TCMMY His & Hers Podcast: Spring Cleaning - From Cluttered To Clear

Clearing out the closets of our lives isn't just about dust and old clothes; it’s about confronting the emotional and mental clutter we accumulate over time. On the latest His and Hers Podcast episode, we reflect on the age-old tradition of spring cleaning and its metaphorical application to our life's debris. Inspired by moments from the David Letterman Show and "The Big Bang Theory," our discussion serves as a reminder that our attachments to items and memories can be as sticky as the cobwebs we swipe away. We share personal stories that underscore the importance of not waiting for a special season to tackle the mess—mental or physical—that inhibits our growth.

The episode focuses on the metaphor of spring cleaning as a way to address emotional and mental clutter, encouraging listeners to evaluate the baggage they carry from their pasts. Through personal stories and reflections, the discussion emphasizes the importance of letting go of unproductive memories and ensuring that room is made for new growth and opportunities.

• Exploring the metaphor of spring cleaning in emotional and mental contexts
• Understanding the relationship between physical clutter and emotional baggage
• Sharing personal stories of attachment to past memories
• Employing questions to encourage self-reflection on clutter
• Examining the concept of the "pink elephant" as a symbol for unaddressed issues
• Discussing the consequences of keeping unresolved feelings and memories 
• Offering strategies for emotional decluttering and personal growth
• Emphasizing the importance of creating space for new experiences and feelings

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Chapters

• 0:24 Spring Cleaning
• 9:38 Unpacking Emotional Baggage
• 16:19 Emotional and Spiritual Decluttering
• 25:38 Closet Clutter

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Welcome back to the His and Hers Podcast On the they Call Me, mr U brand of shows and networks. We thank you so much again for listening to our show. We're excited to be back with you. I'm your host, mru. The queen is in the house, hi. Well, we love all the support we're hearing from you guys On all of our social media platforms. It's obvious that this show is making an impact to you guys and we're excited about it. We're hearing from all different genres and all forms and walks of life. We're excited about it. That means that we're making a difference in some way, shape or form, so we're excited about that. If you have been enjoying the previous episode, by all means let us know what you think. Drop comments, whether you find those episodes on our YouTube channel, if you have any audio files there, or on Apple Podcasts, amazon Music, spotify, iheartradio and Pandora, whether you find our stuff, or even on our social media platform like Facebook, instagram, twitter and LinkedIn. But we're really excited about this particular episode. You know this is one of those episodes that kind of get up in your business, and I think most of our shows do that anyway, so it's not really a new thing, but this one.

Speaker 1: 1:39

We call this episode Spring Cleaning. I don't know what spring cleaning, what those words indicate. For you, what comes to mind, the imagery that comes to your mind when you hear spring cleaning. For me, because of my mindset and my personality, I feel like spring cleaning is too late. If I'm doing that right then and waiting the whole three months of the year before that to just clean, I'm probably doing something wrong. I'm probably doing too much in other areas. So spring cleaning shouldn't be the big event in my household. I think I've kind of always felt like that. But it's a tradition that we know in our society and people relate to it. It's a tradition that we know in our society and people relate to it, and they take those times to get rid of old winter clothes and perhaps donate them to some charitable organization or give us something to have for years that they haven't touched, been in file cabinets and closets somewhere, and boxes, and they take the time to do that. Then no judgment, that that's what you do and it works for you. Keep doing what you're doing. But when I think about Springfield, I think about the clutter of life. I shared it on a previous episode. As a matter of fact, it should be on our YouTube channel for sure, but on all social media platforms.

Speaker 1: 2:59

There was an old show that I used to love. It's not on anymore. It used to be on NBC, called the David Letterman Show. Now, honestly, every other part but this segment of the show I didn't really care too much for. It came on at 12.35. I remember that distinctively 12.35 at night from Monday through Friday. Now that's way past my bedtime. I would beg my mom and sometimes I would sneak in and watch the TV. Mom, sorry about that, but that's just the truth. I would wait for Johnny Carson to go off and I would wait for the David Letterman show at 12.35 am. Like I said, way past my bedtime. I'm getting up in about five or six hours to go to school, but he had a show called Destroying Stuff and I'm like I was infatuated with it. I won't get into the whole thing.

