Maintaining and Curating your Stuff with Star Hansen

george grombacher 0:02
Starr Hansen is the clutter whisperer. She’s a certified professional organizer, and author and a speaker. Welcome back to the show star.

Star Hansen 0:10
It is so great to be back with the Good morning. It’s so great to be back with you today.

george grombacher 0:15
Yeah, it’s great to have you back on catch up. refresh your memory. Tell us a little about your personalized, more butcher work, why you do what you do.

Star Hansen 0:24
I am a Certified Professional Organizer and clutter whisperer. And I help people understand why their clutter just won’t go away no matter what they do. I wrote a book called Why the EFF Am I still not organized? And that is the answer I help you solve. I live in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico, which I love. And as we were speaking before the podcast started, I love it in the desert, but need a hit of the ocean air sometimes. So once a month, I trail back to California to work. So I’m definitely nature lover and refresh in that way. But so much of my joy comes from the work that I do with people and really helping them to set themselves free through their clutter, not in the elimination of their clutter, necessarily, but through the processing of what’s really going on.

george grombacher 1:09
What’s really going on my do I have stuff that I just can’t seem to get rid of? What about the opposite? What about people that just live in absolute Spartan and Spartan existence? Do you ever say you should have some more clutter?

Star Hansen 1:25
It’s funny enough, it’s the same problem. If you have no clutter, it’s very similar lessons to having too much clutter. So sometimes we use our clutter to protect ourselves or hide. And so sometimes you see people who have nothing in their spaces. And my first question is always, why would it not be safe for you to be represented in the space? Do you feel like you need to be ready to go at any second? Did you feel like you weren’t allowed to be yourself? Do you feel like you’re gonna be judged? And I mean, I have I’ve been hired by people where I walked into their home. And there was nothing like maybe a couple pieces of basic furniture and I was literally looking for plastic on the ground like, am I about to be murdered? Is this a setup for something nefarious right now? And, you know, spoiler alert, I wasn’t. But it was the lesson of how do I show up in my home? How can how can I be safe to really be who I am within the confines of my space. And sometimes we don’t have that option when we grow up in a space where we’re not safe to be ourselves, or when someone else is dominating our world, or when we feel like we need to run. Sometimes we don’t feel safe, like spreading out taking up space. And you don’t have to live alone for this to be the case. Sometimes people will live with someone else. And perhaps this, the second person’s clutter is everywhere. Maybe they have decorated the house, maybe they have taken over the space, and there’s no room for you. And I’m not saying that to make the other person wrong. I’m saying that is you have to be willing to take up space, you have to be willing to show who you are to really say like I deserve a place I deserve my opinion to matter. Because as much as someone else can take up a lot of space and not leave a lot of room for us. It is up to us to take up the space in our lives and be the person we want to be and live the life we want to live.

george grombacher 3:18
It’s fascinating, is my my guess would be that that only children are probably more comfortable taking up space or the older children are probably more comfortable taking up space. But I’m bad at guessing that

Star Hansen 3:33
you know, the pattern is it can be anything really. It’s I mean, you can see babies taking up space, right? Like people who are like the whole world is revolving around you my love. Yes, but it really you know, we can all be given the same circumstances and evolve so differently. So yes, there can be like a birth order element to it. But it can also be trauma history, it can be sole purpose, it can be path, like career path, what you’re in to do, it can also be how your brain works. So if you’re someone who out of sight, out of mind, you might need to see everything you might require that that’s not you being selfish, that’s you trying to function in the world in a way that makes sense to you. And someone else like for example, me, I could live in a suitcase because my brain just tracks where I mean, I could tell you were my first client that I ever organized where she keeps her passport and that was 20 some years ago. So some of us have this very deep, you know, mental space where we store where things are kept and other people don’t so there are so many elements that could shift how we use our spaces.

george grombacher 4:37
Yeah, I’d never really considered why some people have glass cabinets and other people have cabinets that you can’t see in

