Clutter Busting Your Life - An Inspiring Decluttering Story

I share an inspirational story about man who removed the clutter from his home and got his life back. Clutter keeps us buried alive. But when we remove the clutter, we get our lives back. I hope this story inspires you to begin to let go of the clutter in your life.

Transcript

Hi,

It's Brooks and thank you for joining me.

I'd like to share with you a story today about one of my favorite clutter busting jobs.

It encompasses a lot of the points about clutter busting and it's a really good story.

And here's the story.

So I was hired by this client and I came to his house and on the outside,

There was like a door and there was glass on the door and the glass was all taped up with paper.

And one of the pieces of paper that was taped on there said,

Occupants are home and are armed and armed was underlined.

So I was like,

Oh boy,

Let's see what we got in store here.

So I came to his house and I was like,

So I knocked on the door and I waited and I heard the sound from the other side of the door and the voice sounded very scared and the voice said,

Who's there?

And I said,

It's Brooks,

The clutter buster.

I'm here to work with you.

And he's like,

Oh,

Okay.

And then he unlocked about five locks,

Click,

Click,

Click,

Click,

Click.

And I was like,

Well,

Okay,

Wow,

That's a lot of locks.

And he opened the door and then there was a chain on the inside.

So he looked to make sure that I was actually Brooks.

And he was in the shadows,

It was dark through the door and he was glimpsing at me and I said,

Hi.

And he's like,

Hello.

And I smelled,

There was a smell that came through the door was kind of a dank odor,

Like a kind of a mildewy kind of smell.

So I was like,

Okay,

This is gonna be intense.

I had this feeling,

Okay,

Let's get ready.

So he undid the chain,

He let me in.

And he basically lived in a condo.

It was a three story condo.

And he took me on a tour through the house,

Which I always had people do.

It was like an idea of the whole place.

And he had a hard time walking through the house because he had polio as a kid.

And so he had a leg brace and he also had crutches.

So I was thinking like,

Wow,

How did he get through the house because there was things all over the floor and parts of the areas were blocked off with stuff.

And anyway,

I was thinking,

How am I gonna help this guy?

Because there was literally things everywhere.

And he was so closed off.

He was just,

I could tell there was a lot coming on inside of him because when people really shut off their emotions completely,

They're protecting themselves.

And in order to clutter bus for someone,

They have to be open.

So anyway,

We're walking through the house and he takes me up to the third floor.

And there's so much stuff up there that's bungee corded back so it doesn't cave in.

And he showed me a comforter on the floor and he said that's where he slept.

And it was hard to see that.

So then we got to the end of the bedroom and there was a bed up there but it was all covered with stuff,

You know.

So I was thinking,

Okay,

Where do I start?

How do I help this person?

And he paused for a moment and then some tears came to his eyes.

And he let down his guard and he said,

I'm so embarrassed.

I'm so embarrassed.

And at that point,

My heart opened wide open for him and I knew I could help him because he was open.

He was open and ready,

You know.

He was sad,

He was,

I could tell he was injured on the inside,

You know.

And he really needed help and he wanted help.

Because I think he can only help somebody if they want to be helped.

So I basically,

I had a box of trash bags in my hand and I took out a trash bag and I opened it up and I picked up an empty Diet Coke bottle,

You know,

From those big ones and I started there.

I picked it up and I said,

This,

Do you like and use this or can we let it go?

And I wasn't telling him,

Like,

You don't need this stupid Diet Coke bottle,

You know.

It was basically,

I wanted him to start making a decision.

Because that's what clutter busting is,

Is making decisions piece by piece.

I mean,

If you look at it all as a whole,

It's too much.

But piece by piece,

It's doable,

You know.

It's not overwhelming.

So he thought,

He thought like,

Oh,

I guess I don't need that,

So I put it in the trash bag.

I said,

Great.

Then I found some empty paper towel rolls that were rubber banded together.

So I said,

What about these?

Do you need these paper towel rolls?

Again,

I was asked,

There was no judgment on my voice.

It was curiosity.

And he got it,

He's like,

Yeah,

I don't need these paper towels.

And we put him in the,

I put him in the trash bag.

And I was there for a number of months,

You know,

Working with him like five days a week.

And the more that we worked,

The more I could felt him become stronger,

You know.

And opening up more and more.

At one point he revealed to me,

Before I ever even got there to start working with him,

He told me that for quite a while every night he had a,

He had this shotgun that he would put in his mouth because he was so overwhelmed by the situation of the clutter that he wanted to kill himself.

So he put this shotgun in his mouth,

But he could never pull the trigger,

You know,

Because there was a part of him that wanted to live.

Even though he was in so much pain.

And this really taught me a lot,

You know,

Like,

Clutters,

It's very painful to live with clutter.

And sometimes I'll say to someone,

I'm a clutter buster.

And they'll go like,

Oh yeah,

I don't have clutter.

I'm not a hoarder.

There's this idea like,

Clutter is only when you have so much stuff that you're under this category of hoarder.

And hoarders,

The word is usually meant in a very derogatory sense,

It's like,

Oh that person's a hoarder.

Like there's something wrong with them.

But the truth is,

People to that degree of having that degree of stuff,

They're in that degree of pain.