Speaker 1: 3:47

I got an episode out here that goes into more detail, but the short of it is that he would get on a five-story building and the live audience can see everything that's going on and he would take stuff off the building and throw it off on the pavement below and watch it explode. Now, if you don't know't meet you probably get why I like that. Oh my goodness. But anyway for the record, that episode is called keep it clean, life's debris. If you are looking for it you can find it on uh, they call me mr you and the inspiration station. It's called keep it clean, life's debris.

Speaker 1: 4:20

But I would love he would drop bowling balls. He would drop blenders. He would drop kegs with screws in it. He would drop big melons, all types of melons. He would drop those. He would just drop Baskets full of steel and glass vases I mean anything you can think of that can make a big mess. He would drop it on the building and a live crowd would cheer.

Speaker 1: 4:47

And I'm in my bed under my covers at 1235 at night, all the lights out, only lights and TV on, and I'm cheering too. I'm loving it. I don't know why. I think I just like how things are made. There's a show that I watch called how it's Made. I just love the inner work. I can't do a lot of that stuff. I just look at the psychology of why something is made, how it works from an inner working standpoint. I love to see all these bowling balls, all these things. I'm like what's inside of these things? How did it get so hard and watch them shatter and you learn so much?

Speaker 1: 5:19

But the clutter of life is a lot harder to get rid of. They can go and clean that stuff up, but in your life it's a lot harder. What does debris even mean? Essentially, it means it's residue from something that's been broken or destroyed. Debris is residue from something that's been broken or destroyed. It also means scattered pieces that's been accumulated over time from your past. Scattered pieces are accumulated over time. Those are the definitions of debris and we have those in our life. So spring cleaning is not the best time to deal with all those. We need to deal with it on a more regular basis. But can you recall having that kind of clutter in the brain in your life, or if you still experience that? What, what happened, how, how to get there and how are you dealing with it? How are you handling it?

Speaker 2: 6:15

well, I was a person. I'm not gonna say I'm that person now, but I used to like to keep everything um okay my mom.

Speaker 2: 6:25

I wanted a baby, um, a dollhouse for my babies. Okay, um, but my mom, we couldn't afford to get it. So I created my own, and excuse me, and I took old shoe boxes, little children's shoe boxes, and attached them to the wall and turned each room into a different room in my doll's house. And I would save every scrap of fabric I could find. I would find save the spools of thread so I can make like little tables and put a piece of paper on top of it, or a lid from a mayonnaise jar, or I was just being creative so I wanted to keep everything I'm talking my caps off, soda bottles and rocks, because I got to make this Ground or this floor in one of the rooms and my mom every once in a while everything would disappear.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Wow, how did that happen?

Speaker 2: 7:30

And I would have to start over because I'm the youngest of 13 children, and so we had a lot of people in the house, so I couldn't keep all the things that I wanted, so they would disappear.

Speaker 1: 7:44

And I would have to start all over All by themselves.

Speaker 2: 7:46

Yes, but as my children grew up and I had children, you know they started keeping things. Every time I get ready to do the laundry, I hear something rolling in the dryer because they got a pocket full of rocks or something.

Speaker 1: 8:02

In my childhood, a pocket full of rocks. That sounds about right, so I saw and so in my childhood, a pocket full of rocks.

Speaker 2: 8:06

That sounds about yes. So I saw that pattern. But then I saw how, when I kept things, you know, my mom would make them disappear. But I was upset because they were gone. And then I saw a pattern.

Speaker 2: 8:20

As I got older I started holding on to things, even in my memory that would be a stumbling block or a bondage, and I didn't clean it out, I didn't get rid of it, I didn't deal with that issue.

Speaker 2: 8:34

I just held on to it and say, you know, and not deal with it. So it messed up relationships, it messed up different things in my life because I was holding on to the clutter of my past. I was holding on to the clutter that I think that somebody took away from me. But as I'm getting older I'm beginning to evaluate how did I get where I am right now, you know? And I need to get rid of some of those things because I can't go forward holding on to all of the stuff of the past. If that clutter is in my mind, in my emotions, in my heart, the way that I build anything, the way that I try to express myself, that little stuff seeps back out, just like those rocks came out in that dryer, out of that pocket that they thought was hid. It just showed back up and it made a rattling sound in the dryer.

