Discovering Your Authentic Self while Decluttering

In this episode of the Your Life Decluttered podcast, the host discusses the topic of discovering your authentic self while decluttering. She emphasizes the importance of being true to oneself and not trying to be someone else. The host suggests that removing physical and emotional clutter is essential in this process, as it allows for self-reflection and helps identify one's values, passions, and strengths. She encourages listeners to take seven days to deeply explore and discover themselves, and offers practical tips for integrating their authentic selves into their daily routines. The host also addresses the fear of judgment and the role of authenticity in relationships. Overall, the episode aims to empower high-achieving women to live authentically and find happiness and fulfillment in their lives. Hey, ladies, welcome back to the Your Life Decluttered podcast, the podcast for high-achieving women who want to master their personal and professional lives while removing clutter. It's me, Linda, your Decluttered coach, and it's been a minute, but I had this really great episode that was on my mind. As a matter of fact, I had to actually call in from work today because something else happened, but I was like, hey, I haven't spoken with you ladies for a minute, so I thought that it was time for me to drop another episode of Your Life Decluttered, and I think this is going to be a really true-to-heart podcast, well, episode, as I want to say. The reason why did I say this is because it's something that I had dealt with for a very long time, and it also took me a lot of time to peel back the layers of life, as one would say, and it gave me an opportunity to really discover who I was. Really quick. Let's do this. Let's go ahead and grab a glass of wine. We're going to dive right in, and we're going to be able to talk about this episode topic, which is discovering your authentic self while decluttering. Take a minute. Grab that glass of wine or whatever your favorite beverage is and a snack. Don't forget your pen and your piece of paper because we're about to get right into it. Okay, ladies, then we're back. Okay, so, discovering your authentic self while decluttering. This brings up so many different emotions, I don't even know what really to say. I really don't, but I did feel this way, and let me ask y'all this question, and you can reply back to me in the comments of this podcast or not. Have you ever felt like you had, how do I want to say this? Have you ever felt like you, it's not imposter syndrome, how do I say this? I want to get this out. I wish you guys were here with me so you could actually feel what I feel just even by asking this question. Have you ever felt like you were just going through the emotions of life and doing the things that you should be doing, but kind of deep down you're really not happy by doing them, or you're a people pleaser and you're always doing what everyone else is telling you to do or what you should do, quotation marks if you see me here, and you are so unhappy with doing it because it doesn't connect with who you are as a person. It doesn't connect with you as far as what your values are or your morals. That's what I know is like the bright light that comes on at a time to discover who you are authentically or who your authentic self is. I think that there's a lot of women that go through this, and I want to say the reason why I feel this is basically because, let me speak for myself, I can't speak for everybody else, but I feel that this is something that a lot of women go through, especially in this day and age of social media. Social media, all of us as entrepreneurs, we're online, we're grabbing the bag. I don't want to say hustle because I don't subscribe to the hustle newsletter. We're just out there just trying to get the bag and do it for ourselves, but in the meantime while we're doing that in our professional lives, in our personal lives, there are so many women out here that we admire so much. We enjoy their personalities. We see how they have had their glow ups. We've watched women grow. We've had women fade away in business and in their personal lives, and they come back better than ever, all for a good Phoenix story. Sometimes you kind of feel like you take on different people's personalities because you want to find out something that fits and that just works. But the thing about it is that it's never going to work because you're not putting your authentic self out there. Let me kind of go into a quick story time when it comes to that, when it happened to me. All my life, I've always been a pretty shy person until you get to know me, then I'll talk your ears off. On this podcast, I can talk your ears off, but I had a really long period in my life where I had to find out who I was authentically, and I too was one of those women that were sitting on the sidelines of social media and even in my personal life, and there were so many different women that I admired, and I started to try to take on their personalities and see if it would fit for me. It seemed like over every couple years, I don't want to say I reinvented myself, I just took on different things that I felt that was going to work for me and work for my audience, and it didn't happen. I felt so bad that it just didn't fit on who I was, but that's a whole discovery thing that we all have to go through, you know what I'm saying? When you're trying to act or be or do what other people are doing, it's just like putting on a small pair of high heels. It just doesn't fit. It doesn't fit. It doesn't walk right. You're walking around in pain. It doesn't show the glow of who you are as a person, and trying to discover or trying to be someone else, it's very time-consuming, because remember, you've got to put that front up every single time that you're talking to somebody, but there's going to be those moments where you're going to slip up and who you are as a person is going to come out, and when those two do not match to whoever you're talking to, that's when trouble starts, because then people want to say, oh my gosh, she's fake, I don't