Rita Black: It is hard to let go of things, but the older we get, the more harm clutter can bring to our wellbeing. There is a growing body of research on the relationship between clutter and aging, focusing on how clutter impacts mental and physical wellbeing. In older adults, clutter can lead to increased cognitive load, making it harder for older adults to focus and process information. Excessive clutter can make it difficult for older adults to find things which may further strain memory and organizational skills. And for older adults, living in a cluttered environment can increase feelings of being overwhelmed and out of control, which may contribute to depression or anxiety. Now with my 60th birthday coming up next month, I am looking at many of the different ways that we can celebrate aging instead of fearing it. Last episode, we looked at dressing well as we age, and this week, Dr. Christine Li and I discuss clutter and aging and how to break through the barriers that keep us clinging to the stuff we know we should let go of. So grab your hefty trash bags and come on in.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn't start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That's right. The key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I'm Rita Black. I'm a clinical hypnotherapist weight loss expert, bestselling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery. I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I'll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need, not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long term and live your best life.

Rita Black: Hello! Welcome and come on in! Nice to see you this week. Thanks for coming! As this episode is dropping here in the United States, we are heading into the Labor Day weekend, our three-day weekend, and as we get past the Labor Day weekend, everybody dives into the autumn, if not weather-wise, because for a lot of us, it still remains hot through September and October. But mentally, there's this sense of shift and we are stepping into a more structured time reorganizing after the summer. Many people have children or grandchildren going off to school. It's kind of that back to school mindset, even though we may not have been in school in years, you know, and when I lived in Europe, everybody was away in August for most of the month. So it was just a sense of coming back from the big holiday and getting ready for heading into the autumn and all the holidays of the autumn, the autumn season. Everything just is all about getting organized and structured. And as a Virgo personally, I love it. I love getting organized and I love getting structured.

Rita Black: So that is why I brought my dear friend and colleague Christine Li on today. We are gonna talk about clutter, what's it all about, and how our relationship with it changes as we age, and how it can really begin to impact us more as we age. And I want us all to take back our power from the things that take our power away and our energy away as we age. Whether you're in your forties, your fifties, or sixties, or seventies or eighties or nineties and beyond, you are the creator of your life and the space you live in. And it should uplift you and not bring you down, right? So also, Dr. Christine Li has a special treat for us. She has a five-day challenge starting September 16th and running through September 20th. It's called Re-Energize Your Home. It's a five-day challenge, and it's gonna help us get excited and inspired to remove the clutter and have our home be a place that supports us rather than stresses us out. So find the links in the show notes and sign up for this great event and get your life in your house, all organized for the upcoming season.

Rita Black: Now, many of you already know Dr. Christine LI, beause she has been on my show a couple of times. But if you don't, Dr. Christine Li has been working as a New York based clinical psychologist for the past 20 years. And more recently, she has been taking her work online as the procrastination coach. She helps people who are struggling with underperforming at work and at home to work smoothly and bring in high levels of productivity. Her unique coaching process is a blend of mindset, strategy, time and emotion management tips, and a deep belief in the power that we each have when we treat ourselves with love and good self-care. Dr. Li's the author of the book, Five Minutes Self-Discipline Exercises, Stay Motivated, Cultivate Good Habits, and Achieve Your Goals, and is the host of the podcast Make Time for Success. So follow Dr. Lee to learn how to ditch the guilt, judgment and self-sabotaging and unhelpful habits so that you can feel focused and fulfilled in your life. And now let's welcome Dr. Li.

Rita Black: Hey, Christine, welcome back to the Thin Thinking Podcast.

Christine Li: Thank you, Rita. So good to be back. So good to talk to you again.

Rita Black: Yes, I, you know, you are probably, I, how many times have we had you on, I think this is your third time, which is really awesome. Third time. Lucky. Well, every time we have you on is lucky

Christine Li: Thank you so much

Rita Black: Christine and I were just sitting here talking about aging, of course, which is our topic for the month. And Christine and I, I think I'm a few years ahead of Christine but we're both heading into that zone and we have a lot to talk about. But before we do, I just want Christine to introduce herself to you and just let you know, 'cause Christine does a very special thing for people, and I want her to tell you.

