Balance + Abundance with Alyshia Ochse

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

EE: Hi, Alyshia. How are you?

AO: I'm so good. It's so good to see your sweet face. It's really, I call you angels and we still have your guys' picture on our fridge.

EE: No, I forgot.

AO: Anytime I'm like, it's my favorite thing that you guys did.

EE: We helped Alicia and her daughter move into their new home. It feels like a million years ago now. And we like photobombed ourselves onto their refrigerator. So I love that. We're still living there. 

AO: It's still living there. It gives me joy and it also reminds me, I'm like, oh, I should go clean that out. I should do that. Or, oh, this cup is here. Do I need this cup right now? Is it serving my purpose? Is it helping me bring me joy?

EE: So it's so fun. We're like your fairy godmothers, just generally hovering around in your kitchen.

AO: Yes. If you guys could all move in, it takes a village, right? That would also be great. I'd be so down for that.

EE: Would love to. Well, thank you so much for being a guest and taking the time. I know you are an incredibly busy human. But you were one of the first people I thought of when I was like, I want to have a podcast and talk about all things, life, good, bad struggles, how we can kind of organize ourselves to make our goals and dreams come true because I just see you out there doing all of those things every day. I'm like, yeah, so cool. It's so wonderful to watch your career and everything you're working on. And so thank you for being a guest.

AO: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. It's really fun to talk. Oh, organization and composed living. It's my, you know, how many times did I scream out of that I was having? What was the words that I was using? It was like organizational orgasm. Oh, oh, oh, the whole time you guys were here. And I feel like that's what life can be. If you organize it the right way, then you could have, it brings me joy. I don't know if that's my OCD.

EE: I think it actually brings everyone joy, just maybe to different levels and some people just haven't realized yet that it can be joyful. We got a slow role with some people who have some resistance there. But I love that you're just full all in pure joy about it right from the get go.

AO: I am maintaining it is another thing. I get to such a high, you know, when I get auditions, when I have to work on something creative, when I have to write, I clean my whole house before I sit down to do that. So I just, I work better in a non-cluttered space, but then yet as I'm working and living, I get so cluttered. So I just feel like I'm in this constant struggle of balance. But I do create better when there is an openness. I think better. I'm big in Feng Shui. If there's a flow to a space, I can walk into a space and be like, oh, gosh, oh, no, no, and then you talk to that person for a little bit and they're struggling with X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, yeah, I could tell you why, you know, and then I feel like a weirdo. I mean, like if you move that plant over there, the couch right there is really killing your vibe. But I like that. And I like reinventing that in my own personal space constantly. Everything has its place and space, but again, two hands, so sometimes you need that assistance to at least get it started. 

EE: Oh, absolutely. organization is not a one and done thing, right? It's a practice that you, that you learn and then it's a muscle that gets stronger the more you do it. So I don't notice, you know, as I go around my house, it's just, it's everything is sort of like always where it should be for the most part. I mean, I can't help if like my kids come home and drop something where it doesn't belong. But by the end of the day, at least it's like, I don't even realize that I have sort of gone around and like put everything back where it belongs because it's just such an innate part of my daily routine. It's like my brain just sort of like does it on autopilot, I guess, at this point. But you really do have to keep at it or you have a system like this where it's like, okay, once a month, I'm just like, well, I can't take it anymore and I have to go around and like declutter everything and put everything back and then, and then it gets back.

So you know, to each their own for me, it's like, I can't start my day unless I know everything is like, this is the clean slate and this is where we're starting from. And in our house, it's usually centered around the kitchen because I love waking up and seeing all the kitchen counters completely clear. And also I have, you know, my adult child who lives with us and she keeps much later hours than I do so she'll cook like after I've gone to bed. So then I wake up and it's like, I see things in the sink. Like before I even make a coffee, before I do anything, like wash the dishes, load the dishwasher, do whatever I need to do. So I can have that one split second of at this moment in time, the kitchen is perfect.

AO: There is, it gives me so much joy and I struggle with it constantly because I have to, I think as a single mom every night, I have to make those decisions on, do I need to finish the five things for the three different businesses I run or do I need to do the dishes X, Y, and Z. Now my daughter is really cute when I put her to bed. She's like, Mommy, you don't have to do your chores tonight. You can just stay here. It's so sweet, but it is a balance and there's nothing that gives me more joy when I come into the kitchen and it's clean.But that's just not the case.

So I've had to really acquiesce with my own OCD around cleanliness and then I have to be really organized and how I get organized so I get it done. Otherwise everything's kind of falls to the wayside. At the top of this year, I had to take all of my businesses and really streamline them and really get organized on what I'm doing every day when I'm doing it, why I'm doing it. And then if there's overflow, it goes to the next week because I will then work 14 to 16 hours a day and then I'm dealing with my child and then, and then I'm dealing with the house. So there's not nearly enough time in the day if I'm not organized. And I feel that daily. 