know who she thinks she is, there's just something about this girl I don't really like. You hear all of those phases, and that's because somewhere in there, there's two reasons. You're not being your authentic self or two, the person may not like you that much, and they're just trying to figure out some nonsense about you, just to say, I'm just saying. It is, it can be very time-consuming, and it can be very conflicted, especially in a place where you're trying to remove things out of your life, you're trying to change your life, reinvent yourself to become a better person, a better mother, sister, daughter, best friend, whoever it is that you're trying to be, and you're struggling with trying to find your authentic self, that alone is going to be a long process, and I don't want you to go through that process, because I went through it myself. Part of the reason why this podcast was started was because there was just so many things I went through that I know that other women have went through, and I don't want you to go through that. I want you to take the shorter route, instead of taking the long, across Europe, across the Pacific Ocean route, in order for you to find out who you are authentically, and that's something that we're going to do right now. This podcast is interactive, so you can drop your comments here on the podcast and tell me how you feel, or just even some things, and we can do this anonymously, so you can also leave a voice message for me, and we can kind of play it back and do a Q&A a little bit later on in another episode, but one thing that I've learned about the process of becoming my authentic self was that it had a lot to do with removing clutter out of my life, and immediately when we think about clutter, we always think about the physical things in our homes, but there's also the mental, the physical, the spiritual, and the emotional clutter that we all have in our lives as well, and those things kind of hinder you from discovering who you are as a person, and I want to give you this scenario when we say the physical, emotional, spiritual, mental part of it. Have you ever had a Christmas present or birthday present that someone has gave to you, and you open that joker up, and you're like, who is this for? Like this present has nothing, it doesn't have me written all over it. It may have been some perfume, it could have been like something for your home, and you're like, that isn't even me, and that's what it means that when, that there is somewhere in there that that person, in my opinion, may have not gotten to know who you were as a person, or you may not have showed up to them authentically, and they're thinking, hey, well I know that Linda may like this, and then I'm getting it, and I'm looking at it hoping that I may have the receipt, and I want to return it back, because I don't want to hurt their feelings, you know what I mean? So it's one of those type things when it comes to removing things out of our lives, and removing the physical, and the emotional clutter, because I always hope to say one thing, clutter is always attached to an emotion, a feeling, a situation that's happening to your life, and I gave scenarios before about just some things that I've went through when I've had to remove those clutter, because although there were things that I loved, the clutter was part of a previous life that I did not want to go back to, and for me, that was the reason why that I chose to remove things out of my life. Clutter was clothes that happened, like for instance, I had a dress, it was a really cute black dress, and when I wore that dress, something very traumatic happened to me, I threw it away because I did not want to be connected to that dress, and a lot of people do this when you have like estate sales, you know, when someone has passed on, you know, and the family wants to remove the things from the home, you may have had a boyfriend, and you've thrown away like pictures, clothes, rings, necklaces, don't throw away the money now, but you know, not all money is good money, you know, we have to remove those different things from our lives, and that was a form of decluttering, because as you remove those things from your life, there's something about it that kind of lifts, and it unlocks the freedom that is within you, whether it's you breathing deeply, going, because you're feeling the weight of things, it was being able to sleep better, because you're no longer involved in that cluttered atmosphere, it is being able to see clarity of where you want to go in your life, because you're no longer dealing with those different issues that were clouding your judgment, your spiritual gifts, and the voice that you have in your life. So that's why I always say that it's always very important to be able to remove the physical and emotional clutter when you're trying to discover who you are. And when you're finding yourself that people are trying to push who they are on you, that too is very uncomfortable, you know, and I have an upcoming book that's going to come out next year, and it's called Breaking Up, actually it's going to come out this year, it's called Breaking Up With Clutter, and it kind of defines the relationship that we have with clutter, with people, places, and things. And I can't wait for you to get on there, I'm going to put that link probably a little bit later on this week, if you want to pre-order that book. And one of the things that's very hard for us to do when we think about removing clutter, is sometimes we have to understand that it is the people in our lives that are, that's the clutter. It's the people that may hold you back, the people that may not support you, it may be the people that have clouded your physical, mental, emotional, spiritual arm, you know, we may have to, what did my mom say, sometimes you have to handle people with a long handled broom, and sometimes you have to do that because if that clutter gets too close to you, then it stifles your passion and your gifts, and that's something that I know that I don't want, that I don't want for you. And we have to look at those things because it's those things that help you