How Decluttering Transforms Trauma to Tranquility with Valerie Huard

If you have ever felt overwhelmed at the prospect of decluttering your home, you're not alone. As Valerie Huard discovered, the inability to clean and organize your space may stem from past trauma. This realization led Valerie to create a four-step process to declutter that combines physical and emotional healing.
Show Notes | Transcript
"If you touch everything, you have all the memories that arrive, all the emotion. When people that had trauma, when they stop and they procrastinate and they push on the decluttering, that's because they're not able to manage that wave of emotion." - Valerie Huard
From trauma to triumph, Valerie Huard has seen it all. She is a published author, speaker and expert who works with people all over the world. Having experienced childhood trauma herself, Valerie understands the impact it can have on one's life, including the accumulation of clutter. Through her own journey of healing, she discovered that decluttering not only cleared physical space but also helped clear emotional baggage.
In this episode, you will be able to:
Discover how trauma and clutter are connected, and learn why decluttering can be a powerful tool for healing and growth.
Find out how to let go of sentimental belongings in a way that honors your emotions and memories, helping you make space for new experiences.
Learn a gentle approach to decluttering that focuses on self-care and self-compassion, allowing you to release the clutter without feeling overwhelmed or guilty.
Explore the calming and grounding effects of nature and discover how spending time outdoors can bring peace and clarity to your decluttering journey.
Create a positive decluttering atmosphere by incorporating mindfulness and gratitude practices, promoting a sense of calmness and empowerment throughout the process.
Related Live. Love. Engage. episodes you may enjoy:
Lessons from Trauma Work with Sarah Brassard
Clutter, Trauma and Beliefs with Krystal Holm
Benefits of Healing Unresolved Trauma with Betsy Rosam
Turning Traumas into Treasures with Mary Huang
Resources:
Connect with Valerie here
Get Valerie's books here
Join the Soulful Women's Network here
Send me a message here
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TRANSCRIPT
Gloria Grace Rand
Namaste. Oh, I am so glad that you are here. Whether this is your first time to Live Love Engage or you are a regular subscriber, I'm just delighted to be bringing to you another interview that we're going to be having on the show. But before I get to that, just in case you are a first-time listener or viewer on YouTube, I am Gloria Grace, the light messenger and spiritual business coach and women entrepreneurs hire me to help them leverage their intuition to break through their revenue ceilings and to achieve sustainable business growth. And part of what keeps us stuck sometimes is issues that we've had in the past and that's a little bit about what we're going to be talking about today. So I am really delighted to introduce you to Valerie Huard who is going to be talking about from trauma to triumph. She's seen it all and in fact, she's a published author, a speaker, expert who works with people from all over the world and she brings you on a decluttering journey to declutter more than just your space. So I'm really fascinated to talk with you today, Valerie, to know about trauma and clutter and how those things get together. But first off, let me just officially welcome you to Live Love, Engage.
Valerie Huard
Thank you so much, Gloria Grace, I appreciate it so much.
Gloria Grace Rand
As I said, I'm intrigued because you're involved in decluttering as your business, but you also have dealt with trauma. But before we get into the specifics of how those two relate, I love to start off the show asking our guests a little bit about your journey and what has brought you into doing the work that you do today. So I wonder if you can share that with our audience today.
Valerie Huard
Yes, totally. So basically, unfortunately, I had experience of childhood trauma and it had an impact on my life. Like when I arrived at the beginning of adult life in my 20s, there was a lot clutter and I had to stop going at university and things like that to really focus on healing my trauma. And I was thinking I heal it. Things were starting to get better and at some point my mom asked me wow, I don't understand, why do you have that much pasta? Are you cooking for an army? And the thing is, when she left, I opened my pantry and there were easily 20 pounds of pasta. I don't know how many cans of tomato sauce and maybe 20 cans of peaches and flours, like tons. But I looked around the house and my kids has more toys than the daycare and there were piles of paper on my table and in my closet I had maybe three size up, three size down of clothes just in case, more clothes than I can ever wear. So it's ring a bell. But for me it was kind of normal. In society, you start having lots of things while you're more b to C. And then we arrived to move because my husband was military and the movers came home and tell me, you know what, you need to let go of at least half your belongings. Half my belongings? It was kind of, whoa, what are you talking about? So we tried to let go of the possession, but it was too many of things to let go in a too short period of time. So Jay and my husband has to move forward to the new location and I stay behind with the kids to declutter. And at that like the first night he left, I was so crying. It was kind of the moment where it was, oh my God, what is happening? Will I be able to reunite the family? Am I a hoarder? Lots of question, like identity question. And I cried like I never cried before. And then the following day, I started to declutter and decluttering a little bit daily, daily, daily. And what happened is at some point I realized that I was getting in touch with my emotion more than before. Like the fact of manipulating my material possession and making decision helped me clear out my trauma. So as I let go of my possession, I healed my trauma and we were able to reunite the family. And that was really good. And I decided to become a professional organizer to be able to help other people in similar situation. And what I observe when I become a professional organizer is most of the people it's with the decluttering that they have difficulty. After that, placing things here and there, that's fine. But the decluttering, the act of letting go. And almost all my clients were talking to me about their trauma. So we did some research. We contacted specialists and researcher, and this is where we are today. We help people that has trauma and had accumulated clutter because of that, to really be able to get back control of their life and of their home, to be able to enjoy life.
Gloria Grace Rand
Wow, so many things are going through my head right now. And actually the latest thought that came to me is know they've done TV shows, especially here in the United States, about hoarders. I mean, there's a show called Hoarders, I've never really watched it. I mean, I think I've seen commercials for it, but it makes me feel a lot of more sympathy and empathy for these people because and I'm just even still even reflecting on my own life. Like for instance, as a kid, I wouldn't say I prided myself on a messy room, but it was like I had a lot of stuff and it was like my area of control because that was an area of my life that I can control. It was my room because I grew up, I had trauma, I had an alcoholic dad. And so that was like my area of life that I wanted to handle. But then I also see throughout my life, there have been times where, yeah, I did maybe accumulate few too many things over the years and I've done that with the clothes as well. So I can relate to that. But I find it fascinating and I can see even in my own journey as I have healed my trauma, that I have been able to let go of stuff too. So I find this truly, truly fascinating. What, what would you say to someone who might be listening to this and thinking like they're looking around their house and going Ooh, is she talking about me? What do I do? So what would you recommend to someone?
Valerie Huard
The first thing is, it's not your fault. Yes, you can have control on the future and on what will happen with those material position, but if the situation you are in is because of a trauma, they are linked together. Okay? And we developed a four-step process, but maybe before going into the four step process, it's maybe better to talk a little bit about the link between trauma and clutter. So the thing is, when someone had a trauma, the brain changed the way it works and it start being on a higher level of alertness than other people, like the amygdala. The place in the brain for the stress response, the fight, flight, trauma or freeze response is requesting cortisol and then the cortisol raises and raises. The problem is with people that had trauma, the cortisol doesn't reduce as much during the life than other people. So it always stay too high. And when it's high like that, it's affecting the frontal lobe, the part in the front of your brain. And in here you maybe have heard about executive function or ADHD. So the executive function, they are slowed down by the cortisol. And it's a lot of big words that I'm saying right now. But basically what happened is the capability to plan, the capability to organize, the capability to sort, they are slowed down by the stress hormone that is the cortisol. So it's more difficult to get up in the morning to do the task. It can be more hard to plan when I will do that or where I will put that. And it can look like I get into the house and I left my lunch bag in the entrance and the pile of mail on the c