Welcome back to the Simplicity Parenting podcast with me, Kim John Payne. And again, I'm joined in this third and last part of this brief podcast series by my dear friend Laura Carlin. Hi, Laura.
Hi, Kim. Thank you for having me back. We've been having some fun with these recordings, these podcasts.
Laura is the author, for those of you who have missed it, the co-author with her, together with her sister, Alison Forbes Van Hoek, of this wonderful new book, not long out now, it's called Clutter-Free Parenting, Making Space in Your Home for the Magic of Childhood and the Joy of Parenthood. Laura, the book's been out now for a couple of months, being so well received, and it's just a really great thing that we get to talk about this. And particularly today, we're talking about habits and tips that you've picked up over the years.
We'll be looking at how to clear clutter for a good night's sleep. That's really something that I'm looking forward to talking about. And then clearing from the inside out.
This was, for me, one of the most interesting parts of the book, that you brought it back to the inner landscape. So let's jump in. Can you give us a bit of an overview of some of these more practical habits and tips for actually preventing clutter coming in in the first place? So one of the biggest things to preventing clutter from coming in the first place is to start thinking about it outside of your home.
So when we're outside of our homes, we need to be making choices. We need to be asking, we talked before in the first episode about the definition of clutter, which is anything that's not loved or useful. So we need to be asking that question when we're out in the world, before we purchase something, is this loved or useful? So ideally, we're not even taking it into our house.
And then another really important key to preventing clutter. So Laura, tell us a little bit about how underlying all clutter is fear. That really, that was quite a new thought for me, linking clutter with fear.
Until I remembered back to growing up, I grew up next door to my grandparents, and they went through the Great Economic Depression, the First and the Second World War. And they were, you know, like elastic band keepers, plastic bags, keep like bags and bags and bags full of bread twistems, you know, just amazing amount of stuff because of deprivation, as you know, that they had directly experienced. That's where that part in the book led me and my thoughts.
Can you tell us a bit more about that? Sure. So truly, you know, underneath all clutter, if we're keeping things that are not useful and loved, and again, in our homes, we really want to go for love. It's because we're scared, you know, they say that the opposite of love is fear.
And that's certainly what I see is why people are holding on to things. It's fear of letting go of the past, or it's fear of some future that hasn't happened yet. So so much clutter can be prevented just by bringing ourselves to the present moment, and trusting that our needs will be met on time and in time.
Yeah, the opposite to love is fear. You go on to talk about sleep, about bedrooms, and about sleep. And, you know, reading through this, it was a great reminder for me, because in my private family counselling practice, more and more issues around sleep are coming up, more and more issues around what I call parental hostage-taking are coming up.
If anything can help that, boy, is it worth considering. What's occurred to you? And how have you helped parents over the years link decluttering and better sleep for children and the whole family? Okay, so this goes a little bit back to the idea we talked about last time of thinking about the things in your environment as alive. And the idea in the bedroom is that bedrooms' purpose for children should just be sleep.
For adults, it's sleep and intimacy, and for children, it's just sleep. And all too often, though, our bedrooms are multitasking, just like we are. So an adult bedroom may also have a home office or exercise equipment or a television, and children's rooms are often playrooms.
But what we want to do in the bedroom for children, even though it may indeed be their playroom as well, or a study room for that matter, is we want to, when we make choices, prioritize the sleep piece. Because again, this idea that everything is alive, we want calm voices in the bedroom. That's what we're going for, things that are calm.
So when it comes to more permanent decorating choices, like paint and colors and art, we want to make sure that's conducive to sleep, because it's very easy to liven up a room for playing just by bringing out toys or for studying by bringing out study materials. So pretty much, it's just about creating this calm and peaceful environment, and also clutter-free, because the clutter stagnates the energy in the room. And there's something about just having the spaciousness, especially under the bed, that just promotes a better night's sleep.
You know, Laura, when I was reading through this, I was struck by a memory from my own childhood where, you know, my bedroom was pretty much just for sleep and not much in there apart from a bed and a couple of things on the wall. And on the wall opposite my bed was a painting of a farmyard scene. It had a foreground, mid, and background, had a lot of depth to it, lots of animals, farmers, and then in the background, fields that were being plowed.
And I spent hours, it must be collectively countless hours actually, staring and just looking at that painting. And years later, the years went on, and in my early 20s, I learned how to meditate. I went to a retreat and learned how to meditate.
And actually, it was surprisingly easy for me to slip into that. Other people in the group really struggled to still themselves, to focus on a single image, and so on, so on, all those, you know, beginning points, preparations for meditation. And when I came to doing that, guess what? That picture, which was kind of the only picture, the main picture, at least, in my bedroom, and there was no toys, there was nothing much else, that came up for me.
And I remember that picture, it put me in this very quiet, meditative place. It's amazing that you talk about that, because what we see first and last upon waking sets such a powerful impression. So that's always something that we talk about when we look at a bedroom, is what do you see from your bed? Yeah, and how interesting that having a calm, peaceful bedroom, at least for me, years later, led me to be able to move into meditation, and have that be a foundation for the rest of my life.
