(#32) Decluttering Your Spaces and Mindful Living with Noelle Fowler
Mar 06, 2024Episode 32
Rae The Somatic Coach
Join us in today's episode to learn more about decluttering with our next guest expert, Noelle Fowler.
Noelle Fowler is a Holistic Declutter Coach who helps busy women simplify their lives to make room for what matters most. She takes a root-cause approach to decluttering by helping her clients "rewrite the stories" we often tell ourselves about our stuff. This way, we can get rid of clutter for good and focus on what truly matters.
Tune in to today's episode to...
Listen to Noelle's story of becoming a Holistic Declutter Coach
Learn what decluttering really is and why getting rid of the "stuff" allows you to focus on what truly matters to you
Apply the tangible "dos and dont's" of having a more peaceful space
Participate in Curious Convos. Share your questions and topic requests!
Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing any emotional distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.
Join us in today's episode to learn more about decluttering with our next guest expert, Noelle Fowler.
Noelle Fowler is a Holistic Declutter Coach who helps busy women simplify their lives to make room for what matters most. She takes a root-cause approach to decluttering by helping her clients "rewrite the stories" we often tell ourselves about our stuff. This way, we can get rid of clutter for good and focus on what truly matters.
Tune in to today's episode to...
Listen to Noelle's story of becoming a Holistic Declutter Coach
Learn what decluttering really is and why getting rid of the "stuff" allows you to focus on what truly matters to you
Apply the tangible "dos and dont's" of having a more peaceful space
Participate in Curious Convos. Share your questions and topic requests!
Disclaimer: Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is intended to inspire, educate, and support you on your personal journey. It does not substitute for professional mental health advice. I am not a psychologist or medical professional. If you are experiencing any emotional distress, mental health challenges, or medical conditions, please seek help from a qualified professional.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Radiant Life podcast. I'm your host, ray the Stematic Coach, and I'm here to support you in healing your past, living in the present and creating your future so that you can become the most centered, embodied and happiest version of yourself. Each week, I'll be bringing you episodes to help you navigate life's challenges, ease stress and tension and learn more about holistic healing, spirituality and wellness. If you're interested in becoming the best version of yourself so that you can live the life of your dreams, then you're in the right place. Subscribe to the podcast and the monthly newsletter and follow me on Instagram and TikTok to know when new episodes are released each week. I am so happy that you've landed here. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the podcast. If you are new here, I'm Ray. I'm a Stematic Coach and Breathwork Facilitator. And if you aren't new here, welcome back. I'm so glad that you are tuning in for today's episode.
Speaker 1:
For today's episode, we have our next guest expert, noelle Fowler. She is a holistic declutter coach and she shares with us more about what decluttering is, why it's important and some of the dos and don'ts of getting started. We may have heard that our homes and physical spaces are a reflection of our internal state. I thought the concept of letting go of physical items was interesting because with breathwork and somatics, it's like an internal cleansing and letting go from the inside. So I really enjoyed today's episode and recording with Noelle and I hope that you enjoyed it as well. I will talk to you soon and let's dive in. Noelle and I connected in a Facebook group and we were messaging back and forth for a little while and I really loved her personal story. I love the work that she's doing in the world and just how she's going about what she's doing. So I'm excited to have this conversation with you. So can you share a little bit with us about you and maybe how you became a holistic declutter coach?
Speaker 2:
Yeah for sure. So I'm Noelle. I am an eighth grade English teacher but I run a holistic decluttering business online and so I've been teaching for about six years. But we all have those things in COVID that we discovered right and for me, during that time I fell in love with organization. I would just consume a ton of content about organizing and I decided to start my own little side hustle.
Speaker 2:
I started an LLC and did professional organizing part-time and I loved it. I loved going into people's homes, I loved creating systems for people and you know, like the matchy-matchy bins and the pretty labels, all that. But I realized I wasn't really helping people, at least not in the sense that I wanted to, because it felt like a lot of the time I was just moving people's stuff, or their junk in some senses, into bins and labeling it. And although we would declutter in the professional in the way I, you know, organize for people it really wasn't getting to the root of the problem. I also realized that in a professional organizing session you take all the items out, you look at them a lot of the times you're working with a client and that messy middle part where everything is pulled out and just a hot mess. That's typically the most stressful part for people.
