Melvin Varghese:
Hey, it's Melvin. Before we jump into today's podcast session, just wanted to take a moment to thank the team over at Upheal for supporting the STC podcast. Upheal is AI-powered case notes that are HIPAA compliant and GDPR certified. If you've been struggling with case notes and just trying to keep them and get them in all in order and just even complete them, I definitely encourage you to check out Upheel over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash upheel. And at checkout, be sure to use the promo code couch to get 50% off Upheel for the first three months. This is just for STC listeners, but the offer expires on October 31st, 2024. Let's jump right into today's session. Hello, hello, welcome to today's session of Selling the Couch. I hope you're doing well, having an incredible day. So today's podcast session is all about decluttering, and specifically how decluttering can be a supplement to therapy. I'm joined by my friend Sarah Mueller over at thedeclutteringclub.com. Sarah and I actually connected about eight years ago. We were part of Stu McLaren's tribe community. So in the early days of my podcasting course, one of the things that we had been thinking about was, do I just have this as a course only offering? Or is there like a membership site opportunity that's there. And Sarah hosted a meetup of like local entrepreneurs. 70 years ago and I remember at that meetup we spent a lot of time just Sarah and I just talking and just connecting because I felt like there was so much alignment when it came to values and how we sort of saw things and all of these things. Since then Sarah has grown a massive following online She'll share some more of the numbers, but we are now, you know, talking like hundreds of thousands of people following her. She's built a very, very successful business around this concept of decluttering. And I, you know, wanted to have Sarah on just to kind of share her story but more about decluttering and this concept of it because I feel like many of us as clinicians especially are in seasons of life where we're thinking about letting things go and especially as the pandemic in the midst of the pandemic and after the pandemic I think so many of us have had losses and we're trying to now figure out what the purpose of a lot of things are and part of that means is that we let things go. So We start off just by talking about Sarah's story, why this was such an important mission for her. We talk about exactly what decluttering means. I think before this conversation I had this assumption of decluttering means a certain thing, but it actually means a more holistic thing, which I love the way that Sarah describes it. we talk about some of the benefits of decluttering and then we talk about the real meat of this is about how do you start decluttering when you're feeling overwhelmed and then we get into a little bit deeper of I know many of us are really have a lot of our old books we love collecting books but if we're not careful you know books can take up a ton of space and sometimes they might be meaningful to us but how do you declutter in the midst of like declutter books essentially And then we finally talk about how decluttering can be a supplement to therapy and some of the ways that that can be truly helpful. So here's my conversation with Sarah Mueller from TheDeclutteringClub.com. Hey Sarah, welcome to Selling the Couch.

Sarah Mueller:
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me, Melvin. This is such a treat.

Melvin Varghese:
You know, it's so we were talking about this right before, but it has been probably a good eight years since we connected and we were thinking about like our businesses and like just little babies in the business world. And first of all, I'm just so grateful that even in the midst of a long period of time of like connecting that we can just like pick up, you know, and I think I love when there are relationships with folks where it can do that and definitely consider you one of them. And yeah, I'm just so thankful for you and for our conversation today.

Sarah Mueller:
Oh my God. I love it. I mean, it's true, right? We just hopped right on and like, literally, I don't think I've seen you in my Facebook feed and maybe once or twice, but it didn't matter. Right. Cause I think we have so many things in common and we have a lot of shared values. And so like eight years is just like, you know, it's like a day. So it's great to be here.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, a day in a pandemic and all that kind of stuff. Right. So.

Sarah Mueller: Exactly.

Melvin Varghese: I have a ton of questions for you, you know, but I wanted to start here. What's your story that made you want to create the Cluttering Club? I mean, which has grown into a uber successful business. What's like the backstory on all of this?

