Have you ever said to yourself:
I’ll never be organized.
I’ve been this way all my life.
I always struggle to keep things tidy
I’m such a hoarder!
Why can’t I be and stay organized like everybody else?

Our guest, Kristi Meyer of Simple Surroundings Consulting. Kristi is a certified KonMari Consultant and a Certified Professional Organizer based in Charleston, SC. She is also an Institute for Challenging Disorganization Specialist in Chronic Disorganization, Hoarding and ADHD and a longtime member of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. For the last ten years, Kristi has been helping her clients achieve dramatic change that forever transforms the way they feel and function in their homes.

We want to hear from you! Tell us your burning tidying questions or share stories about how KonMari has impacted your life. Find us at www.sparkjoypodcast.com and click “Ask Spark Joy” to leave a question or comment for a chance to be featured on next week’s show.

While you’re there, sign-up to join our Spark Joy podcast community and get notified when each episode airs. You can also join the Spark Joy podcast community on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter at the handle @sparkjoypodcast.

In this episode, you’ll enjoy:

• How Kristi's love for teaching organizing skills to her K-8 students branched into a professional organizing and KonMari practice
• The similarities and differences between Kristi's conventional organizing experiences and her KonMari practice and journey
• The "aftershocks" that led Kristi to revisit certain aspects of the KonMari Method
• More information about how to nail the vision of your ideal lifestyle and living environment - Spark Joy Episode 5
• Hoarding experts featured on Spark Joy Episode 3 and Episode 19
• Kristi's definition of chronic disorganization and hoarding disorder and the tell tale signs of each
• How Kristi keeps the basic rules of KonMari intact when working with the chronically disorganized with some adaptations
• How Judith Kolberg's book, Conquering Chronic Disorganization influenced Kristi's practice
• Kristi's Five Unconventional Rules for the Chronically Disorganized:
  • Make it social
  • Overpersonalize
  • Make it emotional
  • Adapt to your individual learning and organizational style
  • Set up a maintenance plan
• Kristi's top resources for those who may be struggling with chronic disorganization or hoarding
  • The Institute for Challenging Disorganization
  • Dorothy The Organizer
  • Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving, and Hoarding by Tolin and Frost with accompanying workbooks
  • Digging Out: Helping Your Loved One Manage Clutter, Hoarding, and Compulsive Acquiring by Michael Tompkins
  • Children of Hoarders
  • Therapists, professional organizers, or certified KonMari Consultants

Kristi's favorite tidying tip: Simplicity. The less detail the better.
What sparks joy for Kristi: The KonMari Consultant community and her daughter.

To connect with Kristi, visit www.simplesurroundingsconsulting.com . While you’re there take, her free quiz "How Organized Are You, Really?"

Gems:

• "...academic performance could really be correlated to how organized a student was."
• "I wanted to have a really huge impact on their physical space and also their mental space."
• "I started to realize other stuff around me that seemed to really change my outlook and my thoughts about what I wanted for the future."
• "If you find that [clutter] really undermines your quality of life, then that could be considered chronic."
• "Talk out loud. Whatever you're thinking in your head, vocalize it out loud."
• "Find your treasures. Find the things you absolutely love."
• "If you keep [maintenance] very simple simple, it's also going to lead to more relevance to your current self."

You can find Karin Socci at The Serene Home
You can find Kristyn Ivey at For the Love of Tidy

Special Guest: Kristi Meyer.

Dr. Melva Green is best known for her work on the critically acclaimed A&E series Hoarders. She is a psychiatrist and spiritual healer specializing in REAL LIFE living. Dr. Green is the co-author of Breathing Room: Open You Heart by Decluttering Your Home, a wonderful blend of personal stories interwoven into a clear, practical guide on decluttering.

In this episode, Dr. Green discusses the importance of slowing down, taking a breath, and leading with compassion before we jump into the clutter. We also discuss the do's and don'ts associated with identifying and treating someone with a hoarding disorder and associated signs and resources.

To connect with Dr. Green, you can find her at www.drmelvagreen.com as well as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube at @drmelva. Dr. Green is offering our listeners a discounted, signed copy of Breathing Room using the following link: http://bit.ly/2qM2pVB

Spark Joy wants to hear from you! Tell us your burning tidying questions or share stories about how KonMari has impacted your life. Find us at www.sparkjoypodcast.com and email us at contact@sparkjoypodcast.com to leave a question or comment for a chance to be featured on next week’s show. Join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter via @sparkjoypodcast.

In this episode, you’ll enjoy:

• What led Dr. Green to take a leap of faith, close her practice, declutter, and move to Costa Rica

• The moments leading up to Dr. Green getting the call to be an expert on A&E's Hoarders

• How Dr. Green's book, Breathing Room: Open Your Heart by Decluttering Your Home evolved into a collaborative project with co-author Dr. Lauren Rosenfeld

• How Dr. Green's spiritual approach to therapy broadened her client's experience and given client's permission to pursue another path and reduce shame

• The role anxiety plays in disorganization

• How being kind to yourself can shift the heart space to the self love and tenderness required to start the process

• How the SLICE method (Stop & Listen, Intend, Clearing the Energy), a three step process described in Breathing Room, can help you jump start your journey to organization

• Signs a loved one's life may be impacted by hoarding

• Why common statistics tracking hoarding disorder misrepresent the scope of the public burden due to the "hidden" nature of the problem

• How trauma is often at the core of a hoarding crisis

• How in over 14 years, only two of Dr. Green's clutter clients were so resistant to change they couldn't be helped

• How the support system of family can help hoarders successfully dig out and recover

• How Dr. Green listens to her clients and reminds them to stop and breathe to hold a clear space

• Dr. Green recommends resources on wwww.hoarders.org , including a scale to help you determine if you meet the clinical criteria for a hoarding disorder

Dr. Green's favorite tidying tip: Breathe...