to discover who you are as a person, because if you stop doing the things that other people are doing, you start understanding who you are as a person, you know, the way that you talk, the way that you think, the things that you love, and don't be afraid to share those things with other people, because that's how people get to know who you are authentically. You know, if you're around a lot of people and they don't cuss and you're a cusser, well, you know something, they just may have to take the fact that you're a cusser. You know, if you're a people who do not drink, hey, you may be a drinker, you know what I mean, just for casual, just enjoyment purposes, so you have to be able to, you know, get in where you fit in, as they may say, but people should be able to accept you for who you are authentically, and if they cannot do that, then that's their problem. Yeah, I'm going to say that, that's their problem, because you were made specifically for this particular purpose, whatever you have in your life, and that is with you showing up authentically on who you are. So people just going to have to kind of like, you know, get over that. And that's just, it is what it is, but let's kind of go a little bit deeper into this whole thing of authenticity, and how important it is for you as a woman, especially as a high achieving woman, because, you know, you've got some places to think, to do, and you've got some people to meet, and you've got some things to do. So when we think about the importance of authenticity, I swear, I took me a long time for that word, it's just really being able to help you increase your happiness and your fulfillment, not only just in the relationship for yourself, but in your overall well-being, and just being true to like real life living. So let's kind of like get into, let's kind of like get into it. So how do we identify you on your true self? And that's a big, that's a big one. How do you identify you as a person? You know, talking about the benefits and how we know it's going to help your happiness and your fulfillment, being able to identify to yourself is just going to be able to really identify what your real values are. You know, what do you really stand for? They say like if you don't stand for anything, if you don't stand for something, you don't stand for nothing. You know, what are your values are? What are those passions that you have? What are those strengths that you have? What makes you so unique about you? You know, or some people may call it like your secret sauce. What is it about you that just makes you you, whether it's the hair, you know, your fashion, how you do your house, how you talk, just those things is how you help identify who you are as a person. It could be the way that you dance, the car that you drive, how you feel about pressing matters like in the news or other events. Just those things that you're going to help identify who you are as a person. It also helps you to kind of build in this moment of self-reflection. So while you're in a self-reflection time, you have your pen and your piece of paper, think about those things. Think about your values, your passions, and your strengths. When I say about your passions, your passions can also change over time because I know mine did. Like I have a true passion for organizing. I love putting things in order. I love helping you women be able to put your lives in order. I love it so much. It brings me so much joy when I do that. And I know that over the period of time and as I've aged, my love for organizing has changed in different ways because I used to be a professional organizer and I used to organize homes. And then I moved to a different part of it where I felt that I was led to start coaching women on how to stay organized because that's different for someone to come into your home and organize than opposed for you to have the systems and the mentality in place in order to stay organized. So your passions, things that may change over time, but just make yourself just aware of that as a side note. But just have those moments of self-awareness. So let's try this, ladies. Let's do like seven days. Seven days of really you taking the time to discover your values, your passions, and your strengths and the things that just make you go crazy wild about yourself. You know what I mean? Whether it's discovering your body type, discovering how you talk, how you emphasize different things, how you carry yourself. If you have like a little sway in your hips or it's a way that you walk when you're in your heels or it's a way that you move your hands, the way that you move your hips, the way that you bounce, it's whatever it is, let's take seven days to really get into it and really discover those things so you can not, if you're a person who already knows who you are and walking out there to see, let's get into a deeper moment of discovering who we are, especially in this particular season that we're having, we're about to come into summertime. So, you know, we got summertime bodies that we're trying to do and sun dresses that we're trying to wear. So let's really do that. So for the next seven days, get your journal and really start to discover more about yourself. Let's get deep into it. From the smallest things, from like the way that you drink your soda or your champagne, your wine, whatever it is, it's those things that I really do want you to write down in your journal and oh, and when the seven days end, contact me. You can contact me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, I'm even over there on TikTok, just drop me a line. You can DM me or you can jump in the comments on one of my posts and just let me know how that worked out for you because I want you to be able to really identify and become very self-aware of what are the best things about you and what makes you you so I can celebrate you. Okay? Can we do that? Let's do that. Everybody raise their hands. We got it. Okay. Let's talk about now about kind of integrating your authentic self into your everyday life. We talked about identifying who you are as a person because I want to make sure that we stay on track and then