Podcast 485: Decluttering Trauma

Life Enthusiast

Podcast 485: Decluttering Trauma

In this episode, Martin Pytela interviews Valerie Huard, a trauma and decluttering coach. Valerie’s research shows that there is a profound connection between trauma and material clutter. Valerie reveals how trauma can impair the brain’s ability to maintain order, leading to clutter that exacerbates stress and isolation. She shares her personal journey of healing from childhood trauma and outlines her holistic approach to decluttering, which addresses both the physical and emotional aspects of clutter. By helping clients process their emotions and foster a supportive community, Valerie guides them toward lasting transformation in their living spaces and overall well-being. If you would like to know more about how Valerie can help you, please visit her website:
https://dowellht.com/

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MARTIN: Hello, this is Martin Pytela. Life Enthusiast health coach for Life Enthusiast podcast. With me today, Valerie Huard.

VALERIE: Hi, Martin.

MARTIN: Hello. Pleasure. Let me try and introduce you to our audience. Valerie, like myself, lives in Canada and like myself, has a pretty deep experience with trauma, both in her own life and helping others. And I think the aspect that we’re going to explore today is valuable. Many of our audience are going through what Valerie is helping people to deal with. Let’s dive in. Welcome.

VALERIE: Awesome. Thank you. I’m really glad to be here.

MARTIN: Yeah. Valerie, I think it would be very helpful to just hear what it is that you focus on in helping people to solve in their life.

VALERIE: Yeah, I help people that have faced, unfortunately, some traumatic event. And because of that, eventually in life they started accumulating clutter. And now they are in a position where not only the trauma is blocking them, but the clutter is isolating them from inviting people at home or from doing some activity or finding some of their objects.

MARTIN: Right? So sometimes it happens because you’re just too tired and too sick to keep up, right? And it just starts accumulating all around you.

VALERIE: Yes. But it’s also because when someone had a trauma, the executive functions are affected after that. Yeah. Basically what happened is due to the fight or flight response. I think your audience already knows about the fight or flight response. After a trauma, the body needs to produce more cortisol. That’s the stress hormone in the brain. And for that the stress hormone raise, raise, raise and then slow down the frontal lobe. There is the executive function. This is where they are. So we’re talking about planning, organizing, sorting, working memory and focus. So all things that are really important to maintain a home tidy.

MARTIN: Yeah I can relate to it in a minor way. I call it my travel brain, where on the travel day I can no longer think clearly. I have to be working off of a list because the executive function, as you correctly name it, is just disconnected. I do not remember how to do things. I have to return to the list and work from that, and I have to have prepared the list on a calm day, 1 or 2 days earlier. That’s what you’re talking about, right?

VALERIE: Oh, totally. That’s what I’m talking about. It’s a really good example of that.

MARTIN: But of course, when it happens every day, then what? Right.

VALERIE: It starts to become a little bit more problematic. Let’s say somebody is working, or doing some volunteering or has some activities out of the house. The thing is, they gave 100% of themselves because most of the clients that I know, they are kind of a little bit perfectionist. You know, they really like to try and they are thriving during the day during their occupation. But when they arrive at home, it’s kind of if they almost shut down because they burn so much energy during the day to keep the executive function up to speed, that now the executive functions are kind of on a break. They have no more energy fueling them. And it’s kind of, oh, now I will pile my things instead of putting them at the right place. And it’s not because the person is lazy, it’s really because it becomes really difficult for the brain to identify where is the right place or where should I start, or how should I approach that pile?

MARTIN: Yeah, it becomes difficult to even start, right?

VALERIE: Oh, yes. A lot of people are overwhelmed at the beginning.

MARTIN: Right.

MARTIN: Well, so let’s just come back to the beginning. How did you get into learning all of this? And what I mean, you have plenty of credentials behind you and I think people would appreciate knowing just how much wisdom is packed in your life, right?

VALERIE: Yeah. Thank you. So my journey started, unfortunately, with a traumatic childhood where I got abused and growing up, I dissociated and then I became in the world of I need to perform. And then I got to study occupational therapy. That was awesome for me. I learned so much about the brain and about all of that, you know?

MARTIN: Yeah.

