The Divorce Chapter

EP46 The 'Dear Loves Just Breathe' Chapter: Post-Divorce Decluttering with Elisa Lindstrom

• Sarah Elizabeth • Episode 46

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In this week’s episode of The Divorce Chapter podcast, I had a fantastic conversation with Elisa Lindstrom, a decluttering expert and founder of "Dear Loves Just Breathe."

In our discussion, Elisa shares her personal journey, where she began her own decluttering journey amidst a challenging divorce. 

Elisa's insights into the emotional and practical aspects of decluttering are invaluable, especially for those navigating a difficult divorce.

Key Highlights:

- The emotional challenges of decluttering during a divorce.

- Practical tips on what to declutter (and what not to).

- Handling emotionally charged items like wedding photos and gifts.

- Creating a peaceful and intentional home environment post-divorce.

- Information on Elisa’s decluttering programs.


Elisa emphasizes the importance of intentionally creating a home that feels safe and full of love, which is essential during and after a divorce. Her advice is not just about organising your space but also about finding peace and reconnecting with yourself.

Don’t forget to check out her website too for more information on her decluttering programmes.

www.dearlovesjustbreathe.com

The book Elisa mentions in the episode too is:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0809225379/ref=nosim?tag=thedivorceb00-21


I hope you enjoy the episode - and if you do, please share it with someone who might benefit from it ❤️

Loads of Love

Sarah x

🌸





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Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hello, and welcome to the divorce chapter podcast where we turn the unexpected divorce plot twist into happily ever after. With me, your host, Sarah Elizabeth. And this week we have another wonderful guest to help us with making our divorce chapter the best goddamn one yet, and that is Elisa Lindstrom. And Elisa is a decluttering expert with her business, dear loves just breathe, it makes me want to say it like just breathe.... Elisa helps people to declutter their homes and their lives in a simple and authentic way. Whether you're downsizing moving house, or just generally need to get your shit in order. That's my words, not hers, Elisa works with individuals as well as families to sort your stuff once and for all offering a variety of programs for busy people. So that decluttering becomes manageable, and dare I say even fun. So welcome.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  01:00

I know, is that crazy. Thank you. Thank you. So good to be here.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  01:06

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the decluttering world.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  01:12

Sure. So I have been decluttering. I don't know since I was in my 20s. And I lived in New York City. And if you know anything about New York City, you know that the apartments aren't big. And so I had to figure out how to live in very small rooms where I'm sharing an apartment with, you know, roommates, and so on and so forth. And I then got married, and we moved to the Chicago area. And we lived in a 900 square foot, condo and had a baby. And I don't know if you understand how tight that one would be. But I kept on trying to make the home feel spacious and big. By decluttering. And this was when minimalism started getting really big, it was 2009 that my kid was born. Minimalism started getting big, so I was doing all of these things. And I was reading all of the blogs and reading all the books and doing all the programs and doing everything I could to declutter to make the home feel spacious. And it was really looking back at it now, it was really about me trying to fix a very broken marriage and trying to make everything better, like, like very codependent of me trying to make everything better. And what happened was when he left, when my kid was five, he left and everything changed in the best possible way. And so for the past 10 years, I have been figuring out who I am and in doing so also like connecting to myself and using that. And also, which I haven't brought up the fact that I have a history as a social worker slash therapist, I combined both of those together to figure out how to really declutter and how to really make my home a representation of myself and my child, and really make it a place of peace. And that was my goal. And as I was doing that, I was also helping my friends and really enjoying decluttering, which I hadn't before. Like, there's a lot of shame to me with decluttering about, like, what I was doing, or if I was doing it right, or doing it wrong, or having a perfectly clean house and all of that. And I was able to take all of that and just create this sort of way of decluttering to honor myself, to honor my child, and to do it without shame and then figuring out how to help other people do that. That's that's sort of been my thing. And that's why it's dear loves just breathe, because it's not about shame and it's not about shoulds and it's not, it's about empowering yourself and connecting with yourself to declutter so that's that's what it's about. Yeah.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  04:13

Back I love that I love that that dear loves just breathe, it does make you want to go just just breathe, because there is so much shame and and kind of guilt I think around decluttering isn't there? Like because people think, you know, people associate hoarders and and there's so much obviously emotional attachment and stuff within that but at a surface level, people do have this kind of judgment almost don't they of messy and, you know, order and that kind of stuff to have....

