“Marie Kondo’s method of tidying can be applied to your mind as well as your stuff.”
Aurora Remember is founder of Embracing Intensity, with resoures and programs which help you “identify and use your neurodivergent strengths, while supporting your challenges.” Her site includes podcasts, videos, a membership community with interviews and more.
In the introduction to her podcast episode “255: Tidying Up Your Brain, Marie Kondo Style w/ Nadja Carghetti” Aurora notes:
As neurodivergent creatives, we often find ourselves overwhelmed with too much stuff both in our environment and in our minds.
We may be overrun with office supplies, craft supplies, and/or miscellaneous things that support our hyperfixations or latest hyperfocus.
The ADHD brain is especially prone to mental clutter, and when our environment is a mess it’s even harder to quiet our thoughts.
On our last guest call, Nadja Cereghetti shared how you can use the Marie Kondo approach to tidy your brain!
Many people think you are either tidy or untidy, but the good news is that tidying is something you can learn! In Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, she shares how we can systematically tidy our space by getting rid of things that don’t spark joy.
Marie Kondo’s method of tidying can be applied to your mind as well as your stuff and help prioritize the things we spend our mental energy on.
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The cluttered garage photo above is from my article Multitalented and Creative.
Related book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo.”
Unleash Monday Podcast – The Podcast for Bright and Quirky Adults with Nadja Cereghetti
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See the transcript below.
To listen to the full podcast episode (and many others), visit this page and click the ‘Podcast’ tab:
The Embracing Intensity Free Resource Library
Access to the Embracing Intensity Community
Printable Planner Pages including Prioritization Tools & Daily Planning
Harnessing the Power of Your Intensity Workbook & Course
The Embracing Intensity Journey talk & discussion
Thriving with Intensity w/ Kate Arms talk & discussion
Retreat Planner Guide
Links to the Blog, Podcast and Videos.
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Transcript – “255: Tidying Up Your Brain, Marie Kondo Style w/ Nadja Carghetti”
Nadja Cereghetti 1:44
Okay, so thank you so much Aurora for having me. I would like to share about how you can tidy to thrive and how you can Konmari your life and your brain.
That was kind of my first dip into entrepreneurship until I realized I didn’t like to work with clients as a tidy coach.
But the skill is still really helpful, as you will see going through this presentation, with you. So, I would like to start off with this quote from Frank Mosca, who’s an architect.
He says, we are living our life depending on the space we’ve got, rather than creating our space to fit our lives. And I think that’s so true.
Because we have, you know, huge houses. I don’t know if you are, most of you are in Northern America, probably have bigger houses than me. But we have just this space and then we just fill it with things and clutter and just, instead of really thinking what do we want? And then create the space for that.
And I think the same also goes for our brains. If we’re here in this gifted community or 2 E community, we might have different capacity than other people. And we might just stuff our brains with things.
But maybe we can also be a little bit more mindful of how we fill our brains and what we put into them and what we keep and what we let go.
So I wanna talk about joy today. That’s all about the Marie Kondo method. And I was once asked to share a picture that represents me and I think that little girl throwing around balls in this pool of balls.
I don’t even know what this is called, but it’s like this bazinga pool of balls. And just that looks like the happiest moment of this little girl’s life, and I think that represents me.
So I wanna share how tidying can positively influence your life. It’s such, it sounds so simple, it’s a simple technique, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. So I give you the step by step guide for successfully tidying your space and simultaneously your brain, and also a few thoughts on how you can, have a little bit more joy in your daily life as of today.
I just wanna make the difference between tidying and cleaning, especially if non-English speaking natives.
So tidying is about focusing on your things where cleaning is about dirt and debris. With tidying, you basically face yourself because it’s your things, your belongings, whereas with cleaning, you’re facing your surroundings.
And so that’s two different things in terms of activity, but also what it represents and how it can affect your mental state.
But who am I talking about tidying so passionately? So I’m Nadia Cereghetti. I call myself a multipotentialite with a hybrid professional identity.
One of my podcast guests Sarah Beth Burke shared about the hyper professional identity.
And I think that’s so on point that you know, especially the 2e community and some of you mentioned, having three different endeavors going on simultaneously.
So yeah, that’s also me. I call myself a former tidying coach, a former scientist, former project manager. Currently I’m a HR professional.
I would like to represent the neurodivergent community in the HR profession. That’s why I took this new opportunity.
I’m also a podcast host of Unleash Monday, which talks about neurodiversity and twice exceptionality, so giftedness and anything on top of that.
So yeah, currently I’ve been a little bit quiet. It’s been a lot going on, so I’m still going also through the process of tidying what to keep and what to focus on. So I’m actually very excited to be here today and talk about joy, cuz I think I need to hear it myself. So thank you again for having me.
So this is an actual picture of my room at 15 years old. I was very ashamed in the beginning sharing this, but now I, you know, my dad once took this picture and he threatened to show my classmates when I was 15 years old. And I thought, if I’m so smart, why can I not keep my room tidy? It’s not that my parents didn’t try.
They told me every Saturday to tidy up my room so that I could then, vacuum the floor. But as you can see on this picture, the floor is covered with stuff. It was never dirty, but it was always messy. And after maybe half an hour later, it looked the same . So, yeah. Yep. But it can be learned.
So that’s a picture of my bedroom, not the one currently, but my former bedroom, right?
When I did the Marie Kondo method, I actually am able to tidy. Now I can keep it tidy and it really calms also my brain.
But I must say when I’m stressed, when there’s a lot going on in my mind, it reflects in my space. So the more my space is tidy, I’m put together, the more my space around me is getting a little bit out of hand, the more is going on internally, so that can be a reflection.
And when I see, my room getting a little bit out of hand, I know okay, it’s time to kind of attend again to my mental tidiness as well.
The basis of my teaching is basically Marie Kondo. She’s a very famous tidying guru from Japan. And I think the reason why she’s so successful in the US is because her books were translated in such a beautiful way into the English language that it really incorporates the Japanese philosophy, but kind of translates it into the Northern American lifestyle.
The translation was done in a really beautiful way. And the term spark joy comes from the translator. I think that’s so on point really finding these things that really, you know, spark this joy in us.
If you try to tidy, and downsize a little bit of your belongings,there will always be emotions involved. Downsizing is not without emotions. They can be positive, but some of them can also be negative.
So just be aware that this is an emotional process. When I started this process of tidying I was actually very surprised how emotional it got.
I thought, you know, I’m just gonna start tidying with this sock drawer. I was really kind of overcome with emotions. And when I found the method, I basically found the video, I think somewhere, I guess on Facebook. And I started before even reading the books, and only once I started reading her books about tidying, I realized, Oh, it’s not me.
It’s really this process of kind of finding yourself through tidying. So there’s positive side effects that come when you start tidying. It is really empowering because you have to make so many decisions like what do you keep and what not.
It really clears your space, but at the same time, it will also clear your mind and it effectively is a lifestyle change because you will experience things in a different way.
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Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the The Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to help creative people thrive.”
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