VALERIE: And then my trauma said, you know what? I want some attention. Here I am. Hello. And I had to take care of myself. I needed to kind of stop a little bit and really start healing myself. So I went on that journey of healing where it was difficult but wonderful at the same time, if I can say. Because I went on tons of retreats, some programs, lots of places to learn, I spent over $100,000 just to heal myself, you know? And it was a long journey because I had nobody that was able to tell me, you know what? Go that way. Because even the doctor that I met. They told me, you know what? We don’t know what to do.

MARTIN: Yeah. They don’t.

VALERIE: You will just get worse with time. And I say, oh no, I don’t want that. And it was kind of feeling unworthy almost, or feeling that the medical system was giving up on me. It was really hard at first, you know. But from there I adopted kids that have special needs. And my life continued. And one day we arrived to move and the movers company came. And the guy, I will always remember his face and his blue uniform. He looked around the house and told me, ma’am, we cannot move you. I’m calling a moving company and they’re telling me they cannot move me? What’s going on? And then he continues his sentence by, you need to let go of at least half your belongings. Half my belongings? Wow! I was wanting to cry. I was shocked. Letting go of half my belongings. You know, I grew up in an environment where the more you possess the better status you have in life.

MARTIN: Yes. We need stuff.

VALERIE: Exactly. And from there, we had three months to declutter before the move. We were not able to do that. So after the three months, my husband had to move first and I stayed behind with the kids to declutter. And the first night when he left. Oh my God, I fell in tears sitting in front of our storage room. And I hadn’t cried for many, many years before that. It was kind of, I was always going, doing the things. But then I connected with the emotion. And that was the moment where I was really starting to raise. So what I mean by that is when I start touching the belongings to really declutter the belongings bring me an emotion, because the sense of touch is linked to the limbic system in the brain. And then I was discovering the emotion progressively of that object. Remind me of these things. Or oh, I was happy when I got that. Or oh, I was sad when that happened. And a couple weeks after I realized I was not just smiling like, I was feeling it, and I was not needing a nap anymore in the afternoon. I was more energized and I was feeling better and my flashbacks were reducing. And all of these kinds of benefits with decluttering the belongings. So we were finally able to reunite the family and I decided that I wanted to help other people. So I did a course in home staging because we were military and we were moving often, you know.

MARTIN: Okay.

VALERIE: And then I realized, oh my God, people are able to place a pillow there or a blanket there, or remove a frame. That’s not a problem. Problem they have is to declutter before doing that.

MARTIN: Yes.

MARTIN: So it involves removing all of the,

VALERIE: Exactly.

MARTIN: I’m just looking behind myself here on my bookshelf and I’m thinking, okay,I’m mostly not very cluttered, but I have been hanging on to books. I want to read that book again. I probably never will.

VALERIE: Exactly.

MARTIN: But it represents something for me, right? It represents the memory of reading it.

VALERIE: Yes, but the knowledge. You already got it. Even if you let go of the book, the knowledge is in you.

MARTIN: True, but I haven’t let go of the book.

VALERIE: I know. At some point we were having 9 or 10 bookshelves full of books. Now we don’t have enough. We have less than one.

MARTIN: Right.

VALERIE: So I then specialized in professional organizing. You know, when we go to people’s home and help people declutter their home.

MARTIN: Yeah.

VALERIE: And very fast, I realized that most of my clients were opening to me about their trauma when I was decluttering with them.

MARTIN: Yeah.

VALERIE: Probably because I suffered myself. So I was approachable on that. And then I specialized even more. I did some studies and we did some research. We contacted researchers about the brain and things like that, to really realize that there’s a link between clutter and trauma.

MARTIN: Aha. Right.

VALERIE: That link that I explained to you at the beginning with unresolved trauma.

MARTIN: Unresolved connection to an object. And it’s holding us in bondage, right?

VALERIE: Yes, exactly. And as long as the executive functions are not able to kick in, people won’t be able to declutter. It will be like a pendulum. They let go of clutter. It comes back. They let go. It comes back. They declutter a countertop. It comes back.

MARTIN: So as a professional organizer, you are actually having to serve as an emotional coach or I don’t know, what would you call that?

VALERIE: I often search how to call me. The best way I found was trauma and decluttering coach.

MARTIN: Yes. Makes sense. Now, as I’m looking at my own self and my own problems, I’m just thinking, oh dear, this is going to be a very, very prevalent issue in the population. Right.

VALERIE: It is, it is. And people don’t want to talk about it because both trauma and clutter are too taboo.