Christine Li: Okay. Thanks Rita. Hi, my friends on the podcast. I love Rita's community, and Rita and I have so enjoyed working together and kind of having clients in common and having so much information to share with each other about the work, about these issues that women face just for being women, and also navigating such complex roles that we do, right, no matter what your age is. Being a woman is just an interesting, fascinating, multilayered situation. And I think when you get into middle age and beyond, I was just talking with Rita about how you have this positive energy of liveliness and vitality and wishes and what you wanna build for yourself. Coexisting with a lot of negative energy, which can be anything. It could be illness, it could be worries, it could be job stress, it could be family stress, it could be physical clutter.

Christine Li: Lots of things that threaten to kind of set you off balance from a healthy, vibrant, positive, self-directed journey forward. And what I do, I'm a psychologist in New York, is basically I enjoy helping people to see what is going on with their habits, their daily and weekly and monthly habits and maybe their life habits. What is going on with those habits that might be holding them back in some way that is familiar. Maybe not so adaptive, maybe can be tweaked just from a word or two or a couple sessions so that the person can feel much more themselves, much more like they're ready to go instead of feeling like they're worried about everything. And that is really what lights me up. And this is what I do for my own life. I've been doing this for my own life for several decades, and I've developed all sorts of techniques and philosophies about what helps people to just get going after a period of feeling stuck, even if that period has been many, many years long.

Christine Li: I call myself procrastination coach because I spent the first part of my life as a severe procrastinator. And I'm spending the second part of my life trying to help people to really avoid that need to rely on avoidance and adaptive techniques of coping, like stress, like negativity, like not doing things, like being sedentary, those kinds of things. And we've all been there both sides, the positive and the negative. So I'm just trying to kind of help everybody to lean a little bit more positively, especially in midlife and beyond, when the stresses are really potent and oftentimes not fully discussed or supported when there's just a lot of stress around.

Rita Black: Yeah, I think there's a, there's a lot of, I see those two lines. I see an age of self-mastery because you're at this age where you've done so much in your life, you have a lot of wisdom and experience. But you, what isn't mastered really gets in your way, or what is unfulfilled really haunts you. So you have this, you know, confidence, but at the same time it's kind of dulled by limiting beliefs, limiting habits, like you were saying, and a very loud inner critic that's like, well, you think you're hot stuff, but you know, you haven't done that yet. You know, or you're still doing that, or you never did this. So I think, you know, it's a time to come to center and really look at everything. But what we were gonna talk about a little bit, or at least as a diving off point, is clutter.

Rita Black: Because I told Christine, I said, I wanna tell you the story, Christine. And I said, but I'm gonna wait till the podcast microphone is on so I can tell it. So my husband, as any of my listeners have listened for a long enough time, they all know and love my husband because he is a hoarder. Like he'll bring in stuff. I mean, my house is pretty clear of, of clutter because I work very hard at gaming, at clear free, everything goes up into the attic. And so we have been working for a couple of years, I've been talking about this ongoing attic project. My son is home. And so my son was like I will do work with dad on the attic to, you know, for a few days. So they went up and they were pulling down books, and my husband's very attached to books and all of his books, but they bring down these big plastic black things.

Rita Black: I'm like, what the heck are these and these big long cylinder things? And my husband was like, and they're like, covered with, I don't know, stuff like dust and cobwebs. And I'm like, are you taking that stuff down the street? And my husband's like, no, no. I mean, this is our old shelving unit that we for sure, like, don't you think one day we're gonna need it again? And I was like, take that down to the storage now. I was like, no. And if we need to buy another one, we will, but please no, you're like, and, and the look of like, you know, 'cause I love my husband so much, you know, he gets this little boy look like, really, I've gotta let go of this. And I'm like, yeah, you, you do. So why is that Christine? Like, like, because I see that so much.

Rita Black: I mean, even myself, I was cleaning out my office the other day and, and I was, I was, you know, clearly things that are just like Rita chuck it away, but there was this, even taxes. Like my son was working on my taxes from 1994, they're up in the attic. And, and I was like, oh, those are receipts. I might wanna look at them and remember what I bought in 1994. I mean, like how ridiculous is that. But there was this part of my heart. So what is that about and why as we get older, does it seem to get deeper? You know, that, Hmm. I don't wanna let that go.

