47: Best of Gentle Organizing with Alison Lush

Do you have too much stuff? As you look around your home, is it crowded and cluttered? Does your space make you feel burdened, unhappy, and frustrated? If you said–or shouted–YES, you can’t miss today’s show. Join me to learn more about gentle organizing.

Alison Lush is a Certified Professional Organizer, Certified Virtual Organizer, and Master Trainer. After a 20-year catering career, Alison knew she needed better organization and management skills for her home and personal comfort. She learned to live and shop intentionally, creating and protecting the space in her home. Now she puts her expertise to work in helping others by empowering them and teaching them to put themselves at the center of their organization efforts.

Show Highlights:

How Alison became an organizer with a gentle spirit
Why our interactions with our home, space, time, and belongings form the foundations of our lives
Why Alison’s focus is on “organic organizing”
Alison’s answer to a question sent in by Samantha about dealing with clutter, letting things go, and the functionality of her space
How to organize your space by using Zone 1, Zone 2, and Zone 3—and consider the frequency of access for each item
Ways to keep, honor, and display memorabilia by identifying the risk level in letting items go
How to consider the purpose of items in our lives in deciding to keep them or let them go
Alison’s answer to a question from Kitty about decorating, a sense of style, and learning to feel good about her space
How to reframe what might look crappy and rundown to you as a life well-lived, meaningful, and full of love
Why your decor should fuel you and recharge your batteries
Alison’s answer to a question from Aria about separating and managing work life and home life
How to legitimize, categorize, and systemize your space for the best functionality
Why the professional organizing industry has the reputation of telling people to “just get rid of your stuff”

Resources:

Connect with Alison: www.alisonlush.ca and TikTok

Connect with KC: TikTok and Instagram

Get KC's Book, How to Keep House While Drowning

KC Davis 0:05
Hello sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to struggle care. I'm your host, KC Davis. And I'm taking a break this August, but I'm replaying for years some of my most downloaded episodes. And today we're going to talk about professional organizing. Doesn't it feel like something that only really rich people who have their life together do? Well, it's not. And I want to talk today about that with Allison lash. Since 2010, she has been studying everything related to how we manage our belongings, ideas about what we need acquisition, ownership, organization, lifestyle habits, decision making emotional attachments, and letting go. She is a professional organizer that certified in chronic disorganization, she brings a person centered approach to organizing, and it's really a different take on organizing than I've ever heard before. So if you're someone who struggles in your home, and you really wish that you could be a little more organized, but you need a gentle approach, this is for you, grab a drink of water, take your meds and take care of yourself. Well, I can't tell you how excited I am to have you on today. Because when I started my tic toc channel and I started talking about you know, cleaning being morally neutral and having your home serve you and not the other way around. I remember stumbling on your content, and being like, oh shit, she gets it like this is someone who I could totally see, I would invite her in to organize my home and you just had such a kind and gentle presence. And I feel like that is not something that I see a lot in organizers like usually you think of, you know, Personal Organizer, or professional organizer as someone who is like, let's get it. Let's go. You know, we're going to organize these books into rainbow color. And you but you just had such a different presence. And I wondered if you could talk just a minute about you know, how did you get that way?

Alison Lush 1:52
Well, I have to start by saying I'm going to take a little pause here and say I'm absolutely thrilled to be here. I am a massive big fan of yours. And I send everybody to your page, I say if you're following me, you have to be following KC. She is the bom b. There's it's amazing of the voice that you've created in the platform you've created. And I'm so grateful for your presence on social media, because people obviously need to hear what you are saying. And you add weight and volume to what I'm saying. So I want to say thank you and congratulations, just need to get it's really important to honor what you've done. It's tremendous amount of work. So oh well, it's all very true. I'm so thrilled that we found each other how did I get to where I am the short story because people can read a little bit about my background on my website, I don't let's not waste time getting into that I fell into the world of professional organizing. And I landed quite quickly in 2010 in a school, a professional school for professional organizers called the Institute for challenging disorganization. And I just felt comfortable there that's like those people, they just resonated with me in the way that they were talking. It's like I wanted to buddy up with them. And I wanted to invite them into my home, the vibe was just like all about where I felt comfortable. And the way I describe it today, my industry is that there's a spectrum. And on one end of the spectrum are people like me, and on the other end of the spectrum are people who are mad crazy about organizing the stuff. And there is nothing wrong with that. Because there are clients who want that there are clients, that's all they want come and make my house pretty. And that's what I want. And because that's a it's an open market, and there's people who need that the fact that organizers specialize in that more power to them. But there's this other end of the spectrum where what I'm focusing on is people, I'm not really very concerned about the books and about the boxes, and about the cups and all that stuff. What I'm concerned about is the person and how they feel in their home. Does the person feel okay in their home? Do they feel comfortable in their home? Do they feel functional in their home, because if we don't feel good in our home, that launches us for the whole rest of our life. And it impacts on how we can accomplish whatever it is we want to accomplish in our lives. Whether we're a full time parent or working full time, or volunteering, or we're retired and just wanting to have you know, spend time doing record doesn't matter what we're trying to do in our life, our home, and the way we interact with our home and our belongings and our stuff and our space and our time. The way we manage that is our foundation for the rest of our life. So the better we manage those things, the better able we are to accomplish our goals in life, which is what is the target?

KC Davis 4:32
I feel like that's where you and I really resonated with each other was that we're both focusing on a person's relationship to their space, right, not just their performance in their space or the aesthetics of their space, but that the real work and the real reward is the relationship to their space.

Alison Lush 4:53
And the measure that I use to identify where are the issues is literally how do you feel like I see the way your desk is you showed me a picture of your desk? I don't have any judgment about that. I don't care if it's piled up to the ceiling. My question is, how do you feel about your desk? If you feel fine about your desk, and it's working for you, let's talk about something else. If you're unhappy about your desk, and it's causing you problems, do you want to talk about it? Do you want to talk about it? Because even if it's a problem for the person, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're ready or willing or able to deal with it?