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, you know, I've always been a very organized person, right? Like my life is organized, but it was not always decluttered. And I spent probably 10 plus years of my adult, more than 10 years of my adult life just really struggling to keep up and really frustrated, right? Because so I have four kids now. I think at the time I started declaring I had three, but it's just like, why, why if I'm already organized and I know how this is supposed to work, like why is my house always messy? And why do I always feel like I'm just absolutely exhausted? There must be something I can do about this. Right. And so like over time, I, I kind of had this aha moment of, oh, it's not an organization problem, right? I don't need to go buy more bins. I don't need to, you know, I don't just need a weekend where the kids are. you know, somewhere else so I can clean up. Like, I had plenty of that, but that wasn't the answer to the problem. The problem was that I just had more stuff than I needed, more stuff that I could process. So once I realized that and started letting go, oh my gosh, Melvin, my life got so much easier. And I have four kids, again, four kids, that's a lot of kids. And I had a home business at that point, I had a different business, and life just got easier. And I was like, oh my gosh, everybody needs to know this. This is, like, people actually don't know this. You know, so I started talking about it and, you know, when, when you're talking about it to your friends, they might be like, oh, that's great. You know, like they may or may not be interested, but when I started sharing online and I had a blog at the point, I started sharing online and people are like, oh. that's cool. Right. And they wanted to hear more. And so that's how we started. And it's just grown over time. I've just realized, okay, you know, there's, there's so much we can do again to make life easier. Like my tagline is less stuff, more life. Like this is not about just like getting rid of stuff to get rid of stuff. Like I'm not a minimalist, although I'm getting closer and closer every day, but I want people to have an easier life. I want them to have room for what matters to them. Like this is, I believe, desperately important. This is not just a nice to have, this is not just about getting cleaned up or saving a little time. No, this is about like redeeming your life and then doing the things that you actually want to do. And I feel like I have the answer to that.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, really well said. You said one of the things was that the business has grown over time. So I mean, can you give us like a glance of like, like, followers, like any of this stuff that's, that's been happening? Because I mean, I've seen you and I've tracked it. But yeah,

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, oh my gosh, it's so crazy, isn't it? It's like, it's phenomenal. And I think, you know, maybe it seems like it's happened, you know, people may be watching, they're like, oh my gosh, you blew up overnight. But of course, that's not the truth. Right? And we know this now. We've been friends for eight years. That's a long time to work on the same thing. So I think when we started out, Basically, I was starting from zero in terms of my social media following. I had an email list. I've always loved to email my, you know, my community. I feel like it's like the one-to-one connection. So I love that. But we started out with basically zero social media in 2018. And that was when I really started focusing in on the decluttering. And we actually went viral like really fast, like once I kind of learned some techniques. We had some viral posts, but it's just grown over time. So let's say from zero and right now on Facebook, we have 187,000 followers. On Instagram, I think there's 136,000, right? And I'm not sure about YouTube, but it's just built over time. We have thousands of people in the membership and tens of thousands who participate when we do a challenge. So it's really, really like there's a demand. There is a huge need for what we're teaching. It's pretty cool.

Melvin Varghese:
How has it been for you? Well, before I even say this, like you're one of the most humble and grounded people that I've ever met, because I remember when we met eight years ago, that was one of the first impressions that I had of you, like you're, we're successful. And but you are like, you're just a nice person. And I love when good people win. What has it been like for you to see something, I mean, again, this is not overnight, but to see it grow like this, right? And how has it changed you internally?

Sarah Mueller:
Well, it's required me to, to grow. I mean, I can say, and I do believe this, this has never been about me, right? This is not about me. This is not the Sarah show, but it kind of also is, right? Like my community is looking to me to lead them. And when I'm willing to accept that, then I can grow into the leader that I feel that I want to be for this community. So that's been a little challenging, like, I would much rather, you know, be like, hey, we're all in this together. And we are. But also, like, I'm leading the ship here. And the more that I do that, the better. Because I feel like there's, again, there's just such a need. And I can't fill that need if I am not willing to say, you know, here's where we're going, here's what's going on. Here's what I want. And it just has been challenging to grow as a leader, to have a team, to give direction. Not easy, but I think really, really good work. I think it's probably the most important work that I've done. So it's been a good journey.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, really well said. I think this is one of the things of entrepreneurship. I think it was a little naive to the way that it stretches you and forces you to become even somebody maybe you had aspired to become, but I don't know, something like entrepreneurship, I feel like is such an accelerant to that growth, you know?

Sarah Mueller:
Absolutely. Yeah.

Melvin Varghese:
Okay. So as I shared, I've got a lot of questions for you and maybe we could just start here. What exactly does decluttering mean?