 

Elisa Lindstrom  04:48

Absolutely. Yeah. And our society kind of pushes that right? We have all these TV shows of what a perfect house looks like. And so then we look at our homes and then we feel terrible though. I think I don't have the latest couch or whatever. Yeah.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  05:04

So yeah, that's that's where you started. That's so interesting. And I love that your social worker as well. We're aligned, aligned. And I love New York City as well. I have the tattoo of New York on me and the geographical coordinates to Time Square in case I ever get lost, you know,

 

Elisa Lindstrom  05:25

you can get back to Times Square,

 

Sarah Elizabeth  05:26

which is very chaotic when we're talking about minimalist and breathing

 

Elisa Lindstrom  05:32

Right, right.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  05:34

So I saw on your website that you were a messy child, and now I was a messy child as well. And well, it wasn't on the surface, I was kind of I had, like, things out was all in order. And I had collections of things that were all in a kind of order, but all the mess was shoved under my bed. And then my nanny used to come and visit every now and then. And she turned it into this big game where we'd play shops, and she'd make me get everything out and then buy it all off me. Air quotes buy it... throw it all in the bin. So I have become a lot more ordered as an adult when I had to adult myself and have responsibility for my own space. But would you, would you say there's hope for anyone regardless of how messy you have been in, in your life to date?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  06:26

Oh, yeah, for sure. It definitely, there's so much hope. And I think we're just not really taught the right ways. Not the right I don't want to say the right ways, because that's making it a should but like, a good way that works for who we are, I think we're taught certain ways of decluttering or keeping clean or whatever. And it's really based on one way of seeing it, as opposed to acknowledging that there's such a big spectrum of of the way people see items and, and sort and the way their brain works. It's always so different and just acknowledging, okay, maybe you can't declutter, like Marie Kondo, and that's okay. Like there are going to be people that can declutter like that. And then you just find the way to declutter that works best for you, or you find a way to keep things organized. That works best for you, right? Yeah. And by the way, I have totally been known to throw things in closets. And so I understand the story of a hiding things under your bed.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  07:32

As a decluttering expert do people come and check in your cupboard?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  07:35

They don't. Honestly, though, a few years ago, I moved in with my partner. And when we merged all of our stuff together, we did more decluttering and coming in to our home, it does not feel cluttered. And so I don't think I mean, they could totally look into the cupboards. I haven't noticed if anyone has, but they wouldn't find a whole lot of clutter. Although on my lives, I do open drawers so people see what it looks like. So

 

Sarah Elizabeth  08:07

brilliant. Brilliant. So Elisa, obviously, this is a divorce podcast. So what do you think some of the problems might be that people face in divorce decluttering, if you like?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  08:21

I think it really depends on the situation for the divorce, right? Like if you leave or if your ex partner or someone that leaves and if there's children involved. So the first thing I would suggest, I don't know, if you're asking me what I would suggest what you're saying. But yeah, the first thing I would suggest is to only declutter your own stuff, I always say don't declutter your kids stuff, and I offer solutions to that, but specifically, don't declutter any kid's stuff at all. During a divorce, they're already going through enough on their own of like, my whole world is changing. And asking them to get rid of stuff is just, it's, they're not emotionally ready to handle that, for the most part. I'm just gonna, like, if they're under the age of like, 16, they probably are not emotionally ready. And even if they're older than that, they're not ready to handle it. It's just a big, big step in terms of you and your ex partners stuff. I would also say don't declutter their stuff, even if all of the time that you have been together, you've wanted to declutter their stuff so much. And now here's your chance. They're leaving or you're leaving, and you just want to get rid of it and throw it away. Because you're so angry at them. Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it. It's take the high road. It's better in court that you don't do it. And it's also better long term in terms of your like, no matter how angry they got you, no matter how much you want to rip apart all of their stuff, no matter how much you want to throw it out the window and be dramatic like you're on TV. Or throw it in the bin or what have you, don't declutter their stuff. Just focus on yours. If you are leaving, just take the stuff that you absolutely love that matters to you. That is an expression of who you are. Yeah. And if they are leaving, just hold on to it for a bit. And what I want to say for all of it is there's so much emotion in divorce, and there's so much emotion in stuff and acknowledging the grief that's going on. Even if you hate that person. There's still grief. I'm sure you talk about this in your podcasts. But like, there's so much grief, and just acknowledging it and being like, maybe I don't declutter anything, maybe I just take what I need, and take the extra stuff. Or if I'm staying, maybe I just leave this stuff for a few months, while I grieve what's going on until I'm ready, throwing things away in anger and haste is not necessarily the best way to declutter. It helps to have some space, mental space, so you can make some physical space. Yeah, definitely.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  11:09

