You're listening to The Decluttered Mom Podcast. A podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Renee, and in 2017, I had my second daughter, and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home. Okay, not literally. But I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next ten months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings, and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system, and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks, and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. 

Welcome to another episode of the Decluttered Mom podcast. Today, we're going to talk about something that might feel a little bit out of place, and the reason I say that is because we are going to talk about how decluttering and having a decluttered home can help your stress levels during the holidays. And you're like Diana, it's August. Why are we talking about the holidays? We're talking about the holidays because we have approximately 11-ish weeks until Thanksgiving week, which is kind of crazy, but on one hand, that feels really close. On the other hand, that feels really far away. But we have a program inside our program, I guess. Maybe not, maybe I shouldn't call it a program. We have something called a 10-week challenge that is for our members only inside my decluttering program and the biggest one every year that we run. We run two to three every year, but the biggest one is always the decluttered by the holidays and that one is starting the beginning of September and we have a promotion right now that ends today. If you're listening to the podcast today, today is the last day to get the promotion for it, where you can get the program for half off and you can join us inside this 10-week challenge so that your home is fully decluttered before Thanksgiving and that can feel A overwhelming B exciting. C nerve wracking, d exciting again. I'm sure that that brings up a lot of emotions for you and you're probably thinking like depending on how much clutter you have in your home, you're probably thinking like oh my gosh, that would be amazing. Or oh my gosh, that like that's not possible. Like that's, I have too much to be able to do that.

Here's the thing when you have a specific outline laid out for you and you have worked through your emotional obstacles when it comes to decluttering, like what if I need this later? Or like a family member gave this to me and so I feel bad getting rid of it, all of those things. If you know how to work through those and you have a clear outline, step by step, where to go, what to do, and you have a group of people surrounding you who are doing the same exact space as you and going through the same exact system as you, the momentum that you guys can have at that point like it's unreal, it's unlike any other thing and it's a really exciting time because we just see so much progress happen in these 10-week challenges. We see progress happen all the time in the program, but the 10-week challenges are just an extra special time because of that. It's almost like a combined effort and encouragement and accountability. And going into the holiday season like knowing that you are going to have a fully decluttered home to go into the holidays is unlike any other feeling. So if you're interested in that the information is in the show notes at the link. You can also come on to Instagram and find it on there also. But I just wanted to give you a heads up that today is the last day that you can for that specific challenge at the discounted rate.

So I want to jump into why having a decluttered home during the holidays is going to drastically decrease stress levels. Because the holiday season, I think, conjures up a lot of different emotions for a lot of different people and there's going to be like a thousand different reasons that the holiday season feels really exciting and magical and happy to one person, and to the next person it feels really sad and lonely and scary. And then there's the next person who has a mixture of those feelings and, like, we all have unique life experiences. We all have different things that have happened in our lives or experiences that we've had that change how we are feeling about a time that is supposed to be like this magical time, right? And then we have kids who we have the pressure of making it feel magical for them. And I think in our current society, like motherhood as we know it right now, this day and age where we have social media, I think that the expectations for holidays is beyond what anyone can do and I think it just adds even more pressure to an already high pressure season for moms of any generation and because we not only have all of the regular pressures of making sure that the presents are bought and presents are wrapped and the house is decorated and all of the food is taken care of and the menus are created and the logistics are figured out. And working between different families and making sure that each family gets enough time with your kids during, you know, the season and that your kids get to go to the magical events. And like those things have always been there for moms.

But now we have social media where we are doing those things during the day along with our normal everyday life that already is busy and has pressures of its own. And then we lay our head down at night and scroll Tiktok and scroll Instagram or look at Pinterest and we're like Bam, like, oh, look at what she's doing. Oh, my gosh, look what she's doing for her kids. Oh my gosh, look at what she created for her kids and like, look how happy her kids are. That's so magical. Oh, I didn't think to do anything of that. And like that dessert that she made for her kids to bring to schools, like the cutest little reindeer thing. And like I just gave my kids like gummies in a bag. Like you know what I mean. Like there's always there's a lot of comparison happening at any time throughout the year, but I think during the holidays it's like again on steroids. I think it's just the pressure. The feeling of pressure is heightened during the holiday season. Can we all agree on that? And I have lots of thoughts as to whether or not that pressure like the social media, what moms do for holidays. Now, I have a lot of opinions and feelings on that, because I tend to err on the side of more simplistic rituals and traditions and things like that. But that's not the point of today's episode.

Today's episode is just about how, when we already have so much pressure in our normal daily life, we already have so much stress in our normal everyday life. Then we add the holiday season and all of the things that come up with it the family tension, the lack of sleep, the kids having tons of sugar and maybe being a little hyper, the expectations that you put on yourself, the expectations that you see from people around you, the expectations that your kids go to school and they hear about their moms doing all these extra things and they're like, hey, why aren't we doing that? There's just expectations coming at you from every corner of the world. It feels like on top of our normal everyday stress. So when we have that I like to try and figure out.