Sarah Mueller:
I love that question. You know, some people think it means like putting things away or moving things around. I, I have a very simple definition. It's just letting go of anything that doesn't serve you. Okay. So like, I can't look at your house or I can't look at anyone's house and say, Oh, you should declutter that. Like, I have no idea. Right. And a lot of times people don't understand that because they'll be like, Oh, you know, don't tell me to get rid of my stuff. It's not, you know, like I love my clutter. And I'm like, but then it's not clutter, is it? If it's serving you, if you want to keep it, then it's not clutter. And I would encourage you to keep it. Now, just be careful because are you sure that it's all serving you? Right? A lot of times people don't really take a look and we could dive into that, but just letting go of anything that isn't needed anymore. It doesn't mean that, you know, a lot of times people think, well, if I let this thing go, it means that it's no good. or it means that I made a mistake or whatever. It means I don't love that person, and that's not what it means at all. It's just letting go of what you don't need or what you don't want to keep in your possession.

Melvin Varghese:
Two questions there, but we'll start with this first one. How do you distinguish between what serves you versus rationalizing? Something could be clutter, but you just sort of rationalize it as it's serving me.

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, I think it's just a question of being honest with yourself. Something might, you might decide, I'm like, do you like your reason? Why are you keeping something? This is, we dig into this a lot in our membership and our community. Like, why are you keeping that thing? Are you keeping it because you feel like you're going to collapse into a puddle of tears if you let it go? Like, okay, you know, maybe you like that reason, but maybe you don't, right? Maybe you think, okay, this can be super hard, but also, It's the right thing. Again, being honest with yourself about why you're keeping something. If you're keeping it because you love it to pieces, amazing. If you're keeping it because you don't want to make your mother-in-law mad, probably not a great choice. But again, that's not my job. So everybody needs to decide for themselves and get really clear on that.

Melvin Varghese:
One thing I hear in all of this is there has to be a lot of internal work that has to be done and the meaning we attribute to it, but even not just the meaning to the thing, but I think it's the fear of letting it go, right? Whether it's family dynamics or personal, whatever it is, right? I feel like that, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like that's where the real work is happening. It's not just about the thing.

Sarah Mueller:
Of course, absolutely. Right? Like, we're talking about t-shirts and coffee mugs and, you know, old pieces of paper, photos. But no, we're not. We're talking about memories. We're talking about, you know, that thing that I remember because of XYZ. It's all about emotions. It's all about the stories that we associate with the things. And that's why it's challenging, right? If you don't have a story behind something, you're like, oh, it doesn't really matter. Like, I'm not attached. Like, it can go. But there's always an emotional reason behind why we keep something or why we don't want to let it go.

Melvin Varghese:
I mean, even to drive this home, I drive a 2004 Toyota Camry, and it's going strong, like 20 years, right? And my wife recently has been like, hey, it's time we get a new car. But I'm like, it only has 123,000 miles in it. But I think when I think about it more, it's what it represents, right? That was my first call. My parents got me that when I graduated undergrad. and that car has taken me from Texas to Nashville to Philly. There's so much journeying and all of that. It's not just a car.

Sarah Mueller:
Right, and what does it mean if you were to let it go? What does that mean? Does that mean that you're too good for it? Does it mean you're no longer in that phase of life? What does it mean? You have to figure out what you want it to mean.

Melvin Varghese:
Absolutely. You said something a couple of minutes ago, which I like, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said something around like, I love this person. So it could also be relationships and not just stuff. Is that, is that an accurate assumption?

Sarah Mueller:
You mean like what you're letting go of or the reasons that you're.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah. The, the letting go of like, could there be like friendships or some, someone in your life that like, does it just have to be items? I guess is what I'm saying.

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, it could be all of the above, right? I mean, we could declutter our things, we can declutter our time, our commitments. I think it's all rolled up together. We might want to keep something because we're afraid of, you know, missing that thing. We might, even though that thing isn't really serving us, maybe it's like that with a relationship. You know, we love the person, but the relationship doesn't feel like it's serving us, but we're like, I don't know how to let that go. So very, very similar. And I think it's interesting because once people gain some experience with letting go of simple things, then they can actually translate that into letting go of other things. And it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the person. It's just maybe we're just ready to complete this and move on. It's not serving you anymore.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, I love how you distinguish that. And you're speaking to this, but I was wondering if we just go a little deeper into this. What are some of the benefits of decluttering?