Star Hansen 4:45
Yeah, it’s so and you know, and it’s funny I don’t know that we always are conscious of our preferences. We just know we walk in and we like something my you might walk into my house and be bored to tears. I love white walls and bright pops of color. I will Ain’t nothing out that doesn’t need to be out. Because if it’s out, I have to dust it. And I’m not a fan of cleaning. So no, thank you please. And if it’s oh, you know, if it’s in my home, that basically means that I’m devoting an amount of my energy to maintaining and curating you. And so I want the things that are in my life to be very low maintenance, because I want to spend my time and energy doing other things.

george grombacher 5:24
Maintaining and curating. Those are two, well, three words, next to each other, that makes so much sense to me. So thank you for that, because we’re gonna have this thing I’ve got to maintain and curate it otherwise.

Star Hansen 5:42
Yes. And you know, I keep i So personal insight into my life, I might be moving soon. I don’t know. I’m just I’m just a very free spirit. I’m like, Well, what feels good to me, where do I want to go. And when things happen, I’m always reading into it, like, mice took over my car, and I had to have them, you know, managed, it was a pain, if you live in the desert, you know, our pain. But if you don’t live in the desert, stay there. Because it’s, they will just destroy your car. But my car got essentially totaled. And I’m using that is an invitation of is this a good time to move? Do I want to go somewhere else like, oh, because the car that you drive really is different based on the city that you live in. And so really like taking the time to think about like, okay, the objects in our life are so important to us like a car being a really important one. But also, as I contemplate moving again, and getting rid of stuff to move again, because if I move again, I’m just going to pare down one more time, I cannot tell you how many things I have bought in the last year that I am now regretting. I’m now like, wait, I haven’t even worn that shirt, I didn’t even hang that piece of art, I have this rule that if I buy something, I have to use it before the return policy, or I return it. Because if I’m not so excited to use it, that I need to use it before two weeks or a month, I’m not gonna get more excited with time. And so it really is amazing to me how we can be at the effect of the items that we surround ourselves with, because all of them require effort, I either have to hang it, wear it, wash it, position it, clean it, or in this case, I have to potentially get rid of it when I move and literally just feel the pain of that wasted money, leave the house because it’s not going to generate value on the way out the door. So it is an interesting thing to think about inviting items in with a lot of mindfulness. And that is absolutely not what our society is spending energy trying to get us to do. It’s trying to get us to consume. And as someone who moves a lot, I think that I feel the pain of those bad choices, way more than someone who might live in a house for 30 years. Because if you’re in the same house for 30 years, it’s going to take you 30 years to realize what you’ve done. Whereas I’m I’m tracking it really fast and thinking a why. So yeah, that the relationship with you have our wood that we have with our stuff, and the curation and management of our stuff is huge.

george grombacher 8:08
Do you see the mice driving your car around town? And you’re concerned that they’re gonna take the house over to see what’s going on here?