KC Davis 5:26
Yes. And if you push that, they're more likely to kind of go to this protective space, where they're not going to be honest, are not going to be open, they're not going to call you back for the second session. And, you know, what you're describing about, you know, does it bother you is similar to when I talk about, you know, does it work, that's all it does it function. And that changes over a lifetime to because I'm someone who has almost always function just fine with clothes strewn about the floor, and dishes being done every three days. And you know, nothing really having a a formal organization. But I always kind of knew where everything was, that worked. For me for most of my life, it really wasn't until I had my second kid, that all of a sudden, those sort of pseudo systems began to sort of grown under the weight of the extra family labor. And that's when you know, my platform launched was me going, Oh, my God, I have to go back to the drawing board. Like I have to figure out some new ways existing in this space, because things that were working are now not working.

Alison Lush 6:26
The way that that shows up in my work is what I say to people is organizing should be organic. Our lives are changing all the time, the things that we own are changing all the time, our interests, and habits and lifestyle and daily routines are changing all the time. And so if we focus on the stuff in the space, we're only dealing with today's problem, what about next year, what about two years from now, so what I try to focus on is the human being and their understanding of themselves because they carry themselves in where whatever situation they're in whatever time they're in, whatever needs they're in, they carry themselves. So if they can focus on their own understanding and their skills, they carry that wherever they go, and it empowers them to be able to face whatever challenges they have in the future. I don't want people hiring me now to organize their cupboard. And then for them to have to organize hire me again next year, when they change what's in the cupboard. I want them to be able to organize their cupboard next year.

KC Davis 7:20
Yes, that's awesome. Okay, I feel like we could talk forever. But I really want to get into some of these questions. Because I've had people writing in, and I picked out a few that I felt like it'd be really good for us to talk about, and here we go. So this is from Samantha, and she says, I grew up moving around. And I have a lot of emotional issues and shame around resisting getting rid of stuff and decluttering. But I also have ADHD, and I feel overwhelmed by the clutter and an effects by functionality, any tips, both in terms of practicality, so ways to make it easier to let go of things I need to let go of. And in terms of philosophy, your mess is morally neutral mantra has already been such a difference. So I love this question. I feel like this is right up your alley. And I would love to hear your thoughts.

Alison Lush 8:04
It touches on a couple of really big issues. What is the meaning of our stuff? How does our physical stuff from our past add value to our life today? So there's our memorabilia type stuff. And then there's the stuff we're actually using today? And how do they actually live in our physical space. I encourage people to develop a personalized environment so that they have what they need. So if they need it in front of their face, it's in front of their face, if they need peace and quiet in front of their face. That's what they have. So it I encourage everybody to look inside pay attention to how you respond to your space. Does it help you and make you feel calmer? When you can see all your stuff? Or does it make you feel calmer when you can't see all your stuff? For example, that's the first thing are you hypo visually sensitive or hyper visually sensitive. And the same thing with space and with touch, if we can pay attention to how we react physically, personally to everything around us, we gather information that helps us therefore create personalized solutions. So that's one element. Second of all, the ADHD thing is a whole package unto itself. And there are so many specialists who talk specifically about ADHD, I talk about it a little bit on my platform, but not because there's so many people out there who that's all they talk about, I tend to defer to them. It is a personal path. And it's real. And it affects the way that a person interacts with their space and their time and their focus and their attention. And learning about yourself is the number one powerhouse thing that you can do and it will change over time. So this year, whatever you learn about yourself and your ADHD, it could be different six months from now or two years from now be ready for paying attention to change.

KC Davis 9:45
So she says she grew up moving around and that gave her a lot of emotional issues about getting rid of things.

Alison Lush 9:51
Right. So that's an issue that is like a really big topic of conversation on my page because I hear and I see people and the issue of shame and expectations and judgment. And I think that our society in general does us a tremendous disservice by setting up this notion that life is supposed to be like anything specific. It's supposed to be like this for all of us. I reject that. And I encourage everybody to reject that. I don't think it helps us, I think what helps us is to figure out what works for us. So when people come to me, and they say, I have all of this stuff, and I don't know if I should be keeping it or not, I ask them digging it, we delve down, we dig down and ask questions about what value is it adding to your life isn't actually adding value to your life? That's really super important. The second question is, what is it costing you? Does it cost you anxiety and stress every single month that you've got those 12 boxes of memorabilia sitting there? Or are they just sitting there and they're not bothering you at all? So the more we can get clear about the costs of holding the stuff and the benefits of owning the stuff, the more it helps massage us towards finding our own personal answer of just to what extent it's problematic to be owning that stuff. Because we, I do not believe that we should be allowing other people to be pressuring us to get rid of our stuff. That's not an answer, that's helpful. It's just not,

KC Davis 11:16
I kind of love where you're going with this, because that's where I always start with people too. Because we do have these sort of external ideas. You know, like, minimalism is really big right now. And people talking about, you know, you just you have to have a peaceful space, but they're sort of saying that the only way to have a peaceful space is to have a minimalist space. And so I do think there are people out there thinking, Oh, I've got to declutter, I've got to declutter. But you know, if you jump right to teaching them how to declutter, you can sometimes miss what you're talking about, which is, is this even a problem? Exactly. Some people love to have their stuff around them, some people have a peaceful place. So I want to give kudos to Samantha because she was able to say that she feels overwhelmed. And it affects her functionality. So she's kind of got that piece. But But you're so right. And that's why I really want to encourage people to always start with the functionality like is it working? Is it even a problem that you don't ever called your laundry? Is it even a problem that you do your dishes every three days? Is it really affecting you? Or are you going off of some external messaging about how your house should run

Alison Lush 12:23
100% could not agree more.

KC Davis 12:25
So if Samantha says to you, you ask her these questions, she says, Yes, it is actually a problem, it actually affects my functioning. And I would like to get rid of some of these things. But I don't even know where to start.