Speaker 1: 9:30

It made a mess. That's awesome, though. I love that. I love that. Were you done Good thought.

Speaker 1: 9:38

You know, I want to ask a series of questions throughout the rest of this very brief episode today Because, you know, I feel like people talk about the pink elephant. I mean, it's a funny saying, because if you got an elephant in your house, no matter what color it is, it's going to be noticeable and something you have to deal with. But a pink elephant is just like. It's like brighter and it's like even more so. So I kind of get the idea, but we got a lot of elephants in our lives, a lot of debris, a lot of clutter, a lot of old stuff that we hold on to. It's like, why do we have this? I'm gonna, I'm probably gonna ask a few questions or a handful of questions throughout now and the end of the episode just to make us think a little bit, to ponder some stuff, and maybe, perhaps, if you have some ideas or some thoughts, you can share it with us and let us know what you think. Uh. But you know, one question we should ask is how long has it been there?

Speaker 1: 10:35

I mean, just some times and I always feel like I think I'm a pretty organized person. I don't like. I don't like mess. But there's times where I will go, and this is probably more like 20 years ago. To be honest with you, this is not current, because I think I'm a little bit more neurotic now than then. I've kind of given myself over to it. So I don't like all that junk.

Speaker 1: 11:00

But there were some times where I would go into closets and that kind of stuff. I'm like man, I forgot I had this old stuff in here, especially back home. I forgot I even had this old hat in here or this old bag full of whatever. I'm like what is this? So for me, spring cleaning back then it made sense because I had stuff inside there for a year. I'm like what is this? Why do I still have this? So I had to learn how to get in the habit of dumping it, and if I didn't do it, mom would help me out with it. But how long has it been there? The debris and the clutter you're looking at how long has it been there? More than a year? Has it been there more than two years? Has it been five years? How long has it been there? Ask yourself this why was it introduced? Don't forget the definition of debris. It's stuff accumulated over time from your past. Why was it introduced? How did it get into your life and why do you still have it? Why is it still there? Is it difficult to get rid of? If it is difficult, then why Did the show that you and I watched together?

Speaker 1: 12:11

It's mainly for comedy. If you want a good laugh, we'll watch it. I know a lot of people don't like the show and the context of the show. That's fine. It's not a regular basis, but every once in a while we'll throw on Big Bang Theory, and one of the episodes was about one of the characters who had a hard time getting rid of his stuff. He had sentimental value to it. Matter of fact, that's probably something that's done in two episodes.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Two people I've heard that theme twice on that show but they had a problem with getting rid of their stuff and they didn't want anybody to take their stuff. So the main character revealed that he hid all of his stuff into a storage locker. He had a storage locker of all his stuff for almost 30 years worth of stuff that people thought he threw away. He had it in the storage Because 30 years worth of stuff that people thought he threw away. He had it in the storage because he was so obsessed he had it in the storage locker. He couldn't get rid of it. I'm talking about even a pen, a tennis ball, something small like that a golf ball. He couldn't get rid of it, so he would put it in the storage locker and it would just fill full of stuff. So he paid money for storage just to keep stuff that he would not use, he would not touch. He doesn't go back and look at it and reminisce over. It's just that it was his stuff and he don't want to get rid of it.

Speaker 1: 13:24

The point of all that is, if it's difficult for you to get rid of something, it could be a good time to ask yourself a question why? Why do you have an immediate struggle? Why do you have an anxiety attack? At the moment You're considering getting rid of a specific thing I think it's worth discussing, it's worth talking about. If you gotta talk to yourself, then by all means. If you need to talk to a counselor, okay, whatever you gotta do. But why do you go into anxiety? Why do you have an anxiety attack the minute you ponder Getting rid of some old stuff From your past, from your old life. Why does that, I mean? I think I think we understand the reason why, but do you listen today? Do you know why you have this struggle and this challenge, this immediate, strong challenge that comes upon you when it's time for you to clean out your life and get rid of all this clutter and debris in your life? What do you think?

Speaker 2: 14:59

It made me think about elementary school and how teachers have labeled you or spoken words over you that would come back.