Star Hansen 8:14
Do they do dishes? Because if they do dishes, they can stay? You guys it’s fine. Or just earn your keep friends? No, it’s like, like my car turned into this like, this mouse? I know. It’s really? No, it’s okay. I mean, it is it is a little bit funny, because I was laughing, you know, this is the so in the desert, we all do these insane things to try to keep our car safe. And, George, I know that you live in the desert also. So you know my pain. One of the things that you do is that you put these like little machines underneath the hood, with these flashing red lights to help keep them away. They’re supposed to deter them. Well, I think that the mice use them as like some sort of Red Light District underneath the hood of my car because they were having babies in there. And they were having dance parties. And I was like, yeah, these don’t work. This is this is this is not serving the function that it needed to it was really, yeah, it was a lot. But I, I find that when things go really wrong, I get very calm. And just take the next right action. Now if you get my salad wrong when I’m on a diet, oh, oh, heads will roll. But the big step. And I think this is like for a lot of us who’ve experienced heavy trauma in our lives. We do really, really well. In the big stuff, we get calm, we get sharp, we get focused, we know how to operate in that. You put us in little things. And it’s like, Well, I’m sorry, where are my sunflower seeds? How dare you, you know? So it’s, I find that I just lean into the universe and say, What are you offering me? And right now it’s offering me a situation that could be nightmarish and I’m just trying to take a deep breath and say what’s the next right action and with any chaos in our lives? I think that’s the most appropriate response because when we’re in an escalated emotional state, we don’t think as clearly we don’t make as Good decisions as we do when we’re in a calm state. So there is something about honoring and not bypassing the big feelings, because I’ve had some big feelings about this. And then once you’ve really honored them going back to a state of how do I keep my body calm? How do I choose to calm my body, so that I can have access to my logic and my focus in the most powerful way to take action, because my emotional inner child needs that experience. But my grown up adult self real life also needs that logical sense. And we do have the power to have clarity and focus, using our breath, using the direction of focus, we can use these tools. And in my mind, this is the time when we need them the most, because when things are easy, it’s so easy to go, I’m gonna get into the law of attraction, I’m going to do some deep breathing, these tools are actually best suited when you are walking through a version of hell. Because this is when your body needs, the focus and the clarity and the tools really, for sure,

george grombacher 11:03
for sure. So you said a lot of really, really important things, I think everything you said was was was was great, what really stuck out. I mean, when we’re feeling the chaos, in areas of life, could be anything could be professional, could be relationships, whatever could be that something bad happened to a very expensive item, being able to navigate through that. And I imagine, I know that we want to be at home probably when that’s happening and feel comfortable. But maybe that’s not true, maybe not everybody needs to feel comfortable or at ease in their home.

Star Hansen 11:46
I think it’s a very natural desire, because our home is a safe space, it’s generally considered a space that we would feel safe in. And that’s what most of us strive for, if we don’t have that experience, there’s probably a lot of emotional and you know, painful dysregulation going on, because we all need somewhere we can go to unfurl, to really feel safe to be calm. And that is where the tension around clutter gets challenging. Because clutter does often bring up stress for people, it does spike our cortisol, it can lead to things like weight gain, or you know, just a wearing down of our immune system. And I mean, it doesn’t have to that’s what some people experience with it. But it does make a case for asking ourselves, How can we create a home that feels like a sanctuary to us, and I’m not naive, I know that there are people in domestic situations that are not able to have that, or who have financial needs that don’t allow them to live alone or have the type of space or be in the right area to provide that. I don’t live in a fantasy world where that’s needed. But what we can do is how can we look at our homes and even carve out one corner to create safety. Because when you have kids, when you have a partner, when you have an intense career that maybe is existing at home, it’s very hard to feel like you are getting grounded and that you’re safe. And we require that and so it’s really important to allow ourselves to reclaim some of our space. And this is why a lot of times when I work with people, I’m not showing up and paring down your possessions. I’m not telling my you know chaos to calm community students, hey, just get rid of stuff. Sometimes what we do is we add something, we create something if your entire world is in chaos, go to the corner that makes you the happiest the one with the light coming in the one that you can see the tree outside and create a little sitting space that makes you feel so powerful. Because you’re yes, you’re not purging. And yes, maybe you’re taking stuff that was on that chair and moving it to another room and making that room more cluttered. I don’t care. I don’t care because you can’t solve the overwhelming chaos. If you feel overwhelmed and disempowered in every area of your life. We need to start reclaiming spaces and we need to stop with the punitive organizing as though I will finally get to enjoy that beautiful part of my home when I’m organized. Stop waiting to live your life. Stop telling yourself you have to earn it you don’t have to earn anything. In fact, the world needs you to do this. It needs you to take up space and really reclaim who you are and how you want to operate in this home and and really in this world.

george grombacher 14:39
I love the term punitive organizing.