Alison Lush 12:36
It depends on what kinds of things we're talking about. One of the cores, elements of the work that I do with clients is I talk about Zone One, two, and three. And I find that this is a concept that is almost universally helpful for people to think about, I talked about in terms of the human being as being zone one, anything I can reach with my arms from wherever I am. So right now I'm sitting at my desk, anything I can reach with my arms without getting out of my chair, that's zone one space. And for my functioning, I should be prioritizing only things in my zone, one space that are contributing to whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish in this space. What however, I define that for myself, it's up to me, so only things that are contributing to what I'm trying to achieve here. Same thing at the kitchen counter, when you're standing at the kitchen counter, what are you trying to accomplish? Most people at the kitchen counter most people and I don't even make any assumptions about that. Most people at the kitchen counter are trying to either make food or clean up most of the time. So if that's the case, the only things that should be right there in that space is only one space prime real estate should be the things that are contributing to making the meals or cleaning up, if that's what you've just defined your use of that space. Right? Some people might do their podcast on their kitchen counter, and therefore it's a completely different conversation. Every person has to decide for themselves. So that's zone one. And we're going to start with one right always, because you start with the human being the human being is the center of the story. That's the thing that's kind of like the core of my philosophy. Because we typically start in our society with starting with the stuff, where does the stuff need to be? I flip that on its head? What does the human need?

KC Davis 14:13
Because I feel like a lot of people would start with the attic or the garage, right? The place where things are piling up, or oh, I have this extra bedroom and there's we just throw everything in there. I feel like that's where a lot of people think they're supposed to start because that's what they would say is the quote unquote, problem area. But you're saying no, it's how are you functioning in your home? And so if I'm sitting at my desk, what do I do at my desk? If I'm at my kitchen counter? What am I doing here? If I'm in my playroom, what are we doing there? I love that, okay, what's on two

Alison Lush 14:42
That's zone one. And in order to help us keep zone one, purified and functioning and minimalists so that we have just the things that we need, whatever that means, and it could even mean memorabilia. I'm not saying you shouldn't keep pictures of your family on your desk, if that contributes to you feeling good as you're sitting at your desk. Trying to get whatever it is you're trying to get done, then that's perfectly valuable. Every person decides for themselves what they need. That's like rule number one, every person decides for themselves. So zone two is the space that like, I have to get up from my chair and walk across the room to get to that zone two storage, it's totally easy to get to. But I wouldn't want to have to stand up 25 times a day and go to my zone to to get something that I need 25 times a day. So it's frequency of access decides what should be in Zone One. And what should be in Zone Two, Zone Two, it's hugely valuable storage space, but it's across the room, I have to get up from my chair.

KC Davis 15:35
So this is why I intuitively keep my vacuum cleaner out in my kitchen, because I have small children,

Alison Lush 15:43
And you reach for it 50 times a day,

KC Davis 15:45
50 times a day, right? I had it in the closet, I was trying to make it a zone two. And you know what, for most of my life, it was a zone to object. But then my life season changed. And now it's a zone one object, and that's why it's in the kitchen, okay?

Alison Lush 15:59
100% your instincts are right on the market, on the ball. And the third zone is longer term storage. And I the perfect example of what we I put I use it as a visual example to help people understand what zone three storage is, it's a pain in the butt to get to, it's like you have to go all the way down three flights of stairs to the basement, maybe you have to use a key to get into a storage locker, maybe it's in your parents basement, maybe it's up in the attic, and you have to climb a ladder, it's a pain in the butt to get to you only want to go there a few times a year. So what do we keep in zone three storage, we keep things like Christmas decorations. We keep things like our seven years of taxes, we keep things like childhood memorabilia, we keep things that we don't need to access on a frequent basis. Again, it's all based on frequency of access, how often am I going to reach for this thing? And therefore does it deserve to be in Zone One? Should it be in zone two? Or should it be? Could it be relegated to zone three?

KC Davis 16:50
Okay, so is in terms of decluttering? Can you almost reverse engineer this and say, Okay, here's this, you know, earplugs sitting on my desk. This is not something I ever need at my desk. And so then go well, is it something? How frequently do I need this? What do I need it once a year? Do I even need it there? Like is that a way that you can sort of begin to sort of ripple effect clear out and declutter some spaces?

Alison Lush 17:17
Yeah, absolutely. I visualized it in my own head. I don't know why. But I've always used the term massaging, I'm massaging my belongings, I'm pulling closer to me, things that are more important and meaningful, like your vacuum, your pulled it closer to you because you need it more often. And pushing away things that are less instantly necessary in order to make room for because one of the things I have 20 years background in the catering industry, I was a myth for the hotel. And I managed the floor of dining rooms and catering events. And one of the key things that I learned from that is humans need space to move and to do stuff. And we frequently forget to leave space for the humans. And so we have to factor that in. It's valuable to push things away so that there's more room for the humans to function.

KC Davis 18:01
And will you is that the zones? one two and three.

Alison Lush 18:04
Yeah. And then when you get to the end of zone three, it's like, do I even need to own this.

KC Davis 18:09
So when people talk about so let's say they get the end of zone three, and they're going to even need to own this. And if they're still having trouble letting go. There's a couple of things that I've seen you talk about that I thought were genius on your channel where you talked about memorabilia, and ways that you can keep honor and or display parts of memorabilia or your memorabilia without it, you know, maybe just living in its entirety and a Rubbermaid bin or whatever. Can you talk a minute about that?

