How does clutter happen? What sets us apart from those who don't have clutter at all? Why is it that some people are more susceptible to clutter while others aren't? In this episode, I'm breaking down all the reasons why we become attached to our things and why the clutter starts to pile up.
Hey there, I'm Nicole from The Maximizing Momma, and I am obsessed with creating a home that gives me more peace of mind, more time to myself and more time with my kids. I teach you the tried and true secrets to clearing your clutter, getting organized, and managing your household in a realistic and sustainable way.
This show is where we talk about things like motherhood, decluttering, organizing, creating routines, mindset, energy, and everything in between. Our homes are the foundation for the rest of our lives, and it's so important to have a calm, relaxing household so you can have the time, the peace of mind, and the freedom to truly enjoy motherhood.
So sit back and get ready to take charge of your home.
Typically, when we hear about how clutter happens, we hear that it's due to a lack of storage space or even psychological reasons like those who are neurodivergent and struggled to keep their spaces neat and tidy, but keep in mind that those types of things that are getting left out when your struggling to keep your space neat and tidy, that's not clutter it's messes. It definitely looks cluttered and there will most likely be some true clutter hidden away behind the scenes. But for the most part, it's not clutter that's piling up, making your home look that way, it's just mess and things that are getting left out that needs to be put back where they belong.
But today I want to break down how the accumulated clutter happens, how the piles happen. And how we accumulate things over the years. Now before I get started. I want to add a disclaimer that I am not a doctor or a therapist and nothing in this episode should be substituted for professional medical advice.
As a decluttering coach and expert, I have mentored many people who have shared their stories with me, stories that are very similar to my own story. So I am simply sharing my knowledge of how clutter forms. So let's get right into it. Some people. Are simply emotionally attached to their things. If that's you, you might be super sentimental or nostalgic and have a hard time letting go of anything because you have attached a memory or an event to the objects in question. So your clutter could have formed because you're simply sentimental.
Whereas someone else may have had a huge life change or even a couple of them. The five major stressors in life are birth, death, divorce, a new job and a recent move. Those are all huge life changes. And any one of those things can contribute to clutter piling up. I have found that most people have experienced more than one major life change in a short period of time.
Right before I had to start decluttering, I experienced three in a one year time span. I gave birth to my youngest child. My mom passed away and then we moved into my late mother's home. So in that short amount of time, I acquired a lot of extra stuff when I inherited my late mother's home, which absolutely speaks to why I went from struggling with the basic messes to suddenly struggling with an overflowing amount of clutter, because I had had several major life changes.
Now not everyone circumstances are as drastic as mine. You may have simply birthed a child and felt like your house became a storage unit or maybe you lost a loved one and have had a hard time coping, which is totally normal. You may have started shopping to mask the grief, on top of inheriting, your loved one's belongings or as another example with di vorce, I am not divorced from my husband, but we have made the choice to separate. And that caused a lot of clutter to start piling up in my house at the first of this year. Because despite me seemingly being okay on the outside, internally, I was really struggling with managing my household and learning how to manage my household completely on my own, which caused the clutter to start the pile up. So as you can see, I can keep going on and on for all five of the major stressors in life, but every single one of them could lead to clutter forming. Now, alternatively, you may have had no huge recent life change. But for example, let's maybe when your kids were born, you may not have struggled with clutter at all, but then as the years passed, you started experiencing time management issues, meaning, it felt impossible to stay on top of the daily messes and keep the clutter at bay and manage your household effectively, which then led to the piles forming. That could have led to a feeling of despair or hopelessness, which could have then led to a feeling of almost giving up on your household because it seemed pointless anyway.
So the next way that clutter can happen is through time management issues. This typically shows up when we have not been taught how to manage our things effectively. And in my opinion, I feel like this type of time management clutter is almost always everyday messes and homeless clutter. There is rarely a whole lot of accumulated clutter.