Sarah Mueller:
I mean, I think you had asked me earlier, like, what are the top two or three? And I was like, oh, I don't even, I could go on for days. But I think like initially there's just like a sense of relief, right? Because I think that a lot of times you know what you want to get rid of, you know what you want to let go of, but it's just hard. So, but once you do it on the other side, there's like peace and relief. And I think that is maybe, like the biggest benefit, because again, you know you want to, you're just not ready or you don't know how. So just a little bit of freedom or a lot of freedom, really, peace and relief is a huge benefit. I mean, on the practical side, you're going to be saving money. Oh my gosh. Like we have people, first of all, they start finding money. They will literally find money in piles of paper and they'll find checks and they'll find cash, like actual dollars. They're going to stop like losing things. So you're going to be saving money because you're not losing things and having to buy them again, or you have duplicates of whatever. So you're going to save money and time. It's going to be so much easier to put your hands on things. Again, like I mentioned before, my life got easier when I started letting things go. And I kind of thought it would be the opposite. I felt like these things are helping me to be prepared for whatever comes my way, right? I got all the things, I've got the, whatever toys we may need, I would have, you know, whatever kitchen gadget is useful, but it turns out that there's like, there's, there's a point of decreasing returns, right? So if you have no toys, right, for your, let's say for your daughter, no toys in your house, probably not gonna work out so well. But if you have 5,000 toys in your house, that's probably not great either. So there's like a happy medium where it's going to work out well. For her, you're going to be able to clean them up. You'll be able to put them away. It's not going to be overwhelming. So I do feel like there's this, this tremendous lightening of what, you know, what it means to just maintain our stuff. And that's huge. And people don't realize that they are spending so much time on their stuff. They have no idea until it's gone. And then they think, oh my gosh, why do I feel so, why do I feel so light? It's because they're, you know, you have let go of that mental burden as well as this stuff.

Melvin Varghese:
Hey, I hope you're enjoying today's podcast session. Before we continue, just wanted to, again, take a moment to thank the team over at Upheal for supporting today's podcast session. So as I mentioned at the beginning, Upheal is basically AI-powered progress notes for therapists. They have a bunch of really cool stuff. So the most important thing is they actually have clinicians on their executive boards and on their staff. So there's actually therapists that are making sure all of the stuff that Upheal is doing is compliant with our licensing laws. The other cool thing is Upheal works for both in-person and telehealth sessions. So if you're doing in-person session you literally turn on the Upheal AI recorder and Upheal listens to that session and at the end of the session it's already generated case notes for you. You can pick between formats like SOAP and DAP or if it's a first session you can even do a treatment plan. It works for individual sessions for couples therapy and soon for family sessions as well. And it works for live and telehealth sessions as well. You can learn more about Upheel over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash Upheel. And they have a brand new promo code. So be sure to use the code COUCH, C-O-U-C-H to get 50% off Upheel for the first three months. This offer is only valid until October 31st, 2024. So be sure to jump in and check it out, especially if you've been struggling to manage case notes. Let's jump right back into today's session. There's a phrase that I'll use in therapy off and on, which is like, just because like something is not familiar, doesn't like because something is not familiar or because something is familiar doesn't mean it's like good for us. Absolutely. Right. And I think all of us fall into that of this is a thing that we have, or this is a way that we've interacted with somebody or whatever it is, right? But because it's comfortable and familiar, we just keep it up because at least for me, I can speak, but like, it's almost like the anxiety of not of trying to do something else. that initially overwhelms the desire to change and do something, even if rationally, I know it probably is the best choice long-term. Speaking of which, I feel like one of the things that a lot of folks struggle with when they are thinking about decluttering is this anxiety or this sense of overwhelm. So how should one go about decluttering when you have that initial feeling of overwhelm, especially?

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, well, I think it's important to realize what you just said, right? The familiar is comfortable, even if it's not serving us. So I think realizing that it might be challenging, there might be some anxiety or fear when you start to let go. That's okay. Like that's totally normal. And it doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong. So just like noticing, oh, right, this is the time where I start to get overwhelmed. Okay, cool. Like if you know that's going to happen, then it's not going to stop you. Okay. And we really like to like take the, the tiniest baby steps possible, but like the more overwhelmed you are, the smaller your steps should be. And we really, we teach what we call the 10 minute decluttering method. Right. Anybody can do anything for 10 minutes. And then you stop, right? So you just say, I'm going to work on this, you know, this little corner or this, you know, this section of this drawer and look for what are the things that we can let go of. And then we're going to stop. We're going to walk away and we're going to do something else. And you could even make it smaller than that if you want. We, we teach what we call micro wins, right? So it's literally like, is there, is there a pen that you can put away? That's a micro win. Right. And you can, you can enjoy and appreciate that. And that will add up over time too. So that is the most important thing is just to really start small and just do it with like a ton of care and compassion for yourself. I think so many times people think they have to, they have to guilt themselves into doing the work. They have to push, they have to just go and do the whole garage in the weekend. And that just does not work out well. So we take the absolute opposite approach. Let's just dip our toe in the water and then let's keep going over time. If you did 10 minutes a day for a month, you've got 300 minutes. It's a lot of minutes and it will add up and it's much more sustainable. So that's how we like to start.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, that's a great way of approaching it. The thing I love you're especially saying in that is it's being kind to like our nervous system, right? To go from the zero to like, I don't know, spending, like you said, like a whole day cleaning out a garage, right? That just feels really taxing many levels. Whereas these little 10 minute chunks, it's almost like you're priming your nervous system and just like regulating it. I must think of it like the loving kindness kind of method, right? So