Christine Li: I love you so much and I have a feeling I will love your husband just as much as I love you. I can, I, I think I can't explain that entirely, right? It's a little bit of a mystery of life is, is what is attachment and what makes us care for things as we do care for people, care for shelving, care for old shelving that we haven't even thought about. And I think rather than explaining it, I just don't would like to marvel at it. Like we're all capable of that attachment process. But what your story makes me think of is how much room that we have for attachment, but also how much room we can create when we know that not all attachments are created equal. And that we have some say over that process after the attachment is made. And of course, before the attachment, we can also say, you know what? I'm not touching that. I'm walking by that in the store.

Christine Li: They say that once you touch a sweater in a store, you feel like it's yours. I can't explain why that is, but I know that that's what they say. Like, if you, if you wanna kind of maintain a budget, don't touch things when you're shopping. And I do think that it's all energy exchange. So I teach people that our physical clutter is energized. It may seem inanimate to you, but it's literally, you know, comprised of atoms and also contains our projections of memories, of thoughts, of value, of emotion, of sentimentality of history, of sometimes even hatred. Right? Sometimes you hate your clutter. It can carry really intense energy, I think also. And the fact that we call it clutter is just a whole other layer of energy that we have to manage, which is I am living with something that I have deemed not necessary, not beautiful, not loved.

Christine Li: And I think as I've worked with people to gradually get the courage to chip away at their clutter day by day, I see how important it is to give yourself that zone of freedom in your space. Because we're talking not just some random space, this is your home. And it's, it's very much like your heart outside of your body is your home. And it should be comfortable and it should be as open, I think, as you can manage. And that doesn't mean that it has to be clutter free or minimalist in any way, but that it reflects kind of your freedom of movement and your freedom of feeling. And we are allowed to be attached to anything that we want. Rita can see in the video, I've got this kind of neon funky piece of art behind me. And I, for whatever reason, I, I know a bunch of reasons got attached to it and I purchased it and it's in my home.

Christine Li: Does it fit with anything else in my home? No. But, but I'm allowed to do that. And I celebrate the fact that we get to do this as individuals, that we get to decide who we fall in love with. We get to decide what we care about. That's kind of the beauty of living clutter for me, is kind of almost the opposite. It's like what we've already decided we've fallen out of love with. And much like you wouldn't necessarily keep a whole bunch of your ex-boyfriends or girlfriends in your home with you. You know, why are we actually tolerating this energy that we no longer connect with that no longer makes us feel elevated or, well, it actually makes us feel depleted or burdened. And you know, when you really take a look at it, it's a very important thing to sort out. And I see people, including myself, leaving it to the very last item on the, to-do list. And then it's like this nagging thing because, you know, every time you walk by the pantry, you see it's a mess or you see the expired food and it's, it's like a constant pinging. And what would life be like without this noise? Right? How would you feel? How would you operate? Could you do more things? Could you rest better? Could you feel better about yourself? All these things are possible.

Rita Black: Yeah. That's amazing. You're absolutely right. When, before we turned on the microphone, you mentioned something that was interesting to me about the clutter because you were talking about passive and active, passive and active. Can you speak to that a little bit? I I want to know more about like, we collect things passively and then actively, I think is what you were kind of putting it into phrase.

Christine Li: Okay. I, what comes to mind? I don't quite remember what we were talking about, but what comes to mind is actually women of a certain age are getting clutter that they never asked for.

Rita Black: Oh,

Christine Li: Okay. Were we talking about that? Because we're talking about.

Rita Black: No, but tell me about this. So like, women at a certain age are getting like passed down stuff from their parents or?

Christine Li: Or from other people are downsizing. They're getting their stuff, their kids are leaving their stuff in their home, in their basements. Their gifts coming in because gifts will come in and there's, there's no reverse flow. There's, there's no, there's no in and then out process. And what I've seen is really woman after woman after woman with a whole room or several rooms in their home that are a source of embarrassment that cannot house people, do not serve their original purpose, feel like they're constantly calling the women to declutter. And, and it's, it's not junk either. It's actually serious stuff in there. Pictures of family, it's old paperwork from old careers and it's stuff with a lot of sentimental and life meaning. And I, I really always, no matter what I do, I really try to, to respect and honor the person's journey.