Alison Lush 18:39
Yeah, there's two things I'd like to say on the memorabilia because it is such a huge issue. One is the example that you're giving is my daughter's Playmobil collection. It was a massively important part of her childhood. If we all had to choose one thing that was like significant of her childhood, it would have been the Playmobil. So I took a selection of it and put it in a shadowbox and it's literally hanging on our bathroom wall. And it's so cheerful and beautiful. And it honors her childhood and you know, our parenting and it honors a whole bunch of things on many different levels. And it means we don't have to keep that great big tote of Playmobil. That's one thing so keeping a sampling. Some people call it a sampling. Some people call it I forget something else. There's other terms. I learned that from Judith Kohlberg, who's an amazing person. She has a book called chronic disorganization, and it's available to the public. She has two versions, one for professional organizers and one for the public. Anybody who's interested in chronic disorganization can easily find her little book available on the internet and they might be interested in buying it. The second thing I want to say about memorabilia that I think is hugely important is a measure that me personally I use to help me decide sometimes is it okay for me to actually let this thing go or not? When I'm when we're sitting on the fence and we're feeling ambivalent, oh, I've got this thing. I wonder if I should be letting it go or not. I want to let it go. But I'm afraid to let it go. That we so often find ourselves in that position and it's very uncomfortable. So I came up with this visual, that I think, is really helpful. And people seem to get if it was a white t shirt that I was debating about, should I keep this white t shirt or let it go, Oh my gosh, I don't know what to do. If I let it go. And tomorrow morning, I wake up and I go, Oh, my God, I should have kept that white t shirt, I could really use a white t shirt. How difficult is it for me to go out and replace it. It's super simple. I could even go to a thrift store. And for four bucks, I could get a white t shirt like they're everywhere white t shirts, right. And if we're just talking about a white t shirt, it's just a thing, I can easily replace the thing. It sort of echoes the minimalists advice that if you can replace it for 20 bucks or within 20 minutes, then let it go. I like having guidelines like that so that we don't hang on to just everything. The other example I give like to complete the imagery is okay, what if I'm sitting on the fence and we're talking about my grandmother's pearls, she gave me her pearls when I got married. It's a necklace and a pair of earrings. I've worn them a few times, they're sitting in my jewelry box. But the reality is, they don't resonate with me, I don't feel comfortable wearing them. It's not my style. It's strictly a piece of memorabilia that was meaningful to my grandmother and meaningful for our relationship, I will probably never wear them again. So if I'm looking at that set of pearls, and I'm sitting on the fence, and I asked myself the question, if I let these go, when I wake up tomorrow morning, and I regret the decision, how easy or difficult is it going to be to replace them? The reality is, it's impossible to replace them because they came from my grandmother, they're one of a kind. So what that identifies using the example of the white t shirt and my grandma's pearls that identifies the level of risk. So the level of risk, if I make a mistake is not the same for every item, this is a mistake that we make, we simply often look at everything, and only think of the money value, or its memorabilia, therefore I have to keep it we put so much value on belongings it makes it so that they're like a ball and chain, and we can't let them go. So anything that we can do to identify ways that we can loosen our grip and let go of things that are less important. It means that we can hang on to things that are more important with a higher value and a higher risk value if we let them go, because we can't keep everything.

KC Davis 22:08
I like that what it also reminds me of is that I think sometimes when people are getting rid of things, maybe they don't want them, they don't need them. It doesn't function in their life. But it's not that having it is bringing value to your their life. It's that they feel as though the act of getting rid of it is somehow betraying it, or disrespecting it or you know, it's just so hard to get rid of something. And I think that's a part to look at too. Because in your example, like let's say you decide, okay, you know, you I don't want the pearl earrings, I think talking about then where are they going to go is different? Because of the choices? Do I keep the pearl earrings from my grandmother? Or do I throw them in the trash? Like, obviously, I'm not gonna throw those in the trash. But if it's do I keep them? Or do I take them to a secondhand shop? Or do I donate them to a dress for success for lower income women that can't afford me, then I feel like well, that's really honoring to my grandmother, actually. And I'm going to take sort of one of the Marie Kondo tips where she talks about, you know, has this item given its gift to me, and that gift can't be taken away, even if I pass on, and maybe it's honored if I pass it on. And in that vein, I sort of wanted to share a story that I found when I was younger. So I think everyone has had an experience with their first love. Right? Maybe you were 1516 20. And I had this box of memorabilia from my first love, right? This is the you know, just life changing, you know, you'll never forget that person. And pictures and love letters, nice things. And when I got engaged, I said, you know, I think as we move into this new space, I don't want to bring this box, right. Like it was a sweet relationship. And it gave me so much. But I don't need to keep hanging on to, for lots of reasons we could go into what the emotional significance of these things are for me when I move into this new space with my husband and my you know, like that. And but the stopping point, Allison was that I couldn't bring myself to throw it in the trash. And it's not like somebody I can't read gift pictures of me and my 16 year old boyfriend. And you know, what I ended up doing was I had a good friend at the time, who was sort of mentoring me. And I said, you know, I'd really like to sit down with you and show you my box. And I want to show you every picture and I want to read you every letter and I want to tell you about this relationship that I had that shaped the course of my life and how sweet it was and how bittersweet it was, and the things that still mean something to me today. And I want you to know I want to tell you the story. And when I'm done telling you the story, I want to give you the box and I don't ever want to hear about what you do with the box. And I mean I know logically she threw the box in the trash. She's not keep hitting this box, but I was removed from the significance of putting in the trash. That's not what I did with it. I told the story, honor the story. And I handed the box gingerly over to her. And she said out loud to me, I will take care of this for you. And I will honor it. And obviously, it didn't need to go somewhere. And I don't even like to say out loud that I don't want the trash. But it was such a cool way of honoring this thing. That was this memorabilia, but it didn't serve my life anymore. But I didn't want it to go in the trash. And so I'd love to share that story. Because it was one of my better strokes of genius about how to kind of get rid of something that had that weight to it.