And I think that's the thing, isn't it? There's so much emotion that goes through with a divorce. You know, you said you've been divorced yourself.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  11:18

I am divorced. 10 years ago. Yeah.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  11:23

So you know, you've been there. It's really hard, isn't it? Do you think that there is a lot of around, part of the challenge with decluttering, and part of the issue with holding on to stuff is already an emotional attachment to stuff that then when you're going through a divorce, it does make it that much harder than doesn't need to separate? What, what you actually really do want to keep? And so yeah, definitely having that space.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  11:56

Yeah, definitely, the space is so needed, because when you're decluttering, you can't be on an emotional roller coaster. If you really wanted to declutter in a way that's very authentic to you, you need to be kind of in a good, emotional place to really end up with a home that you really feel good about, you know, like, a very intentional home. Right. And that's, that's the goal of post divorce decluttering is a very intentional home that feels safe, and feels like there's a lot of love.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  12:32

Yeah, yeah. Because when when I first moved out of my marital home, I moved out because his mum still lived there in a kind of granny annexe. So I made the decision to leave. And it was really hard to decide what to take. And also to condense that into kind of quite a big house into a very much smaller one. And working out what to take, and I did a podcast episode on that, actually, because it is really hard to kind of think through that and work through what you just want to take in anger, or just want to spite or what you actually really want. And that you know, there were things like I took one bedside cabinet. I left the other one. Which was really weird. But it was Yeah,

 

Elisa Lindstrom  13:25

But it makes sense. And technically it's 5050. So Right.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  13:31

So how would you like advise people to manage that kind of emotional element to decluttering?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  13:38

It's so hard. It's so hard. And I actually have a friend that's going through this right now as we speak. And in terms of deciding what to take if you're leaving the home. I mean, obviously take the things that you're going to need to set up home, right, like the cups and the plates and the silverware that you need. I mean, it does depend how long have you been with this person? Has it been 20 years? Because that's a lot of stuff. That's your shared stuff? Yeah, I think it's so difficult because it's a case by case basis, right? I can't I don't feel like I can just say oh, do that. And I think it really depends on the items and the story behind the items. Right? Yeah, yeah, definitely take all of your own stuff,

 

Sarah Elizabeth  14:26

All your own stuff. What do you would be your advice about specific things like photos, particularly Wedding, wedding album, and, you know, all of those kinds of things, presents that he might have bought? Or, you know, I think wedding photos. There's often quite a lot of debate about do you keep the photos do you give them to your kids? Do you throw them away? What do you do with the wedding photos, but just generally photos of you as a couple, you know? For me, it doesn't necessarily help to have that up all through the divorce process. But it's also what do you do with them? You know, right, right, nowadays, and we got more photos on, you know, digital photos, rather than photos around the house. But it's both really, isn't it?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  15:19

Yeah. And then there's also the aspect of kids. And so, so what I did, I'm not going to suggest, but I was really angry. And I went around the house, and I took all of the photos of both of us and, like, put them away, right, like, I did not want to see them. And, you know, he had left. So my kid and I was still at home. And you know, my dad actually was like, Elisa, you got to chill on the decluttering of his stuff, like, you've got to just like, keep a few things out. So, you know, I kept a few things out what I ended up doing with the wedding photos, because there was a kid involved. I had a really good friend come over, and I my story is that he left and it was a big surprise to me. So I was a mess. And I was I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong, right? people pleaser over here, I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong. And so I had a friend come and we made it into a ceremony and we put rewrapped, all of the wedding albums and all of the wedding photos and all of the pictures of the two of us in and we put it in a container, a plastic container. And we wrapped it all and we did a whole ceremony, a little a little woo woo we did a whole ceremony and very, very kindly put them in this box. And I put it we had a storage unit in our in our apartment building or a condo or flat as you would say, like the basement of of that we had a storage space. So I put it in there and just left it there. And then when my kid was old enough, I said these are yours. And you can choose what you want to do with you know, your your dad is remarried, do what you want with it. And so they have they have it in their room. And it's okay, when they need to take it out and look and see the family together at the wedding or whatever they can do that. And so that was a really, I really think that that's a great way of doing it. Your, it's a great temporary holding space for it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. When you're super angry or super sad, or like completely confused or any of those things. It's a great thing of just like putting a pause on it. And saying, you know, I can come back to this one. I'm in a better place.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  17:46

Yeah, right. Yeah. So it comes back to what you were saying about having that space and like allowing the grief and then kind of thinking about it. Right.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  17:57