Speaker 2:
But I realized I kind of thrived in that messy middle and I enjoyed it and I was like, wait, maybe there's something more here. So there's a lot more to the story. But I have instead become an online holistic declutter coach so I help busy women simplify their lives to make room for what matters most to them, and it's not just about organizing. I feel like people really, really like organizing and like the matchy bins and the labels, you know, and I'm not against that. But I think we need to ruthlessly declutter first, and that's what I really love helping women do.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I love your story and that just sounds so needed. It is so true and I can even think for myself when we have stuff and we're trying to let go of things, sometimes that's difficult and we can get into that in a little bit, but I'm sure there's a few challenges that arise. Could you clarify a little bit about what decluttering is and then what your approach is with decluttering?
Speaker 2:
I would say decluttering is getting rid of the non-essentials, or getting rid of things. Well, okay, I don't mean you just live with essentials, but getting rid of the stuff that is holding you back from the life that you actually want to live, and it doesn't just have to be physical stuff. There are different kinds of clutter. There's calendar clutter and digital clutter, but, yeah, it's stuff that is getting in the way of the things that you really want to focus on, and I love empowering women to get rid of that stuff so they can focus on what really matters to them, which is usually something like their family, their loved ones right.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, it sounds like the process is like a deep exhale, which is like a like okay, yes, that's the name of my business room to breathe.
Speaker 2:
That's how I felt, too, when I guess part of my story as well is that my husband and I ruthlessly decluttered our belongings. We got rid of almost 50%. I wish that I had an exact number, but it took about maybe a year. We got rid of almost 50% of our items and it just felt like we had room to breathe. So that's what I like to help other women do. In terms of my approach, I think that sometimes people try, they're like I'm going to declutter, and then they pull everything out of their closet and get overwhelmed and they try to do it like all in a day or all in a weekend. But the approach that I teach is that it's simple, it's practical, it's habitual and that decluttering can be part of our everyday lives. And it doesn't have to be everyday, but as long as we make it part of our normal, it makes things a lot easier, it makes running a home a lot easier and, again, it helps you focus on what really matters to you.
Speaker 1:
Like, instead of getting overwhelmed by the process and trying to get those quick results that we love, we love that like instant gratification, it's more focused on changing, like the small habits, and having this like long term. Maybe, like you mentioned, it took you a year to get rid of 50% of your things that maybe didn't feel as important to you anymore, and I think that's a realistic time. Depending on how much stuff somebody might have that it could take a year. So it seems like a really you go at your pace process, which is nice, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine why having just a clear space that you're in is also symbolic for what's on the inside as well. How do we find a nice balance between having our stuff like the things that do feel aligned and like letting go of what doesn't feel good anymore?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I love that question. I think it definitely is going to be different for each person and I think you have to remove in order to tell you have to remove some stuff and see what feels good. And, like my husband and I kind of have fun. We keep removing things and seeing how little we can live with. And I get it, not everyone is going to have fun doing that. But I think when you do remove some, you can start to see what sort of room to breathe you have in your life and figure out that balance for you. It also is going to depend on your season of life, like if you have a two year old, you're going to have toys in the ground, like there's going to be toys, right? So we have to also lean into our current season of life.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely yeah. So really noticing where you are in your current season of life, what factors are playing into what might be realistic for you and what realistic decluttering might look like for you, and, yeah, being like compassionate with yourself, it sounds like too Absolutely yeah. And so I know you mentioned when we spoke that you use like a root cause approach and that might be different than what like traditionally people think about when it comes to decluttering. Can you tell us a little bit more about the root cause approach?
Speaker 2:
Yes. So that's really what sparked it for me, like it's not just our stuff. I like to say it's not about the stuff, it's the stuff under the stuff. Why are we holding on to so much? Or why do we have such an attachment to physical items? And a lot of the times it's these stories that we tell ourselves about our stuff, like stories that we tell ourselves that are that are not true. So I really like to teach, as part of my cause approach, how to rewrite those stories that we tell ourselves.
