Full Life Update and Q+A： Dating, Sadness, Motivation and more!

Okay, well, there were a lot of questions submitted ahead of time, so this is meant to just be casual friend, catch up on lifetime, do the dishes, maybe go for a walk with me. But I did divide the questions into three different categories. I will do timestamps. I am guessing the dating category is probably of most interest, so I'll put that right at the beginning here, along with divorce update. So if you want to skip past that, please feel free to. Then I'll just talk about more normal life update stuff, like do you still have the tiny house and sending the kids back to school and then we'll answer some decluttering questions as well but hello it's so good to see you today and I just I always want to give the caveat anytime I talk about relationships or divorce or that kind of thing that this is never what I wanted this is never how I saw my life going and I do believe that I tried everything that I possibly could to make things work and so this is not what I imagined for this season of my life. So just so you know. Also, if you are newer, hi, I'm Dawn. I've been a minimalist for 10 years. I love talking about decluttering and simple living. I've gotten rid of now over 95% of my stuff and I don't miss any of it. And so I want you to be free from all your stuff as well. I think there's music that way. All right, we're going to go back this way. But anyways, we'll talk more decluttering at the end. But I did start my YouTube channel over eight years ago. And when I did, I was married. And again, I just never in a million years would have thought this would be my reality. But just for a frame of reference, we have been divorced coming up almost on two years now. And so as I talk about some of these things like dating or whatnot, just so you know, for a frame of reference, that's kind of like the timeline of where we're at right now. So I will answer the number one question that has come up and I asked her questions on Instagram. Are you dating? I hesitate to answer this just because I remember when I was young in my early 20s, like dating was fun. It was exciting. I mean, I say that all like, I feel very fortunate that I had good dating experiences and nothing like super negative ever happened. And I'll remember there was this guy. Well, so in my early 20s, I worked at a gym and as a server at Applebee's. And so I was just like around a lot of different people. I really appreciated that I got to experience them. and there was this one guy at the gym Jeff and he was kind of known to make the rounds at the gym you know and so when I started working there everyone's kind of like hey you know like he'll come on strong probably but like just beware right and so for the two years that I worked there I like I would be nice to him but I didn't really give him the the time of day and then there was this one time we were in one of the classrooms at the gym and he was joking that he was gonna lean in and kiss me and I'm like oh haha right and so he comes in and he does and he kisses me right on the lips and I'm like oh my god and he was like Donnie I thought you were gonna move you know and then and then he goes like around the gym like I just kissed Donnie whatever and again I can say that jokingly because I've never felt threatened in that way like there could be instances where it was truly playful and funny and I think that like really summed up my dating experience early on in my early 20s I enjoyed meeting different types of people I dated a few not a lot of people but I had different experiences and I just like really appreciated that right however fast forward now when you're dating when you're 43 and you have four kids and you have this experience behind you and your biggest fear is not getting tricked like not getting into a relationship where it seems really great in the beginning and then you find out like oh no and so it's amazing how you just look at it so much differently and I don't know should it be fun could it like are there fun aspects of it yes but I did commit like I wasn't gonna do the apps um no no shade to anyone who does do that I didn't think my emotional health could handle swiping or looking at profiles and trying to like be a detective and see you know if there's any signs I should be seeing or whatnot but yes I have been dating and it just feels stressful to me and so I don't know I'll share more about it as I go on but yes and yeah all right this one I've seen quite a few different versions of I lost so many friends and family members when I divorced how do you move past it I feel so alone I think that was probably one of the most discouraging parts for me was not only is your whole world getting upended and you know your marriage relationship is ending your life with your kids is changing so many things like every aspect of your life is changing every routine you used to have thing you used to do is changing and then friends who you thought were your ride or die that would be with you through thick or thin or anything then they ditch out on you if I had not experienced it myself I would have thought like no you got to be kidding right because I've heard this story from so many other women and like no they wouldn't do that why like in your time of need like when you need your friends the most they're just gonna leave you yeah and so I mean the only answer is to find new friends which is hard I did find that it was helpful to find a friend or two that was in a similar season of life who also was divorced just because they understand the nuances you know I still have my sister and another really good friend well two other good friends too that aren't divorced and they're incredibly encouraging and empathetic but I did find it helpful to find some friends who had been through it and understood all those aspects of it as well but um I did write letters I didn't send well one I did reach out to to try and and then it was ignored and so that made me feel worse about myself so I don't want to put myself out there like that anymore so anyways um it's definitely something to grieve and I just like want you to know you're not alone and also yeah I'm sorry like that really sucks all right the mosquitoes are actually getting kind of bad I'm gonna go find a place to sit for a minute all right next what have you learned about keeping a cordial relationship with an ex for the benefit of the kids I