191. Can’t Let Go of Your Stuff? The Stories and Emotions that Keep You Hoarding

In this episode, Carrie explores the hidden stories and emotions that make letting go of items so difficult. Drawing from conference insights and personal experiences, she shares practical wisdom to help anyone declutter and create a home that feels peaceful, joyful, and welcoming.

Episode Highlights:

• The stories we tell ourselves about objects, including how joy, identity, and memory influence what we keep.
• Why letting go can feel like loss and the connection between grief, trauma, and possessions.
• The trap of “I might need this one day” and how scarcity thinking fuels clutter.
• How acquiring can be just as much an issue as discarding, including the cycle of bargains, “great deals,” and aspirational buys.
• Ways to reframe decluttering as generosity by shifting from guilt to joy through blessing others with unused items.

Episode Summary:

Have you ever tried to declutter your home and felt completely stuck? Maybe you wouldn’t call yourself a hoarder, but you know you’re holding onto too much. 

You tell yourself things like, I might need this one day or this reminds me of someone I don’t want to forget. And before you know it, your home feels overwhelming instead of peaceful.

Clutter isn’t always about laziness or disorganization—it’s often about identity, memories, grief, or even responsibility.

In this episode, I talk about why letting go feels so hard, how our emotional attachment to things keeps us stuck, and the ways scarcity thinking and “just in case” habits fuel clutter. I also share why buying new things can be just as much of a problem as not being able to let go, and how shifting your perspective can help you finally make progress.

Clutter isn’t just physical, it’s emotional. When our homes are full, our minds often feel full too. But when we can step back and challenge the stories we’ve been telling ourselves about our stuff, we start to find freedom, joy, and more space to actually live.

If you’ve ever felt guilty, overwhelmed, or emotionally stuck when it comes to decluttering, you’re not alone. This episode will encourage you to see your possessions in a new light and give you practical ways to let go without feeling like you’re losing a part of yourself.

👉 Tune into the full episode now.

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 Hello. Today we are talking about hoarding the stories that you are telling yourself that are keeping you from letting go of items. Even if you feel like, well, maybe I’m not quite a hoarder. I wouldn’t describe myself that way, but I do really struggle to let go of things. I keep way too much stuff. And I have a hard time emotionally clearing out my items and making my home a place of happiness and health and socialization that I want it to be.

I went to a couple interesting sessions on hoarding at the International OCD Foundation Conference, and I wanted to just share some of that information with you that I learned on the podcast because. It’s really insightful. It might be helpful for some of you that are struggling to get rid of items.

Hoarding is a topic that I’m super interested in. It’s hard to find people who are hoarding, who are actually motivated to get the help that they need, so I always enjoy working with people. Also, they typically aren’t in a financial situation to get the level of intensive help that they need. But if that is something that you are struggling with, just know that that’s one of my interest areas.

I’ll throw that out there. It’s not something that I would say I have a ton of experience, but I have worked with several people who are struggling with hoarding and found it to just be very rewarding and fulfilling for me. Now, I think also I probably can relate a little bit to some of the things that they’re experiencing just because I grew up in a family of what we like to call pack rats.

People that keep way too many items out of scarcity, out of thinking that, Hey, I might need this one day, or. Hey, I could really use this for this. Those kind of ideas certainly were tossed around in my family. I got rid of some round cake pans one time because I told my mom, you know, I really wasn’t using those.

If I’m gonna make a cake, which I hadn’t made a cake in a long time, I was like, I really just use the rectangle one. I don’t use the round ones. And she was a little horrified that I got rid of them, even though it was something I wasn’t using and probably wasn’t going to be using. She was like, oh no.

Like you didn’t get rid of that, did you? And when we went to clean out my parents’ house, there were just all kinds of things that were thrown in the trash that they really didn’t need to hold onto. I’m talking about like cassette tapes from a conference they went to, if you remember that very old computer paper that had the, uh, dots on the side where you had to feed it through.

I have no idea why my mom still had some of that, but she did. We didn’t have any kind of printer like that. We found a very old school Walkman in the house, baby teeth, from when I was a baby. I have no idea why she kept baby teeth for as long as she did. Like when your children are. Full grown adults?