EE: And I think that's probably what's working extremely relatable. Everybody is looking for this like elusive balance of work and home and pleasure and finances and friendships and all the millions of things that we juggle on a daily basis. That is kind of why we started this podcast, I guess. When I started Compose Living, it was to help people organize their homes but because I see that as a jumping point to helping people organize their lives around what it is that they want to accomplish. Right? So for me, it's like my end goal in this life is not to have a beautifully organized home, it's to create enough free space so that I can enjoy being with my kids; so that Chad and I can travel; so that we can relax and like experience these joyful moments as often as possible. For me, I wouldn't be able to do that if my house was a mess, if my car was filthy.

Like I just I know that my brain functions in a way where I need those things to be in place but I use the same skills to organize my business so that I'm not working 14 hour days and to organize our marriage and our social calendar and all of these things so that my dreams around those can come true. So that is really why we do what we do. That's why I love connecting with clients like you because you get it. And it's like I know that you get it and it makes it so rewarding to be such a small piece of helping you streamline your life so that you can go out and accomplish everything you want in your life and your daughter's life.

AO: Well, yeah, I think that's the thing that creates confidence and self esteem, right? Is setting the goal, I don't care what it is and being able to achieve that within yourself. It's interesting. I started doing a deep dive lately on personality types and there's four different personality types. Have you heard about this Gretchen? What’s her last name? She wrote all the books about happiness.

EE: Rueben

AO:  Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

EE: I don't know her or maybe I do tell me.

AO: So upholder, obliger, rebel, and questioner. I'm an obliger, meaning I need accountability in order to achieve something, which I would have never put myself there. I don't think anybody from the outside world would have put me as that. But when I was on teams, I would thrive, right? I get most coachable or I do this whenever there is an accountability, even if it's going to work out, if I have a partner that I'm going to meet, I'm going to do it. So my outside goals as well as my inside goals hold the same value. I would say my outside goals will hold more value as far as my accountability goes. And upholder will set a goal for themselves and they'll just do it. So they don't necessarily, they don't need, they can do it on their own. A questioner is going to ask, why do you want me to do that? What about this? But you have to give them all the reasons before they're going to agree to do something. And a rebel is just going to say no. They're not going to set goals. They're not going to sign up for the Sunday 10 a.m. workout class because they don't know what they want to do on Sunday and they're not going to commit to it, right?

So once I realized this with myself, for my organization, for my businesses, for what you even just said, like for you to be able to achieve what you want in your marriage, on your vacations,  with your children, there's a goal in mind. I'm a single though right now in my household. I don't have a partner. So I have to find my partner. So in my business, my membership, the new triple threat, I have a wonderful partner. We are successful because we are in partnership for us together. The podcast, I have several people that now help me with the podcast. When I was doing it by myself, it was really starting to struggle. Or when I think that I'm by myself, it starts so now I have accountability people were like, hey, I need this. Hey, I need this. So it keeps me accountable. Having you guys come in and help me set up the house was a massive thing that I needed in order to stay accountable to myself and staying organized. So it's really interesting.

I think that if you can figure out your why, your organization stays more on point, but that why has to have something that excites you, right, going on vacation, having certain goals. And I think a lot of people miss that goal setting because they don't know what type of personality type they are. Because they don't like if they're rebels, they're not going to want to set goals. So you have to figure out something else that motivates their why, right? A questioner can set the goals, but then they're going to have to probably ask themselves a million reasons or questions as well as somebody else why they should go work out at 10 a.m. on a Sunday. You know, so I'm just using that as an example but since learning that about myself, I have now like, I'm like, I want to finish this book. I want to read this book. I'll get it. I'll get everybody into a book club. So then all of my girlfriends, every Wednesday, we're reading that book that I wanted to read but I needed my accountability partners. That's why I think I keep your guys’ fairy picture on my fridge because even though you're not here, I'm like, every time I go into certain there's a closet right now, I'm like, Elsa would go crazy in this closet. I've been thinking about it. I'm like, do I need to reach out or do I need to schedule every weekend? Okay. Now I'm doing the hallway closet because it's been a year and a half since you guys into this space. And I don't know how in a year and a half so much shit has gotten shoved into the closets now and it gives me anxiety.

EE: Yeah.

AO And I noticed now I have to find an accountability.