MARTIN: True enough. I mean, you started out by saying that in your childhood, you experienced serious abuse, right?

VALERIE: Yeah.

MARTIN: I mean, my heart goes out to you. This is just.

VALERIE: Thank you.

MARTIN: A child that gets abused is just so. It’s such a betrayal.

VALERIE: It is. It is.

MARTIN: Okay. So you need to deal with that. And that’s not a small thing.

VALERIE: No it’s not. It’s not, but it’s possible. And there’s a way out. I helped hundreds of clients that were really able to move forward and create a happy life in a tidy home.

MARTIN: Yeah. I want to celebrate the personal victory. For you. And then what you bring to clients.

VALERIE: Yeah. Thank you.

MARTIN: Right? Like you’re actually able to hold them up with the emotion that you have experienced in yourself.

VALERIE: Yeah. With that. And I also did a trauma certificate to get even more knowledge and be able to support them more.

MARTIN: All right. So in practical terms, I can just see how much help you would be to someone who’s realizing that their emotional trouble is connected directly to their physical environment. Right?

VALERIE: Yeah.

MARTIN: And what is the process? How does it work for you when engaging with the client?

VALERIE: At the beginning, they don’t necessarily realize that they are connected. They realize that there’s some clutter and they feel overwhelmed, and they’re kind of paralyzed when they arrive to start decluttering. This is how they realize. And then when they connect with us, we explain to them that there’s a link with the trauma that is unresolved, and from there we bring them on a holistic decluttering journey. We put that stuff down. That’s our books. And in it there’s the dual method. And the dual method is really simple. There’s four steps everybody needs to pass through the four steps.

MARTIN: Okay. Let’s describe that.

VALERIE: Yeah. The very first step is to reduce the stress because as the cortisol is too high, the stress is too high and the executive function is slowed down. So when we decrease the stress the executive functions kick in. And I can see that easily when it’s not in a blood test, you know. But it will be when clients arrive on a call and they say, you know what, Valerie? Today I went to the mail and I right away discarded what I didn’t need. And. Sort what I decided to keep. That was awesome. I didn’t pile it on the countertop. Or they say, oh, I did my laundry and folded my clothes right away. So things like that that the people know they want to do. But with the executive function paralyzed or slowed down, they’re not able to do them. So they pile up. So that’s the very first step.

MARTIN: So reduce stress. And sometimes that will be difficult because you need to be making yourself safe in the environment, safe in your relationships and so on. Right.

VALERIE: Yep. And then we can tackle the mindset. So I call it the letting go mindset. That’s really, really important because people are now able to make decisions about to keep or not an item. But often they keep that one just in case. And maybe and what if and just in case and maybe and what if in that pile in the middle becomes the biggest pile?

MARTIN: Yeah.

VALERIE: So we want people to be able to be aligned with themselves to know what they want. To know their value. To know where they’re going in life. And for that, we talk about different subjects like emotion, authenticity, relationships, lots of different subjects that will help the people at the end of the day say, yes, I will really use that. Or you know what, this one? I don’t think so. If I need it again, I’ll find another one.

MARTIN: Yeah. That’s the victory, right?

VALERIE: That’s a huge victory. And after mindset we tackled time. I call it “discover free time.”

MARTIN: Okay.

VALERIE: Because what happened is lots of people have difficulty sleeping. So we look at routines and habits, not just about sleeping. That’s an example. But they will get more energized if their sleep is better and they will be able to obtain better and declutter easier. But we also look at our morning routine. How to get started in the day at some decluttering routine, all of that. But the basics is really that lots of people, they have too many things in their calendars that they’re freaking out, sorry for the word. Or, they’re sometimes on the couch scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, knowing that they have things to do and not able to do them because they don’t know where to look to do their things. So there’s a little bit of time management in there as well.

MARTIN: Mhm.

VALERIE: It’s an organizing skill. And not everybody learned it or was able to pass on the paper way to manage it to the online way or the phone way.

MARTIN: Right. Gosh, this gets complicated in many ways.

VALERIE: Yeah. And then we pass to the one that everybody is waiting for. It is “simplify your living space.” Now we have all the strategy we need to be able to declutter and maintain it.

MARTIN: Right.

VALERIE: The other things that we often forget is if we declutter too fast, it will come back. You know those big shows they do on TV? Sensational TV.

MARTIN: Like sensational weight loss and sensational this.