Like are you looking back, being sentimental? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll understand it when I’m older. My daughter hasn’t started losing teeth yet, but needless to say, there were just tons and tons of items that had not been gone through. My mom taught preschool like years and years ago. She had preschool lesson plans on the top of her bookshelf.

She kept a lot of stuff and at that time in their lives they had a bigger house where they had room and they had storage and they had cabinets, and they had closets where they could keep all of these things that they deemed that they wanted to hold onto. So that can be really tough. Just know if, if you need to do a little bit of what they call Swedish death cleaning so your kids don’t have to do it, please go ahead and do that.

It’s quite challenging enough about my story. I wanted to talk with you about the emotions and the thought processes that might keep you holding onto items and the ideas that people have around objects and really the story that you tell yourself. One of them is that you may say like, well, I just really like these items, whatever they are, and I enjoy them.

They bring me joy. I don’t wanna get rid of them. It could be little figurines that you’ve collected since you were a little girl. It could be a variety of things. Not everything necessarily has a specific use. Some things are just decorative. Not everything has a specific use for it. We have little knickknacks and things.

I have things right now that I could look at that are on top of my bookshelf. You could say. I’m not using them actively, but I am using them for decoration. Of course, but we hold on to things that we enjoy or that bring us joy. But then what can happen is that you have way too many of those items for the actual space that you have to hold them, and that’s when it becomes problematic, right?

You may enjoy looking at certain things, but then you get so much stuff and it just kind of gets covered and covered, and then you’re not even really enjoying those items or able to enjoy those items. Because you’re not able to get to them or you’re not able to get them out anymore, and that’s where you really have to kind of pair those things down to what’s most important and sometimes something that you might have found enjoyable in the past.

Maybe you look at it now and you go, why did I ever buy that? Or, I’m not even sure I really like that anymore. The problem with hoarding is that there’s a lot of bringing items in and then those items don’t get reevaluated. That becomes an issue, right? Maybe there are certain things that you have created or crafted.

I have like the only thing that ever made it off of the pottery wheel. In college, the pottery wheel and I in pottery class, had a really hard time. We had a rough go at it. So I have this little piece that I have held onto because it’s like a sense of accomplishment. It represents that I did actually successfully get something off the pottery wheel without it falling apart beforehand.

I don’t think that I really had the patience or the time or the right, proper training on how to do what I was doing. Our teacher just kind of left us a little bit to our own devices. So maybe that’s something I will go back to at a later date. But that is something that I have really held onto. Like I am not getting rid of this thing ’cause it’s the only thing that I only pottery that was successfully completed on the pottery wheel.

And there may be other things that you have little crafts that your kids made and. Just makes you think of them at a certain age, could be a variety of things that fall into this pleasure category, right? We have to be able to evaluate what is the space that we have to hold onto these things. How large are they?

How many of them do you have? And so there may be times where you might need to take a picture of something. So that you have it digitally instead of actually having it physically, that can end up saving you a lot of space, right? Sometimes people hold onto things because it’s an identity that they used to have that they don’t have anymore, and so it’s almost like they’re grieving that identity that they used to have.

This could be a mother that has held onto like an enormous amount of children’s clothing or baby clothing, just really kind of sad. I’m not gonna have any more children. And it could be that she’s held onto these four, like her children are now fully grown. Or in the training they give an example of kind of an aspired identity that someone was holding onto.

So this woman wanted to cook and she had hundreds of cookbooks in her house because she just really wanted. To cook and to cook Well, the problem was that she couldn’t get to anything in her kitchen because her kitchen was overrun with items. So she was holding onto this identity of somebody that she wanted to be, and she felt like if she let go of the cookbooks.

It would be like losing that aspirational identity that she really wanted to have. I know for me, there were a lot of things that I cleared out of my old attic when I got divorced because there were representations of me being a foster parent and even though I wanted to be a parent in the future. I didn’t know when that would happen or what that would look like.

It was hard for me and I had to come to an acknowledgement that this was a life that I was no longer living and holding onto these items continuously was not serving me for the life that I was trying to live right now. That was a tough one. So you may have experiences like that. It could be just little trophy that you got as a kid, or bonding time that you remembered having and some type of representation of that.