Christine Li: Because just because I don't care about the stuff doesn't mean that it's not super important in some way to their life story. Right? It can take years to coach people sometimes into letting go of certain things. And I am just not surprised by that at all. Like, I get it because, you know what, there are things I can't even think of for myself right now that I need to let go of that I'm still not letting go of. Right. I'm not gonna judge because I'm just like you, I am just this, this is why I've, you know, proclaimed to myself the leader of the declutters because I have the same issues. Right. but the difference now is that I'm bringing in energy of no judgment and the promise of freedom afterwards. Right? . And what we do when we keep our clutter is saying, you know what? My freedom is just not doing it at all. Right. I'm choosing the freedom of the short term. I don't have to touch that stuff. I don't have to get my hands dirty. I don't have to waste my time with that pile that I hate, you know, and -

Rita Black: Or make those decisions. I mean, 'cause it is, it is tough.

Christine Li: It is, it's emotional. And sometimes -

Rita Black: Your brain goes into overwhelm. We don't wanna feel those feelings.

Christine Li: And sometimes we're already overwhelmed even before doing that. Right? Just regular life, just holding down the job. The, fort, the, everything is already that.

Rita Black: And taxing enough.

Christine Li: And people are really feeling short on time as well, I think for a long, long time. And so, you know, I think clutter is just always gonna be a potential issue. But I do think that it's, it's one of the simpler ways that you can make a big difference in your own energy. And I think what I've learned through this process as well is time. If you're not looking at us on video, many of you are not one finger I'm holding up represents time and the other represents energy. And so many of us spend so much of our effort really trying to save time in some way, or we regret the use of time or blah, blah, blah. When really what we're actually needing to manage a little bit more closely and smartly is our energy. Because our energy is really, like our life force time is just always gonna be ticking by, we really don't have control over that so much. We can try to make the most of what we have, but our energy is something that not only can we use really much more carefully and mindfully, but it's also something that we can replenish. And that's something that I've learned through social media and following all these people who are saying this kind of a thing, but also seeing that when you get rid of clutter, you actually get your energy returned to you. And that is just for me, like, this is fun. Like yeah. I, I don't need -

Rita Black: You see people transform their energy.

Christine Li: Yeah. I need, you know, this new high that doesn't cost anything. That is just like, I can get this at any time. I can help someone declutter or I can declutter myself. And I just think it's important to really have people understand that their energy is at stake.

Rita Black: Yeah. That's amazing. What are some main roadblocks that you see with people and decluttering? Like, what are some, you know, other than like just feeling overwhelmed or too tired? Like if I was actually gonna, like, if you were like, Rita, well, you know, all those books behind you, like what, it doesn't seem like you've read them in the last year or two. Like, why don't you just put them in a box and give them away? You know, I would say, well, I might need them one day. I need, might need them for research or I might need them to refer to. So why, and like, there must be some, some main psychological, like, you know, what are some of the main ones that you see coming up for people when you're working with them?

Christine Li: Okay. You've already covered I think one of them at least. So three things come to mind. Not all psychological. The first is physical pain. Some people are ailing, right? Their knees are not working so well, their back aches, clutter can be right. Garage clutter can be really heavy kind of right? Some scary stuff in there maybe, or just so many years piled up, it can be almost dangerous a situation. So I've definitely heard people saying, you know, I can't, I physically can't. And I've seen time and time again that actually you can, right? And it just, you need, you need the support you need to make sure everybody's safe. But everybody can do this piece by piece decluttering. And I definitely teach this piece by piece. Like you do one to three items, call it good, and then learn to nurture that feeling of, oh wow, I've accomplished something.

Christine Li: I've started, I'm not injured, I'm not hating this, I'm actually finding stuff and I'm making decisions and I feel okay by this. So it's this kind of, you know, healing process. I, I do think it can be a healing process. The second thing was, what you touched on was the idea that I might need this someday big block for people including me. Lots of us were raised on the don't waste anything, don't let anything go kind of model. I certainly was raised in that way. But as we know from just thinking about positive psychology and manifestation language, that anytime you're feeling in need, you're actually gonna put yourself in a state of need so that there is a fear that there's something that you're gonna be unprepared for, that you won't be able to manage, that you won't have the resources for.

