter and “do-your-thing” to reveal the home you’ve always dreamed of, and then transform it into a haven that reflects who you truly are meant to be.
If you’re also feeling overwhelmed by the care and upkeep of all the stuff under your feet or sense that your home is running you, instead of the other way around, come discover how to create a space that doesn’t have to be showroom perfect to be perfect for you and the people you love. Order your copy of The Clutter Free Home here.
Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.
Meet Our Guest
Tonya Kubo
Tonya Kubo is the illustrious and fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and the Clutter Free for Life membership program. A speaker and writer, Tonya makes her home in the heart of California with her husband, Brian, their two spirited daughters, and one very tolerant cat.
Has this happened to you yet? A parent or older relative asks for help decluttering their space. Do they really want help? Are they telling you what they think you want to hear? Having a parent or older relative who needs to declutter is an acute pain point. Kathi Lipp and her guest know this pain far to well. Listen in as Kathi and Clutter Free Academy Facebook Group guru Tonya Kubo discuss those questions as well as:
Why do they ask their children instead of a friend to help declutter?
What are they actually asking for when they say declutter?
Is it okay to let people live the way they want, baring a safety issue?
Kathi and Tonya admit to opening a can of worms in Part 1 of this two part series but they do not leave us empty handed. They provide some practical tips to starting the decluttering process with older relatives and parents to tide us over until Part 2.
The Clutter-Free Home: Making Room for Your Life
When it comes to your home, peace is possible…
Longing for a place of peace from which you can love others well? The Clutter-Free Home is your room-by-room guide to decluttering, reclaiming, and celebrating every space of your home.
Let author Kathi Lipp (who once lived a life buried in clutter) walk you through each room of your house to create organizational zones that are not only functional and practical but create places of peace that reflect your personality. Kathi will help you tackle the four-step process of dedicate, decide, declutter and “do-your-thing” to reveal the home you’ve always dreamed of, and then transform it into a haven that reflects who you truly are meant to be.
If you’re also feeling overwhelmed by the care and upkeep of all the stuff under your feet or sense that your home is running you, instead of the other way around, come discover how to create a space that doesn’t have to be showroom perfect to be perfect for you and the people you love. Order your copy of The Clutter Free Home here.
Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.
Meet Our Guest
Tonya Kubo
Tonya Kubo is the illustrious and fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter Free Academy Facebook group and the Clutter Free for Life membership program. A speaker and writer, Tonya makes her home in the heart of California with her husband, Brian, their two spirited daughters, and one very tolerant cat.
What do eating green bananas and decluttering have in common? More than one would think! Join Kathi Lipp and writer, educator, and fellow recovering green banana eater Amy Betters-Midtvedt as they laugh and discuss their way through topics such as:
How to figure out what we like and not settle all the time.
How to not get stuck in a poverty mindset.
Why it’s okay to order an ice cream sundae just for yourself!
And as promised by Kathi in the episode, here’s a copy of Amy’s Green Banana Article for your enjoyment and edification.
There was a time I just ate bananas. Like any banana. I’d buy them put them in my lunch and eat them. Green, light green, yellow, brown I didn’t pay much attention. Then one day I was driving to my awesome college job at Gap kids, and I took a bite of my greenish banana. I realized it wasn’t good. As a matter of fact every time I ate a greenish banana I didn’t really like it. Suddenly I realized I didn’t like green bananas. And I didn’t have to eat any banana I didn’t like. I was a legit grown up I could pick the color of bananas I would eat. I rolled down my window and SPIT OUT the gross banana in my mouth and to this day I’ve never eaten a banana with a grace of green. Life is too short for green bananas. This life lesson has served me well in a million areas of my life. With friendships, jobs, picking out jeans and how I spend my time on a Saturday. The applications are endless. Tonight I share this lesson with you. You don’t have to eat green bananas either my friends. Only eat bananas you really enjoy. Pass it on.
The Clutter-Free Home: Making Room for Your Life
Longing for a place of peace from which you can love others well? The Clutter-Free Home is your room-by-room guide to decluttering, reclaiming, and celebrating every space of your home.
Let author Kathi Lipp (who once lived a life buried in clutter) walk you through each room of your house to create organizational zones that are not only functional and practical but create places of peace that reflect your personality. Kathi will help you tackle the four-step process of dedicate, decide, declutter and “do-your-thing” to reveal the home you’ve always dreamed of, and then transform it into a haven that reflects who you truly are meant to be.