Speaker 2:
An example would be like this is pretty common I can't get rid of this. I spent too much money on it. Right, like I don't use this thing, but I spent a lot of money on it, so I'm just going to keep it and I'll just put it in the closet and then I won't feel bad about it. But we still feel it. Right, like we still know that items there. Every time we open the closet, we see it and then we at least I will like say I really need to figure out what to do with that. But the story we write for that is the money was spent when you first got that item, not the moment that you decide to let go of it, and so, when you do let go of it, you're able to have a room to breathe or have more space for whatever really should be in that closet, and maybe it's nothing.
Speaker 1:
Such a fitting analogy too with kind of with breath work and with semantics. Like we have all of this like stored emotion and stored trauma in our body, and breath work really allows you to let go of that stored trauma and so it's kind of like decluttering your inner home. Yeah, I could see how it would feel a lot lighter when you're getting to that root cause and you're hearing those stories and you're shifting those stories and creating new narratives and it sounds pretty like liberating.
Speaker 2:
For sure. And one thing I'll say with that, with the breath work, is that our physical spaces are oftentimes reflections of what's going on inside, right. Like if you're having a busy week or stress week, sometimes your room is a hot mess, right, and that's just indicative of what's going on inside. So as much as we can control those controllables, control our physical space, I think that that really helps. I know it's helped me just with my mental health and be able to calm myself down a little bit.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so if somebody wanted to maybe get started with the process of decluttering their room or decluttering their home, what might be two to three steps that you would suggest they start with, I think my first step and this is I just love this analogy, I didn't come up with it, definitely can't take credit, but if you're feeling a bit overwhelmed or you're feeling like you really want to start decluttering, if your bathtub was overflowing, right, you would not just grab a bucket and start getting water out of it, you would first turn the faucet off. And so that's my encouragement to my clients like turn the faucet off, let's cut off some of this consumption, some of these spending habits, whatever that looks like for the individual. That would be my first step, and people don't usually like hearing that like stop shopping or, you know, disconnect your credit card from Amazon. But that really is my first encouragement I would say.
Speaker 2:
My second thing is to start small, like you really can make change in 10 minutes, even 5 minutes in a space. Start small, it's doable, it's not going to happen overnight. And also I would say don't start in your like memory box or in your basement or your attic Right, like that should probably be one of the last things you declutter. Once you've built your decluttering muscle, once you've learned to let go, I really like to tell people to start in the bathroom, because rarely do we have attachment to things in our bathroom, right, and it's the kind of place where you can declutter and you'll feel it right away, like that next morning when you wake up and you know, do your morning routine. You'll already feel better, having decluttered that space.
Speaker 1:
I personally have like a pretty good relationship with like letting things go. But I switch my clothes out like every season. So I have clothes that I put out, you know, for winter and fall and clothes that I put out for spring and summer. So every time I'm switching my clothes, I'm getting rid of things. So I was shocked that I had a closet to like even get rid of. I was like, oh my God, I had to go like search for things to get rid of, basically. But it felt really good to just be like. I don't know all of these clothes they were. I used them when I used to be a administrator in higher education. I was a international student advisor for a few years and so I was, you know, wearing more like corporate clothing and I haven't worn that stuff in a while. So I was like, I don't know, I kept two dresses and maybe like two blouses and I just gave away like three bags of clothing. It went to someone that needed it, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:
And we like. We know it feels good. I mean, whenever you clean your bedroom, or even when you like deep clean something, or when you fill a trash bag with clothes, it feels so good. It's just sometimes getting started right Like that's. That's the part that sometimes people need a little bit of help with.
Speaker 1:
I could understand why just having the habit of decluttering is so helpful with your tangible things and then also like internally helps you to like let go of those things that you need to create more space for.
Speaker 2:
And we know that our physical items can sometimes cause stress for us. Like there's something called the silent to do list. It's essentially the idea that have you heard of it before? No, but it's the idea that every item we own is asking us for something. So the plant on my counter is asking me for water, and then the you know dishes that are drying in the drying rack by the sink, or ask me to put them away. Every single item that we own is going to be asking us to do something. And we know this to be true because when we go away, when we stay in a hotel or stay in an Airbnb how nice is it to only have our suitcase right? We don't have any silent to do list. We don't have any items that are asking for our attention, except maybe our clothes. But I just think that's really helpful to think about that. Every item is sort of like a magnet for our attention.
