Creating Space for Others | Stuffology with Nicole Kincaid | True Snacks

TRANSCRIPTS

Nicole:  You're right. I mean what became really Clear to me was that, um, the greatest work that I do with other people when I'm working with them is, is what we call holding space for them to have the experience of like, uh, what, what's here because, you know, everybody, I mean, most, most everybody has that. We all have stuff.

Right. And, um, it's, it's really. So much not about having less stuff is about being conscious about why you have what you have. Right. And then you can make a decision around, am I, you know, like, okay, now I know why I have what I have because I've just been allowed to explore that through like this person standing here, me, a professional, right?

Because people get very stuck and they don't want to Typically do this work and they there's a lot of things that are way better, you know, ways to spend time. We imagine then clutter clearing and organizing. Right? And that's the reason for that. Roger is because clutter clearing organizing has unceremoniously been dumped into the cleaning and tidied up category.

And I don't. I don't believe it belongs there. And at least not the way that I do it. I believe it belongs in the personal transformation, like, you know, self discovery category, because you literally, if you, if you do it a different way, um, that is soothing to you and that calms your nervous system down and like, or you get to have like the, like the space to just drop into what do I have without all the, what really prevents us from doing it, which is being rushed, shame, embarrassment, not wanting to ask for help, doing too much of it at one time.

Um, those are all zappers and those all make us feel like this process sucks. I don't want to do this. Right. And so we don't go back to it, you know, because it just, it feels so laborious and like a chore. One of the things I'm most proud of is that clients tell me like, they're so lit up when they do this work, when they, when they, when they, when I, when they get away a roadmap for how to do the work differently.

And, um, and that lights me up because I do think that our spaces, we, these are, these are our, our one and only place on the earth, you know, where we can just fully inhabit and have represent, have ourselves represented. And, and, um, if we If we, you know, have all of these snags and these spots in it where we feel, you know, resentment or bad or guilty or shame or whatever, because, you know, we're walking into that energetic field of like, uh, you know, and I want people to love the homes they live in.

I want the homes to feel enhancing to them. And honestly, that does not mean having to give away. Your stuff or give away something that you think you don't, you know, you have to because you've had it for so many years and you haven't used it. That is not stuffology. It's all about the questions and about.

The conscious decision to look at what you have, why you have it, and then make a decision from that point. But once you go through the whole process of, um, this deep, um, clutter clearing, I mean, deep clutter clearing organizing via staphology. Your first round of it, like, if you go through your how you never ever have to do it like that again, because you've gone into it so deep that you and you've asked such a different level of questions and inquiry that you never pile up.

The way that you did before, and that's something that astonishes people because what people have done instead is they followed someone else's systems, which is what I used to do. I used to be like, well, let's get you organizers and let's do this and let's do that. And then their systems would look beautiful if I lived there.

Right. You know, but they didn't. So like, I, I, so I built in like a resistance to their system because they're like, that's beautiful. But they're like inside, you know, in a place that they're not quite getting to, they're never going to use that. They're never going to, um, hang up their clothes that way, or fold their things that way, or put, put their things, you know, like you've, you don't, You, you have to ask different questions to really help people set up their environments in ways that match who they are and how they operate in the world.

And the stifolity process gets you there. Like it gets you headed in that direction. So you're not creating things based on, you know, a system that some guy in Dubai created, you know, and then we have so much self judgment. Because we think that we don't know how to do it because our places are, you know, quote a mess that we just think, Oh, they know.

Well, no, you know, you know, but you just are need to get a little bit of information around how to ask yourself the right questions. What I have noticed around this whole subject is that people always try and create the systems without doing the editing first. And that's a really big, um, Thing too that I, that I discussed with clients right away is that you can't create the systems before you've gone through the stuff and the going through.

And because we'd rather create, like, we want to go get the shiny stuff and like, create the systems and put things away. But you can't, you can't do it that way because you don't know what you have. And so, say, for example, you were, um, You were going through your closet, your hall, your hall closet, right?

And you only went through like a section of it. And then you built a system to just deal with what you had gone through in that one section. But then you find in, you know, in your mud room that you have all this other stuff that needs to go in that hallway closet, but you've already built system, a system that housed all What inventory you thought you were going to have for that area.

Does that make sense? The kind of like the bad news about stuffology. I mean, I don't really think it was bad news cause I love it so much, but the truth of the matter is doing the whole editing process of going through your things, a section by section, area by area, and really, you know, it's seeing what you have.