have learned that just like when you are in the relationship same thing when you're out and co-parenting you can only control yourself you can only control yourself and you're never going to be able to change them get them to do what you want so all you can do is conduct yourself in a way that you want to see your kids how you want them to see you you know commit to your own values around how you will and won't talk about them and and how you'll conduct yourself when they bring up things how how you'll respond um like oh that must have been difficult without putting the other person down you know i'll be honest sometimes i get a little frustrated when women sometimes i feel like they're a little arrogant like oh it's such a priority to me that i have a good co-parenting relationship and you know i i've really prioritized that i think every woman wants to have that and truly wants to do what is best for their kids and sometimes they have a partner that cooperates with that and wants that same thing and sometimes they don't and so in a perfect world well in a perfect world we won't even be in this situation but yes um you know this would be like a non-issue because we'd all just be doing what's best for the kids how do you handle criticism of others after divorce yeah i mean again it sucks because like you're going through the hardest thing of your life often you feel like you can't share all the gory details because you don't want it to get back to the kids you're trying to conduct yourself in a respectable way and you don't want to be that person and so it can be so frustrating at times saying like but you don't know the full story. You're making judgments. You're deciding on things without knowing the full story. And so really all I could do is distance myself from people if I felt like they weren't in my corner or if they were judging me or criticizing me. And again, find people who were safe and that I could trust But again, it's just like another aspect of things that you have to grieve along this whole journey. How do you stop getting sucked back in the cycle when hubby always hits below the dignity line. So the dignity line is a tool that I introduced a little while back talking about where is the line if you're trying to decipher leaving a relationship or not, which is a really big deal. It's a really big deal to leave your marriage relationship, right? And so I introduced this tool called the dignity line. I'll link to the videos and the resources on it. I really appreciate all of the positive feedback and encouragement around it. So basically meaning if your partner keeps falling below the line and not treating you well, meaning They don't respect you. They don't care about your feelings. They put their own feelings above their own. There's some entitlement maybe in there where they just expect you to do certain things or be a certain thing. And so how do you stop getting sucked back in this cycle when hubby always hits below the dignity line? What I think is really important for us to remember as women is that it's costly to push back. It's costly to push back. So if someone is doing something to you that is hurtful to you or offensive or disrespectful. Often when we go to stand up for ourselves and say, hey, that hurt. Hey, that bothered me. Hey, that stuck with me. I, you know, I'm not able just to blow past that. Not always, but a lot of the time we're told you're being too sensitive. You're having too high of expectations. Oh, that wasn't that big a deal. Or you aren't remembering it correctly. And so while I would often look back and be like, Dawn, why, why did you not hold your ground? Why didn't you hold your boundaries? You said this time it was going to be different. Like you weren't going to let that happen again. You weren't going to just let it blow past it and act like nothing happened. But the truth is, is that it's very costly. And when you're juggling everything else in life, like a household and working and kids, it's costly to pick these battles and to hold these boundaries when they're not being respected. And so I understand fully why we end up just tolerating it, looking past it because of the cost that's associated with it so there's nothing wrong with you again I know how hard I was on myself like come on have a little self-respect you know but then now that I learned this more that it was very costly for me to stand up for myself I have a lot more grace for myself and rather than trying to get them to change get them to stop treating you that way it can be more helpful to just go into data collecting mode okay I brought this up to them that was concerning me and this is how they responded and to look for the patterns that way and then decide what you want to do. You might get to a point where you decide to talk with them about it and say like, hey, I can't do this anymore. And again, then how do they respond? But really, I would go from trying to be so hard on yourself to hold the line and to try to get better outcomes with how they're teaching you, treating you to collecting data and looking for the patterns of how they're treating you and then using that to make an ultimate decision if you're able to stay in a relationship like that or not. Reconciling faith and divorce. This is, I remember asking Natalie, so Natalie from the Flying Free podcast and Sisterhood. So she has a membership for helping Christian women out of abusive relationships. I remember it was still before I got divorced, but I was like, Natalie, does it go hand in hand that when you're getting divorced, you also often end up totally deconstructing your faith? And she said, yes. And so I wouldn't look at this as a bad thing. In fact, many women are confronted with this, whether they're going through divorce, they've lost a loved one. Certainly when women, especially when you lose children or people that were just too young, it feels like terminal illnesses, other types of illnesses. Anytime it seems like there's injustice, right? It often causes us to examine our faith. And, you know, others will say, oh, that's what that my faith carried me through. And it was that I'm so happy for them. That's great. I love that for them. That was not my case, right? I had the people version of Christianity hurting me, right? I had the church while some facets were great, others were not. Then I had these big questions on myself for myself that I didn't feel like I was getting