EE: Very normal, very, very normal for that to be happening. I mean, a year and a half was a long time and you have a small child. And like you said, you know, being a single mom, you're responsible for doing everything. You do all of life for you and your child, you know, and there just isn't enough time in the day sometimes it makes me so happy to hear that you're getting accountability and support across your businesses and even with something fun. I love a book club and I have to read more about this because now I'm fascinated. I'm like in my mind, I'm somewhere in between an obliger and the one who can just do it without…

AO: The upholder… 

EE: …the upholder. But I think it varies like based on the task. Chad, my husband, absolutely upholder. Like if he says, I'm going to run the LA marathon this year, he'll just do it. No practice. Like he doesn't, I would be training for like five years.

AO: Right?

EE: It's also like it's not deeply important to me that I run a marathon. But if he says he's going to do something like he's so good at holding himself to his own promises and that's enough for him. Me I can do that with a lot of stuff. I don't need any accountability in business or accomplishing professional goals because I think like the achieving the goal is its own reward for me and that's exciting enough to keep me going. But it is like with things like, I mean, I'm not kidding. You even going to the grocery store, like I need a buddy. Let's go run these terrible errands together because I will never do this on my own. I just don't want to.

AO: Well, I realized, you know, you just get to know yourself better, right? And I just think getting to know yourself better will result in a high confidence and high self-esteem and putting in the practices that you can to help yourself. I didn't realize growing up or like once I was on my own, so in the last 20 years, somebody would come over and then I would clean the house and

I was like, that is a weird thing that I do. They're like, can you come over? I just want to clean up my closet. I just need somebody sitting there. But yeah, anytime that would happen. So then once I did a deep dive into this process that Gretchen put forward, it just gave me so much more ownership over being able to achieve what I needed to achieve or do what I want to do, knowing my personality, well, not my personality type, knowing my accountability type because it's not necessarily a personality type, those four; it's more how you hold yourself accountable, which to me has been really, I mean, I have my daughter do it sometimes now where I'm like, okay, 15 minutes, we're going to go clean your room. We'll do it together, but 15 minutes, wo we can make it fun. And so she starts to get into the practice of doing it in small bites versus waiting two months in it, taking four hours, you know, to overwhelm me.

EE: That's not fun anymore. Do you know what her accountability type is yet?

AO: I don't. I'd be interested. I wonder… I would love to do a deep dive on it more to see like kind of when those archetypes come into play. Right? So are you kind of born that way? Are you nurtured that way? You know, once we were done cleaning, it was funny because my daughter in her room, she's like, this is so great, mom. This is cool. I found this one thing that I was I can't believe I haven't played with this and forever. She was so elated, which I share in that joy, right? When you guys left, I was like, Oh, this is just wonderful. So we like that. I don't know. But I would, I would say probably an obliger. I'm probably raising a little where she really wants that outward accountability when it's and not to say that she couldn't do it herself; she might float between that and an upholder, I would say, because she does go and sit and do kind of her own activities for own play, but she's still so young. So we'll see.

EE: How old is she now?

AO: Seven.

EE: Oh my goodness. So sweet. Have you heard? So I think it's… I actually don't know what it's called. I'll have Adriana look up the actual name for this type of role and we'll put it into the show notes, but for people with ADHD, they offer it's like a buddy and they maybe it's even called an accountability buddy, but they literally just fit with you while you do things like your homework or, you know, apply for jobs and all of these tasks that might be a little bit more difficult for some people to get through on their own. And they've that there's like so much science-backed research that says, when you just have someone sitting next to you, not even interacting just their physical presence, you're able to relax and get into the task and I've published so much more.

AO: It's so interesting to say that my sister has ADHD. I didn't think I had it growing; up in the last few years… I don't know if it's a defense mechanism also I've done a lot of deep dive study on ADD and where we think it really comes from. And in my opinion, it's a little bit of research. It's kind of a trauma response where we don't want to be doing that one thing. So switch, switch, switch, switch, switch. So we don't fully feel -- that's one theory around ADD. So in the last few years of my life, you know, I had to really restructure my life so I was seeing a lot of like, that's too intense to feel right now, let me go do this. Let me go do this. Let me go do this. But now I'm in a habit where I, you know, I'm dating somebody and they were really great at reflecting. They sent me a great video. I'm sure it's gone viral where it's a woman who's cleaning her house who has ADD and she's like, I'm going to, I love butterflies. I'm going to open this. I'm going to jump up. She's so passionate, right? And having all these ideas and not completing or finishing cleaning at all.

I feel that so deeply now where I'm like, okay, I have to finish the podcast episode. Oh, I got an audition... Oh, I'm teaching members over here... What did she need that?... I'm just so inundated that I almost kind of created this ADD and I will sit with a partner all the time, even when I'm doing writing, even if we're not writing the same thing. I have a girlfriend down the street where I'm like, what writing hours are you doing this week? And we'll sit and do three to five to six hours and I'll finish it with her. And then if I, if so, I think again, it just has, you have to know your types; you can actually feel, feel good and assist yourself in the best way possible because we don't need to necessarily do it all alone. I love the upholder, kudos to the upholder. I think it's great. I wish I could have more of that. But then I really love being in community. I like sharing that experience. I like being distracted with the person that's there so that if it's an activity I don't necessarily want to do, like cleaning out my closet, I'll still do it because my attention is somewhere else, you know, with my friend.