Even the identity of being a daughter, maybe you lost a parent. Oftentimes hoarding and grief and loss can go together. Because you might have items from that loved one who passed away, or you might have things that remind you of them, and so getting rid of the item feels like you’re losing that parent or loved one all over again, and that just can feel really intolerable for people.

Typically, people are holding onto items to avoid this sense of loss. Or other negative emotion, maybe regret that comes up as a result of having to let go of those items. So when you can take the time to really sit with things and say, okay, why am I actually holding onto this? What is the thought process behind it?

How do I feel about holding onto it right now? How do I feel about packing it up to give it away? Or how do I feel about selling it? How do I feel about it no longer being here? If you can answer some of those questions, that really helps you get to a place where you come to understand why you’re holding onto the item and what you’re avoiding as a result of trying to get rid of a particular item.

There might be things that have been really painful or traumatic that have happened to you. You have items that remind you of that pain or of that trauma because you haven’t fully processed that. It might be hard to let go of those items. So just be aware that you may say, okay, well, I can pare down the things that really bring me joy.

I have a hundred angel figurines. I really don’t need that many. I compare that down to 20 or to five, whatever feels good. Whatever your space allows. I compare down the things that I enjoy, but I have a really hard time letting go of these reminders of trauma. Sometimes people are motivated to hold onto items due to a sense of responsibility, feeling like I have to be responsible and with the items that I have, I can’t be wasteful.

I can’t just throw things away, so I’ve gotta hold on to these water bottles because I could really make something out of this recycled material. I could make art out of this, or I could use it for a child’s craft project. So you may just have toilet paper tubes and the paper towel rolls and other things.

Certainly you could theoretically use those in other ways or use them for craft projects. If we are really looking for a use for an item, I’m sure that we can come up with one. I’m sure that you can be creative, right? I think we could do this with this, Hey, here’s a piece of styrofoam from the Amazon packaging.

I might need that for packaging something else in the future. And so you may have these types of odds and ends and you feel like, well, if I throw that away, I’m just kind of being wasteful. And you might wanna look at like your history and your family story and what things were told to you. You might have been told, Hey, hold onto that.

You might need that one day. Or we might not be able to get some of that. I don’t wanna have to pay for that later. So let’s hold onto this. So just noticing these are for people who have like a ton of. Items in their home that they feel like they can reuse instead of throw away. And there can be an avoidance of guilt.

There’s a feeling of guilt maybe of letting go of these items and not holding onto them, because then maybe I’m not being morally responsible or ethically responsible. I’m not being a good steward of something if I just throw it away. Or oftentimes people get stuck in this trap of, well, I could make money off some of these items.

I do have some nice stuff, and I could make some money and I should go on Facebook marketplace and sell it. Or I should have a big yard sale, but I’m not really in a good area where I could have a yard sale. So it’s going back and forth, back and forth of how to get rid of the items, and so it feels irresponsible.

To just go give it to the thrift store because I could make some money off of it, and then that just allows the items to linger longer in the household. You have two issues with hoarding that we can talk about. One is the getting rid of items. That certainly is an issue, but another is an issue of acquiring items.

Someone may find things at at yard sales or thrift stores and say, Hey, like I could really use this. I think that I could put this with some other stuff that I have, or, it’s such a good deal. It’s such a good bargain that I’m gonna go ahead and get that. Then I’m going to somehow use it, but then the day never comes for them to use that item again.

Think of maybe 10 different uses for it, but that doesn’t actually happen. And once you start noticing these stories and these thought processes like, oh, I could use that one day. I might need that. I might know someone who needs that. I can use that, no problem. This goes with another piece that I have, or I just really like that and it’s on sale, or, I’m getting a great deal, but are you really getting a great deal if it’s something that you don’t need?

So you have to learn to start telling it yourself. A different narrative when it comes to acquiring and when it comes to getting rid of items. And so your change or your shift in narrative might be just in a place of contentment. Like, I have everything that I need. I don’t need anything else. And something that I have to tell myself sometimes.

’cause I can see things and go, oh hey, I could use that, or I could put this there. And I might tell myself, yeah, I probably could, but I really just don’t need that. I don’t need, it’s going to eventually become clutter in my house and I don’t wanna have that. I wanna live in a space that feels really peaceful to me, that doesn’t feel overwhelmed by stuff.