answers to. And so there was a lot tangled into it. And sometimes it can feel like, oh, well, other women, just weather this storm so gracefully and it strengthens their faith like what's wrong with me there's nothing wrong with you and in fact now on the other side of this my faith looks a whole lot different and people often say like your sister's a pastor so my twin sister Diana is yes she's a pastor she has a YouTube channel about all of this we don't have all the same beliefs on things that we used to and in some ways i've been able to teach her a lot and we've learned and had great conversations and some of her values have changed a little bit too now the more she's learned and been challenged on things but until you really do dig into your faith and figure out what you believe for yourself your faith's not your own anyways right so at least in the christian faith it seems like there's just a lot of uh faith by proxy oh that's what other people believe so that's what i'm gonna believe too right so i know i know how we fall into that but it is 100% okay to question things not now not be able to take things at face value to realize things you believed in the past like oh crud like i don't believe that anymore right anyways all that to say very normal and if at all possible embrace the journey how do you handle when your spouse treats you above the dignity line but not the kids i don't know about you but if someone's hurting my kids they're hurting me i mean i still bump into this right here's the problem if you see someone who treats some people this way and other people this way what's actually going on in the back of your brain is oh it's just a matter of time before they treat me that way too because really if someone doesn't respect all people then there will be get up be a point generally where you frustrate them or do something wrong or you fall out of their good graces and then now you find yourself on the receiving end of that as well I hate that I wish it weren't like that but that seems to be a pretty consistent pattern so I definitely think it's worth having conversations about and definitely collecting data and looking for patterns too. Were your parents and sisters supportive of divorce? Did they see red flags before you did? So they didn't see red flags because I did a very good job of covering it up. So no, they were shocked, but also supportive. So honestly, there is like hardly any divorce in my either sides of my family and so it really wasn't something that that was on anyone's radar so we were raised catholic and then we got into more of like a protestant christian faith um in our early 20s and you know god hates divorce right like you don't i i went into marriage thinking absolutely under no terms will i like ever ever ever if you have god and a praying wife every marriage has a hundred percent chance at success right and now i realize that's not true because you have two people with free will and you can't control other people. So how can you say there's 100% success rate? Like you need cooperation on both parties, right? And you can do it for a while and you can be hopeful and hope is what keeps us in it, right? I've seen the good things. I need more of the good, less of the bad. How do I draw that out? How do, you know, what do I do? I do, I do to bring out more of that, right? It doesn't, that doesn't work. I mean, for sometimes it does and then they change and that's awesome. I'm so happy about that. And also they don't, right? but anyways um so even though it wasn't something that any of us ever saw coming yes they were 100% supportive of me and I will forever ever ever be grateful for that I've said it before my parents are the coolest ever they welcomed me in with open arms the kids too uh we totally invaded their house for two years right and so I I will forever feel indebted to them for that and and I know not everyone has that luxury and that can make it a lot harder um can you recommend a best place website to go for info when in process of getting divorced so i don't know if you're um like actual like nitty-gritty divorce details i don't know i only have good recommendations for resources for handling like the emotional abuse side of it i just was introduced to a fantastic Instagram account and YouTube channel Dr Ruth so good like she is so articulate and she just gets it and she i don't know she's just able to put to words what so many of us have experienced and she actually talks a lot about how it's the hope hope keeps us stuck hope keeps us in it you think no hope is a good thing that well yes and no right except when we've overstayed and then we see these glimpses of like oh they did this or that and there there were these good things right like if we could just draw out the good. It's incredible. And so I love that about us as women. We're very empathetic. We do see the good things in people. We want to get plenty of chances. We want to make sure we explained everything and gave them chances and whatnot. And at the end of the day, again, we can only do so much. So I would highly recommend her account, but also Natalie from Flying Free. I just, I love how candid she is. She's real. She has awesome advice, great resources. So hands down, I would, I recommend her community all the time and greatly appreciate her and you know speaking of the dignity line there's actually a good question too about what if you treat yourself below the dignity line yeah a lot of us as women do that and so it's really something that we have to be aware of and i've been aware of this when i'm parenting now too because i'm like if i let them treat me below the dignity line in my own house I'm actually modeling to them that that's okay and like no that's not okay I that has actually helped to bring a lot of awareness to myself of like well they're watching how I'm allowing people to treat me I need to have these standards and so I do think it's just something that we have to be aware of catch ourselves not be too hard too hard on ourselves because often that negative self-talk and self-accusations and belittling is coming from somewhere right we've heard it somewhere else and so we've come by it pretty honestly unfortunately and so it's just something that takes some time and awareness and rewiring like all great things in life right um you know maybe having a friend that you can hold each other accountable with or whatever but definitely there's nothing