Star Hansen 14:41
It does not fit it’s like I mean that’s how it feels for most of us. It’s just like we’ve it’s like punishment. I mean, and that really was like if you think about when we were kids, go clean your room. I don’t think a parent has ever said would love my love my darling. Let us denture to room and make it more beautiful. Like, that’s not what they go clean your room, but then we don’t teach them how to clean their room. And then it becomes this thing where we have it mixed with shame. And it’s mixed with inadequacy, and mixed with this feeling of incompetence. And you say, Oh, my kid doesn’t clean their room. Well, do they know how? Because a lot of kids I talked to and adults to walk into the room, they look around, they’re not sure what to do, they start moving stuff around, they find something interesting. Then they start to read the interesting thing the parent comes in, they’re like, why are you doing it? You know, it’s like, we need to empower each other and ourselves. If you are getting stuck, it’s that’s a big part of how I work with people. I want to know where you’re getting stuck, like why the FMA still not organized is not a judgment on you. It’s where are you getting stuck? And how can I give you the tools to bridge that gap? Because whether you’re a kid or an adult, we all have blind spots that we can’t see. And we just need a little extra education, a little emotional support to get over that hump. Day

george grombacher 15:55
that makes a ton of sense. When you think about or help people to mindfully invite items in, is it? Does it depend on the we’re trying to make good decisions? That’s, that’s based on what I want. And me and making my home feel like a comfortable place? Do you think about it in terms of the actual size of the item? So the space that it takes up? Do you think about it in terms of the price?

Star Hansen 16:23
I think about it in terms of the feeling? I want to know who you are, I want to know who you strive to be in six months or a year? And? And are the items that you’re obtaining? Are they satisfying, a momentary discomfort that you are trying to alleviate? Versus an investment and an enhancement of who you are and who you’re becoming? That’s really important to think about is am I getting this item? Because it’s going to make me feel relief for a pain I’m suffering through? Or is it helping me grow long term? And that question is, is hugely different? It’s, you know, am I doing this for myself? Am I doing this for someone else? Is this something I really want? Or am I kind of misplacing my identity here? And just, I think the more grounded we are, the more we know ourselves. And sometimes we know ourselves through contrast, sometimes we know ourselves through buying the wrong thing. By thinking, oh my gosh, wide like I will never forget so embarrassing, and I cannot believe I’m going to say this. But I’m gonna say this. So I have always struggled with my tummy TimTom. I’ve always wanted like an 18 pack. And this just my body has not said that that’s what she has desired for it’s fine. I have lots of other assets. It’s cool. I’m good with it. But when I was 18, I thought you know what, will really help me acquire that flat stomach? I’m going to get a bellybutton ring. Yes. If I get a belly button ring that will force me I will maim and mutilate my body in order to be inspired to then finally have to work out and do all the things that will lead to my six pack. Okay, spoiler alert, friends, I did not get a six pack, the four little, you know, piercing went sideways. Because my stomach was not was not fun. It just like just move sideways. Because you know, it had to make space for other things. And I had to take it out. It was not what I thought it would be. And it’s as hilarious and embarrassing as that is I share it because we do that all the time. We buy a pair of jeans that are slightly too small, because we think that that’s going to motivate us. We buy hobby items or kitchen items, because we’re like, oh, if I have this food processor, I’m finally going to make that thing. No, you may not like maybe but also maybe not. This is where we go back to that rule I was telling you earlier. If you are not going to do it instantly, if you are not so excited and inspired and moved to do it right now, today, this week, this weekend, if you are not getting the on your schedule, and like I can’t wait to wear these shoes. I can’t wait to make that Spinach artichoke dip, whatever it is that’s moving, you don’t do it. Like the truth is anything that’s for us will continue coming back to us. You will keep thinking about those jeans, you will keep thinking about that you will go over and over again and you won’t be able to let it go and it will be okay. But we live in this world where scarcity is sold to us regularly. Anyone who’s a digital marketer knows this. It’s part of the formula. We must scare you into thinking that you can’t get it again like look at any email in your inbox. Oh, ending tonight at five o’clock just for today only it’s like it’s it’s part of it’s part of what we’re doing. It’s It’s horrific. And it’s up to us to say I’m not going to ground into that and instead say, I’m going to try as much as I can to enjoy the life that I have with the boldness and the delight that I can and only bring things in when it adds to my joy truly adds not takes away pain right now. And I mean this, like sometimes you need to take away pain, but not to avoid things, but to really enjoy them. Because I will say this, I just lost someone very close that I love. And and I don’t in his passing. I don’t care about stuff, I think, oh, did I have a good enough conversation with him the last time I spoke to him, should I spend a little bit more time and it’s not like I’m shooting. But when when push comes to shove, I’m not thinking about was I wearing a shirt that was like good for the occasion. Like he didn’t care about the shirt, he cared about my company. And those conversations that we had were so much more valuable than any possession. And I’m not thinking about those possessions, even the ones that I was saying earlier that I’m like, Oh, I might have to get rid of them and what a waste. What a waste would be would be to have not known that person would be to have not had those memories and experiences and time together. And I think it’s really important in this world where we are constantly bombarded, being bombarded and sold to remember what’s important, which is the connections we make, being really present in this moment, connecting to nature, really like connecting to ourselves doing the work, and it’s not that stuff’s not great. It’s not the stuffs not wonderful. It’s just not the point of this whole thing.