What sparks the most joy for Dr. Green: Her son starting at Stanford University!

Gems:

"Most of our clutter is unconscious."

"The mess is not IN the way, it's PART OF the way."

"Clutter is the external manifestation of what's going on in our internal space."

"When we stop and breathe we're able to get a sense of what needs to go and what needs to stay."

You can find Karin Socci at The Serene Home
You can find Kristyn Ivey at For the Love of Tidy

Special Guest: Melva Green.

Dorothy Breininger, aka “Dorothy The Organizer,” is known to millions as the fearless-yet-endearing problem solver on A&E’s Emmy-nominated hit TV series “Hoarders.” She is the author of seven books, including Stuff Your Face or Face Your Stuff. Dorothy is featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, O Magazine, and appears on the Today Show, Dr. Phil, the VIEW, The Doctors, QVC and PBS.

In this episode, Dorothy helps us make the connection between the clutter in our homes and addictions we may have in other areas of our life (food, alcohol, gambling, shopping, etc.). We explore some of the barriers that prevent us from making the choices we know are best for us and how to overcome them. Dorothy also shares her first hand experience working with clients suffering from hoarding and some of the resources available to help those with this condition.

Dorothy is offering Spark Joy listeners:

1. A Free Guide on “How to Banish Clutter Creatively”
2. A Free Cancer Concierge ebook that can help you learn how to organize yourself and your life in the face of a cancer diagnosis

To connect with Dorothy Breininger, you can visit her website, www.dorothytheorganizer.com for free tips, videos, newsletters, organizing resources for your life, home, office, and relationships. Be sure to check out her book “Stuff Your Face or Face Your Stuff” via her website or Amazon. Also, check her out on the hit show "Hoarders" on A&E.

Spark Joy wants to hear from you! Tell us your burning tidying questions or share stories about how KonMari has impacted your life. Find us at www.sparkjoypodcast.com, email us at contact@sparkjoypodcast.com to leave a question or comment for a chance to be featured on next week’s show. Join us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter via @sparkjoypodcast.

In this episode, you’ll enjoy:

• Dorothy's three life-changing experiences that helped her manage her own clutter

• What Dorothy learned about other culture's relationship with clutter after backpacking across 30 countries

• How Dorothy climbed out of $360,000 of inherited debt

• How Dorothy's work on Hoarders helped her realize her own addictive behavior around food

• Netflix documentaries: Forks Over Knives and What the Health

• Why we are looking to stuff to decide where we are going as a society

• How food addiction is similar to alcohol or gambling addiction and leads to a perverse sense of self care

• How living with an addiction or mental illness impacts our ability to make conscious choices

• The three most common barriers we create between us and the problems we face and how to overcome them

• Stuff My Face, Face My Stuff is available on Amazon and includes examples of over 30 different types of Twelve Step Programs

• Landmark Education

• How to apply a questioning method from Byron Katie's process, The Work, can tell you about what your clutter is saying about you

• Lessons Dorothy's learned from working with extreme hoarding clients

• The power of apologies

• How to identify someone who hoards and common indicators

• The connection between perfectionism and hoarding

• What it was like to spend a night in a hoarder's home

• What happens during a hoarder's aftercare and its similarity to a food addiction maintenance plan

• Where to turn for hoarding help: Turn to www.dorthytheorganizer.com for tools and resources including a virtual therapy group for hoarders

Dorothy's Favorite Tidying Tip: "Left to right, top to bottom."

"Even if you feel sure you are right, never assume you know what’s best for another in terms of stuff. Simply re-arranging someone else’s stuff or worse yet getting rid of it without permission truly breaks the bonds of trust (especially with children)."

What sparks the most joy for Dorothy: Surprising friends, family, and strangers.

Gems:

• “What does your clutter say about you?”

• “We all have stuff.”

• “I got rid of the stuff so that I could create something bigger for myself.”

• “People hoarded stuff in their homes, but I was hoarding sugar and flour on my body.”

• “We’re looking to stuff to decide where we are going as a society.”

• “We are teetering near 14 million people who hoard.”

• “Barrier to facing our stuff: We blame others.”

• “Barrier to facing our stuff: We refuse to look at our own mistakes.”

• “Barrier to facing our stuff: We isolate instead of reach out for help.”

• “Overcome the barrier: Dare to admit we are fully responsible for the things that we own."

• “Overcome the barrier: Take a fearless moral inventory of yourself.”

• “Overcome the barrier: Be with a group of like-minded people to help you get out of isolation.”

• “Apologies created the path to clearing out the clutter in their house.”

• “Even if you feel sure you are right, never assume you know what’s best for another in terms of stuff.”

You can find Karin Socci at The Serene Home
You can find Kristyn Ivey at For the Love of Tidy

Special Guest: Dorothy Breininger.