Christine Li: But when you look at your abundance of clutter and your abundance of resources and talents and money to, to be honest, there really is no lack. And honestly, you wanna put yourself in a state of abundance anyway because yeah. You really are living abundantly. You have so much that you don't even know what to do with this stuff. And really, what would it be like to not live with that kind of worry anyway? And just like your husband with the shelves, like if he hadn't gone to that space, would he ever have thought about that at all? It's just kind of like, we think about it when it's in our presence, but when it's gone, we don't have to think about it anymore. So there's no need. And do people make mistakes in that regard? Sure. Right. Maybe one out of 50 times you declutter something and you really, really, really shouldn't have, but you'll survive that too. There is no such, I I just think people don't fall into massive calamities, because of decluttering. I think the calamity is really just leaving the clutter there to just grow. I think that's the big calamity. Okay.

Rita Black: And then the third thing was really the waste issue is, hearing that you're doing something wrong. And I think we really just need to flip that whole conversation around and say like, what is gonna serve me at the highest level? And you get to fill in the blank there, but oftentimes it's not keeping this item of clutter. Generally, people know in their, you know, intuitive brain, intuitive that intuitive voice inside them that it is clutter and that it, it does need to go kind of a thing. You know? We can just rest on that and let everything else work out as it needs to.

Rita Black: What about objects? That certain things that my, like for instance, my mother was you know, who passed in pretty much just 20 years ago exactly. And she, when she passed left, like pieces of jewelry and little things, and she would've written the best thing about this. Those things weren't the, wasn't the jewelry, but she wrote these little notes that said this was this and this was this little, and you know, for me those notes mean more than the object itself, but but what do you do? And, and you know, I have a set of pans of hers that are still really good. You can, can you believe this, but can getting a little crotchety now, but they, they were like from the 1950s, but these were like, they built things to last back then. You know, like they like those old cars you see running around these pans just like had a long, long shelf life.

Rita Black: And I think of getting rid of them. And I'm like, but that's my mom. And so what, and her cookbooks too, like she had these big collection of cookbooks. I haven't looked at them in years. I would never use any of those recipes. They're all like circa 1960s, seventies recipes. Right. But like, things like that where you're like, that's represents something to me that is really valuable to me. How do I let that go? Because like, I, they're, they take up space and they, I don't need them anymore. And like the pans are getting now cattery and stuff. I don't need them in my kitchen.

Christine Li: So this is a beautiful question. It's, I think the central question for so many, many women.

Rita Black: Yeah. I'm sure it is.

Christine Li: And also about so much of the clutter. And you said so much in there, it's fascinating, right? And you said, it's my mother, right? And it represents so much and that is all true. And you'll never lose your mother.

Rita Black: Yes.

Christine Li: So that's for me, very central that no matter what you do with the stuff, you'll never lose your mother. And what you, and then my question would be to you, like, what do you wish for and the wishes that you had were not to get rid of your mother. There was nothing in that, what you said about getting rid of your mother, but you did wish for more space and you did wish to be maybe done with the tattered pants. And that's something I think to be honored just you and you looking at you. And so there is that energetic connection with your mother, and she did that lovingly, right? With the notes, with the jewelry and with the cookbooks. And there is love everywhere. But I think you can safely and honoring your mother still let that stuff go.

Rita Black: Do you have like a, like a system? Like something like that seems to me, something I did with the pans was I put 'em in a box and I didn't get rid of 'em yet. I just like put them away and I kind of hid them away so that they weren't in my cupboards anymore. They were just in this box. And then I forgot about them. You know, like, I forgot they were there. They were like, you know, I kind of said a little prayer over them as I was taking them out and, and then, you know, like, thank you for serving me for my mother. And then yeah. And I forgot about 'em and I could move them to, you know, a trash bin, but I had to like, kind of know that I was gonna be over them before I put them away. You know, they weren't gonna serve anybody. I wasn't gonna give them away to goodwill, but they were gonna have to come and vent. So is that part of a process? Like, it does, do some people have to do that? Like kind of have to like, kind of have a middle zone where you're not getting 'em rid of them yet, but you're like out of sight, out of mind so that you can de neutralize that attachment?