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have a woman, she had her entire bedroom was packed with boxes. I mean, I think there was a little bit of room to walk, but pretty much it was packed and she literally did her bedroom 10 minutes at a time. And she got to the end and it was just, and then she became a coach, right? Because it had just worked out so well for her. So she went through a coaching program, but you know, you don't have to, you know, just push, push, push in order to have success. You can, no, this might take longer. But you know, it takes a lot longer is if you start, you push yourself, you get overwhelmed, and then you shut down and you never want to do it again like that. Then you're never going to get to the end. So yeah, I think it's imperative that people approach this with love and kindness for themselves, and then maybe also for the other people in their homes.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I have a really random question next for you. So I feel like a lot of therapists struggle with this, including me, but many of us love books and especially physical books. But if you're not careful, it can fill up entire rooms or entire bookshelves or whatever. What tips do you have when it comes to decluttering books?

Sarah Mueller:
But those books, it's kind of like the car, right? They were there with you. You poured so much into them. I had that with homeschool books. So I used to homeschool my kids and homeschoolers love their books. And I had a couple of teacher's manuals that I had just written in, right? And they had notes and they were beat up. And the more beat up they were, the more I loved them because it meant that I had lived with that book for months, years, right? And I had actually given away most of our homeschool books. Like, most of it had gone, but I had, like, these manuals. And we had stopped homeschooling, like, years, years before. And I had these manuals that are sitting on the, on the shelf. And it was like, you know, I couldn't donate them. Like, these were not, you know, people are like, oh, you should donate them. These were not donatable. They were just not, like, in good shape. And so I finally came to the point where I was like, you know what, I'm trying, I'm having a hard time just letting go of the fact that I'm no longer a homeschooler. But guess what? I'm no longer a homeschooler. Like that time of my life is over and it was beautiful and it was hard and like it was amazing. that's like, that's now over. And if I'm going to hold on to these, this is for me, if I'm going to hold on to these, then I feel like I'm not quite ready to move forward. And so I ended up recycling them, you know, after like a lot of thought, but I was like, what does it mean for me to let this book go? You know, and I think it meant I'm actually finally closing that chapter. And, but that's okay. Like I could be okay with that. And it could also be hard. Like both things could be true.

Melvin Varghese:
I mean, the word I kept thinking about is grief, right? There's a grief in a lot of this process, you know, of, you know, grieving that season of life, grieving kiddos getting older, grieving that they don't need you to that level of like teaching and training them. And I mean, that's the real work.

Sarah Mueller:
But you know, it's like, if we try to just hang on to those things, right? Let's imagine, you know, your kid, like, it's hard to see our kids grow up. You know, we're like, oh my gosh, I miss the time when they were so little. And so we keep things that will help us to feel like, oh, that's what it's like. And again, this is all optional. I'm not saying get rid of all your stuff. Like, don't hear me wrong, please. I am not the person that's like, get rid of all of it. But just be thoughtful in what you do keep. Because the truth is, your kids are not supposed to stay little. It's a good thing if they're growing up. It's a tragedy if they don't. And we can talk about that too, but we want our kids to grow and mature and grow up and become adults. So if we're trying to stay in the past, we're missing out on what's going on for them right now, wherever they are, whether they're 10 or 24 or 54. acknowledging that things do change, and maybe there's some grief associated with that, and that's all so normal. But if we resist that, I think then we do more harm than good. You know, if we're just trying to ignore it, like we're trying to pretend it's not what it is, that's when we have suffering. Like Byron Katie, you know, she says, when we argue with what is, we're going to lose, but only every time. So if we're trying to get back to grad school, you're just going to be suffering. And look at you, you're amazing. That's so awesome that you are not at that point in your life anymore. And also, that was an amazing time.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, so I hear a couple of things in this. So one is like being able to, like you said, hold simultaneous positions, right? Like this is an and both situation. And then the I think the other piece of it is, I don't know, the more I found myself recently, because you know, I'm this year is like 20 years since I left undergrad, right? And I was thinking a lot about that. And I was like, man, that was a cool part of life. And I wish like, I knew what I know now, like things would be okay, like all that stuff, right. But what I found myself, again, I was like talking to my therapist about this. And what I found myself is getting sometimes to a point where there was like, such a sadness, like it was almost like, mentally, I was like back there. And longing for that, but in a way that, like, I was holding on tighter to some sort of, like, idealized memory of, you know, what things were like 20 years ago or something. Yeah.