Exactly.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  17:58

And so yeah, you've got quite a lot of different programs that you offer, haven't you that quite more manageable programs, you break it down into manageable steps, don't you? And you do that online? Is that right?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  18:09

Yeah, actually, I, I do one to one in person in the Chicago area. But then I do a lot of work with grief. It's amazing. I've been seeing it over and over of like how we hold on to things because of grief. We can't handle something. So we're just like stuffing things away. And I also have a quick online decluttering thing for people who haven't started and then I've just created this big program called declutter your world where over six months we go through sort of step by step room by room, but then also we go through the deeper, more emotional stuff part of decluttering the stuff that's difficult to declutter, so in the case of divorce, or a death of a spouse or a parent and trying to declutter going through that stuff, we've worked through that as well.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  19:01

Thats amazing, because that's so important, isn't it? That that is kind of going deeper into the, the why we keep hold of stuff and why we struggle so much to throw things away. And right, yeah,

 

Elisa Lindstrom  19:15

Yeah. And it's, it's so easy to just go online and find that, you know, 10 things you can declutter from your kitchen today. But they don't say like, what have you do if if you've been, you know, given something and you don't want it, but you don't feel like giving it away? Yeah. Or anything like, oh, this was a bus ticket from the first time I took the bus with so and so. You know. We know they don't talk about that stuff. Getting into that. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  19:46

I love that. I love that. So what would be your one key piece of advice, if you could give listeners to take away what would be your one tip for thinking about with decluttering after a divorce.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  20:01

So first of all, if you're in the middle of if you're knee deep in your divorce, yeah. Breathe. You know that if this is you're going through it and you're gonna be okay. And it's okay to grieve it. And it's okay to give yourself the time and the space to declutter when you're ready, that you do not have to be perfect. And you do not have to be perfect in decluttering. And you do not have to be perfect in how you manage the stuff. It's, you know, give yourself the grace, that you're human.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  20:48

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that it's so true, isn't it? Because it is, you know, one of the things I always say is, breath by breath, step by step. But it's it's because it's so overwhelming. That initial bit is so overwhelming, especially when it quite often is unexpected.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  21:10

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  21:11

And I kind of always describe that time as like an earthquake, where it's just like, your whole world has just crashed. For sure, the landscape is nothing like you know, and it's kind of it feels so overwhelming. So I just love that this. Take it one step at a time and just move on, but it doesn't have to be perfect. You're just human. I've got one more question for you. As you may know, I host the divorce Book Club, which is a monthly membership, podcast kind of thing based on all books like divorce relationships, self development. If you had one book that has had a huge impact on you, what would it be and why?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  21:53

Okay, so it's okay that it's nonfiction, right?

 

Sarah Elizabeth  21:56

Absolutely.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  21:59

For some reason, I I love fiction, but I get so involved in it that then I get angry because I'm like, Oh, my whole weekend. I had so many things to do. I'm involved with them. I couldn't right? I couldn't stop reading I couldn't put it down stop it. That's not fair. So I tried to just like read a nonfiction so I would say it's a nonfiction book. I actually read it when I started dating my now ex husband, okay. And so it's called coach yourself to success. And I do not know the name of the author, I can get that to you. But it she actually talks about it's my was my first introduction to life coaching. And she talks about decluttering as a way of, of making your life better. And so that was actually like a little seed was planted by her for that.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  22:58

Wow all that time, yeah, so like coaching your way to success? Because now you're getting married again. I am I am getting

 

Elisa Lindstrom  23:08

like a crazy person.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  23:11

away. So you come through the divorce and getting married again. So that's well it's always nice to know that you know, happy ever after can happen in other ways can't it?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  23:19

It can, yeah, yeah.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  23:22

Oh, brilliant. Okay, Elisa, thank you so much. Where can my listeners find you if they want to know more?

 

Elisa Lindstrom  23:30

So the best place to go is to hop onto my website because if they are a fan of blogs, they can read my blog, it comes out every week. And if they are a fan of podcasts, they can hear my podcast, they just click the tab that for podcasts and they can listen to my podcast. So those are the best ways to to hear more from me.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  23:50

Yeah, I'll leave all the links in the show notes. So it's dearlovesjustbreathe.com Yeah, that's brilliant. Okay. Elisa, you have been brilliant. Thank you so much for coming.

 

Elisa Lindstrom  24:01

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Sarah Elizabeth  24:04

Yeah, thank you. No, thank you. It's been great. Thank you to to listeners for listening into Elisa and the divorce chapter and I will be back in your beautiful earbuds again next week. So until then sending you loads of love



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Sarah Elizabeth

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