Sometimes there is, but not a whole lot, which is great news because it means that you need to primarily focus on overhauling the messages and getting organized as opposed to letting go of a whole lot of stuff.
Another way that clutter can happen is through technical aspects. Meaning your house may just be too small or it could be a lack of storage solutions that you're struggling with, but either way, this is also good news because it'll be much easier, it may be much easier for you to declutter the excess stuff in your home. And then you can get really creative with organizing solutions to create more space where there previously was none.
And still another way the clutter can form is from psychological reasons. This could be depression, mental illness neurodivergence, a, disability, anxiety, obsessive disorders, or even personality disorders or anything along those lines. Or it could even be a lack of personal boundaries such as accepting unwanted gifts or shopping uncontrollably.
Here's the thing. Managing our homes and keeping them clean is definitely a form of self care. So if a psychological reason has caused the clutter to pile up the antidote is to improve your own wellbeing first.
Now another way that the clutter can form is when you simply were never taught how to let go of anything or how to manage your household as an adult. And when it comes to not being able to let go of anything or never learning how to declutter, I have found this is the case for many of us, because I share all the time, how, if you were born before 1990 or so your parents did not know that they needed to teach you how to declutter. So if you, as a child, never learned how to let go of your excess things that could have definitely led to clutter piling up in your home now that you are an adult. Now, in my experience, I have found that it is almost always a combination of one or more of these things. The clutter did not form just because you're sentimental or just because your house is too small, but more so it was a combination of one or more reasons. So you might have had no problem keeping the clutter at bay when you were single with no kids.
But then maybe you had a major life change when you became a mom which led to an increase in your belongings. And since you were never taught how to declutter, it feels impossible to stay on top of the clutter now. Or if you had a major life change when you became a mom and now you live in a small house, or now you have developed some type of physical health impairment or a chronic illness that has made it even harder for you to stay on top of the things. So again, as you can see, There could be several different things going on that has caused the clutter to form.
But there is also another reason why clutter happens. Trauma and adversity. I talk a lot about how I'm a type A person whose mom was a minimalist and how I used to be super organized. So what happened? What changed? Of course I had several major life changes within one year, a death, a birth, a move, and a chronic illness diagnosis. But my story goes much deeper than that. I have had a lot of trauma and adversity throughout my life that I will actually be sharing soon in a private podcast feed.
But the point that I want to make here today is that clutter is very strongly linked to trauma. And I'm going to be getting into exactly how this happens, but to be clear, I am not a trauma specialist. I do have a lot of personal trauma symptoms that I have experienced over the years, but everything that I share here today related to clutter and trauma is based on my own personal experiences, as well as the experiences of some of my clients, and what I have learned throughout the years. So I'm going to share a quick story with you. I want you to imagine a little girl who has experienced some childhood and teenage trauma. Maybe her parents divorced, maybe, maybe they were alcoholics, mentally ill or abusive or maybe she's gone through things far worse. Or maybe even her childhood trauma could be from bullying, from living in an unsafe neighborhood, oppressive systems or having inadequate resources. But as she grew up and moved out on her own, she struggled to manage her home for one reason or another. Maybe her parents never taught her how to clean her room or how to declutter her things.
But regardless of what she experienced as a child, As she became an adult, she developed an attachment to her belongings as a means of coping with the traumas that she had experienced. Now, this has almost always subconscious. We are not actively aware that we are becoming attached to our belongings until years or even decades later.
But now in hindsight, I bet you can look back and pinpoint when it started.
For me, I was 19. I moved out on my own, but I didn't want to get rid of the single thing. So I packed it all away in my mom's garage. Because I wanted to save all of it for one day when I was older and had my own kids. I mean, I was really going to save hundreds of Barbies for 10 plus years. So back to our story.