Alison Lush 25:37
It's so powerful that story. It's a very, very beautiful, elegant and just infused with honor, what you did for yourself for the relationship for that other person for that collection. on every level, it was just filled with honor. And you found your solution, which is beautiful and phenomenal that you liberated yourself from the weight of that ownership of that thing. It takes a lot of courage to do that a lot of the people that I'm dealing with, that I'm working with that I'm conversing with, haven't yet gotten to the place where they could have that confidence or that courage to do that. So what we're doing is always just exploring anything that they could possibly do to liberate themselves, could they reduce the collection, I often encourage people to explore the meaning of the thing. So the meaning of the relationship, the meaning of the pictures, what might you do in the future, I still have my tiny collection, I've reduced it down to very minimal. But that collection that you were just talking about, I've still got mine. And I've still got it tucked away because I haven't been able to let it go yet, but it's very small. One thing I did get let go of was my collection of journals, I had a whole years and years of books that I had filled with writing years and years from about age, I don't know 16 to 25, or something like that. And when I started going on my real journey of decluttering. For myself, it's a whole process. I've been on this journey for 11 years now. And in about year five, I actually hired a professional organizer to help me get past some of the things that I was struggling with. And just by having her working with me off on my own, I went off on this tangent, I said, I want to deal with my journals. And I did it and I shredded them, all of them. I ripped them out of their books, I shredded all the paper through the covers of the books into the garbage. And I feel fantastic. Because what I realized is the purpose of those books, and this gets back to the meaning of the belonging. What was the purpose of those books, the purpose of those books was to help me in that moment to work through issues, and to learn and to move beyond whatever issues I was struggling with. They were like work papers, working through issues. And now it's like five years, 10 years, 2030 years later, I don't need to go back and see the work that I did on those issues. I've moved way beyond those issues, you are the work that you did exactly. So the books served their purpose. That's one of the things that I do love about Marie Kondo philosophy is thank the thing for what you got from it, and then move on and let it go. And that that was one of the examples of how I applied that philosophy. Absolutely.

KC Davis 28:03
Well, so when Samantha talks about a group moving around, I think it's really significant that that's how she starts it, because she's telling us that the emotional issues around getting rid of things probably has to do with the sense of either instability or impermanence that she felt when she was younger, you know, we typically associate the stability or the permanence of being in one place with the concept of home. Right home is not transient home doesn't change day to day, we're going month to month. And I think a lot of people who either it could be that you had a great, wonderful family and you moved around a lot, it could be that you experienced some adverse childhood experiences, whether that's abuse or a loss. And I think that brings a new level of complexity into our things. And I think it's important to recognize that and I think it sounds like Samantha does and and to honor that, like we've been talking about where we say, okay, you know, this broom, that, you know, is falling apart? What is that bringing up for me that fear of getting rid of that? Is it that I used to not be able to afford another broom? Is it that we grew up poor, and I can hear my meme on my head saying, you know, don't waste things, you know, good people don't waste things. Is it that the transient nature of getting rid of things, you never got to hold on to anything long enough to feel a sense of home? And there's no easy answer to that. But just being willing to say these are valid things to experience around my stuff. And I think that there are also some things you can do. First of all, I always want to say like, there's nothing wrong with recognizing that's why I want to hold on to things and so I'm going to hold on to them, hold on to them, if that's where you are in your journey, and you need that comfort that reassurance hold on to them. Now, if maybe it says well, it is affecting my functioning well, but maybe we can find ways to keep those things in a way that doesn't affect your functioning, right? And that's where we get creative. But maybe she does say no, I really do, you know, kind of need to get rid of it. And I think that sometimes we don't have to meet it head on. Like, I have this picture in my online shop, and you can buy it as a print or you can download it for free. And it says this home is a safe home, and I am safe in it. And I think sometimes we need these visual reminders. This is not my childhood home, I am safe here. This is my, you know, stable home. And I think there's a lot of things we can do in our environment that can help us kind of gain that reassurance we need so that we can maybe sometimes let go of an item we need to.

Alison Lush 30:40
Yeah, that's an excellent point. I don't think I've ever heard anybody talk in that in those terms about comparing the childhood home versus the today home and how we can create our today home to feel more secure. That's very beautiful. The way you just describe that.

KC Davis 30:54
Well, thank you. And it kind of brings just because I talked about hanging a piece of artwork. This question I thought was really interesting. This is from kitty. It says one of my struggles is decorating, which sounds stupid as I write it. But when I look around my house with its crappy mismatched decor, and it's dirty walls, Kid destroyed couch hand me down furniture and lack of any style. I'm defeated and deflated. Not talking about high end interior decoration, although what? What I wouldn't do to win the lottery. I would like my house to look more like a family lives here and less like squatters do. How do you hang photos? How do you paint walls? How do you feel good about your space? And this question almost makes me have tears in my eyes. Because I feel like when you're talking about our relationship to our space, and how do we make a home. And I was just curious if you had any thoughts on that.

Alison Lush 31:44
I certainly don't specialize in interior decoration. But I have got an image that and a notion that I had developed a several years ago, which I think might be helpful here. You've probably heard of home staging, when people are putting their house on the market, they want to sell a home. The real estate people want to be able to bring strangers in and walk them around and show them the place and we want what you want is for anybody walking in to be able to imagine themselves being able to live there. Therefore, it's important that the decor in the space be neutralized so that anybody can imagine themselves living there. That's the goal. So in staging, and I'm not a home stager, I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here. But my understanding of home staging is neutralizing the environment taking out the personal the over personal from the environment. And when I realized that a number of years ago, what I realized is my personal goal working with clients is to do the exact opposite. My goal is to reach inside of the human being, reach inside of the human being and help them extract and pull out whatever is personal and meaning for them and then infuse their environment with who they are and what's meaningful to them. There's no such thing as it should be this way it should be that way. Don't have to worry. I personally don't think the focus needs to be on how to hang a picture. The focus could be perhaps better invested in what do I want to be looking at it every every day, that makes me feel good. That reinforces my feeling of pride about my family, and I'm a good mom and I love my beautiful kids and my kids love each other and look at them having a great activity in this picture that picture. That's what matters. It doesn't matter what frames they're in. It doesn't matter what wall they go in. It doesn't matter how they're hung. It's the images. It's the life inside. It's the personal connection, and the resonance with the person and their life. That's what the value of home decor is. Whether it's color whether it's I want to have a yellow wall because yellow makes me feel cheerful, then that's the right color to have on the wall. There's no right and wrong the answers are inside of us. That's my view. .