EE: Yeah. 

AO: …Talking about whatever.

EE: I do think also so much of life, I think I'm like you, I like being in community. That's, it's just so special like so much of life is more enjoyable when you're sharing it with a person that you, you know, are really fond of whether that's a romantic partner, a friend or a child. It's just, I don't know, more interesting and enjoyable, you know, like I literally… people would just laugh so hard if they saw the lengths I would go to to avoid running an errand. Like anything I can do, I will get so creative and spend so much more time trying to get out of doing something than actually just going and doing the thing but if somebody was with me, no problem. I'd be like, yeah, let's go to the bank. Why not? Let's go in and we'll talk to the teller. It's going to be a dream.

AO: Right. 

EE: But if I had to do it alone, I'd be like grading the kids piggy banks. Like can I come up with enough cash without having to go anywhere so that I don't have to do this thing? I have no idea why I'm just like so adverse. I think I've even done this from like, I have streamlined my schedule so much or like I'm so fiercely protective of my schedule that when these like unexpected like seemingly trivial little things pop up, they just annoy me to such a great extent where I'm like, this isn't my hope for my life to run errands, you know, my hope for my life is to like find my way and all of these things and running errands does not bring me joy. 

AO: Yeah, I also have a procrastination analysis that I've been doing where I'm like, that's so interesting that I love to put it off, put it off, put it off, put it off until it's like, I have to do it and I have to do it today. You know, that extremism? I'm kind of starting to just observe in myself where I'm like, why did I wait to finish that course or why am I waiting to work on this audition right now? Why am I doing the dishes instead of doing this? …Just so I can understand what I'm doing, but I do, I like the adrenaline rush of a procrastination. I've come to realize that since college, since even maybe before that, I'm organized, but I do like pushing myself up to the wall and I create from that space a lot when I'm writing emails, when I'm writing for myself, if I put myself up to that wall, what ends up coming out, I love, but I don't, I could with, I could do without that feeling of like, oh, I have to go run errands. Oh, I have to go do that. I have to, oh, I have to go put this down. I have to go do whatever. I'm trying to get beyond that part of it. Still understanding that I like that surge of like adrenaline, like I got to get it done at two o'clock. Here we go. Right? 

EE: I think that's so insightful though, that you know yourself well enough to know that the procrastination is serving you in some way. You know, like, if you're being able to be more productive and you're, you're creative, you're liking the result of it, then you know, it doesn't seem like it's a bad thing at all.

AO: It's just the lead up, the anxiety of the lead up I need to get rid of. That's what it is, you know, the idea of being like, I have to run that errand I have to run that errand I have to do that thing. I need to remove that where it's like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to do this the last minute. We all know we're going to do it the last minute. So let's just agree to not freak out. It's going to get done at the last minute.

EE: Yeah. I've gotten a lot better at also just not doing a thing. Like looking at my to do list. I mean, I have a to do list that I look at constantly. Also, that's just, that's how I run the business. And now the podcast and we're soon to launch our first brick and mortar store. And so just keeping all of these huge projects, you know, streamlined, it's like I spend all of my working hours looking at various to do lists and so often I will just zoom in on things and then be like, okay, no, I'm just not going to do that. It's not going to happen and it just doesn't matter. Like I don't have time or I don't have the passion or we don't have the resources or people will come to me with great ideas and that's my response now is like, okay, add it to the list of like potential projects that we'll talk about in the future but it's not for now. Otherwise, I feel like I would never get anything done.

AO: That's sometimes how I feel. Do you have a certain operating system that you guys all use to streamline and be organized. What do you use? I'm curious because I've been doing a deep dive on some of the.

EE: It's called a Asana. I mostly love it. I would recommend it to people. It's so easy to have a different project board for every individual part. Like administrative tasks or podcasts or client projects. And then all the stuff for setting up a brick and mortar store, which is wild. I don't know what happened to me in the last six months, but I was like, I mean, last year if you asked me, do you want to take on any more work? I'd be like, no, I'm good. Like, let's just keep everything exactly how we are. And then I woke up one day and was like, we should have a podcast. And then the next time I was like, we should have a brick and mortar store.

AO: Well, in creativity, I call that, I call that the mountain-ocean effect where it's like when you're in the woods …and you moved last year, right?