we're going to identify your true self because it's one thing, but how do you integrate when you're finding out who you are into your everyday life because this is a lifestyle. Who you are isn't just a front. It's not something that you just put on in front of the stage and when you just step out the house and then you come back in and you're another person. This is a total lifestyle of who you are as a person because we do not have time to be confused with all these different things that are going on. Well, let me provide you with some really good and practical tips for integrating your authentic self into your daily routine. Then we're also going to talk about some overcoming some fear of judgment because people can be judgmental and being your true self as well as your role of authenticity in relationships. Okay, because what's going to happen is that you have to do a routine that fits for you. You have to do a routine that fits for you and I was this person, you know, you're looking through videos, just swiping up and swiping up and swiping up and you're seeing people do all the different routines, but that routine don't work for me. I have to be so honest with you. I see some of these skin care videos and I'm like, there is no way that this oily face over here is going to be putting on 50, 10, 11 different products and just for me to go to sleep. I don't want you to do that either. You have to find routines that work for you, whether it's your commuting to work, whether it's how you check your emails, whether it's shopping, working out, cooking dinner. There are some things that are staples. Meal prepping, I'm always going to be a cheerleader for. Meal prepping is one of the best things ever. It saves so much time if you're that type of person who really enjoys having the same things throughout the whole week. If you're not that type of person, we can probably work around that and find a way around it, but when it comes to your daily routines, we have to be able to do things that work for us. If your thing is doing yoga in the morning time, that's fine. If it's running at night, then that's fine. If your skincare routine is only two items, if it's just some cleanser and that works for you and you have the most beautiful skin ever, own it. Own it. We have to be able to know that our daily routines are something that's going to make you happy individually, not someone else. We want to be mindful of other people, but we know we always have to find a thing that works the best for us and that allows us to show up as beautiful and as blooming as we are. That's a good tip that we have when we're thinking about integrating your authentic self into your life. Be aware of telling people that are around you as well. You can show up like one of your besties, hey, I was doing this thing. I didn't feel like it was who I was. Just hold me accountable or you may see some changes that are going to come out because this is just who I am. Allow that person to support you. You can email me and I'll be able to support you in that process, but I want you to be able to show up who you are and show out as who you are for real, for real, real. The next thing let's talk about is what they call decluttering as a path to authenticity. I wrote some good doggone notes, y'all. I did because I wanted to give y'all straight to the point and something that's really going to work for you. Decluttering is just a powerful tool. I've known it all of my life ever since I've been organizing. If some of you do not know, I have a lot of story times in here. So many women who do not know, I stayed in a hotel room after my divorce. I was homeless. Enough of enough. I went and I looked in the mirror and I said, who in the hell is this? I was not raised that way. I went to Target and I got one of those composition books and I laid on the floor in the hotel room and I reorganized my whole life. Now I own a really amazing business. I'm in a great relationship. I have this really great discovery of who I am and I'm very grounded in who I am and the things that I believe in. Now I get the opportunity to help you do the same thing. But that didn't happen until I really started removing things and understanding who I was authentically because I went to a networking event and in that networking event I really didn't talk. There were some really amazing women that were there and I felt so out of place because I felt like if I had showed up authentically that they wouldn't like me. Isn't that something? That's a part of judgment and that's self-judgment. I felt like they would not like me. They wouldn't have liked if I had cussed. They would not have liked if I had a glass of wine or a cocktail. I felt that my conversation would have been different because me and my best friend, we talk. I mean we talk. We're going to talk from Jesus. We may talk about sex. We're going to talk about a wide gamut of things and we're very open about a lot, me and my best friend, and that's why I love her so much. And we do it because we're not judgmental with each other about it. We show up as who we are and we have those conversations and we understand who we are and that's what makes people really, and that makes us so comfortable in who we are authentically is that you don't have someone that's looking at you, judging you on why you're saying something. And that's when it comes to when you think about the fear of people judging you is that we don't want people to not like us even though we should be able to say, hey, this person doesn't like me and that's okay. But somewhere in there we always want to be liked. Some people really do. Some people do. Some people don't. But having that fear of how people can judge you for being who you are, it takes a toll on you mentally. It really does. It takes a, because you're opening yourself up and you're being so vulnerable on who you are and to have someone say, why would you do that? Or, oh my God, that's just horrible. Or why would you act like that? You know, because just the judgment alone can make you second guess yourself on why you have chosen to show up authentically. And that should never be the case of