And then you're Then, by doing that process, the magic of staphology shows you, when you finally know what is your inventory, what you have, when that area is clearly defined, like this stuff is stained, that stuff's garbage, that's shred, that's, um, recycling, then, You look at your, and you go, Oh, I'm not kidding.

It's like total magic. You literally look at it and you go, I know exactly what I need for this. And the system that you need becomes very apparent. And it's a really beautiful thing to witness. It completely frustrates me sometimes because I have so many great ideas. I wanted to tell these clients around how they could organize their stuff.

And they're like, no, no, I got it. I know what I need. And I'm always like, Oh, that is a great idea for you. That's actually perfect for you.

Roger:  Yeah.

Nicole:  This is your house.

Roger:  I love that for you, I love how you're creating space for people to be able to explore what's right for them. Yeah. With their stuff.

Nicole:  Yeah. I call that holding space and it really is just being a container for them and you know, kind of concepts that you're, I'm sure already very familiar with, but being nonjudgmental, being really curious, um, asking a lot of questions, um, and, you know, And, you know, endorsing uncomfortable silences, like allowing them to get there.

They're going to get there. And then, you know, when they need my help, um, it is usually more in the, like, I'm like an idea generator, like, and then they usually don't pick one of my ideas, but by, but by virtue of me having like, well, what about this? What about that? Well, would this work for you? I've noticed that you actually, It seems like you actually prefer more to just have, like, hooks in this area and not have to, like, hang every, you know, go to the hallway closet and hang things up.

Like, is that true for you? Like, that kind of, and then they're like, oh, and again, I keep coming back to this. But I call it stuff all of you. Cause it's so much about the psychology, but it's really then them going like, my God, I didn't even notice that about myself. I just thought I had a hallway closet and had to use the hallway closet.

Right? Well, no, you don't. There's, um, you know, there's so many options. You can invent this however way you want to like, let me help you be extrapolated with your, with, with, with what kind of environment would feel amazing to you, you know? And that is where they take off. And they're like, Oh, I love, you know, they just, they really start to feel home in their own home.

Roger:  I love that because our stuff is Our stuff is a representation of who we are. And to some extent it's who we want to be, you know, how people want to perceive us, um, and that's the outward expression is our stuff or when they come to people come to our house, we want our house to represent how, you know, what we value and what's important to us.

Um, And yet I think there's also just sort of like some, some mixed messages we get around materialism and you know, you, you are not your khakis, you are not your car. Um, and yet there's a reason why we pick those khakis and there's a reason why we pick that car. Um, and it's, those things do say something about us.

So being intentional and being, you know, curating

Nicole:  the

Roger:  stuff we have and the processes in which we, um, buy, maintain, and then ultimately get rid of stuff. Yeah. The more conscious, what I'm hearing is the more conscious we are about those decisions, the more we can curate. Not only our relationship with the stuff, but then maybe also what the stuff says about us.

Nicole:  Yes, exactly. A lot of people are living in environments where there is a lot of, what I call irrelevancy. And by that, I mean that like, they don't, They don't know why they have what they have, and the things, many of the things they have don't mean anything to them anymore. They don't mean what they used to mean to them, but they haven't done anything with it.

And so you have this whole house where you just. You've just kind of phased out like, Oh, that picture on a wall that, you know, with my kids from high school and now they're like in their forties or what, you know, like we don't update our environment. We don't ask questions about like, does this still matter to me now?

You know, is this still who we are now? Is this still who I am now? We just start to gloss over our environments. And when we do that, our environments start to start to start to deplete energetically. They start to lose their life force, Roger. They really do. And I'm kind of like, you know, slightly dipping over into the space cream piece, but they start to feel a little like Like they just start to ticker down in like that sense of like zing, you know, like, like, you know, when you, if you've, if you've ever moved or remember moving and when you first walk into that new home and it's like, Oh my gosh, you know, like that feeling of like what you're going to do.

And then you just stop seeing, seeing that after a while, if you don't consciously keep going after, like, you know, even, even I call it the, um, um, The organized disorganized people, but even the people that have, like, really organized homes, but it feels, you know, stale because they just haven't gone through like that perfectly organized book, you know, book, a bookshelf or whatnot, you know, or, um, or these areas that look perfect, but they don't have any life in them anymore.

And so it's just, it's just. The asking of those questions and, and the bringing the life and back into your environment by inquiry and about, and by spending time with, with your things, with you.

Roger:  With you. Yeah.

Nicole:  Cause you are your things. In a way.

Roger:  Yeah. No, absolutely.