EE: Oh yeah, renovated a whole house, I mean, it was like, we just did everything all at the exact same exact same moment in time. But that's, I think how like talking about me getting to know myself, I realized that I work very much in seasons. And I think last year I was just wintering, you know, and I was like, I'm not super motivated to do anything beyond what I'm already doing but I also don't find a lot of happiness in those moments. It can be quite frustrating for me to be not feeling productive and curious and learning something new. And so it was actually a bit of a struggle. And then thank goodness, I woke up one day and was like, winter is over.

AO: Spring has sprung. 

EE: I'm like, I'm going through spring and we're going to go right into like the peak of all the activity. And it feels great, truly, like I wake up every morning and I'm so rather than feeling overwhelmed, it's like, I feel energized and curious and interested and there are certainly parts of it that are more frustrating than, you know, fun, like all the permits for signage for a storefront. You know, we're like, who's passionate about getting permits from the city? But I still look at that as like, well, I've never done it before so it's going to be something that's new that will now be a skill set that I own for the future if needed.

AO: Yeah, I think people forget that spring is still laborious. It's like the flowers are blooming, everything's in bloom, but it's still raining on certain days. It's still like you still having to like figure out all this newness, right? That's what I always talk about creativity. It being in seasons or I use the mountain analogy. Are you in the woods right now? Are you looking at the ocean? And we go around the mountain all the time till we get to the top. You just happen to be in the woods at a shorter amount of time at the top of the mountain than you do at the base, right?

You can live there longer or the seasons when I teach acting. It's like, you know, a lot of actors, myself included, I will start to have moments of panic or disbelief or just tired, exhausted because you're always, you have to push your own ball up the hill all the time. But if you're in winter, it's like just let yourself rest. You're not feeling as invigorated. You're not feeling as creative. Everything feels tired, slushy. And then all of a sudden spring will come around the corner and then, you know, auditions are going, your creative well is so, you're so nourished that you're having great ideas. It doesn't mean that they're all going to get executed. Summer, whatever's being executed as really fully bloomed. And I really like using that as an analogy because I don't think that we can live our lives just in winter all the time or just in spring all the time. It kind of crushes us. Sometimes living in LA is sometimes hard. Lately, we feel more seasonal, right? With the weather. But when it's sunny all the time, it's hard. I take rainy days in LA as holidays.

EE: Oh, yeah.

AO: Like that's my designated winter. I'm like, I don't think anybody should work today.

EE: Yeah, I'm going to have to call it. I mean, we're not nothing that exists in nature as intended to live with only one season. You know, we have to go through these things. And I think it's only as like an older that I really appreciate the winters and, you know, all of the seasons, I guess, equally. But maybe like in my 20s, winter felt hard or like you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, you kind of just live in this tunnel vision of it's always going to be this way or everything is always going to be, you know, just feeling kind of blech, and now I have to remind myself, like, you know, even some days, like if Chad and the kids are gone and I want to watch a movie in the middle of the day, like I used to feel so guilty for that. And now I'm like, no, I'm going to do nothing but watch movies today. And it's going to be my day because my soul deserves this moment of like recharging and not planning for the future and not running a household and a family and businesses and all of these things. But just to like veg out and do nothing and rejoice in that because, you know, I'm lucky enough to have the choice to do that and the option and the opportunity.

AO: we need to. We don't value rest as much and being as a creative, it's been really interesting for me at creative entrepreneur, I would say, but really putting in the creative hat, I have to rest in order to be inspired again. So when I've worked on multiple shows or if I've gone from character to character to character, I need a second to take to take stock of my own life, to take stock of my own experiences so that I can infuse myself again with some sort of inspiration. Otherwise, I'm just dead, but I have a hard time resting. So I've been, I've been using the great slogan of like, just for today…, just for today, I can lie down and I can watch and maybe it's okay, it doesn't mean anything about the future. 

EE: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think it's so similar, like how we feel about creating space in our homes and you know, you even said at the beginning of this chat, like you, if you need, you needed to do something creative or be productive in some way, your go to is always like, how do I put my house in order first? And it's the same, like creating opportunity for our bodies and our minds to rest is what is going to bring forth that opportunity for us to come up with a new idea or to feel like we're capable of taking on a new project and when we do that in our homes, when we're clearing out space, it's, you know, we're doing the same thing for our physical surroundings. Like you can't thrive in an environment where you have no room left for opportunity. So when we even just clear off like a one counter or clear out one little drawer, it's like these little acts of, of creating space for something new to come in, whether it's a literal physical object, or more metaphorically, like just for the energy to be open and have these possibilities of something new. And you know, that's very much like feng shui and all of those things in your home. Like your physical surroundings, it's all just energy. And if you want to change the path of your life, then change the energy that's flowing around you and make sure it's all moving, you know?