Speaker 2: 15:10

I even hear a lot of celebrities say this teacher told me one day and ever since then it really hurt me or whatever the negative thing was, and I think that we feed into it a lot of times because that's what we believe about ourselves. If we don't deal with it and that becomes one of those clutters you know that we have that could trip us up and cause us not to go forward and be the best person we need to be, us not to go forward and be the best person we need to be. And so for myself, you know, I look back on a lot of things that was spoken over me because of the era that I grew up in and the things that was going on in society, and you have to find out who you are and use those things as stepping stones, if it's not a good thing, so that you can step up and begin to build those things that are good those things that are good.

Speaker 2: 16:04

You use those as tools so that you can continue to climb higher.

Speaker 1: 16:08

You know you're so smart, you're so funny. I like that. But these are questions we got to ask ourselves and think about this too. The stuff, whether it be the clutter, the memory, the debris that you're holding on to, that you refuse, for whatever reason, to clean up what does it cost you To not clean it up? Because there's a cost For every decision that we make. You lose something when you don't Take care of these issues in your life.

Speaker 1: 16:41

I know this with a certainty because there was a time in my life I'll probably say within the last five years or somewhere around there where I had to do a bit of a cleaning. It wasn't a house cleaning per se, but more of a spiritual house cleaning. I had to get rid of some stuff in my life that did not belong, that didn't need to be there any longer. It was attachments to old stuff and old people, and I had to get that stuff out of my life, remove the memory and all that stuff. But part of that was recognizing that I was paying the cost if I didn't do it. And so when people make or face the big decisions, people always say, okay, what's the benefit? Okay, you got to ask yourself the other side, okay, what's the detriment to you if you don't do it? You can ask both sides of that question, because if you don't do it, what's going to happen? You stay the same, but what else happens? What do you lose in the process? Does your marriage suffer? Does your relationship with your kids suffer? If you don't make this big decision? Does your opportunity for success in a particular area, maybe in business or in some place in your life, suffer? Also, if you don't make the decision, there's a cost to keeping clutter in your life. There's a cost to keeping debris in your life, in your life.

Speaker 1: 17:58

We believe, as believers, that when we open the door and make room for God in our life, that he will not only inhabit it, but he will also bring provision and increase. We believe that If we don't have room in our life, then we don't have what we call capacity. If we don't have capacity, then we can't expect to have all these things added. I know people who don't have the capacity to do anything for anybody, but they want everything. They want to have a house, they want to have a car, they want to get blessed with this, they want to have a husband or they want to have a wife. They want to have this or that and they don't have the capacity to do anything for anybody right now in their life. Anything that you ask them to do is a burden. I don't have time, I don't have room, I don't have time, I don't have room, I don't have blah, blah, blah. But they want to have more things given to them. That doesn't make any sense. Either you have the room for it or you don't. Either you have the capacity or you don't.

Speaker 1: 18:48

The Bible said if you give, you shall receive. In good measure. Pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall men give unto you. So if you give, you're going to receive back. So if you don't have the capacity to give, how can you receive? It don't make no sense. So what does it cost you to keep that stuff in your life?

Speaker 2: 19:07

I want to say something right there. It costs me $110 a month. What? When we first got married? Well, after a few years, and we were getting ready to move to Florida and I love arts and crafts and all this stuff, and so we got me a storage, paid $110 a month, because I didn't want to throw away my magazines, wow. And I said, yusef, why did you let me do?

Speaker 1: 19:40

this. Ho ho, ho, ho ho. Why did you let me do that? Did I do what? When I look?

Speaker 2: 19:45

back I said why did you let me do that? You said because you were carrying your brokenness. Wow, because I hid a lot behind the things that I could do with my hands, because I wasn't dealing with anything spiritually or emotionally. So I took all my stuff because that was my hiding place.

Speaker 2: 20:06

I took my arts and my crafts and my old magazines because I had that monthly subscription to my craft partners and, hey, I kept every page. But when I began to start dealing with it and I was asking, you said, why did you let me do that? I began to tear out the stuff that I needed, things that I was working on a little steps that I wanted to remember how to do, and I took out that page and I was able to throw away the rest. And so I began to do that in my life because that was like a true example of what I was dealing with.