KC Davis 33:48
I love it. And I think obviously if we're worried about oh, is it aesthetic, does it look right together? There are obviously people you could ask to come in and tell you that there you could get a handyman to hang photos. But I think I mean I hear kitty asking the deeper question that you're really answering which is we don't have to worry about creating some sort of aesthetically cohesive look. If you want that you can do that. It's more about as you say kind of unstaged the space and getting into you know when she says the crappy mismatched decor the dirty walls, the kid destroyed couch. Some of that is just changing the way you look at those items.

Alison Lush 34:26
It's a life that's being lived in when I look at my sink of dirty dishes. If I get up in the morning and I look into my sink of dirty dishes, I can either say oh Ellison you know you lazy slob. You should have to wash the dishes last night or I can say aren't we lucky? We had a wonderful dinner last night

KC Davis 34:40
Yes and that like I have a crappy kid destroyed couch. I have cats my couch is gross to look at. I mean there are stains on it. There's cat hair on it. But you know the meaning of that couch is a life well lived and now it's not pretty to look at but what I did was right above that couch on our window sills are hung these handmade ladybugs that my three year old made, and I feel like it's the perfect representation of okay, we don't love the couch, we'd like to get a new couch the couch isn't nice looking. It doesn't. I don't feel warm and fuzzy when I look at it. But in conjunction with these handmade ladybugs, there's something about them together. I mean, they're holed, they're up there with scotch tape, there's something about that picture together. That gives that couch meaning, right? It's not squatters that live here. It's little kids.

Alison Lush 35:28
I think that it's really important that we recognize that every phase of life that we're in, has different needs. And we're focusing on different priorities right now, anybody with kids growing up, like in Kitty's house, the focus is raising a family supporting those kids so that they can go out and have friends supporting those kids. So they can go out and get an education, supporting the parents so that they can support the kids. That's what it's all about right now in the family. My personal home, for example, right now, my kids have moved up, moved up, grown up and moved out. And so now it's just my husband and I, the phase of life that we're in is completely different. Our home, we have more space, we have more peace, there's fewer dirty dishes in the sink, it's a different phase of life, if we aspire to a style or an aesthetic that is beyond our reach, because it's not appropriate for the phase of life that we're in, we're guaranteeing ourselves to be dissatisfied. If we rather like you did with your coach. And with the ladybugs, if we rather say this is this phase of life I'm in right now and honor it and say I want to be a great parent I what's important to me is to have a comfortable, warm, fuzzy family home and couch where we can all cuddle up together. And we're not going to be stressed out about spilling the chocolate milk on the couch or whatever. What's more important is our time together, then the stains on the couch become much less important. And then later on, when the kids are grown up and moved out, you can get a pretty couch or you can always put a cover over it or something if you want to.

KC Davis 36:49
And when she says the mismatched decor, I want to bet money that that decor is something that she got off of a shelf somewhere because she thought to herself, that's looks like something that would be hung on an adult's wall, right, as opposed to something meaningful. And I think what you're saying can go hand in hand with what I'm about to say, which is sometimes when we are in the trenches of little kid life sometimes or thinking about decor, you know, we do want to be reminded that we are people outside of this phase of life. And one thing that comes to me is I mean, you know, I'm thinking kitty, do you have a favorite band? Do you have a favorite band? Do you have a favorite painting? Do you have something you loved? Maybe because when you were in college before kids, maybe you had those band posters on the wall. Now, you may not want to tack them up on the wall, but you can frame it, you can make it look like an adult lives and have these representations of you know, this is this is who I am. And that makes me happy to look at, you know, if you've got some sort of live, laugh, love nondescript scones on the wall, because that's kind of what you thought adults put on the walls. Maybe that's why it's not speaking to you. So I would lean into both like lean into Okay, let's put the ladybugs on the wall and lean into this is my favorite band. Why did I ever take that poster down? My husband and I have this was supposed to be a game room. But it was sort of our guest room slash where he was working for the longest time. And it just kind of became the Doom room. We dumped everything there. And we decided that, hey, when we sell this house, we will have to stage this area. And then we will be mad at ourselves that we waited until we were leaving to make it like a nice cool area. So we redid the area. And we didn't do anything like we didn't paint anything or do any construction, just simple, you know, got rid of some things brought a couple of little bookcases and chairs and, and when we stepped back, we looked at it and it's our favorite place in the house. Because it's the only place in our house, the kids don't go. And we find ourselves hanging out here all the time. And sometimes my husband even sleep up here, because it just it almost feels like a little bachelor pad. It feels like a little one room loft. We didn't want to buy new pictures. So we ended up putting some pictures of some renderings that I did when I was in college as a costume design student on the walls. We have a throw that says I wait here for you forever as long as it takes and we just tacked it up on the wall. And so we joke with each other that like we come up here to sort of cosplay like single people living in a loft in New York. Because, you know, the majority of our house is dedicated to sort of a kid centric space. And so I think there's a way to sort of lean into both of those things at once. You know what makes me happy because if you put something on the wall that makes you happy to look at all the sudden it doesn't bother you as much that it doesn't match the theme. 100% Yes, anything that we can do to recharge our batteries and fuel ourselves so that we can continue giving to other people and doing whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish. That's so valuable. Okay, I feel like we have question time for maybe one more question. And that's it. This one was interesting. This is from Aria, she says, my home life and my work life blur into endless chaos. Do you have some tactics for how to separate and manage the mental and physical clutter? When that clutter meshes into inappropriate times, ie I cannot turn off work on off days, because I'm very available to my clients, or I'm at work, but I'm worried about the mess in the kitchen. And you know, she's kind of talking about mentally, how do I turn it off. But what I was reminded when I read this, is that throughout this pandemic, we've had more and more people staying at home. And where it used to be, well, home is my home life, my family and office is my office. And you know, the bar is my social life. And then I go to the library to knit, like, all of a sudden, everything's at home. And I'm curious what any kind of insight you have on when we think about organizing our stuff, is there a way to organize our stuff that helps us with those boundaries and delineations. And I'm thinking particularly for someone that doesn't have the obvious option of Oh, yeah, just put it in your home office, right, because not everybody has a home office

