40: Declutter To Grow

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways in which we can all get through different adversities, challenges, and loss, and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics, ranging from interviews to recipes to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the loss of my daughter, Layden. And I'm honored to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. This episode is for you. If you have ever found yourself having a conversation where you're frustrated or you're trying to make a return or convince somebody to do something and you're not understanding why, they're either not hearing you or not giving you the result that you believe you should get, it's something I've learned the hard way. I'm hoping to help you learn it the easy way through this podcast. So without any further ado, let's dive right on in. So today we are exploring how sometimes we really get the results that we're seeking and we desire, and other times we don't, and what patterns might be behind that. And I'm going to share a story. This is a light one. I think it's important sometimes to go heavy and deep. We got to go to those spaces. And I think sometimes it's really important to incorporate a little bit of lightness in some of these heavier concepts. The reality is that, yes, we've got to get into the trenches, we've got to do the work, we've got to sit with the discomfort, but we don't want to live there permanently. And while this concept that I'm going to teach you today, that of course is an energy hack and usage of our energy, it's going to have a lighter feel, a little bit more play to it, and I hope that that allows you to access it a little bit more easily and to integrate it into your life. And believe it or not, this goes back to a story about making returns from Black Friday shopping. Now, those of you who aren't familiar with Black Friday shopping, this was something that was like essentially a holiday in my family growing up. Ever since losing Layden, I really, really have not done Black Friday. I can't do it. You know, acknowledging the holidays is hard for me. Going out into the stores where most of the people out there, not all, but most of the people, are parents. Loading up on deals for, you know, their kids and maximizing whatever they could get financially to make that day of opening presents really fun for their children. And, you know, different holidays, different presents, but either way, on Black Friday, which is the day after Thanksgiving, the masses are out. So after losing Layden, it was something I just couldn't do. And that was almost a secondary loss for me. Those of you who aren't familiar with secondary losses, it's a loss subsequent of our primary one. So Laden was my primary one. And that quote, unquote acknowledgement of a holiday or that whole stretch of holidays, that was a subsequent loss. So there was already emotional intensity around this day for me. Yet in time, rationally, I knew that there were some benefits to taking on this day. Now, since losing Layden, I'll be honest. I really am not a collector of things. I used to have all the things. Like, I would make lists of all the things that I needed to buy, and if I couldn't afford it this month, I would buy it next month. And this magazine says those nine things are the things to have. Well, I got to write those nine things down and go out and get them. And my closet was over full and my drawers were over full. That all changed after losing Layden. I began to learn to live much more lightly, to be energetically lighter. And that manifests in the physical, right? When we're not hoarding things or holding on to things as if we're gonna lose them, it's almost like letting go, that if we lose them, it's okay. And for me, after losing Layden, you know, I think it could have gone one or two ways. I could have held onto everything. But that's tiring. That's exhausting. That shoulders hunched, right? Or just open up, right? We're here to receive. This is a world of abundance. Energy is constantly flowing. And so to loosen our grip on needing to have all the things right now in this moment, and to loosen our grip and to having to hold on everything and not let it go. I love letting things go now. I love donating and thinking, I wonder who's going to benefit from that. I love choosing not to buy something. And beside that, that energy is going to go elsewhere. I just don't need to take up that space in my home or in my car, wherever it may be. And I have found, and I highly recommend that anyone who might feel like they're accumulating too much to go out and clear it out and feel how freeing it is to let things go, feel how freeing it is to know if we truly ever want for something, we're going to have it. If we truly ever want or need something, there are many ways to access it. And so trusting yourself and this universe and the world enough to detach and let go from these physical things. And I noticed that while I was also detaching from these physical things, I was strengthening my attachment to my own internal emotional things. And we're gonna go deep into that in an episode on personal responsibility coming your way soon. But just that idea that when we are not placing our energy on attaching and meeting and holding on to these external things, we can put it more on the internal. Now, one way I can explain that that manifested in my grief was after Layden first passed, I needed to carry all of her things with me everywhere I went. I went away. I remember going to visit my Auntie Sheila, and I brought, you know, a quilt of Layden's and Layden's stuffed animal and her pictures and her clothes and her books and all these things. Like, I can kind of laugh kindly at myself now because it was sad, right? It was sad. That's what I needed to feel connected to her. Now, I still wear my Elle necklace, right? I haven't really taken this off much in the past few years. I still have a necklace with Leighton's picture on it. I still have a necklace with her ashes on it. I do have her stuffed animal and blanket. So I have things that connect me to her, but I don't need them, right? I've gone without my L a few days, and I miss being able to pull at it. But it doesn't induce anxiety, right? And the shift is I feel Layden internally. I truly do. And I remember when I was early in my grief journey, my reverend talking about the veil between me and Laden and how thin it was. And I remember thinking, no, no, she's not here. I don't feel her. And in time, as I let go of so many other things in my life, so many other physical things, I made a lot more space for the internal things. So I'm offering that out there for anybody who might feel like they need to do a little bit of energy clearing. It's so invigorating. Go do it. Let me know how it goes. So on this theme of not accumulating too many things, and on this theme of acknowledging where I was in my grief journey, I was not a participant in Black Friday. Yet the practical side of me knew that I really enjoyed when I used to get new sheets and towels Every