someone judging you for who you are. You know, in this world, there's always going to be somebody that's going to like you and someone that's not going to like you. And nine times out of ten, it's usually their own personal issues and it ever will have to do with you. And that's why we have to really work on, you know, overcoming the fear of being judged on who we are. I may have to put that as the next episode because I think that's a whole other ball game right there. That's a whole other ball game. But we just really have to be able to understand that, you know, the cluttering part of this whole thing, it's going to make life so much easier with you as a person. It's removing the things that just aren't who you are. And not only just that, but clutter can be a very big distraction. It can stop you from connecting with your, you know, with your true self. And the reason why it can distract you from being your true self is that you're holding on and creating false narratives of who you are based on the things that you have either purchased that weren't you or things that people have given that are you. And when it comes to false narratives, it gets into your mentality and you're going to be replaying that over and over again, trying to fit into that mental note of what you think you should be opposed to who you are. So that's why I say that the cluttering can be a very huge distraction when you come to really discovering your authentic self. And I just want you to be able to move past that. I want you to move past, you know, move past just the clutter itself. Because what's going to happen is that as you start to remove, and you can do this little by little, you don't have to go in and do a whole, you know, house sweep and, you know, I'm just going to do everything all at once. Take one area of your life and really work on discovering your authentic self. Remember, we're doing that seven days where we're going to look at our values and our passions and our strengths and who we are and celebrating them. But once you start to really understand the decluttering process of who you are and the negative self-talk, the doubt, the fear, the fear of being judged, the fear of showing up, you're going to feel like a really great feeling of peace. It's going to be a really great calming environment that you're going to get into because it's going to allow you to be more introspective. And as you start to go through this process, you're going to feel that this load is going to be lifted from you. You're going to seem brighter. You're going to be happier. You're going to be calmer. You're going to be more focused on anything that you're putting your mind to. But the thing is that we have to be able to put our mind to it and do it in order for us to achieve this particular level of success because I want that for you. I do. I want it to be for you. And knowing just that, it just will be able to give you just a very simpler life. The more that you have, the more you have to try to take care of it. I learned that a couple of years ago because someone was talking about, oh, I want to be a millionaire. And I want like a big 15,000 square foot house. And I was like, you know how much do I have to take for that house? Great. People can have it. And at one time, I wanted it. But just according to my life, I may not want a 15, but I may want like a good 6,000 square foot house, something like that because you want to be able to, well, bless me with the money to maintain what I have. But we want to be able to have a very simple life no matter how rich and how luxurious it is. And being able to, that's going to enable us to do and be the things that we have been called here for a purpose to do. So in conclusion, because I have a couple of seconds left, I wanted to keep this kind of short but really straight to the point. We discussed the importance of authenticity, how to identify your true self, integrating your authentic self in your life and the role of decluttering and connecting with your true self. But I want to leave you ladies with this. I really do. And I feel this in my heart because I want it so bad for you. Living authentically, it's a journey. It's not a destination, just like getting organized. But I really want to encourage you to take one step at a time. Don't be afraid to embrace who you are. And if you have to get up every morning and have a sticky note on your mirror that says embrace who I am, I will embrace who I am, put it in an affirmation, I am going, I will embrace who I am. Don't be afraid to embrace your authentic self because that's who you were made to be. We don't do carbon copies over here. We enjoy the authenticity in who you are as a person, your unique self. We celebrate it here on Your Life Declared Podcast because we know that once you remove all of that, we get to discover the greatness of who you are, the greatness of the things that you're going to do, and the greatness of who you are being at this particular moment that's within your DNA. So I want to thank you for listening to Your Life Declared Podcast. I hope you really did enjoy this episode. I think the scenarios that I gave you are just some really quick tips and just to kind of talk some things out because I know sometimes we just have to have someone to talk some things out with. Please be sure to subscribe and leave a review. I'm on Spotify. I'm on Apple. Anchor is still rolling around there. I think there's a couple. I'm also on speaker. Yeah, the speaker was an old one. Speaker is there. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at BeLindaLUBanks. You can also follow me, BeLindaLUBanks, on YouTube and also on Twitter and on Facebook because I want to be able to connect with you on different channels and you're going to get some different type of content. So you just get more practical tips on decluttering your life and really leveling up as a professional and high-achieving woman that's going to do really great things. So I hope to see you guys next time. Share with a friend, family member, or another business bestie who may need this podcast and I am going to talk with you a little bit later. Ciao, Bella.