Alison Lush 41:02
Reminded of the notion of what's enough. So for example, typically, well, one of the themes in people feeling absolutely overwhelmed and being very ambitious in their career or whatever, trying to squeeze in so many things in 24 hours, there's a density to what they're trying to pack into 24 hours and things over overlap, and they don't get time off. And I find it very helpful to pull it back and try to identify what is enough, if I give support to my clients, what is just enough support to my clients, what is just enough housekeeping, it's very much resonating with all of the language that you use, which is just enough to get myself you know, started on the next state, for example. Because when we're being ambitious, professionally, and out in the world, it's sort of like a black hole, it will suck out everything that you will give it, we have to make the boundaries ourselves. And we only have 20k. Here's another thought, and I'm bouncing a little bit on this one, too, I will confess time management, productivity is not my zone of comfort. And it's I don't specialize in it, because it's not something that I feel that I master on the one hand, and it's not a place where I feel comfortable speaking, my zone of comfort is physical stuff, and emotional attachment and skill development and getting people unstuck. That's where, especially with their physical belongings and helping people get refocused. But this comes up a lot people who are stuck with feeling overburdened with their met, how they manage their time in their space, one of the most powerful things that any of us can do is to remember that we only have 24 hours in a day. It's just like money, you only have so much we're accustomed to talking about money and money being a finite resource, you only have so much money to get through the month, or to get through the year. And we function with whatever money we've got. Or we keep sliding into debt. And it's obvious, we can see it right there on the balance sheet. But what we forget often is that we only have 24 hours in a day, and we only have so much energy and time. But we spend our energy and our time as if it was an infinite, as if they were infinite resources, and they are not. So anybody who's struggling with time and energy management, it's recommended that they spend a little bit of time doing, I just sent one to a client yesterday. It's a sheet like a spreadsheet. And you basically note down how you're spending your time there 24 hour period over a week. And you do that for like two weeks. And it gives you feedback about how you're actually spending your time and your energy. Because frequently when we're feeling overwhelmed and like we our boundaries are all intermeshed and we're not taking care of our fundamental needs. It's because we're spending our time and energy more in places where maybe it's not the best and less where we actually need it. And so we need to get a portrait of where we're actually spending it. And this is based on the concept that any financial adviser would have us do. If you're trying to get your finances under control. First, start by identify where are you actually spending your money. Let's start there. And then massage and put more here and less from there. And it's the same thing with time and energy, because they're finite resources.

KC Davis 44:28
What it also reminds me of is it be interesting not only to look at how I'm spending my time, but also mentally where am I? How much of the day do I spend thinking about those dishes? How much of the day am I spending thinking about those clients? And I'm reminded of a couple of things that have really worked in my home is I sort of famously have the dirty dish rack right because for reasons that are not important to this podcast, I sometimes have a difficult time taking a dish using a dish rinsing it off putting in the dish. I mean, it's just a lot of steps for me, right I can do about half those steps with ease So I got a dish rack, because what was happening was that when when the dishes were piled up in the sink, it was very overwhelming to me, I couldn't have access to the sink. And now I'm thinking about what a huge mess it was, when I got a dish rack and put it next to the sink and started stacking up the dirty dishes. For some reason, the same amount of dishes stacked, organized on a rack seems so much less intimidating and fewer dishes actually even then when they're bundled in the sink. And I'm also thinking about, you know, when we are looking at how much time am I spending thinking about these things versus doing these things? I'm wondering if there are these small organizational steps that someone like ARIA could take where, okay, you don't maybe have 10 minutes in the morning to do all the dishes. But do you have three minutes to put them on a dish rack? Because then maybe you won't think about them so much, because they're not cluttering the space? They're not, you know, oh, it's such a mess. It's like, no, it's staged, right, it's there ready to go when you have time. And maybe there would be a comparable way of sort of, it's almost like when she needs to work, she needs a way of triaging the home stuff. And when she's at home, she needs a way of triaging and there's, I can't help but think that there's got to be some visual and organizational systems that can help her feel as though Okay, these things have been bookmarked to be taken care of. And I don't have to sit here and think about them.

Alison Lush 46:25
So what you've just identified with the dishrack is, it's a container, you have given a specific container that has been earmarked for a purpose. And so you've legitimized the dirty dishes, which is the perfect solution in your situation, it's a perfect solution, when they were sitting in the sink, they don't really belong in the sink, because it makes the sink, not functional, it makes the sink difficult to access. So when you want to fill up that big pot of water to make pasta at lunch, you can't do it, because there's all kinds of dirty dishes. So to make the sink functional, you created a reserved specific space for the dirty dishes. And that was a perfect solution. So if anybody like for example, Aria, looking at something that's dysfunctional, the bothering her, if it keeps bothering her, I would encourage her to look at it and try to ask herself the questions. In what way? Is it bothering her? Is it that she's reminded of it all the time? Is it that there's some guilt associated with it? And if there's guilt, where's the guilt coming from? Is it some old cassette in her brain that was, you know, doesn't need to be there that she could replace with something else? Is it reasonable to feel guilty about it? Or is it perfectly normal to have dirty dishes, for example, and what other options might exist? So it's when we take any individual specific little thing exactly as you did with the dirtiness and the sink? And look at it and ask ourselves what is necessary here, and what don't I need, and then what is a simple solution to containerize and legitimize the thing

