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It'll change your life! Here's why…
How aware are you of the benefits of tidying as a tool for increased mental well-being? For neurodivergent families with ADHD and/or autism, elevating tidying to a priority level in your family's mental wellness toolkit is invaluable for creating a sense of calm from chaos.
The object impermanence, time blindness, and executive dysfunction that can accompany those with ADHD/autism means that they are not always able to be tidy all the time. But it's not because they don't want to be — it’s because of the way the brain is wired.
They need a bit of external help to figure out the steps and that's where someone like me, or other professional declutterers can help. The tasks are broken down, and put into achievable steps. Once they learn the skill, and they do it over and over again, they can integrate tidying and can really come to appreciate the mental health benefits of having a space that is free of clutter.
It's never too late.
If the state of the environment has become overwhelming with “doom piles” and hoarding, it’s also perfectly alright to ask for help and get someone who can come in and do the decluttering and create organisational systems. And while getting help in this way is okay, I see learning to tidy as a life skill that people can carry with them for life.
It’s not just neurodiverse families who face tidying challenges either. There are hoarders all over the world from all walks of life. My message to everyone today is that it’s okay to ask for help if you find yourself without time or energy to declutter an entire household’s worth of stuff after years of accumulation.
It's okay to need help.
There’s strength in reaching out and there are people who want to help. But it's a journey into who you are, how you got to this point, and an enquiry into whether living in a cluttered/messy space is a path you want to continue on.
If tidying and decluttering is not something you’ve done regularly in the past, you can think of the activity on the same level as having an underdeveloped muscle — one that you CAN exercise and make stronger.
It allows you then to be a bit more intentional with the rest of your life because you're choosing what you want for your future. Now, it might be via your belongings, but the thought process is the same as with other life decisions.
You’re saying “This is the life that I want to lead. Will these objects that surround me support me to reach that and live that life or is it holding me back?”
And so you have to go through everything in your house to realise what is allowing you to life the life you want and what isn’t.
What are the things that other people gave to you or put upon you that you couldn't say no to at one point, but now you have a choice to say "No, this isn't right for me, and it's okay"?
You're not being rude and you're not trying to be horrible. It's just you're trying to look after yourself so that when you're at your best, it means you can give the world your best as well. And that includes all the people in your life.
My journey with tidying.
I love to have a calm tidy space but I'm definitely not extreme — I love minimalism, but I can't live in a minimalist house purely because of the rest of my family. I can have a more laid-back kind of tidy.
The key concept for me is that if everything has a home it just makes life easier. That's the main goal. I've always wanted a tidy, clean, minimal home and it's sometimes needed.
But when you have kids, the toys just build up right? And when you live with someone else you have to respect that it's also their home as well. What I naturally enjoyed before getting married and having children had started disappearing a little bit amongst everyone else's needs.
So at first, I just needed someone to give me guidance when it came to the space not just being about me, and that I've got all these other people that I've got to interact with. The reflection and enquiry then became: How can we live more harmoniously in terms of the space that we own?
My inspiration.
And I did try to help my family declutter and it worked to an extent before I had a big realisation, which Marie Kondo does also advise about, is that you shouldn't really tidy anyone else's stuff. It's their stuff. You just tidy your own stuff.
So that's what I did and I just role-modelled that and just kept my things tidy. And you know, my family started following suit. It's 100% about being true to yourself and looking after your own stuff and then that enables you to be a model for the rest of the people in your world.
Whether they want to follow you or not is their choice, but I believe that my family could see the benefits so they just naturally followed.
Thinking of working with me but not sure how just yet?
I’ve got a “Simple Guide to Understanding and Supporting your Neurodivergent Self (or Loved Ones)” free email series you can sign up to.
The series of 5 emails equips you with video, audio, and other tools that are designed to take you from feeling anxious and overwhelmed to calm and clear. You'll also get weekly insights into life on the neurodiversity spectrum to further help you understand yourself (or your loved ones).
If you are feeling ready to explore coaching with me, book a discovery call with me here.
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