AO: Yes, I literally made a list yesterday. I'm like, okay, these are the places I need to clean out right now because I'm feeling that I'm feeling a sense of needing to purge to create newness. And right now I can't create any newness because everything is impacted at this moment, like

buy things or, and just things that you don't need anymore. It feels like I'm wondering too, if you have that very, you guys are so great when you come into the space of organizing, like let's just say, I don't know, glassware for some reason, like all the glassware, right? Okay, so you have two of this one, six of that one, one of these, you start to see how much of everything that you have, because I think a lot of times too, I grew up, I did not grow up affluent at all. My, I was in a very poor way. We had multiple jobs at different times so I hold on to things, even groceries. I will overbuy -- a full fridge for me feels really secure but then I won't use all the food, right? There's only two of us here. So I've had to get into a better practice of emotionally understanding what I'm holding on to by holding on to all of this stuff. So I don't feel like I'm in lack. So creating the space sometimes makes me feel, I can feel that there's space.

EE: Yeah.

AO: And I've had to identify that that space does not mean lack. That space is actually abundant and fully everything that I need is right here.  Right. So I've even noticed on my shoe rack the other day. Yeah, no, that I was like, there's no empty spots here anymore. This is not okay.

EE: No more opportunity for new shoes.

AO: Yeah. Exactly! Must purge, ready for the purge. And I need hand holding to do it. Do you have a hard time with people who have a hard time? Do you notice that other people have a hard time in the reorganization, or even I could just say organization, a lot of time people aren't even organized. They don't even know that they have seven different types of glasses towards all poured out and put in front of them.

EE: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And that's why, you know, I think probably every organizer will tell you the first place you start is always pulling everything out, put it into categories so you can see what you truly own. It becomes even more complex when you have someone who may be like, they've outgrown their closets and now they store some of their stuff in a secondary bedroom or they have a storage unit somewhere or their stuff in their garage. And you really don't know the full weight of what you own until you see it brought from every space and you have it sitting in front of you. It's funny because I have the same urge, I think it's a very universal feeling that like you want to put some sort of structure to chaos when you feel like you're out of control in your life, right? This is why organizing is so soothing for the soul, especially for people who tend towards anxiety. You have control over like, I'm going to organize my desk today and it's going to be exactly how I want it. And that helps us get through that feeling. And then it also gives us the confidence of like, well, if I could work through the anxiety in that way, then I can also tackle this thing over here. This is why I say organizing is always about so much more than just making your home look beautiful. It really is the emotional aspect. So then you have someone like me like I have nothing left to eliminate from my home. I've basically stopped purchasing things new altogether. And now people know me well enough to be like, bring me flowers or something. I don't need like a physical object that's going to live in my house forever. And so when I get that overwhelming feeling or like I'm starting to feel anxious about something and I want to go organize and like, well, now what the fuck am I supposed to do? Like there's nothing over.

AO: Be my accountability partner, Elsa please! 

EE: I don't want to like take over my kids' rooms and be like, I'll redo your closet because I think it's important for them to learn that skills. But that's where you know, now I have to start doing that for myself, you know, and that's it's hard. It's like, why am I feeling this way? So talking about like not avoiding your emotions, organizing is such an easy way for me to not deal with the source of why I'm feeling uncomfortable to begin with and so now it is more focused on like what's going on with my emotional landscape, where do I need to just like sit and deal with something? Or is there something I need to get rid of here? Is there, you know, a lingering thought or something that's not serving me that, you know, I can't just get rid of my glassware.

AO: Right? That's not really going cut it at the end of the day. I know.

EE: I know. I talk about organizing as sort of being like the layers of an onion and the physical clutter is round one. And once you have that under control, then you move into this emotional landscape and the things that are a little trickier to spot your habits and to see where you might be holding on to something that's not serving you, like, you know, this mentality of I have to really hold on to things in case in the future I have nothing. We actually see this, you know, fairly often I think that's probably one of the core roots of why people hang on to things that and then also like the fear of losing a memory is probably second. Where it’s like I have to hold on to this because I won't remember that I took this vacation with someone or I won't remember my parents who now have passed away so I have to keep everything that they ever owned, you know, and it's tricky. This is where you start dealing with the emotions and not the actual physical objects.

AO: When I think also with the emotions too, to what I've realized in my process is becoming, I accept that you're going to be uncomfortable in the transition, right? So I always go with what do I need to accept in order to become fully into awareness of it. So just using the cups for an example, it's like, oh, wow, I have, just accepting that I have too many cups right now. Okay.