And it began way back as a little boy with a peaceful bedroom. My parents didn't plan a peaceful bedroom, we just didn't have much. So there wasn't a lot of clutter, because I didn't have a lot of stuff, it was as simple as that.
We didn't have the money, but it is very interesting what a peaceful, restful bedroom may set a child up for as the years roll on. Absolutely, that's an amazing story. And I think what happens is, and it's very well intentioned, but parents often want to make bedrooms really fun.
And so there can be big murals on the wall, or very active art. And again, we really want to prioritize the peaceful and the calm when it comes to the bedroom, or at least make it easy to put away the things that have those very active voices. We want to have the toys where they're in the bin with a cloth over it, or behind a cabinet, so we can transition and calm down the room at night.
Laura, one mom I was working with when I was doing home visits, this went so well for her that she actually extricated herself from the hostage taking by having to lay with a child until they went to sleep for an hour or two sometimes. When she decluttered the bedroom, it really helped that a lot. And she went so far as she had big wicker baskets actually with cloths over, and she found that that helped the child, as I put it in some of my writings, fall back into the wings of your angels.
That's what I'd say to my children each time to fall back into the wings of your angels. And she actually, it went so well with decluttering and covering up the toys and having sleep be primary, what she did is that she would pick the baskets up and she would put them to bed and she would take them out of the room and put them in a little alcove that was there and actually physically remove the toys from the room. And bearing in mind what you say, I wonder if she was tapping into this, all things are vibrating, all things have energy, and she would just take them literally out the bedroom and there were some dramatic improvements.
Wow, that's wonderful. Yeah, and put them to bed. Yeah, it's wonderful.
Yeah. Let's move on to this and just in rounding off our podcast today about this, you end the book on a really beautiful note of clearing from the inside out. And you talk about that and that moves us over into, that's where we move towards the conclusion of the book.
Tell us a little bit about that because that really stood out for me that you are now moving inside rather than just talking about outside environment. So inner clutter is not the clutter that you can see and touch. It's all of the thoughts running through our head.
And those thoughts can be everything from what are we going to have for dinner tonight to what is the meaning of my life and everything in between. And that inner clutter can be just as distracting as the outer clutter and get in the way of the flow of the love between us and our children, just as much as the outer clutter. And we certainly see this with our kids too.
It's what your work is all about in terms of simplifying, not just their environment, but simplifying schedules and other parts of their life as well. So in the book, I just suggest this really simple process that was inspired by the work of David Allen, who wrote a book called Getting Things Done, where you just take the time to unpack everything that's on your mind. You just write down all of those thoughts.
And that getting it out of our heads and onto paper is the equivalent of cleaning out a closet. And then the next step is that you want to process that list. So you would take the items that need to be done by a certain time, and they might go on your calendar.
You might have a traditional to-do list. And then you might have those things that are closer to the what's the meaning of my life, life purpose type list. And what I find is for parents, and certainly for myself, is that we don't always have time during the parenting phase to pursue other things in the way we may want to.
But there's something very satisfying about putting all this down on paper. And one, it becomes an intention. I find that things start lining up, and it actually starts to manifest.
But also, there's this sense that it's done or it will get done. And so I call this process life design. And we started by talking about those initial intentions before we even began the clutter clearing process.
But then once you have started removing more physical clutter from your space, chances are you're going to have even more clarity about your life and your goals. And so this is a time to revisit that and really put those goals down on paper and think about ways that you might want to start moving things forward in your life. And then, that's beautiful, because then you conclude in the book, Clutter Theory, Parenting, you talk about in the conclusion, it's quite touching, actually, that there's points that you make here, right at the top about, you call it, you are their home.
But you go deeper as you close the book. And I wonder if you can close this small series of podcasts today, just by walking us through those concluding words. So the you are their home concept is that ultimately, no matter what space you're in right now, how you feel about your space, that sense of home, that sense of oneness, of connection, of peace, that's something that they're going to feel from us and that our goal is to help create inside of them.
And then that's something that then they can carry out into the world. And I think that I end the book by saying, peaceful home, peaceful life, peaceful world. And so that's the idea that our homes really can be these sacred spaces.
And that in and of itself can be a contribution, the energy that our home radiates into the world. And then certainly that feeling of home that we carry inside ourselves and then instill in our children. So then they bring that out into the world.
Well, on that note, ma'am, Laura, thank you so much for spending the time with us over these three episodes of really clarifying for us the why, clarifying for us the how. And now just going deeper into what that can do for us as parents in our home. This is just a real gem for all the people, all the many tens of thousands of people who tune in to this podcast every week.
Laura, a big thank you to you. Of course, a big thank you to Alison as well, who wasn't with us today. I know.
And a huge thank you to you, Kim, because as I say in the book, you know, you're my inspiration and a mentor and a friend. And I just feel very, very grateful. My pleasure indeed.
So Laura, Laura Carland, a book just out, Clutter-Free Parenting. And Laura, I didn't mention your previous book, which is also beautifully written. It's a gorgeous book to just even to hold in your hand, The Peaceful Nursery, Preparing a Home for Your Baby.
That's your previous book together with Alison. I can't thank you enough for giving the time to be with us and hope this was helpful to all our listeners. Bye bye for now.
Bye bye, Laura. Bye.
