Taking stock mid way through a tidying festival.
After several weeks, I’ve just completed Phase 1 with a client. She had wanted to clear her house after her husband died many years ago. We had been talking about doing the work for a while and when she asked whether I could help her. I was absolutely delighted. Sometimes we know we want something, but we’re not clear what the work entails. I, for example, know that I want to understand social media in more depth – and thanks to a Guru in this area. I am learning. However, there is a difference between wanting to understand and actually understanding what is needed. Wanting to understand is the first tentative step to understanding. The next piece is to sit in confusion of not knowing and trusting that at some point it will become clearer. It is always good to learn something new as it reminds us how our clients must feel on the first session. For me doing social media will take time as this is an area in which I am not familiar. At some point I will become competent and then unconsciously competent. I am a long way off this stage but given time, it might happen!
Now translating this across to clients who say they want help with their homes to organise them, but they don’t know what it entails. Is it any wonder that they are anxious and nervous? There is guilt and shame about the fact they can't do this, and often shame that this is taken a long time for them to get help.I always start with the simplest category of decluttering and work on towards the more difficult ones. Clothes are the easiest place to start yet even they themselves are not easy sometimes! But a Start has to be made. However, there has to be a balance between progress with the work and progress with the client. If someone has been running away from their belongings for years or running away from their lives for years and years, it will take time for them to accept that this sorting and organising is a good idea! Why do it when they have managed their lives without bothering for so long? Sometimes it is that they can't enjoy their lives as much as thought they wanted, other times it's that they want to sort it for their children - a death clean - and one of my other clients wanted to find a way to bring one of her relations over from Canada to live in her home. And more recently a client spoke about her desire to transform the shape of her house so that she could have more space. Without a sort, this would not be possible. A strong motivation helps move mountains!
When I worked as a hypnotherapist, I would always marvel at how we found the solution to the challenges that the client was bringing. We are all infinitely capable. It is just that sometimes we get our wires crossed and my role as the therapist and home organiser is to help un cross those wires, so it becomes simple to see the way forward.Sometimes people just want to try and move forward and then process afterwards, and other times people need to process as they going along and the third category of clients where we process before we do anything. Changing behaviours takes time and there is no right or wrong way – except for not doing it! It is a huge privilege to help people along the way.Stage one is a great achievement. My client told me that no longer does she feel guilt. Letting go of guilt and shame about the state of your home is a huge hidden benefit to the process There is a greater ease to moving around the home, not there before and an awareness of where everything that has been sorted lives. Each client will have several phases and there will be new learnings at each turn. It is a huge privilege being a Konmari consultant.