Because we often hold on to clutter as a way to cover up the pain that we're feeling in our lives.

Our lives can become very painful.

And it can become too much,

And so clutter is a way of numbing that pain.

So I was very aware of that when I was working with him,

That he had a lot of pain inside of him.

And especially after he told me that how he wanted to commit suicide but wasn't able to do it.

So there's this one day that I was working with him,

And basically I would just grab stuff in an area,

And I would start asking him about it,

Just pick up something and grab it.

And ask him.

But I reached in this one particular area,

And I felt something very cold and metallic.

And I knew it was a gun.

So I took it out,

And I was holding this really big gun in my hands,

And I said,

Is it loaded?

He goes,

Yeah.

I asked him if he had any other guns in the house,

And he said he did,

He said he had 12 guns.

And I asked him about letting go of the guns.

And he said he didn't want to.

He said that he wasn't gonna go into that.

He wanted to keep them,

There'd be no discussion about the guns.

And he started to close off.

So I had this feeling to ask him about that sign that was downstairs on the door,

The sign that said occupants are home and are armed,

And the armed was underlined.

And I said,

What about that?

I said,

Can we take that down?

And he got very angry,

And he said,

He goes,

Nope,

I'm not taking that down.

That stays.

He goes,

I've been living here 15 years,

And that whole time I've had that signed up,

And no one has ever broken in.

He was very proud of that.

And I said,

Well,

That's interesting.

I said,

Because every night,

Someone's put a gun into your mouth every night,

Even though you have that signed up.

Someone's put a gun in your mouth every single night.

And he started to cry.

Really big tears.

It was that kind of crying where your whole body's shaking.

And he completely opened up,

Sobbing.

And he cried for quite a while,

And I sat there with him while he cried.

And you just feel all this tension going away,

All this rage falling away,

Falling away,

All this fear falling away.

It was like his heart had been locked up in a vault,

And the walls of the vault busted,

And his heart was shooting out.

It was so beautiful.

It was really quite wonderful.

So he said,

When he stopped crying,

He said,

Yeah,

We can take that sign down.

So I went downstairs,

And I took the tape off that was holding that sign up,

Off the window and the door,

And I threw it out.

And he still hung out under the guns.

I never push anybody if they don't want to let something go.

But I felt like a great thing had happened for him,

That he had done a great thing for himself by letting the sign go.

So like I was saying,

I worked there for a number of months,

And we completely cleared out the place.

And he repainted it,

And he sold the place,

And he moved to a much smaller,

Much nicer place in a different city.

And he called me every once in a while to let me know he was doing okay.

It was really great.

I felt like I saved his life,

You know?

But essentially,

He saved his own life by deciding to ask for help.

Decided that he'd had enough of living like he was.

And I think that's,

Because I think it's hard for anybody,

No matter how much clutter they have,

To decide,

Okay,

I'm gonna start letting this stuff go.

Because like I was saying,

There is that feeling of protection by having the clutter.

It feels like an insulation from the world.

Even though the side effects from living with a clutter are really harsh and hard.

Plus,

You're going up against that thing that we've all been taught since we were very young that things are more important than us.

And that our wealth is measured by what we have in our life.

The objects that we have in our life,

The activities that we do,

The people that we have relationships with.

Those are like our savings account of our wealth.

And we're considered secondary to all that stuff.

So it becomes really hard to even question that stuff if we believe that those things are worth more than us.

That our value is very low.

But the truth of it is,

And I can say this from working with many people and,

Thought of blessing for myself,

That we're primary,

That you're primary,

That I'm primary.

That we're more important than any of the things in our lives.

And once we become secondary,

Then we suffer.

And we can never have enough stuff to feel okay.

When we get something,

There's always a temporary elation,

But then there's just this feeling of the despair and the suffering coming back.

And then we gotta get something else,

You know?

And it's exhausting to live that way.

And the only peace of mind that we can get is by starting to look around and ask questions about the things in our lives.

But by putting ourselves first,

And when we pick up something,

Asking,

Do I like and use this or not?

And by doing that,

We make ourselves primary.

Because we're asking ourselves.

We're not asking the world,

What should I do?

We're asking ourselves,

Do I like this or not?

And we're asking our heart.

We're not asking our mind.

And that reconnects us with ourselves.

And that's what happened to the man that I was working with.

And he got his life back.

And you can get your life back.

Just by starting to ask,

By starting to look around.

By having that healthy curiosity,

That inquisitiveness.

I wonder what's serving me,

What isn't.

And by asking,

And by starting to let go.

And the relief comes and you start to feel better.

So,

Thank you for listening.

And I wish you the best.

Take care,

Bye.

Reviews

What an incredible story of overcoming all the guilt and shame, suffering and pain. Thank you for sharing 🫶🏻

Wow what a story! I felt so many emotions coming up as I listened . Thank you

A humble & inspiring story. Appreciate the authenticity of this teaching🙏🏽💜

This was so freeing for me. Thank you for sharing your gift with us! The knowledge that the clutter is a representation of my pain...is life changing for me. Thank you so much!!!!

Thank you for sharing this story and all the insights.

In this moment I’m thinking when I go into someone’s home and see all the clutter from room to room, I had not thought about their pain behind it! This was so inspirational. Thank you for sharing.