VALERIE: Yeah, the hoarders show and things like that. You know, they declutter so fast. It’s another trauma for these folks. And people just gather stuff afterwards unfortunately, because it’s not the way to do it..

MARTIN: Wow. Okay. I can just relate how if you don’t process the emotion that goes with letting go of the item, if you just throw it away, you’ll go back and you pull it back out of the garbage can, right?

VALERIE: Oh yeah. Like, you cannot imagine how often what I did is, I put things in a box and there’s a giveaway at the curb. So you put it in the box at the curb with free sign on it, and you sit on the couch in the living room and you’re looking through the window.

MARTIN: I think I need it. I think I need that.

VALERIE: Someone is picking it. Oh, and then you, the people left, and you go grab the box, put it in the garage just in case. I did that.

MARTIN: It will come handy. I cannot go without it.

VALERIE: Yeah.

MARTIN: Yeah. I can just see that. Oh, okay. So that’s straightforward. So the process is, it’s good to know that you have it structured, that you understand the steps and what you need to do. Because in many, especially in coaching, you need to have a plan you need to know,

VALERIE: Oh definitely.

MARTIN: Things need to happen before and after. It’s really important to have antecedents and understand how the process works. So how do people interact with you? Is this done one on one or is this done in group sessions? How does it work?

VALERIE: We have group sessions. So basically I have a platform that we call the Doers Academy. And in there, there’s some video that people are following and they can ask questions and things like that. And we suggest people to really not binge watch them because we want the subconscious to sink the information. Right. That’s one part of the program. Then we have meetings, and we have meetings almost every day except Sunday. It doesn’t mean that people need to be there every day, but it means that there’s a safety net if they’re processing something and they need support. And we have meetings on the four different steps that I explained. We have meetings on decluttering together, putting some music on and having fun together. Decluttering. We have different activities. Oh yes, people love that.

MARTIN: So it becomes a team effort.

VALERIE: It becomes a team effort. Yes.

MARTIN: That’s good. Yeah. because when people are finally willing to let a guest, even if it’s just on a video, but when you’re willing to let the guest come into your room and see the mess. Right?.

VALERIE: Yeah. At the beginning, lots of the clients on the call are either closing their video or putting a fake background or a blurry background. And progressively they will come with their own background. And it’s beautiful to see the transformation happening because my program is a year long. Because it needs time to change habits and paradigms.

MARTIN: Yes I agree.

VALERIE: And there’s so much to change when people have been suffering from trauma.

MARTIN: Right on. Okay. Well, this explains it rather well, Valerie. Where will people be able to connect with you?

VALERIE: Yeah, we have a website. It’s DowellHT.com. People can get on there. There’s a little bubble at the bottom of the website. They can click on it and start chatting with us. Or they can send an email in the contact to us. There’s really multiple places. I’m on Facebook as well.

MARTIN: Okay, great. So this is almost as good as any other movement, right? Any other movement that liberates us from dependencies, that helps us reach our full potential. Because what you’re describing is really blocking an expression of an intellect and of a creative person and so on, all that. So we have.

VALERIE: Oh yeah it’s a huge transformation.

MARTIN: We have all this human potential locked up essentially in trauma. Right?

VALERIE: Yeah. And people are so creative and they want to do their piece of heart or creating music or writing that they want to do. And they’re blocked, right?

MARTIN: You need to have time, right?

VALERIE: You need to have time and they’re blocked because, oh, I must be decluttering right now. Or where is that journal that I put somewhere or where is that piece of fabric.

MARTIN: Right. And so you spent two hours looking for the thing.

VALERIE: Yeah.

MARTIN: Mhm. Yes. This is so uplifting to me because of course I recognize it in me, I recognize it in other people. And it’s great to be able to connect with just knowing that you’re there. But for those who really need it, I’m just so encouraged to be able to introduce you to the audience that we have here at Life Enthusiast.

VALERIE: Yeah, thank you so much. I’ll make a link for people with the notes so they can contact us directly.

VALERIE: All right. Valerie Huard and DowellHT.com

VALERIE: Like home transformation.

MARTIN: Home transformation and human transformation at the same time.

VALERIE: And holistic transformation. Yes.

MARTIN: As well. That’s great.

MARTIN: Valerie, thank you very much. This is Martin Pytela at Life Enthusiast podcast. Life-enthusiast.com. Thank you.

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