What are some ways that we can decrease that baseline stress or that baseline level of pressure? Right, because even though we have all of this happening, we know that it is not very likely we're going to be able to get rid of all of that holiday hubbub pressure, because the holidays are still going to happen, right, and we still want to make it magical for our kids and for ourselves and our family. So we know all of that is going to be happening. So what can we do to take some of our baseline, normal everyday stress down? And that's really where decluttering comes in, because when we walk into our home and there's clutter everywhere there's piles of paperwork on the kitchen counter and there's laundry piles and what feels like every room of the house and there's toys everywhere that you're tripping on and you can't find practically anything that you're looking for because it doesn't like nothing really has a home, because there's too much stuff for everything to have a home. When we walk into that in our home, our stress levels automatically like shoot up and this is not something that I just feel, we all feel it right Like if we walk into a cluttered space versus a space that's like freshly cleaned, we feel different in that space. Right, we all know that that's not like, that's not new. We all know that we feel different in a space that feels really messy or cluttered, versus walking into a space that feels really tidy or freshly cleaned right. But there's actual scientific research that shows, especially in women, that when we perceive clutter in our own home, it raises our cortisol levels, which is our stress levels, and so it's scientifically backed that clutter is increasing our stress. And if we can start to chip away at that and make our home feel less cluttered and, in turn, less stressful, then we are automatically taking that baseline level of stress down. So if we're starting our day or starting our holiday season with waking up in the morning or coming home from work into a house that is not cluttered, then we are going to take all of the holiday pressures and stress, yes, but we're we're gonna be approaching it and dealing with all of that at a lower stress level to begin with. Does that make sense?

The other thing is that if you do enjoy decorating for holidays like if decorating for whatever holiday you celebrate brings you joy and makes you happy and makes you feel happy to be in your home and makes it feel cozier, and all of that. You are going to have a completely different experience decorating a decluttered home versus decorating a cluttered home, because, again, it's not going to feel the same. It's gonna be number one harder to decorate a very cluttered home, but it's also going to just sometimes, when we add Christmas decorations or Thanksgiving decorations or fall or Hanukkah or anything to a space that's already cluttered, it can almost make the decor feel like additional clutter, versus having it feel like oh, this is like a really nicely decorated space and I feel like more in the spirit of the season when I walk into this room. Have you ever noticed that? So by decluttering first, you're also going to increase the happy feelings that you're looking for when you decorate. You're going to increase those happy feelings. I don't know what else word, what other word to use for it, but it's just going to again feel like a different space when you're going through the process of decorating. But also, once the space is decorated, it's going to feel different than if you still have all of the excess stuff that's hanging around, that is, it's not just mess, it's reminders of all of the things that you have to do that while you're trying to enjoy the holiday season?

Because this entire episode I've talked about the stress of the holiday season, right, but there are aspects, hopefully, of the holiday season that you enjoy, and what if we could set ourselves up to have more space, time, intention, patience, to be able to enjoy the aspects of the holiday that we do enjoy, instead of feeling like we are surrounded by, like unmade decisions and we're surrounded by all of the things that we need to get done on our to-do list, on our never-ending to-do list, like it. Just we're walking around with like this dark cloud over our head because everywhere we look, we're reminded of all the things that we're supposed to be doing that we haven't done, and that's not a good feeling, that's not a great feeling. When you're trying to feel in a magical spirit, right, that's kind of hard to do, and so no wonder when we're we're trying to like be in the holiday mood, it's hard when we're in our home where we feel like we're drowning, we feel like we're having a hard time breathing in a home that we're trying to create this magical season or experience in, and so I just I really hope that you take today's episode as encouragement, because that's what it's here for. It's not to be like oh dread, holidays are coming, boohoo, scrooge. It's instead like I see you. I know that knowing the holiday season is coming can present you with very varied feelings. It might be making you anxious, it might be making you excited, it might be making you nervous. There's just there's so many things and again, I think a lot of that has to do with our life experiences and our history with holidays or family members that will be present during the holidays.

But I just want to encourage you that we can take some of the stress out of the holiday season simply by changing our home environment and you can do that on your own, and you can also do that in our group, where we can help hold you accountable, encourage you and teach you how to build momentum quickly so that it doesn't feel like a frustrating process. It feels like an exciting and empowering process, and so I hope this episode was encouraging to you. I know that like 11 weeks away to Thanksgiving can feel scary and I can also feel exciting, so I hope it feels more on the exciting side for you as you start to prepare and maybe make a decision that this year, you are going to go into the holiday season with a home environment that is conducive to you being able to have the patience and the peace and the lower stress levels for an already kind of stressful season. I will talk to you next week on the Decluttered Mom podcast. 

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