KC Davis 47:55
That is awesome, we get away from the scripts about what should be in our home. And we just look at what is actually in our home, if we we can make the decision to get rid of some things that aren't functioning, but when things are in our home, just legitimizing it and giving it permission to exist, allows you It frees you up for the creativity to go okay, so then we need a system here, we need a container, we need a place for these to exist that doesn't impede the functioning of the sink that doesn't have it always on my mind. I love that because I'm thinking of so many things in my home. That, you know, it reminds me of when I used to like it was a newborn and I would change her diaper. And we soon found that because the doors closed all the time for nap, the dirty diaper been made the room smell, and we're like, oh, she can't sleep in there. So we started we moved it out into the hallway. Well, when you're changing a baby's diaper, and then you grab the dirty diaper. Well, but now you have to put the baby into the crib. You're not just like walking out with it. And so I would toss them into the hallway, thinking well, I'll toss them into the hallway, and then I'll pick it up on my way out except I never picked it up on my way out. So I always had this pile of peepee and poopoo diapers right outside the nursery. And then I walked by they're like, ah, such a piece of shit. I can't believe I've done that so disgusting. But one day, I really did look at them and legitimize them like you know what this is what's happening right now this is like low on the totem pole of things that need to be solved in my life. And I just put a wastebasket there, right where the pile was. So that as I tossed them out of the room, they were going right into a little trash can. And now I can empty the trash can when it's full, and I just legitimized the pile of dirty diapers and gave them a container. And you know what, it was a short season of our life and it's not an issue anymore. And I'm glad that I didn't beat myself up or make myself sort of do what I should have done with them. Because at the end of the day, who's got time for that?

Alison Lush 49:50
I have three other echoes on that on the theme of categorizing and legitimizing when I'm working with clients, we always come across things that they're not ready to make a decision about yet, decision making is very, very difficult. I don't know what to do with this thing, whatever this thing is, I don't know if I should keep it or if I should let it go. If a person is really stuck on it, the worst thing that we can do is just put it down. Because then we're just creating chaos, if we're really close to like, I've got a lot of categories and things are going well. And I have this one thing I don't know what to do with. If I have a box called something like the ripening box or the indecision box or something, a space, that is actually a container, we can put things in there that we have no idea what to do with right now and then come back and revisit it later. And frequently, just the passage of time, when we come back, and we look at that thing in the future. Sometimes it's obviously, but we're ready to make a decision, because we've just let some time pass. So that's one. The second one is, when we're organizing and creating categories and putting labels on all kinds of categories, frequently, we ends up with things that they just don't fit into a category, they just don't. And so we use this word called Miss kibble. So the Miss kibble box is just like all the random stuff, it's like, rather than calling it the junk box, it's the Michigan kibble box. And we don't know what to do with it, just toss it in there, it'll be safe, you know, it's not lost, if you need it, you can go and look for it, it's a safe place to put things. And the third one is, many of my clients are creative types. And they have bits of pipe and bits of leather and bits of fabric and bits of plastic and all these things and they say, but I might be able to use it one day, which is totally legitimate, but they don't know what to do with it. And they feel everybody's always saying, Oh, just get rid of it. It's just a piece of junk. But they're creative people. And they see things in terms of possibility. So they see they know that they need raw materials in the future. So we create a category called raw materials. And that gets the name and legitimacy. And we can create a box for it and put all the stuff in that one box all mixed up. And they're happy, and they get to keep the stuff that they need. But it's got walls in a container, and it doesn't take over the whole house.

KC Davis 51:56
I love that there. I think that there are probably a lot of people here and we will wrap up with this. But I just there's probably a lot of people that resist reaching out to an organizer, because they know they're not ready to purge things, they're not ready to get rid of a bunch of stuff, they're not ready to, you know, go through that emotional process. And what I'm hearing is that you would be a safe person for someone to reach out and say, I'm not ready to do some big declutter, overhaul, get rid downsize. But I need some help. And I love that because you deserve to function in your space. You deserve to have someone that can meet you compassionately with creative solutions on how you can raise your quality of life. Even if you're not ready to do some big purge,

Not everybody needs to purge stuff. What I focus on is helping people get unstuck. That's the way I think of it, people come to me and they say, I'm stuck. I don't know how to get past this thing. It's like this big boulder in my way, and I can't get past it. So we focus on what can we do about the boulder? Does it need to be, you know, blown up and event? It's going to be a whole bunch of little pieces? And you can just step over it? Or can we figure out a way to get around it? Or can we figure out a way to look at it differently. And it'll be see through, that's what we do is we focus on whatever is blocking the person, I sometimes do sessions with people. And we do one session or two sessions. And that's all they need in order to get unstuck. And then they're often they go on their own. We don't necessarily embark on a process where we're working together weekly for the next year or something like that. Every single person has different needs, and I adapt my services. And for whatever the person needs. It's totally, totally flexible and absolutely meets the person where they are. Not everybody needs to get rid of their stuff. That's a very dangerous assumption. I think that that's one thing about the professional organizing industry that is a shame is that we've got this reputation of being we're going to tell everybody to throw it all their stuff. I absolutely do not agree with that. Not helpful.

Well, Alison, where can people find you if they want to find you on social media, if they want to work with you?

Alison Lush 53:59
The easiest thing to do is just to Google me and find my website. That's the absolute easiest thing to do. Alison lush.ca is my website. So you will find me. And there's information there. There's answers to questions. There's a link to a 20 minute introductory exploratory call, which is free I phone the person, we have a 20 minute phone call to see what their needs are and what services I'm offering and figure out if we'd make a good team together. So if people are curious about my services, they'll get information there and they can reach out to me and I'm on social medias as well. But that's the main place is my website or my tic toc alongside KC,KC news. And

KC Davis 54:34
Alison is with one L.

Alison Lush 54:36
Yes.

KC Davis 54:37
Okay. And she's also linked on my website. So if you go to struggle care.com And you click on Resources and homecare, she is one of the resources that I listed there if you want to check out her website and what is your Tiktok handle?

Alison Lush 54:50
I think it's Alison lash underscore enough. Pretty sure that's what it is. Alison lash underscore enough.

KC Davis 54:55
Great. Well, Alison, I can't thank you so much. This has been an awesome conversation. And I hope that everyone goes and follows Alison. But if you don't follow me, come follow me too. And Alison, it's been a joy. Thank you so much.

Alison Lush 55:10
It's been such an honor. Thank you very much and congratulations again.

KC Davis 55:13
Thanks.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Christy HausslerAugust 28, 2023

47: Best of Gentle Organizing with Alison Lush

Transcript