wrong with you and maybe that's the theme of tonight's Q&A, is it common? There's nothing wrong with you and yay, more work that we get to do, right? But that's why we stick together, so anyways but yes, I don't think it's uncommon unfortunately, and I do think with a little awareness we can all work on it and gently start to redirect ourselves, okay so I think those are all of the relationship that kind of question so now I can just go into more of just like personal life updates kids going back to public school the tiny house that kind of stuff. Did your kids want to go back to school? or did you want them to struggling with teens yeah, it was kind of, you know, we started the kids started in public school we homeschooled uh we switched in 2020, last this past school year we two did homeschool two did public school online but we needed more structure, we have one that for sure would benefit from more social interaction one that could use more resources and just feeling like you know I wasn't able to do everything for him that he could really benefit from and then also me never have actually enjoyed homeschooling or felt like it was in my wheelhouse or something I was good at. Now don't get me wrong, I think we're all very competent women and we can learn anything if it's really important to us, but I now especially with them going into more high school and middle school it's just I'm not doing a good job with it and then especially splitting households So we're still straight up 50-50. And so it just felt like now's the right time They need more structure and everything. But I'm always committed to taking it one year at a time and deciding what is best for each child and our family and the current circumstances each year. And even now I'm telling the kids because there's kind of mixed feelings with it. I think they all actually have equal amounts of excitement and looking forward to it, uh, where they'll be going to school, they have some friends and stuff and then obviously just the unknown and the fears of that and so um yeah i just tell them like hey one year at a time right how do i declutter grief and sadness i will tell you i you know almost two years divorced now separated for multiple years before that i really thought like two years ago this time of year two years ago i was doing pretty good like i was getting away to those little cabins. I was journaling. I was walking, meeting with my therapist. I still meet with him regularly. And I was just like, okay, this all sucks a lot, but I got it. Right. And I shared it before. And you know, one of my more recent videos that, uh, I did not see a crash come in. Um, and now I just still feel a lot of sadness and just for so many things, I mean, grieving, you know every new season with the kids and different things brings up different things to grieve only having them half the time like I just never imagined that's what this would look like you know or this season in our life would look like there's just so many different aspects of it to grieve and I think I've been surprised how long this process has been and so I'm just trying to be really patient with myself there's days where it just makes me so tired and no energy and no motivation and I hate that and I just like oh I just want to get back to you know slay the day whatever right and so I'm really having to be very patient with myself and so um but how do I declutter grief and sadness I do think it's um finding people around you can trust and talk through I I'm not a writer but I did find journaling very helpful and I think giving yourself grace with this process but I'm sorry I will link to David Kessler he runs grief.com and they just did a workshop on like writing and journaling about your grief and just really cool testimonies out of that so I can link to that as well totally free you can go back and watch the replay let's lighten it up a little bit shall we so uh you have the perfect smile did you have braces I'm older and considering getting some yeah so both my twin sister Diana and I were born we were missing these two teeth and these two teeth in the middle on the bottom I've come from those of you who have heard my story that it's kind of common or not uncommon I guess so here's what I appreciate though my parents we grew up on a farm did not have extra like a lot of extra but they were so resourceful they never drew attention to it they never compared us to others like again mom you did such a good job like I really appreciate it and also they did prioritize getting us braces getting us bridges and all the things I mean they put a ton of money into our smiles so we had first round of braces in high school and then we got out and both Diana and I realized that to do like actual dental implants, we needed bigger spaces. Like the braces didn't give us big enough spaces. So then we had braces again and that, um, and more retainers with fake teeth on them, flippers. And if you watch my earlier YouTube videos, you'll notice they stick out a little bit. And I talk funny because they were on a retainer in my mouth. And then I don't know, four years ago, I guess I was able to get our dental insurance. Finally, we had been with them we always got it through Tom's employer and it would always switch by the time we got through the time period where pre-existing conditions would qualify so finally it was like all the stars aligned and i was able to get six crowns across the front here and diana has actual dental implants i never got that far and then when we got to there they're like i think crowns are going to give you a better more what you're looking for so it's all fake like my smile's all fake so these are crowns and then this is a bridge down on the bottom so i'm very grateful for that it's been lots and lots of money but it's hard i mean anyone knows right like i remember i would cover my smile like this because my teeth used to stick out and um and then we had gaps for a while and i would if i was going to smile i'd go like this right which sucks i'm a smiley person so i get it and I think there's many people have gotten adult braces as adults that are really glad that they did it's a cost investment right we're going through braces all the kids now and oh that kind of frustrates me sometimes but anyways what do you do to get yourself in a good headspace to parent hard situations yeah um i've been challenged more in the last couple of months again i kind