Christine Li: I would say yes, based on your story. And also I'm sure that's true for many. I, I am thinking that because I help women declutter in the space with other women online that you can kind of bypass that phase because the energy of people freeing themselves of the stuff they don't need and seeing the effects in other people's lives is really contagious. So when you have to do it on your own, yeah. You're gonna feel the burden of it much more powerfully. Especially if it's this intimate stuff. But it's alleviated when you have the company of other women who are maybe dealing with stuff that is just as sentimental.

Rita Black: So, and probably, probably not bypassing the guilt you might feel for giving away something of your mothers or throwing something away that she treasured. You know, like that. Like, if you see somebody else doing the same, you're like, oh, okay, yeah, I get it. I can do that too. Yeah. Without the guilt, because I think guilt comes into it as well, does it not?

Christine Li: Guilt is everywhere when it comes to clutter, right? Guilt for having it, guilt for not having done away with it. Guilt for feeling guilty about your mother's stuff. Like, there's so many different ways. Guilt is tricky that way. But again, once that stuff is out of your home, you no longer have to deal with that kind of energy and think about what kind of energy do I want my home to be filled with? And does this stuff match that vibe?

Rita Black: Yeah. I, so I have another question. This is so fascinating. So as we age, you know, I'm gonna be 60 and I have been contemplating this so much this year, just like the whole, you know, what my next chapter of life is. But at the same time as you get older, you're also looking at the different chapters of your life in the past. And again, I'm not surrounded by my past. Like I, my office is very present. I mean, even though a lot of things, I was like, I could probably declutter this, but, but it's very I don't have a lot of like, things around me that are remind me of me, like when I was in my twenties or my thirties. And but if I, but if I got rid of something, like I have piece articles of clothing for instance, you know, it was so hilarious.

Rita Black: I remember 'cause you know, I've lost weight. Like I lost weight a long time ago and I've kept it off. And I remember one of the things is like when I had lost weight and I was like around 45 or something, I still had something from high school. Like I couldn't believe that I had it. Like, they made clothes pretty good back then too, you know. So I had this shirt and I could fit into that shirt and I was like, I don't wanna give up this shirt. I had this in high school and, and then, you know, during one of my thin phases in high school, 'cause I was heavy in high school as well, and I was like, I'm fit into it now and I'm not gonna give it up. It was then I was just like, reading, you're being so ridiculous. But you know, like we have these encapsulated memories of who we were and, and we don't wanna give those up because it's almost like, I mean like this from an, an energy and from a psychological is like, I'm giving away that piece of my life. You know, it kind of feels very attached to that. Right. Does that, do you see that a lot too?

Christine Li: A little less

Rita Black: As people get older? Like -

Christine Li: A little less, Because I see, I think I see more the, the kind of passively received clutter more so than hanging onto pieces of a former life, I would say. But what you make me think is that this phase of our lives, of the post 50 years is, is still a developmental phase, right? And so we're still, we're still growing and changing even though parts of society may not see it that way. May see it more as a stagnation or a decline. And I think when you hang on to a past phase, it, it may block maybe a more vibrant movement into what your next phase could be. So that's what that, that I would say of any phase. Right? Yeah. It's, it's thinking about my, you know, your security blankets when you're a kid. Yeah. Right? You don't really do that when you're 50. you, you know, you might have the memories attached, but generally like, we're good, we're good without this stuff. That, that may be the, the main point of them all that you're good without the need for the stuff.

Rita Black: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. I love how you were saying your mother's 83 and she's just learning ping pong. That's so great. It's so true. We are always growing and developing if we choose to.

Christine Li: I would say she's not, she's never learning. She's probably gonna, we're we're aiming for LA Olympics 2028.

Rita Black: Is she really good?

Christine Li: She is. She's, I've got my competitive streak from somewhere.

Rita Black: Does she compete on a team?

Christine Li: She just restarted. So, but yeah, she's, yeah, she's a vibrant, vibrant woman for sure.

Rita Black: That is amazing. What are, so when people get clear what are some positive things that you see people like stepping into because they've cleared their space?