I have too many cups. Then the awareness of like, oh, I have seven different types of cups right now and then taking the action, of purging them but then the final step that I don't think a lot of people talk about is initially you're going to be uncomfortable. I'm going to be uncomfortable letting go of those seven other different types of glasses. I can be uncomfortable for a second so that I can step into a new level of comfort.I can step into a new awareness of like, I can break that old belief pattern of in two years, I'll still have, I'll have enough cups for anybody that comes into my house. It's okay. Just for today, I only need 4 cups, I don't need eight or 12.

I don't really need it. So, but I have to work through the uncomfortableness of what it served me in the past so I can actually really let it go and I can change and also not be self-sabotaging after you guys did the house so beautifully, I maintained it, I would say probably for a solid year.

EE: That's awesome

AO: …in that organization. And now it's the last six months of things have gotten really busy. I was out of town. Things stopped. I wasn't physically here. So, things got more cluttered or pushed in places that now now I need to do a full winter. I need to do a cleanse. I need to hibernate stay at home, get myself organized again because it does, it really I so much goodness came after we created so much space in my life. A new relationship came in, a new job came in, pets came in, so much came in that I was …so weighed down in my previous incarnation of space and places and things, so creating that space, I think people are so scared to go there. And then once you go there, it's just the abundance of what flows in in that space.

EE: Yeah.

AO: There's no other way to say it's just beautiful.

EE: I'm so happy for you. I still remember getting the text from you that you like found a handsome, significant other and was like, yes. 

AO: Which I want to put it on the record, came from clearing. He literally, I was selling stuff on OfferUp and he came to get some of the stuff. So he literally came to my doorstep because I was letting things go.

EE: Oh my gosh, like too good to be true.

AO: …like a hallmark movie.

EE: That's so sweet. Oh, I'm happy for you. You deserve all the wonderful things in life. What is it that you are working towards this year? And I'll say that more succinctly, we are chatting with everyone on the podcast about like, is there one word, one feeling, one sentiment, like something that's sort of like your organizing principle for this year? Like I want to feel… or be… this. 

AO: I have two things I'm working with, but they're totally in opposition of each other, which

is kind of funny. So balance and abundance, balance for me, you know, I was running really hard the last few years to create things to survive. Coming out of a very difficult situation, they say, you know death, divorce and moving. Well, I had two out of the three. So getting myself to a place where I felt like my ground was underneath me, now it's all about balance. I've created so many things. So balance and abundance and the abundance part for me is accepting a new way of thinking, so it's just abundance and thoughts, abundance.

I'm trying to really work with my, you've heard a lot of the things I'm reading, right? So I can understand myself. I can understand the way that I'm thinking. And my other thing is no is a complete sentence.

EE: Oh, yeah. It sure is. It's a beautiful sentence. 

AO: And I say, as an oblige, I say yes to everything. So then that affects my balance and that affects my abundance. So I've been trying to say no first instead of yes, which is an opposition of this whole abundant thing, but in saying no and creating boundaries, I've created a lot more space for wonderful things to come in for me to feel more abundant so I think they kind of all were six months in. And at the beginning of the year, I had a wonderful person who's in production. She came and scheduled my whole and she took all of my businesses and literally gave me a Monday through Friday schedule because as a creative, as an entrepreneur, like I can work 14, 18 hours a day. I'm in charge of all these businesses so having that structure, that was a hard boundary for me. No, I'm not available before 10 a.m. and no, I'm not available after this time. I was so uncomfortable for the first two, three months of doing that so I'm getting into a better flow. So those, yeah, balance, abundance, and no. 

EE: I love that. I don't think that they're in opposition at all. Obviously, “no” goes very well with balance and abundance because you can't just accept everything that the universe throw that you and then hope that it's going to be like your dream life. You know, you have to say no to the things that aren't for you so that you have more space for everything that you do want and what you're going after. Have you found like what are you, I guess, doing that you have found that's helping you achieve that feeling of balance other than like you talked about getting support with some of the businesses, which is awesome. Is there other stuff that you're doing too?

AO: The schedule for me was massive. It was really, really massive for me to be like, okay, these are the hours that I'm working. This specifically is what I'm working on every hour. Like right now we're on my lunch break so even when we were trying to schedule this, I was like, okay, this is the time. That has really, really, really helped me. Also I do things, um Atomic Habits was a wonderful book that I read last year that really helped my brain. I'm an all or nothing thinking, right? So when I do something, I want to have it be 110% and I want it to be great that day. If we just do one thing a day, 1%, by the end of the year, we're 37% better according to atomic habits. So I was habit bonding a lot of things. So in the morning, I have my book next to me that I read first thing in the morning. It takes me 30 seconds, but it makes me feel good. It sets my day up.