Speaker 1:
Thinking to myself now, like I have like a little speaker on my desk, it's like put this away. That's not where it's home is, but it's telling me to like put it away. So it's my silent to do list right now.
Speaker 2:
That's my silent to do list. Yep, exactly, and so the less we have, the less our silent to do list is begging for our attention, because every item we own isn't just taking up physical space, it's also so. It's taking up a space in our home, it's taking up mental energy. We need to wash it, fix it, charge it, make sure we have the warranty filled out, whatever it is. So it's not, it's not just the original cost and it's not just the physical space that our items are costing us. It's so much more.
Speaker 1:
Oh my gosh, so interesting. So I love the the three tips or steps that you shared with us. Those are great.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I guess there's one more thing I would have said which is like kudos to you for deciding that you want to make a change, because you have somehow, you know, something has shifted in your, in your mind. That said, hey, I think that maybe I need to simplify a little bit. I think that maybe my stuff is taking up too much of my time. So that's awesome, that is a win right there, just that desire to change. And then I guess another mindset shift would just be sort of like we talked about earlier it's not going to happen overnight, it's not going to happen in a day, and if you try to do it all day on a Saturday, you're probably going to burn out. So I would really try to do it in smaller chunks. I call them flutter edits, like 15, 20 minute chunks of time where you focus on one single space and feel that small win to build your momentum.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that feels really good. It's like setting yourself up for success and kind of like compartmentalizing where your energy is going to go for those few minutes so that you can reach that goal, whatever it might be. Yeah, that sounds really nice. Something else that you also mentioned was having these personalized systems when we were chatting on Facebook. Can you share a little bit more about having those personalized systems for you or for your family or whoever's in your household?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I love a good system. I think it's a game changer, and the thing about systems is that it has to work for you, like it has to work for your season of life, and so it's really going to be individualized. That's part of what I do, and my coaching is helping my clients figure out what is a system that works for them. So I guess an example like this week I posted a reel on Instagram and it was a drawer in our kitchen that's half protein powders and collagen and like our Nutribullet and creatine and then half of the Sleaf Tees. And some people might be like, why do you have that in a drawer and your island and like that's, you know, and that makes sense to them. But for us, for my husband and I, we use those things every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and so the system that we have is that we have, you know, our teas and these glass jars and we pull them out and the Nutribullet's right there. We pull it out, put it on the island, plug it in, and it works for us. Do I think that that drawer is going to forever stay? Protein and tea? Probably not. But for now, in this season of life, it's a system that works for us. That's just one example.
Speaker 2:
Another system that I've recently developed in our house is I was trying to figure out how to solve this problem. Maybe you have the same thing but your dishwasher how to tell if it's clean or dirty, like how do the other members of your household know if those dishes are clean or dirty? So I was kind of like I want on Amazon, I was going to buy this like magnet and I was like what's I can make a magnet that literally says clean or dirty. So I you know printed something out. I use my laminator and put a little magnet on the back and now we just flip it so if it says clean on top, you know it's clean. You can read clean. It says dirty, you flip it so it reads dirty. And that has helped so much because we're not opening the dishwasher while it's running. I will say we don't use that system perfectly. It's definitely. We're still learning how to implement it, but that's another example of a system and that costs nothing and has streamlined things for us.
Speaker 1:
It sounds like the systems really alleviate any kind of like micro frustrations, like it kind of like streamlines and creates like an ease in your home for whatever your personal process is, either for you or your house or, you know, whoever's in your home.
Speaker 2:
And it helps remove decisions. Are you familiar with decision fatigue?
Speaker 1:
I am from wedding planning actually, tell us more, tell us more.