Sarah Mueller:
I think we romanticize the past, you know? We really do. We forget all the bad stuff and we're like, oh, it was so nice back then. It was so, you know, so wonderful. Yeah, it was. And it's nice now, right? In a different way.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, there were a lot more grays in all of life, right? In all seasons of life, right?

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, absolutely.

Melvin Varghese:
So I've got like, I know we're coming right up on time. So I've got two kind of final questions for you. So one is when we were chatting via DM, you mentioned that you did this training on releasing sentimental items and you had this theory that letting these items go is often a requirement for healing. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that.

Sarah Mueller:
Yes, this is such an important topic. And again, we don't recommend that people start with the hard stuff, right? The quote unquote hard stuff, but eventually they're probably going to want to get there, right? They're going to want to get to those things. And we do work with people that maybe have lost a loved one and, you know, maybe everything is preserved for years, right? So it's not a question of time at that point, you know, and we never encourage people to rush through things. But I do think that sometimes we think, well, when I'm ready, I'm going to let that thing go, right? When I'm ready, I'm going to let whatever, right, those items go. But I also think that sometimes the letting go will then encourage the readiness, right? Like we have it backwards. We have the order backwards. And if we can let things go, maybe in a way that honors, let's say that person or that time of your life, you know, maybe you can donate that car to, you know, to something that will sell it for charity, right? Like, Oh, now all of a sudden our grief has been used for something beautiful and productive. And sometimes that can really be healing. I think a lot of times people, they feel like they didn't have any control in, you know, what went down, like how they lost that person or how that situation turned out, like it was out of their control. So they're going to compensate by controlling their stuff, right? By keeping things the same, by maintaining, right? Like that's their coping mechanism. And what I want to offer in that situation is that, you know, maybe you didn't have the control like back whenever that, that, let's say that trauma happened, you didn't have the control, but your way of exhibiting control now is by intentionally letting go. right, and saying, I am, you know, making a choice now to let this this thing go. And it doesn't mean, you know, it doesn't mean I like what happened. It doesn't mean I don't love that person. But I need to do this for myself now. And so I'm letting go on purpose in a controlled way. So that I can have some peace. Does that make sense?

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it goes back to that thing we were talking about earlier of like having compassion for yourself and realizing like, especially as you have more sentimental items, it's often not, it's a process versus just like a, like a thing you just do once, right?

Sarah Mueller: Yeah. I shared a quote on social media recently in this book by this author. Her name is Brianna West. Brianna West. And she said, when we're decluttering, we're not really letting go. We're not really letting things go. We're just accepting what's already gone. And I'm like, that quote makes me cry because I'm like, oh my gosh, it's just accepting what already is. And it's like, wow, that blows my mind. Because these things, they're just a shadow of the reality. Maybe they bring back the memories, but it's not the same. So when we accept what's already gone, now we're not arguing with reality. It's so painful to argue with reality. And I think people think if I stop arguing with it, it means I'm okay with it. It doesn't have to mean that. It just means this is what is. This is what we got. And then we can move forward. But when we're trying to get back into the past, unfortunately, it doesn't work.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah. Yeah. So all said, final question I have for you is, how do you think working with a decluttering expert can supplement therapy?