of thought we would get through like the real rocky stuff and then we got into our house and i'm like all right we're gonna have some routine again things are just gonna chill out no no right i have never been challenged so much in my parenting I think my biggest thing is I am just learning to walk away and I have a rule I will speak to anyone who speaks respectfully to me and if I am not being spoken to respectfully I walk away then I'm sometimes accused of like not caring or mom just walks away when she and I'm like nope I just have for myself I only like allow people to talk to me respectfully and if not I remove myself from this situation and we've been talking I've actually been talking with the kids like how do we know what we can control and what what's outside of our control and I had Corbin and Gage sit on two chairs facing each other and just close enough and I was like all right Gage kick Corbin in the shin lightly like not hard right so Gage starts kind of like tapping Corbin on the leg right and then I'm like all right Corbin what can you do and he was like Gage please stop that I'm like you can you can try ask it nicely I think that's great what if Gage doesn't though? And he's like, I don't know, come get you. I'm like, I think you have one other option. He's like, what's that? I'm like, what if you just push your chair back and he can't reach you anymore? Right. And I'm like, what if we just really tried to look at what is in my control in any given situation? It's not always that simple, but a lot of times it actually is. So I'm trying to teach that and then also model it. I'm like, I will talk to anyone all day long if they talk to me respectfully. And if they want to problem solve and work through stuff, like I'm your woman if not sorry right but oh just yeah again I get it and I'm sorry and I'm told it won't always be this way so I'm really hanging on to that. Did you engage how many wild flowers pop up in your backyard no but luckily it's actually very pretty I don't know what these like wildflowers are back there they're probably all weeds so none of our flower seeds grew but it actually ended up still being very pretty so i am uh grateful for that this is interesting back-to-back Christmas questions not from the same person when do you start your christmas shopping and how many christmas gifts should i get each child so it's not too much or too little so we will do the five days to an organized christmas free workshop in october again that's generally when i start my it'll be like the third week in october and that's generally when i do start my christmas shopping as far as the number of gifts per child we recommend trying especially if you're just starting the scale down process if your kids are real little and they don't know any difference you can like go to zero but um if it's something you're introducing now we would recommend going down to like three and then considering going down from there but again we will do the workshop and that is absolutely 100 percent something we will talk about a lot because I feel very strongly about scaling back Christmas gifts. Do you still own the tiny house? Yes. So I just got it moved up to some land in Wisconsin on a river that I'm leasing. And it is really cool. It's not fully set up yet, but I will absolutely show it to you when we get it set up. It feels very surreal because I talk about those little cabins that I would go to just to get away, process, grieve all the things. And I just would always think like, I just wish I had something like this of my own and so that was part of the reason why I bought my tiny house I thought we were going to set it up kind of like that on my parents farm but then now it's kind of like hey if we could move it somewhere where we can all go you know we used to camp a lot I miss camping but this is a way like the kids and I can go up there kind of get the camping vibe have fires go kayak on the river and stuff parents can bring their camper up there's a spot there they can put their camper there's side-by-siding trails which my parents would like to do and we can all do together and so even though we won't like it's a little beyond camping I just I love being outside being in nature just that is my still absolute favorite thing and so I am really looking forward to that and I will definitely share more about it too. What do you do for self-care? Walking is my number one thing and I really learn for myself if I start feeling stressed sad anxious i'm ruminating running things in my head kids have stressed me out i just put on my walking shoes and i head out the door i said this on instagram today but my neighbors probably think i'm bizarre because i go out multiple times a day like literally if i start feeling agitated i'm like okay i just gotta go for a quick uh sometimes i'll just go around the block there's a little like pond with a path around it that i'll go around sometimes sometimes i listen to a podcast a lot of times i listen to nothing um especially if i'm needing to unwind sometimes I call Diana sometimes I'll Marco Polo with my friend Mary Beth walking is probably my number one form of self-care right now I could probably stand to expand my horizons in that I actually really enjoy my work though too and I do find that to be very restorative and enjoyable and feels uh like I don't know I just enjoy getting to be creative and to think of different ways to talk about minimalism and simple living and even right now like the kids are at a thing it. I didn't want to drive all the way back home and then come back and get them. So I'm like, all right, well, I'm just gonna hang out and answer questions and visit with you for a while. And this, I love this. It's, it's awesome. So I feel very grateful for that. I love learning new things. Actually, there's a question too, about like getting people to change. I have a new thing. I'm going to change it to share with you. I think it's kind of cool. And then this question too, which actually ties into it. How do you stay consistent in anything you do like walking? And so motivation is such a tricky thing. And if, if there's something you've been trying to do, and you can't like figure out how to make it stick or the motivation around it, I would say there's generally two things. One, like you just haven't found the right trigger for yourself. So even for me, I love walking, but there's still times where like it won't always