george grombacher 21:28
Really well said. Thank you for sharing about the belly button. I’m sorry for the loss of your friend.

Star Hansen 21:34
Thank you. I appreciate Do you like how I can like work between like cricket belly button, absolutely friend, Red Light District mouse area and deep organizational wisdom like I just You poor thing is this conversation,

george grombacher 21:48
we have covered a lot of ground. I wrote that aspirational purchases, the belly button ring, a an exercise bike, that then becomes my clothing rack. And now it’s source of shame of resentment. So everything you said, it certainly makes sense to think that we’ve all done something like that I bought some kind of a food processor at some point because I’m going to make healthy meals. But it doesn’t necessarily work out that way. It has the opposite effect.

Star Hansen 22:17
And what I will say that I always go back to because we just want to judge ourselves, don’t we? Oh, I did it wrong. I should have worked out if the client I went to yesterday, she’s like, I should have cleaned this up before you came over? No, you shouldn’t have what if this is working for you? What if your clutter is working out in your favor? What if you needed to buy that exercise bike and not use it? What if you needed to buy those jeans and not wear them? Like, please for the love of all that is holy Do not beat yourselves up there is a beautiful lesson and gift and every single thing, including the places, especially the places where we feel like we failed. And the thing that I will say is if you can shift your mindset and look at your clutter and say, how is this working for me? Not what is this doing to me? Or how this is robbing me of my life? But how is this working for you? It’s doing something for you. And sometimes we figure out what these things are, right? Maybe you are looking down at your phone at a red light and then you miss the green light and you look up and someone runs their red light and you just averted an accident that you might have gotten into. Sometimes we know immediately sometimes we never know. And sometimes it’s okay so trust that if you are experiencing some sort of challenge in this way that there’s a gift in there as well. I don’t think that the universe just gives us punishment and again that punitive life I think that there’s always a gift buried in even the most traumatic or painful circumstances.

george grombacher 23:43
Well said we’ll start thank you so much for coming back on where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you?

Star Hansen 23:49
Absolutely. If they go to star hanson.com forward slash podcast they can get a free copy of my book. They can take a quiz to find out what monster is lurking in their closet keeping them disorganized and yeah I’m on all the all the places doing all the things you can find me you know star Hanson H N s e n and I will help you with your clutter.

george grombacher 24:11
Excellent. Well if you enjoyed as much as I did, so start your appreciation share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to star hanson.com as T ar hansen.com/podcast and get your free copy of why the EFF Am I still not organized and take the quiz to find out kind of clutter monster that’s that’s that’s living inside of your automobile or your house as it would be and engage with Starr to do all the things we’ve been talking about today. Thanks Ken Starr.

Star Hansen 24:44
Thanks, George.

george grombacher 24:46
Till next time remember, do your part by doing your best

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.