Sarah Mueller:
Wow, we have so many clients. We have so many members that work with a therapist or a psychiatrist. I think it's an absolutely wonderful combination, you know, because we can work on the practical, right? So we start out very practical. And then someone can bring their decluttering work to, you know, to their therapy sessions, you know, and discuss the emotional aspects of it. So I think it really, really works very well. You know, we can just support them. And then we also have the community too. so that people can discuss what's going on, you know, so there's just like this beautiful, like back and forth. I think it works out really, really well. A lot of times what we do, you know, in our communities, in our programs, it will really be very complimentary to what people are talking about in therapy. So, uh, that's pretty cool. I, you know, love it when people are doing both, both sides of that.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah. It seems like a very like holistic way to heal, um, because you're doing both the practical work as well as the emotional work and just that combo.

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes, you know, you can start with the emotional work, right? You can start with just thinking through and discussions, and then you may end up, you know, changing your behavior, right? And what's going on at home, or you can go the opposite direction, right? You can start cleaning up and, you know, you just do your kitchen. And then you think, wow, I kind of feel better about myself. Like, what happened? Right? You can go either direction. And, you know, ideally you're working at it from both sides. But it's just really cool how people's opinion of themselves, like their self-worth, will grow when they start taking care of their surroundings. Like literally just doing the dishes, cleaning out the junk drawer. Like it actually has, especially, okay, here's the caveat though. You got to do it with love. You can't just clean it up, you know, because you're like embarrassed or because someone's coming over and you feel like, you know, you're in panic. That does not work. So it's this, this amazing benefit. that happens when, you know, when people start to do this work, they go, oh, my gosh, like we have one woman, she said she was having panic attacks regularly. And after a couple of months in our community, she just like they went away. She was like, what? That's cool. So it just it all goes hand in hand.

Melvin Varghese:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's the power of community. It's the power of doing inner work. Right. And ultimately, I think having a space and creating a space to be able to get out of our own our own heads. Right.

Sarah Mueller:
Yes, so important.

Melvin Varghese:
About how we think about it. Sarah, I'm so thankful for you. Where can we learn more about the awesome work that you're doing in the world?

Sarah Mueller:
Yeah. So we are on social everywhere at The Decluttering Club or just Decluttering Club. You can find our website at thedeclutteringclub.com. We have a free challenge. We'd love to have people come and join us, take our free challenge, you know, give it a try for themselves.

Melvin Varghese:
Sarah, thank you again and have a great rest of your day.

Sarah Mueller:
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Melvin Varghese:
Hey there, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Sarah, and especially if you are in a season where you've been thinking about decluttering various parts of your life, or you've been interested in this topic and kind of wondering how you can get started, or if you work with clients that struggle with anxiety or OCD or any of these kind of things, or they may struggle with things like hoarding, I hope that today's session is helpful for you. definitely connect with Sarah on socials or and over at our website at the declutteringclub.com. As I was thinking a lot about this conversation, one main thing that I took away is just the importance of doing the internal work And for us as clinicians, I feel like all of us think deeply about these things, and certain objects have deep meanings for us, and just the importance of thinking not just about the object, but beyond the object, and what it signifies, and what it symbolizes, and all of that, and why that work is so important. And also, if you have been like struggling with niches and thinking about this, if this is an area that you're interested in, I mean, there's a clear demand for this work. And as I mentioned, Sarah's built a very successful business from this, and especially even using our clinical skills and even being willing to see some of these folks, I think it can be such a wonderful and healing work in the world. Sarah's website again is over at the declutteringclub.com. And as she mentioned, she runs a bunch of different challenges during the course of the year to help get you started on your decluttering journey or your clients as well. Have a great rest of your day and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Selling the Couch podcast. For more great content and to stay up to date, visit www.sellingthecouch.com.

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast session. Just wanted to let you know we have a free weekly newsletter that is trusted by over 8,300 of our colleagues. Basically, we just share the latest podcast episode, some of the things that I'm learning as an entrepreneur and as a business owner. And it's absolutely free. You can sign up over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash newsletter. Would love to have you. Have a great rest of your day. Bye.

00:00:20 – Introduction and Sponsor Message
00:03:25 – Welcome and Connection with Sarah
00:04:52 – Sarah's Journey to Decluttering
00:09:26 – Growth of The Decluttering Club
00:11:38 – Definition of Decluttering
00:14:27 – Emotional Aspects of Decluttering
00:21:28 – Overcoming Overwhelm in Decluttering
00:25:17 – Decluttering Books
00:27:38 – Grief and Letting Go
00:35:41 – Complementing Therapy with Decluttering
00:38:31 – Where to Find Sarah and The Decluttering Club
00:39:00 – Newsletter Invitation