The #1 reason you have clutter
I want to tell you something.
You are not alone. You are with me, reading this.
Hold that thought.
In a minute, we will talk about being alone and decluttering, but first we need to take a quick detour into marketing. ________________________________________________________________
Marketers pull subtle levers to convince you that you need buy what they are selling. I spent 15 years crafting stories around consumer behavior. Good marketing is intentional. It’s irresistible when done well. Even when you know it’s happening, you still can’t resist the pull.
Beauty companies sell transformation. Tech companies convince you they are the ultimate resource. The home organizing and storage industry sells control and containment.
It wants you to believe: If you could just get ahead of things, if you could just get everything under control with the right system, if you could just find the perfect holder for your life, all would be well in your world.
The marketing is working, because the industry is growing fast.*
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But here’s the thing, real decluttering and organizing is not actually about control and containment.
Most decluttering fails because it's predicated on control.
You buy organizers. You purge. You donate. A few months later, clutter returns. You buy more systems. You read more books. You hire professionals. Still, it piles up.
Here's why: You have clutter because you've stopped listening to your home.
Decluttering fails until you understand it's about connection, not control.
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When you learn to listen to your home, everything changes. You become free because a conversation begins.
"Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation," says poet David Whyte.
You are not alone. Your home is trying to help you. Isn’t that the coolest?!
If you want to know what your home is saying: Book a free Clarity Call. I created The Listening Method™ to teach you exactly this.
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And for you, who have read until the end, here’s the poem that started me thinking about all of this …
Everything is Waiting for You
by David Whyte
Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone. As if life were a progressive and cunning crime with no witness to the tiny hidden transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely, even you, at times, have felt the grand array; the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
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*Global Home Storage & Organization Market: Estimated at USD 46 billion in 2023, it is projected to reach USD 76.1 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 5.15%. Source