So this girl grew older during the rise of consumerism. She was encouraged to keep buying more while simultaneously never learning how to let go, as well as developing an attachment to her belongings. So what happened is she kept bringing more stuff into her home while holding on to everything and never letting anything go, leading to the amount of stuff in her home, multiplying by the thousands. She may have had a child or two, which only led to an even bigger increase in her belongings.
At this point, she could have taken several different paths to help her cope with the complexities of life and her past traumas like impulsive shopping, substance abuse, drinking, avoidance, sex, food or any other number of impulsive behaviors, but unfortunately, impulsive behaviors lead to unhappiness, depression and dissatisfaction, which only perpetuates more clutter. But at least one of those coping mechanisms likely sprung as a result of her past, which only increased the likelihood of clutter forming. And now at this current stage in her life, there is an overabundance of stuff that she needs to let go of.
So, as you can tell, throughout her younger years, there are many things that could have led to the clutter forming. And almost all of it can be related back to childhood trauma.
Not always, trauma is not the only culprit, but it is highly connected. So we either develop an attachment to our things, or we engage in impulsive behaviors as a means of coping with past traumas.
Now you might see yourself in some part of this story.
If so I want to take a moment to say that I see you. I know what it's like, because that story was me. And you're not alone. This is the story of a lot of people, specifically women who are struggling with clutter. Trauma, whether it's big T or little T trauma can affect the prefrontal cortex by inhibiting neurological development, which is our brain's ability to develop the pathways that are responsible for normal functioning. So basically, this part of our brain, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for executive function and our basic life skills. And scientists have found a link between how trauma affects the prefrontal cortex. Which means that trauma literally causes us to not be able to complete basic life skills that we would normally be able to, which could definitely speak to why it feels sometimes physically impossible to manage your home or handle the clutter in the piles and the messes.
And clutter can literally be the physical manifestation of our repressed emotions from our past. So basically we are accumulating things to fill the emotional holes from our past. And never letting go, never decluttering anything is a way to avoid dealing with those pains. So on that note, in a future episode, I will share what has been working for me to face those emotions and deal with those pains so I can be successful in decluttering things that I'm emotionally attached to.
But for now, if you have experienced some kind of trauma in your life, The chance was very likely that you would one day grow up and struggle with clutter as an adult. It has nothing to do with being naturally disorganized or being messy or lazy and everything to do with experiences that were outside of your control.
Now again, I have found that clutter almost always happens because of a combination of one or more of these things. You could be emotionally attached to your belongings. You could have had a huge life change such as a birth, a death, a move, a new job or a recent divorce. You could be struggling with time management issues or the inability to put things away when you're done using them, which almost always leads to everyday messes and homeless clutter, as opposed to accumulated clutter, that piles up.
Or it could be technical struggles and a lack of storage space. Or it could be psychological issues. Or trauma.
So that's really all that I have for you today. I wanted to share this episode and take you deep into how clutter happens. Because I want you to take charge of your home for good. I don't want you to clear the clutter and then have it all come back by the end of the year. The Take Charge of Your Home Show is about helping you ditch the clutter, get organized and maintain a peaceful home that you are proud to call your own. I have spent far too long, listening to decluttering advice that doesn't really solve the root problem. So you can definitely do the work to get your house looking neat and tidy. You could even let go of a lot of stuff. But in order to keep the clutter from coming back, the way to overcome the clutter and keep it at bay for good is to have a full understanding of what caused it in the first place. So, if you would like some more support with this topic, if you want to chat about what caused the clutter in your home and what you specifically need to do to tackle it, send me a DM on Instagram, because I would love to support you with this.
Thank you so much for being here. I will chat with you soon.
Thank you for listening to the Take Charge of Your Home Show. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any upcoming episodes. And if you're ready to ditch the clutter, overhaul the mess and tackle your home once and for all, join us inside the Declutter Studio, 30 day workshop and community where you'll find out exactly where to start decluttering and how to create a neat and tidy home by the end of June. This is a workshop you will not want to miss! Join us through the link in the show notes, and I'll see you in there.