Black Friday, that was kind of my thing. Every year I'd get a new set of sheets and a new set of towels, add them to the collection, rotate other ones up. So I decided I could take advantage of the savings. Some will get into the Spirit without going out there and feeling overwhelmed or getting drawn into all those impulse buys. Like all of a sudden I need that Pez dispenser or that gumball machine or some hair thingamajig that I'll never use. I definitely get sucked into that in the stores. So I decided I can go online to this one department store and I can order the sheets, I can order the towels and I'll have them shipped. So I did. Now, when these items didn't arrive, but I was getting notification that they had been delivered, I was a bit confused. So I went back and looked and probably user error on my end. For anybody who knows me, likely user error on my end. But the address that they had been shipped to, now the billing address was correct. It was my billing address, it was my billing information. But the address they were shipped to had auto filled from my computer. And it was the Apple headquarters out in California. I live in Boston, Massachusetts. So I actually called the Apple headquarters to see if they had received my sheets and towels. Now of course, very kindly they inform me that they had not. And even if they had, I probably would never see them. So I called the department store, I explained what happened. And I've got to be honest, when I first called, I was frustrated. I say sheets and towels. It was a few sets and I probably had a couple other things on there. So it wasn't a cheap purchase. And mostly I was just really excited to get my new stuff. And so I called the department store and I felt like, how could they send this to California? My billing address is in Massachusetts. I have been a customer of theirs for seven years and my credit card is their department store credit card that's been on file. Nothing's changed. How did this happen? You know, very much a why me woe is me victimization, right. I was just pointing the finger, I don't want to own this one. And when I called, I called with that sense of entitlement, right? And I was essentially demanding a refund or demanding new items shipped. And the person met the that energy with that energy. So they brought back the demands and the pointing fingers and the blaming and telling me what I did wrong and telling me why I wasn't going to get what I was getting. And it, it got a little, it Escalated. I'm not going to lie. And it wasn't pleasant. And I finally took a breath and I was like, this isn't productive. I'm going to hang up and I'm going to try back at another time. It took me about a month before I called back and I made sure I brought an entirely different energy. Now, I wasn't insincere, I wasn't making excuses and I didn't lie, but I brought a new energy. And I want to be really clear about that. When we bring a new energy, we try a different approach. It doesn't mean that we're altering a truth or we're manipulating information. I just change the way that I handled the truth. And so I called and I was kind and I laughed at myself and I said, I don't know what happened. It could have been an autofill on my end. Maybe it was something that defaulted on your end. Most likely it was mine. This is my billing address. I've lived here for X number of years. You've shipped X number of orders to me. This has always been my billing and shipping address on the credit card that I used to purchase with. Like, this is why I didn't realize or didn't. Wasn't more attentive to detail. It's my fault. I own it. I should have paid attention. I should have checked in all these things that were true. Can you help me? Can you help me now? The truth is people innately want to help others. Another truth is people innately don't want to feel faulted. So when I made the mistake of calling that first time and faulting and not asking for help, well, I was bringing an energy to fail. And so I just share this silly light story because I want you to consider the power of the energy that you bring to things. I want you to consider the power of the energy of the things in and around you to loosen our attachment to the external things, to let go, to have an abundance mindset, to remember that we don't have to live life fearing not having enough. We can remember that if we really want and need something, we will have access to it. That this universe is so abundant. And the more we allow abundant energy to flow through us, to come to us and to leave us, the more we're creating space to receive it again. And those are ways in which we can really become aligned with our energy. To quiet down the things we don't need and allow us to access our energy within. And when we're really in control of that, you can get wildly different results. Not only in a return, not only in a conversation about a promotion, maybe a difficult conversation about an error, a misjudgment. Not only can we get different results in our relationships and the ways in which they grow, when we have integrity with our energy and we quiet the ego, we quiet the distractions, we declutter, not only externally, but we declutter internally, we're going to get life changing results. And yes, I did get a refund, but I went into that truly detached from the outcome. And if I hadn't, it was going to be a lesson learned. And I truly believe that my ability to go into that conversation with lightness, asking for help, with control over my energy and truly detach from the outcome I had accepted. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. This would be a life lesson and life would go on. So where can each of you in your own lives declutter externally, trust the abundance of this universe, and then declutter internally? So when we go into these conversations, we aren't manipulating, we aren't lying, we're not trying to force a certain outcome, but rather we're just letting energy flow through us. And we know that the energy we bring is the energy we're going to receive. So we bring an energy of integrity, of trust, of abundance, of openness. And we trust that no matter what the result is, we're going to receive exactly what we need to for the lesson we need to learn in that moment to grow in all future moments. So I hope that's helpful for you in thinking about your own energy externally, internally. I would love to hear more about ways in which you're decluttering around you and the ways that you're decluttering within you. And try it out this week. Try it out, Find a place where you might feel a little bit amped up, right, Or a little bit energetically heavy and try to bring a completely different energy to that conversation, to that moment. Ask someone for help, get curious, ask questions about how something works, ask what's possible, lead with these things and see what different outcome you get. Because we're not going to receive a different outcome if we don't take a different, different approach. I'm telling you, this approach seems so simple, it is so darn powerful. And you got this.