Speaker 2:
Decision fatigue is just exactly what it sounds like we make over. As humans, we make over 3,000 decisions a day I bet parents make more and any sort of like so we get sick of we get fatigued, or get sick of making decisions right. So any decisions that you can remove are going to streamline your day and make your life easier. So my husband and I we'll prep lunches on the weekends. We have the same thing for lunch, you know, five days that week and it's already prepped in a little glass container we just pulled out in the morning. There is no decision needing to be made in the morning about what we're having for lunch. Granted, I know some people, you know that's not their thing, they don't want to eat the same thing, but for us it just makes life easier.
Speaker 1:
Is there anything that you would suggest someone not do if they're looking to get started?
Speaker 2:
Definitely I would say don't try to do it all in a day, which I mentioned before. You know it's not a sprint kind of thing. And then don't start with the hard stuff. Don't start with grandma's china or your memory box because you're setting yourself up to have a harder time. To let go and don't show it on yourself. Don't beat yourself up. If you're having a hard time, don't tell yourself you should be to hear you know your house should look like her house on Instagram. That's not helpful. The fact that you were starting, the fact that you were wanting to simplify your life, like I said, is a huge win.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I love that and it's so true. The TikTok algorithm had me for a minute with all organization and people's like inside of people, people's like refrigerators were like just exquisite. We don't really have that much in our fridge, honestly, just normally but it was like so fun to watch. So, yeah, I could see how we could all fall into the TikTok or Instagram hole.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, which is great, but I just don't think it's realistic for everyone, and so I really Totally fall in love with your own home. Make your home a space that you love. Yeah, because it's special and who knows how long you'll be in that house. Like, even if you're, you know, an apartment, you want to be in a house, or you're in a smaller house and you want to be in a bigger house, which that's a whole other conversation. Do we really need a bigger house? Yeah, fall in love with the space that you have and make it work for you.
Speaker 1:
I know that you mentioned that you have a membership that's coming out in the next month or so. Can you share with us a little bit about your membership, what might be in there, how people can get connected with you?
Speaker 2:
Yes, thank you so much for asking about that. I'm super excited. I have been working with my coach on launching this membership and so it launches later in March. But essentially it's a membership for busy women who want to simplify their lives so that they can make room for what matters for them, and it's a place for women to do that together, because decluttering is not easy, it's definitely not glamorous, it's not like TikTok or Instagram, and it's so much easier when we can do it together, when we have other women who are in similar seasons or, you know, are going through similar struggles, to be able to work together and to celebrate and also make change and hold each other accountable. So the membership is run on a private app and more details will come, but there are live calls and coaching with me, accountability with other members, and part of those live calls are education as well Learning from me and other experts on decluttering, and then also just different topics related to decluttering and related to that holistic wellness which I am super excited about.
Speaker 2:
I would say if people want to get connected with me, they can follow me on Instagram at Make Room to Breathe Again. My name is Noelle Fowler and I have a freebie that I would love for them to download. It's called let's Make Room a simple guide to go from clutter to calm, and on it I have just three of my most practical steps. I also talk about those stories that we tell ourselves and how we can rewrite those stories. I have four of those stories on the guide and I've gotten great feedback on it. I really love hearing from people how it's been helpful to them, so if anyone does grab that, I would love to hear how it's helping them. I'm also I just want to say I'm running a challenge in a couple of weeks as well, so if you follow me on Instagram and you sort of want to get a taste of what it might be like working with me as your declutter coach, they can sign up for that free challenge and get a little taste of what's to come.
Speaker 1:
I love that. That all sounds so exciting and we'll definitely link everything that you mentioned in the show notes, so definitely go check those out. And then our last question this is something that I ask all the guests that we have on is what is one thing it could be literally anything a book, a song, a person, a place, a thing, anything at all that is lighting you up right now and inspiring you in life?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I love that question. I am reading a book right now called Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. He is a pastor and he talks about following Jesus, and my faith is really important to me and that book has just been inspirational and I don't even have the words. Honestly, it's just a book that I look forward to reading and has really been making me think about my faith and how it's part of my everyday. So thank you, john Mark Comer, for that awesome book.
Speaker 1:
Oh, that sounds amazing. Well, thank you so much, noel, for coming on spending the time with us. I learned so much. This was so much fun chatting with you and, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much, rachel.
Speaker 1:
I'm so happy that you're here and I cannot wait to talk with you on our next episode of the Radiant Life podcast.