be like my go-to. So I literally keep my walking shoes by the front door with socks by it. And I even noticed that if I just have a slip-on walking shoes that I'm going to stick my feet into, I'm more likely to put them on than the other pair i had that were actual the ones that you have to tie and i'm like this is like the silliest thing ever but if i just have to slip them on i'm more likely to do it and go so it's amazing sometimes just like the little things and figuring out for ourselves like oh what actually is the little thing that clicks for me but the other thing is often we need to invite someone else into it so some of us are intrinsically self-motivated others of us are accountable to others and there's nothing wrong with that and so that's where like I mean that is like the hugest strength of our membership community we do body doubling every single day three times a day and actually uh Zoe Kim is joining us next month and so um she's going to be on three days a week we're gonna do mom power hour to like just totally get stuff done and so Zoe is a minimalist she wrote minimalism family minimalism I'm gonna get it right and her blog is raising simple but she has four kids too anyways minimalist uh for a long time and so we're bringing her on a lot of us need outside motivation and it's amazing if you know a body doubling session is starting at 11 and there's gonna be people on and they're doing the same thing as you it's so fun like seeing all the stories and hearing like all the success of women are like it finally clicked and not only did it click and am I doing the things I always wanted to do I'm getting so much more done than I ever could have imagined and so don't underestimate the power of bringing others around you whether you have a friend you meet up and go walking with you talk on the phone while you're walking um you text pictures back and forth hey this is my goal for today like will you help hold me accountable but don't be so hard on yourself it just means you haven't found the right thing that motivates you that there's nothing wrong nothing wrong with you how do you manage screen time for the kids so i in my house i just do screen time windows so they get some time in the morning and then in the afternoons and i'm very grateful in my new house now I can actually turn off the internet on their devices in the middle of the day and so I like to just do windows of time when they can be on because then and I don't even tie it to chores or anything because I wasn't good at monitoring that like oh did you do your chores mom did you know can they be on it and they can't I'm like I can't like I'll tie chores to other things and whatnot and that's just a part of living in our house but I had to really simplify it for myself so I know from seven to nine you if I see someone on a device that's fine that's our you know screen time and then you know from 3 to 4 30 or whatever yep got it okay and then outside of that turn the internet off whatever and so that's been really helpful for me just so that I don't have to do a lot of close monitoring I can see like through the thing like any websites they go on and everything too but that has been the easiest most consistent way for me to be able to manage it okay um now we'll go into decluttering questions i'm like glistening it is very muggy right now in Minnesota but it's fine it'll be snowing before we know it so i'm not really complaining any tips for wanting to declutter when 39 weeks pregnant and 16 month old twins omg that is so much but i do get the nesting thing too i mean honestly i i wish you would just join us for our mom power hour coming up and it starts next week but i would just say go all in as much as are physically able to grab a black trash bag walk around your house throw stuff in the great thing is if you have 16 month old twins they don't know if you're throwing stuff away right i would be ruthless right now and get rid of as much as you physically can before the new baby comes because when a new baby comes you want to have a peaceful home like you want to have things in order i'll never forget when Adeline came home and she was colicky and we had like all the flowers from the hospital and cards and the gifts and they were out like on our table and our counter and I don't even know what got into me because I wasn't like a minimalist at that time I just remember like I got up when she was finally napping she like never slept during the day and I threw all the flowers away I even got rid of some of the vases that I didn't like I put all the gifts away and the cards and I'm like I'll figure out thank you notes later and I was like I just needed everything I'm like if I'm gonna be sitting on the couch like nursing and you know doing all these things like I just need it to be simple around me or whatever so anything you can do right now I think you have permission to to go all out on it how do you declutter when your spouse is a hoarder counseling okay so this is where I wanted to bring up this idea I literally was talking to my therapist today about this and it's called stages of change and so he was telling me about how they have studied people in addiction programs and and different things they looked at all the different types of therapy and behavioral therapies and whatnot and we're like what's the most effective and so they took all of this like data together to figure out like what is the most effective way to get people to change right you're gonna want do you want to hear this lean in for this right how do we get people to change okay so here's what they found they call it the stages of change and there are six of them but here's the part that kind of sucks so the first stage is i don't have it in front of me i should have printed it out but pre-contemplative and that's where you're starting to gain some awareness that maybe it might benefit you to maybe do a little changing in an area and then you have contemplative where you're like oh and you might be open-minded or willing to learn some more things about it the problem is in those first two stages you're not actually wanting to change yet it's not until the third stage where you actually start really taking it seriously and wanting to start learning and doing some things differently and so often we have gotten our values have changed we've started to experience differences with decluttering and simplifying we're like oh my