Heather Aardema explains why decluttering feels hard: your brain resists discomfort. She calls this "limbic friction," the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. A simple exercise: draw a circle split into today and tomorrow, list the emotions you're willing to feel, and use that map to push through.
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If you struggle to let things go, even if you know they're clutter, this video will help you understand why and give you some tools on how to move forward. So the brain has a natural tendency toward comfort. It wants to do 3 things: it wants to maximize pleasure, minimize pain, and conserve energy. And decluttering takes energy, doesn't it? That's why decluttering can feel heavy. It can feel hard. And why you want to buffer, maybe watch all of Netflix before, before you declutter, because it takes energy. So why? Why does it take that energy? Well, I was on a flight coming home and I listened to a podcast by Dr. Andrew Huberman. And in that podcast, he shared a term called limbic friction. And when I heard this term, it really, it really resonated with me. So I wrote it down in my notebook because, again, it's really powerful. And there's a lot of potential if we get curious about it. So limbic friction, what is it? It's knowing what to do and acting. When it comes to whatever it is you want. So on your decluttering journey, knowing what to do and acting, it's that gap. And so if limbic friction is high, your body is going to tell you, oh, something is wrong, something's gone wrong, I should stop decluttering, and I need to go freeze. And if you can lower that limbic friction, that means you'll be able to lean in to whatever discomfort there is and get to the other side. Declutter your room, declutter your house, feel that lightness, benefit from, from creating a home that, that really serves you. So I want to help you lower your limbic friction. Does that sound good? It starts with intentionality and clarity. Asking yourself, one really important question. It's asking yourself, are you willing to experience discomfort on your decluttering journey? I'll tell you why that question is so important in just a second. First, my name is Heather Aardema. I'm the founder of School of Living Lighter. I have helped thousands of people break free from clutter and enter their next season of life feeling lighter and freer. And I want you to know it's such an honor for me to do this work. There is nothing else I would rather be doing. I am grateful to be here. And it hasn't always been this way. For 2 decades, I worked in corporate America. I had some wonderful experiences. They were few and far between, however. I got to travel the world. I got to really do, again, some wonderful things. For the most part, though, it was not a calling. It was not even a career. Didn't feel that way. It just felt like a job. I went from one job to the next, leaned in, did my best, and still, again, felt empty. Now, at the last corporate job, I had a boss. She shared with me, Heather, this is a really good place to be while you figure out what it is you want to do in life. And so I asked her, I said, well, do you want to do this? Like, do you want this to be your career for the rest of your life? And she said, no. Oh gosh, no. And she had all these creative, artistic dreams that she shared with me. These are wonderful ideas, fun ideas, ideas that would serve humanity. And I still didn't know what it was that I wanted. I just knew if I stayed, I would regret it the rest of my life. I figured out a plan where I left that job. It was very uncomfortable. I did not know what I was going to do next. So I did leave, and I'm so grateful I did because I am where I am today. Now it's a decade later, and I want you to know that in that decade, there have been high highs and there have been some low lows. So in the beginning, there was a lot of fear. Oh my gosh, what if I can't figure it out? Oh my gosh, what am I doing? Will I ever be able to help anybody? And I even had a fear a few weeks ago. My YouTube channel disappeared, and, and that, uh, I'm grateful we, we found it again. I'm here. And those things though are par for the course. And so I leaned into the discomfort, the discomfort of the unknown. And I got to the other side. That was my journey over. No, there's still so much more I want to do. And I know that I'm still also willing to continue to lean into discomfort. So the boss I had, where is she today? Can you guess? She's still at the same company doing the same job, and it's okay. It's neutral. She wasn't willing to experience the discomfort of the unknown. And one of my team members was sharing with me the other day a saying that she found really powerful, and the saying is, comfort is the enemy of growth. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Now, nobody here needs to grow. We get to do this. That is the, uh, the gift of being alive. If we want to grow, we can grow. And for many, fear will get in the way. Fear of the unknown, some— any kind of flavor of discomfort. That's what will get in the way. So I want to share a tool that will help you with the discomfort and just kind of becoming familiar with discomfort and letting your body and your nervous system know that discomfort is okay. Because that boss, even though she's doing that job, she's not happy. And she will probably die with some regret because of that unintentional decision to really kind of just stay, right? It's more like it's just automatic, it's autopilot. She's gonna wake up one day realizing, oh my gosh, I didn't do the thing. So this tool, take out a piece of paper and a pen or pencil and draw a circle. And on the left side of the circle, write the words "today." And on the right side of the circle, write the word "tomorrow." Now take your pencil and take a line and draw a vertical line down the middle of the circle. And on the right-hand side of the circle, write all of the feelings that you're willing to experience on this journey of decluttering. Are you willing to experience surprise and excitement and enthusiasm? Patience? Think about those words that you're willing to experience and write those on the right half of the circle. Once you've done that, look at the left half of the circle. And write down words that have a lower, lower energetic vibration that you are willing to experience on this journey, knowing that you're human and not a robot, and that you will experience some limbic friction. And knowing ahead of time will help you continue to lean into that limbic friction. So those words can look like discomfort, unease, frustration, anger, you fill in the blank. So take a moment, think about think about those words and write those down. And then once you've written them down, put down your pen or pencil and look at the entire sheet in its totality. So on the left side of the paper, again, it says today. And then to get to tomorrow, what that involves is leaning in to the discomfort to get to the lightness, to get to the reality that you want to have. That's how we do it. So when we have clutter, we know it's clutter, and we're not sure why we're not moving forward. A big piece of that is that we've got this limbic friction that is happening on the inside, impacting our physiology. And, and it's telling our primitive brain to conserve energy, that something is wrong if we try and lean into it. And so when we give ourselves clarity, yes, it's natural. To feel some discomfort, we can do anything. I am so grateful every single day. Ask my kids, ask my, my husband. I am so grateful that I kept leaning into that discomfort. Frankly, there's a little discomfort of even recording this video right now. And I'm supposed to say like and subscribe or hit that, slam that like and subscribe button as my, as my 15-year-old tells me. And, and so it, it takes energy and I know it's worth it because this message is so so worth getting out to more and more people so that others know that decluttering doesn't have to feel heavy, it doesn't have to feel hard, that we get to do it, that it gets to be one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and our loved ones. So with that, you've got a great new term, limbic friction, coined by Dr. Andrew Huberman, and you've got a wonderful tool, draw that circle. Map that out and, and then ask yourself— my final message here is, you know, talking about that gap between knowing what to do and action. So once you've got your map, that circle and kind of that map of today and getting to tomorrow in front of you, looking at that, ask yourself, okay, all right, so what is one thing I can do now that I've got this new information to move myself forward? What's the first thing that I can do? And then go do that. Create that action and create that life, that home that you truly want to have. Thanks for being here. Thanks for watching. If this resonated with you, give us a like and share with friends who could use some lightness. Don't forget to follow our page for daily doses of living lighter. And remember, if it feels light, it's right.