Speaker 1: 20:43

No, that's really good. That's really good. It's funny because like and you see it on TV a lot too, but it happens in your real life too that those of you guys that are listening to us, I'm almost positive you experienced this at some point in your life and you got to own that because you know it did. It really happened. But you know you were having somebody special come over. I don't care if it was a parent, maybe it was a friend from out of town or old high school friend or some important person in your life come in and stay with you for a few days or just come to visit you for the day.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Tell me you didn't go and take junk that you had in your house and put it in some closet, somewhere where nobody can see it. Tell me that's not what you did. You know you did it. You know a company is coming over and you try to hide whatever that stuff is and put it out of sight because you don't want to be embarrassed. So if you think that you'd be embarrassed because your friend or family will see it, why doesn't it embarrass you when they're not here?

Speaker 1: 21:39

Yeah, and you still say how did your heart get so calloused that it doesn't bother you, that this junk has been here in your life every day when you ain't had no company over and you didn't even think about moving it or putting it in the dump or giving it to some kind of charitable organization or whatever goodwill or whatever. Why had it crossed your mind? That's scary. That's something we evaluate personally within ourselves, because when somebody comes over you, you would never leave it out. It would never cross your mind to even consider leaving it within sight so they can see it, because it would be embarrassing, it would paint you in a negative light and you wouldn't want that. But you stay in a negative light when you're not here and you're good with it. How can that be? So what does that indicate about us? It's just something to think about. This is a lot of deep stuff. It's not about spring cleaning and cleaning up your house. This is really about a lot more. But any additional thoughts on this, anything that comes to mind for you?

Speaker 2: 22:46

It made me think about how sometimes we don't want to deal with what's there. You know, um, I have these boxes of pictures and I look back over the times I mean years of pictures, and it was like every time I look at them there were certain things going on in my life that remind me of those seasons.

Speaker 2: 23:08

Some of them were sad Some of them were. I was really angry. There were people leaving out of my life. There were people that was coming in my life. That was new, because I had to transition, because of what someone else did. I mean, it's all of these emotions and why bring them all up if I'm not ready to deal with them? So I just box them and put them away and I think that's kind of like the clutter. Sometimes we don't really feel like doing them, because if I go in that room and I start pulling this out and that out, then I know that it's got scars on the wall. I took down all those pictures. Now I got a saying, now I got to paint and it just turns into a whole project.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:54

And we're not ready to work on that project because we got too many other things that you know we're staying busy doing to keep that covered up.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Wow, that's powerful stuff, man. I don't know how this hits you guys, but I hope that it impacts you in a way that matters, because, honestly, this isn't just about spring cleaning and cleaning your house and sweeping and mopping and cleaning baseboards. This is about something a lot deeper than that, because we carry I mean, we're really complex beings and I think we should know that. If you don't, you should know that by now but we got a lot of stuff on us. We carry a lot of stuff. We deal with a lot of pressures and anxieties and challenges, and we have a lot of stuff on us and we need to be free. At the most. Our goal should be to be whole. Yes, our goal should be to be whole. Yes, and we can do that.

Speaker 1: 24:44

We got all that debris in our life. We got to clean that junk out and we got to keep it clean. We got to maintain it. We got to keep it up, fill ourselves with the right stuff that helps us, that feeds us and propels us to higher heights and greater destinies, and we just can't afford to have all that junk in our life anymore.

Speaker 1: 25:02

I don't care what you went through before and how big your challenge was back then. You don't have to make a memorial in your current life of the stuff you've been through. You could have a testimony and tell it, but you've got to have no pictures to go with it. You don't have to have the clothes to go with it. I wore the clothes while I was going through the struggle. Nobody needs to see that. Just tell your testimony. If you got one, you got to get each other the clothes and shoes you wore. Pictures of how your head looked when you was in the struggle. Nobody needs to know that stuff. We got to read your journal. We got to do none of that stuff that you were doing during these hard times. If it's burning a hole in your closet, do something else with it. Clear the clutter out so that you can be free.

Speaker 1: 25:44

So I really hope that this impacts you. There's a lot in this discussion but not enough time for that today, but we're grateful that you were able to listen to us. Thank you from the queen and myself for continuing support. They call me Mr U Brand of Shows and the His and Hers Podcast, which we do together every four Fridays. Sometimes a little more depends, but thanks for listening again. We really appreciate it and we hope you enjoy all of our brand of shows, but especially our his and hers podcasts. Have a great day, guys. Thank you.