gosh this is so good why would anybody not do it in fact it's actually easier than dieting and getting out of debt because you can see instant change right I didn't grab a black trash bag and make this room look better not perfect but better like pretty quickly so we're often in this like third and fourth stage right like we're rocking it and like this is awesome I want to bring others I want my spouse to get it I want my kids to get it I want my mom to get it my sister my neighbor whatever right and we're like why won't they change because they're still in those first two stages really they're not really interested in changing yet but you know what else is kind of interesting and discouraging a little bit is that when they have studied people that go into like treatment programs often the problem is is that two-thirds of people going in are still in one of those first two stages and I know my aunt you know she just passed away earlier this year she was only 53 struggled with drug addiction her whole life I can't remember exactly how many times she went to treatment but it was between five and seven. The problem was that most often it was court ordered. It was either go here, go to treatment or go to prison, right? Do this or don't get your kids anymore, right? And so she did. And I generally believe that there were parts of her that did want to and think it would benefit her to change, but it never stuck, right? And there's a lot of nuances to it. So I don't want to oversimplify it, but it was never under her own volition or her own desire to go to a treatment program. And so many of us have people around us who we would love to see improve their lives and you know, decluttering, weight loss, all kinds of things. And unfortunately, until they start to have some internal desire of their own, there's not a whole lot we can do. Now we can gently help raise awareness, share things we're experiencing and learning. I think anytime you can share your own experiences it's very helpful but we have to be careful because it can become judgy real quick and you know i've heard the quote before that unwanted advice is criticism and so we never i don't think want to appear to be critical or my hope with sharing this though is that it takes some of the pressure off of you because sometimes we think if i could just explain it right if i could just do that then i could get them to and that's just not how it actually works So I think you can share your experiences. But beyond that, there is a point where they have to want it for themselves as well. And I think that kind of ties into this other question, where to start decluttering mother of one with slight hoarding tendencies. Oh, you're a mother of one. At first I read it, I was wanting to help your mom. Okay. Okay, well, good. Let's talk about that. And then how to shift out of a poverty mindset when decluttering it on a tight budget, because I think they can go together. and so what I would recommend is that we have to build trust with ourselves because if we're fearful of letting stuff go because we might not be able to replace it again or something else we're going to need it in the future there's even one too about how to do declutter kids school artwork especially elementary work that can't be recreated once it's gone it's gone and so what we do is we build trust with ourselves decluttering has to feel safe and I wish there was just like one magical phrase we could say and they'd be like, Oh, I get it now. I love hearing Cass rant on poverty mindset. She's like, the money's already gone. You don't need it. You're not going to replace it. You'll feel better off having money in the bank. You know, not all this crap around you. And I agree with it. But unfortunately, a motivational speech gets us like this far. But our lived experience is what carries us through and is what is going to make it so we can keep going. We have to build trust with ourselves. And that comes by making a decluttering decision, letting something go, and then realizing nothing bad happened. And then I make another decluttering decision and nothing bad happened. And then another one and nothing bad happened. Now I'm going to get rid of two things. Okay. Nothing bad happened. I let go of some of the kids' artwork. Okay. I still have other artwork to remember their memories. And now I want to go from two bins down to one. Okay. I can do it, right? I'm starting to develop a track record that I am making good decluttering decisions. Now, what can help build this track record faster is to start with easy categories. And it's kind of different for all of us. So what's an easy category for you? Is it linens? Is it canned goods in your pantry? Is it, you know, camping gear that you know you're never actually going to use? And so if you can find a category of stuff that isn't as emotionally charged, that can be really helpful. But again, it's not glamorous, but you do have to just build up your decluttering muscles by making decisions and then seeing that nothing bad happens like that's that's literally disarming your brain because right now your brain is like oh no fear danger danger every time you go to declutter so we have to be like oh no brain like we're gonna make a new pattern here so it takes a little time I do think something like joining our membership community could help it go faster and help you develop that pattern faster because you're surrounded by women that are like oh yeah I got rid of that too and I don't miss it oh last summer when we were doing this i did this and it's awesome right and so there is something about that and hearing the success stories of others that can help build that quicker as well how to choose what to keep when moving i would if i could give any advice to anyone moving like only bring the bare minimum oh no i can't remember her name shoot christina she had a great video recently she moved condos and she kind of thought like similar square footage whatever and she was blown away that when they got into their new space things that worked in the old space don't things that fit in the old space don't i mean she was even like decluttering her socks because she's like they don't fit the same anymore right and so i i will link to her video i think it is worth watching but bring the bare minimum do not bring any just in case stuff if you did not use it in this house don't think moving it to another house is like oh but maybe we'll