Christine Li: I think just the enjoyment of the space is actually no small feat because I see people's before and after pictures and the after pictures are like magazine layouts with the light streaming in and the furniture just fits just perfectly in this space. And you could almost feel the person's joy, even though they're not in the picture, which I think is really great. And the transformations that people can do in such a short amount of time. I work with people in a very short span of a week to seven days around decluttering. I, I think is just amazing. So aside from the space transformation, there is the personal energy transformation where people do feel physically lighter. That's what I experience every time I manage to declutter. And also more positively oriented. So more willing to see, more able to see what the opportunities are instead of feeling burdened by shame, guilt, embarrassment, can't have people over stuff. Which is, is very prevalent because clutter is very prevalent. And so I'd love to see people connecting more, being more open, just opening your heart again. I think those are the great side effects of doing this work. Yeah.

Rita Black: Okay. If they have somebody else in their household cluttering as well, do they kind of have a talk with them and get their permission or get them in involved in the project as well? Have you seen that happen?

Christine Li: The beautiful thing that I've seen over and over again is that a, people start feeling, they come to the work feeling very frustrated by other family members, but they leave the work feeling like they're really supported by the other family members because the energy changes in the home once one person's energy changes. And so people can't resist helping, which I think is funny. Beautiful. And also just like, well of course they're gonna help because they want that vibe as well. They want clean, energized, uplifting space as well.

Rita Black: Very cool. Well, you have a challenge coming up. So tell us about this challenge that if you can join for free, right? Is that correct?

Christine Li: Yes, yes, yes. I invite all your listeners and all your listeners friends to join. This will be the sixth time I'm running it. It will be running starting Monday, September 16th and running for, I call it a Five-Day challenge, but it's just a smidge more than five days because we have a celebration party at the end. And each day of the challenge, I will give a little instruction about energy, about clutter, about mindset, all these little pieces that we all need to be able to just get the bravery and get the courage up to use our time to address the clutter. It's called re-Energize Your Home. And like Rita said, it's totally free. It's really this fun, super energized, like energized couple of days. So I invite you all to join. I've got a link for everyone to join through Rita's program through the podcast. And all you have to do is go to procrastinationcoach.com/ritablack. So it's procrastinationcoach.com/ritablack. And you can direct message me on Instagram if you have any questions about what I'm doing, what Rita and I have talked about, or the challenge. My Instagram is @procrastinationcoach.

Rita Black: And people love this. I've had so many people we've had Christine on before and I've offered her challenges before and people are like, I love that challenge. That was so fun. I got, I decluttered It is very thrilling for so many people, so. Well, I'm glad you're doing this again. I'm excited and I'm excited to have people sign up and enjoy this and get their, their space clean. I do think it is so important. I've been doing a lot of cleaning of my, I've gotta clean my clo I promised I'd clean my closet before I turned 60 so I have some room for some new like fantastic clothes for my sixties

Christine Li: I love it. And what a great role model you've been to all of us your listeners, but also to me as well as you know, and what a great way to celebrate this new transition for you, right? New clothes, open closet, you know, dream big, look great, feel great. And thank you. Thank you for letting me share all this stuff about the clutter and the challenge on the show today.

Rita Black: Oh, yes. And tell us those links one more time just in case people didn't hear it. And I will be putting them in the show notes as well.

Christine Li: Sure. Thanks. It's procrastinationcoach.com/ritablack.

Rita Black: Awesome. Well, thank you Christine. It was, Dr. Christine, I should say. It was great to have you on and we will have you again back again. This was a great topic.

Christine Li: Look forward to it. Bye everyone. Thanks Rita.

Rita Black: Thank you Dr. Christine. That was amazing. I always, always love our chats. And don't forget, Dr. Christine has a five day challenge starting September 16th and running through the 20th called Reenergize Your Home. It's a five day challenge. It's free. Go sign up. The links are in the show notes. And remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door, the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it. I will see you here. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed next week.

Rita Black: Thanks for listening to The Thin Thinking Podcast. Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and do you wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com. That's www.shiftweightmastery.com, where you'll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release tips, strategies, and more. And be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book from Fat to Thin Thinking. Unlock Your Mind for Permanent Weight Loss and to learn how to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.