If you’re also feeling overwhelmed by the care and upkeep of all the stuff under your feet or sense that your home is running you, instead of the other way around, come discover how to create a space that doesn’t have to be showroom perfect to be perfect for you and the people you love. life. Order your copy of The Clutter Free Home here.
Leave an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one.
Subscribe on iTunes or subscribe to our newsletter now.
Meet Our Guest
Amy Betters-Midtvedt
Amy Betters-Midtvedt is a writer, educator and mom of 5. Her passions include piling on the couch with her family to binge watch the Office, buying all the books she possibly can, trying to finish a conversation with her husband without being interrupted and writing to help people find the joy in their everyday lives.
Looking at photos of my mom’s house creates a conflict of emotions. On one hand, I think, “Oh…that’s where that yearbook went,” and then on the other, I gasp, “Did we really live like that?”
The answer is yes. Yes, we did. Though my mother’s home got worse after I moved out in 1995 and even worse than that when I stopped visiting her home in 1997, it wasn’t beyond recognition when I walked through the front door after her death in 2015.
This is life when you love a hoarder.
Hoarding comes up frequently over in our Clutter Free Academy Facebook group. We attract people who love hoarders and want to help them, and we attract people who identify as hoarders. As the kindest corner of the internet, we love every single one of them in our shame-free zone. Our recent two-part podcast, “Is It Hoarding or is it Clutter?” (listen to Part 1 and Part 2) debunks common myths around hoarding.
Hoarding isn’t about organization or cleaning, and it’s not about laziness. It’s a mental health disorder that comes in varying degrees. The thought or act of getting rid of saved items causes great distress to people with hoarding disorder. And the thought and act of living with people who have this persistent inability to discard possessions, regardless of value, causes great distress to the rest of us.
Loving a hoarder is not an easy life, but neither is being a hoarder.
Most of us are not equipped to help the hoarders we love. That requires the intervention of professionals. The International OCD Foundation estimates 1 in 50 Americans falls somewhere on the hoarding scale but only 15% will ever seek professional help. That doesn’t mean all hope is lost, but it does mean we have to be strategic in helping the hoarders we love. Here are my personal tips:
We can educate ourselves
The International OCD Foundation’s Hoarding Center offers a helpful and effective Clutter Image Scale that helps to identify hoarding vs. clutter. When I discovered Kathi’s book, Clutter Free, most of my house fell in the 2-3 range on this scale. One room was a 4. My mom’s home, on the other hand, was an 8 all the way.
We can set boundaries
Due to the obsessive-compulsive nature of hoarding disorder, removing things from a hoarder’s home without their consent or cleaning up after them causes more harm than good. The hoarder can become agitated, angry and might distance themselves. However, you can set limits. My mom wouldn’t allow me or anyone to visit but she often brought her stuff into my home and would try to leave it. We had to make a rule that whatever she brought had to leave with her, and it was a battle we fought till the end of her life.
We can encourage
Understanding that even a single bag of trash can be overwhelming for a hoarder, we can celebrate any level of progress they make and encourage them further. We can listen without judgement, and we can support their efforts at getting help.
We can get help for ourselves
We can seek the help of a therapist or counselor in working through our own emotions and challenges of loving a hoarder. There are also organizations that exist to support those who love or live with hoarders. Children of Hoarders is a nonprofit with a wealth of online resources that apply to anyone with a hoarder in their life.
We can plan ahead
That means those of us who love hoarders need to prepare for what we will inherit when they die. I knew I’d need help with my mom’s house and had started saving for it. Her death came sooner than expected but the mental preparation helped me handle the burden of settling her affairs while grieving her death. Aftermath Services specializes in hoarding clean-up. It took me two hours of phone calls and internet searches to find them, but they had my mom’s home cleaned and sanitized in six hours. The relief they brought to me in my time of grief is priceless.
Tonya Kubo
Tonya Kubo is the illustrious, fearless leader of Kathi Lipp’s Clutter-Free Academy Facebook group. A specialist in online community design and development, Tonya helps business owners growing free and paid groups that get results. Visit her at TonyaKubo.com.
Categories
Archives
When it comes to your home, peace is possible…
Kickstart to Clutter Free
You can be free from Clutter once and for all. Get the Kickstart to Clutter Free eCourse today.