move use it there you will not use it there. You will not, not, not, not, you will not use it there. What is the difference between a clutter catcher and a time will tell bin? The only reason I like to separate them, I think of a time will tell bin as something I fill up with stuff and then set aside to see if I'm going to need it in the future. I recommend using time will tell bins with clothing, kitchen stuff, and kids toys. So fill them up, set them aside, see if you miss anything. The clutter catcher is more of an ongoing tool and it's just that basket I have that I just put random crap in all the time and then it's more of a like secular like i don't ever imagine as long as there's kids in my house not having a clutter catcher basket i have one for like general main living area stuff now and now i have one in our mudroom too and it's been so helpful i see the clutter catcher is just like an ongoing thing where the time will tell bins i see as more of a contained time test it collect the data and then see if you can just get rid of the whole bin uh usually it's like one category or type of stuff in it. How can you declutter while grieving a fresh loss of a loved one? Yeah that's really difficult and I don't know that you want to rush into it and so I do think especially what I've learned from other women in our membership is that again there might be certain categories of their stuff that doesn't feel very emotionally charged and then other things that do and so if you can let clothing go or certain things great but then maybe something they had a collection of her hobbies, not so much. And so I think you just have to be really in tuned with yourself, not rush the process. And also it can be very helpful when you do are like, yeah, I want to attempt it to have someone else there with you. A lot of times, just being able to tell the story one last time then allows it where you'll feel more comfortable letting it go. And so I wouldn't rush the process. And I do think having someone else around you can be really helpful. First, how are you? Okay. And then second, how to bring decluttering to minimalism I can't quite seem to get there and so I think when you've been decluttering for a while and then you want to go further deeper we change the question our initial decluttering is often just like am I using it did I use it today or this week right do I use it daily weekly monthly and if not okay let's let it go and then the question changes to but could I live without it but could I live without it and that's where the real magic starts to happen and again it's building this track record with yourself of realizing like oh if I don't have just the right thing that I you know need for this task I just use something else I go without it I am just enjoying so much having so little to manage that I don't mind being inconvenienced a little bit here or there I mean in my house now again I can't believe it what I don't know what month is it have we been there six months we have such low inventory still and it is so rare that I'm like oh I need this and we don't have it oh I wish we had that like it hardly ever happens at all at all and it's been mind-blowing to me because I lived pretty simply before and now to be living even more simply and still not miss anything I was like I'm like oh this is awesome and it's so freeing and especially when I'm in a season where I'm grieving I'm navigating tough things with the kids still doing this someone asked like I haven't seen you on Instagram where have you been clutter camp and writing a book like which is fine it's gonna be good uh but and clutter camp has been awesome inside of our membership community and again if you come in in august we're doing mom power hour during body doubling uh but also paper and you don't have to be a mom to be in our group we have lots of women in all seasons and stages of life kids no kids empty nesters full nesters whatever but we're also going all in on paper clutter in august as well so not too late to join in our whole group is just secular we just go through all the same things over and over again you're ever behind it's awesome and super friendly and nice but nonetheless I've been especially grateful in this season to have so little to manage so little to manage and it really has been such a gift and again it still continually surprises me how I don't miss the stuff I don't want it if anything I feel a bit of fear of like stuff creeping back in I'm like no no I don't want it you know and so I'm like okay don't chill out like it was fine so anyways yeah it's been I'm I'm really grateful for that experience because now I can wholeheartedly encourage you like oh you can go further. You're not going to miss it. And that's what I hear from everyone. I've never, I've yet to hear a woman like, Dawn, I decluttered my house and now I want my stuff back. You know, one item here or there, but like the, all the stuff, no, never says no one ever. Right. And so borrow our confidence, keep, keep going, building trust with yourself. And man, there's so much freedom, so much freedom. It's awesome. I think that is most of them for now. I appreciate all of that just like no question just like thank you and I'll let you do and how am I like I am I'm good and still sad a lot of times and also good and so I don't regret any of my decisions that have led me to here there's been a lot of up and downs there's been a lot of crappy things there's also been a lot of good things there's been a lot of people that have been really awesome too that's life I think right like that's kind of life in a nutshell right so I am so grateful for you and all of your support and kindness and everything I mean I in so many ways I feel so fortunate and I am and this and getting to do this just is so cool so thank you I really sincerely appreciate you and um I hope I can continue to support you too and to help you get your house decluttered so if you haven't done so I hope you subscribe um I will link to our form our playlist of long format decluttering videos uh I hear they're great to put on in the background again to remind you why we're getting rid of perfectly good things right but yeah I hope I'm gonna link to those dignity line resources because we all deserve to be treated with dignity and so I really want that for you I love you I hope you have a really good day and I'll see you again soon oh and you can find me on instagram sometimes