And changing that narrative about getting rid of items. I think for Christians, this can be a really big deal because we have a calling to be generous and to share with others. So if you have items in your home that aren’t being utilized, that could bless somebody else, like someone else might really be able to use that.

You have an opportunity, opportunity to give that to them or to give it to an organization that you really care about. Maybe your church does yard sales for mission trips. Maybe they have items that they donate to the pregnancy center, or they’re doing some type of fundraiser yard sale for someone who wants to adopt a child.

It’s all really great opportunities to bless people and that will help you put yourself in a place of joy. When you do get rid of items, when Steve and I got together, we just had duplicates of a lot of things. We had a bunch of Crockpots, which was kind of funny. He had a couple. I had a couple, and I said, two people don’t need four crockpots.

So we had this yard sale and we just said, Hey, it’s a donation yard sale. We’re gonna donate whatever you decide to give for these items to our local charity that supports foster children. And it was super fun and it was really great because then we didn’t stress about how much money we were making or not making off of things, weren’t frustrated by that.

And we were able to get some things out of our house, and then whatever didn’t sell, we just shipped off to the local thrift store and were able to. Bless some people with some good deals, and they were able to find some stuff that they needed. So if you can do something like that, that may help change your mindset on getting rid of items.

I know that hoarding is something that can be really overwhelming for people. A lot of times they don’t get help until they’re already in a really challenging and really difficult situation. And so if that’s you, I just would encourage you to get some support, whatever that looks like. It might be personal support of somebody that it can help you go through things.

It might be professional support of somebody that can help you really examine some of these beliefs and emotions that you have connected to items. I will say too that there’s a great book called Buried in Treasures you can get ahold of, and it also has guidelines if you know someone who is hoarding and you’re struggling to try to help them.

It does have some guidelines for friends and family who are helping people who hoard, and if you are struggling with that, it has quizzes, it has activities. Has worksheets, all kinds of things that you can utilize in there. Don’t buy it and hold onto it if you’re not gonna use it, but if it’s something that you feel like, Hey, I’m gonna take a little bit of time every day to work on tackling this, I think that that’s really great.

An intensive option might be a really great option for you to just dive in and work with either a therapist, professional organizer, somebody who can help you go through those items. Sometimes you might be telling yourself a story about having something to a level of perfection. You might say, Hey, I need all of these Christmas items in order to have a great Christmas.

I need to have multiple Christmas trees with all of these ornaments. But then it’s just taking up all of this time. Energy to decorate, or you just have boxes and boxes and boxes of things and you keep Uping Christmas stuff because maybe Christmas was never magical at your house. People were always fighting or your parents were just really poor and couldn’t get you much, and it was kind of depressing.

So now you’ve decided that your Christmases are no longer going to be like that. You see how like we weave these narratives in our mind and then we live it out? Or maybe you tell yourself, well, I’ve gotta buy my kids the best, latest and greatest toys. So we just have massive amounts of toys all over the house, and that’s what really needs to happen.

And that might be coming from just economic insecurity that you grew up with, et cetera. And noticing that these stories are highly emotionally charged, especially when you’ve told them to yourself over and over and over again.

So we can add this to. This section that talks about the different emotions or processes in hoarding that I talked about earlier.

Sometimes you might be. Telling yourself a story about having something to a level of perfection. You might say, Hey, I need all of these Christmas items in order to have a great Christmas. I need to have multiple Christmas trees with all of these ornaments. But then it’s just taking up all of this time.

Energy to decorate, or you just have boxes and boxes and boxes of things and you keep acquiring Christmas stuff because maybe Christmas was never magical at your house. People were always fighting or your parents were just really poor and couldn’t get you much, and it was kind of depressing. So now you’ve decided that your Christmases are no longer going to be like that.

You see how like we weave these narratives in our mind and then we live it out? Or maybe you tell yourself, well, I’ve gotta buy my kids the best, latest and greatest toys. So we just have massive amounts of toys all over the house, and that’s what really needs to happen. And that might be coming from just economic insecurity that you grew up with, et cetera.

Noticing that these stories are highly emotionally charged, especially when you’ve told them to yourself over and over and over again.