I have a meditation that like once I go to make the coffee, there's a certain thing that I do there. I'm anchoring in things that help me in my mental state to things that I do every single day. So it's kind of helped me bring in some new ways of thinking and helps my nervous system calibrate so that if I can't finish the to-do list or if I'm slamming myself into a procrastination bubble that I do often, that I'm not wigging out in those moments before so I can stay grounded. I think a lot and I feel inspired. I do little moments during the day. They are very simple, but sometimes the most simple things we tend to procrast in doing by thinking that they're not going to give us the greatest outcome. And I've realized the simple things have given me some of the greatest outcomes in the last six months. So that book has been tremendous, tremendous help of, oh, I want to start a new workout regimen. Okay, let me find a buddy that can go at the time that's not in my schedule. You know? Just organization overall has really helped me, but those little things are putting them together because it takes, is it 21 days I think they said to form a habit and six weeks to make it concrete? So I've been trying to do things in bite sizes. Like I'm a part of a gratitude group, but we do it in 21-day cycles.

EE: Cool. 

AO: So just doing little things that help. 

EE: I love that. Yeah. After I learned about Atomic Habits I moved the book that I've been trying to finish for ages to the coffee table right next to where the TV remote is. So it was like, you don’t always have to grab the TV remote. Sometimes you could also just grab this book, but now there's no barrier to me reading; it's not like hidden on a bookshelf somewhere. It's like right there and plain sight. And same, I moved a meditation chair into my bedroom so that I could go from bed right to the meditation chair and there's a blanket there, a table next to it for a glass of water. Once I come downstairs -- because now I leave my phone downstairs -- I used to be one of those people who was like, I have to have it plugged in next to my bedside. But then guess what I didn't do first thing in the morning, hesitate. I instead was like, what's up Instagram? What are you doing? What did everybody do while I was sleeping? And then that's how I start my day. And it's like, that's not this is not at all in line with like my values and how I'm trying to create my ideal life, you know? And so those little changes they really do make such a big difference.

AO: Well, I think that was what was so impact- makes a huge difference. I think I mean, I've bragged about you guys to every single every time somebody's like, Oh, I'm moving. I have to do compose living because you guys also the way you organized my house is the way in which I function every day. Right? I need this here because it's what I use every day or I want to use this every day. I never set up my how my home to function that way in such a beautiful way. So I am literally more functional or functioning at the level that I want to function at again, so I can derive myself as seeing my confidence because I want to be doing these things. I want to be reading my book and I'm not so putting it next to the remote or getting into a accountability place, it allows me to complete these things that I want for myself. And I love that I really love. I would have never thought to do a lot of the things that you you guys so beautifully brought into my life that has literally made my life easier. So I'm so grateful. Grateful you're doing this podcast. I think it's a really great insight that a lot of times we kind of become robots. We're so nervous about AI, but we've made ourselves so robotic and so accepting of just this is just the way it's going to be, so you don't change it and then you're just miserable and you don't realize it's the simple things that can really change… be a massive change to your happiness day and day out.

EE: Absolutely. And I think we each have one journey that we're aware of, at least on this planet and this lifetime and I just wanted to be filled with only doing the things that make my soul happy. How can I say no to everything that's not that? And what a beautiful lesson to learn as we get older too. I love that that no is a complete sentence. It actually takes work for me to not qualify no with an excuse so I literally will be typing a response to someone and then I'm like, just delete that whole everything after I can't make it. And that's it. They don't need to know why it's nobody's business why. Like, you know, you don't need to make up a story. It's just, no is a complete sentence. 

AO: And to me, that feels a little gender biasing as in our raising. Little girls are constantly told to be accepting of what behavior they're given and to comply and always be like, Oh, yes… So it's really interesting to now shift in that as an adult to be like, no, I don't need to go to that party or I'm going to leave right now because I want to or just trying to get myself over making excuses, so I'm trying to raise a little girl that also she doesn't have to make excuses.

EE: Yeah.

AO: But even in raising her, I'd catch myself being like, what do you mean? No, why? And I'm like, never mind. Doesn't have there's no we don't need to why a little are no for you.

EE: Somehow it is harder with kids who are like, but I want to know. I want to know why. Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today, it's so nice to reconnect with you. I feel like from the moment I met you, I was like, what a beautiful human being this woman is and we're so happy to be able to be a part of your life, especially, you know, I have such a soft spot for single moms, having been a single mom myself for so long. I was just was so honored to be able to help you and your daughter through a move at the end of a tumultuous year and it makes me so happy to hear all the wonderful successes that have come your way since.

 AO: Thank you. Ditto. Elsa, thank you so much. You coming into my life at the time that you did was really serendipitous. And I'm so, so grateful. And you're on literally, like I said earlier, every time I talk to somebody that's moving, transitioning, wanting to just create a new essence in their home, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you have to. You have to check this them out. It's different than just going to the container store.

EE: Yeah.

AO: Which is so much value to be added to this way of thinking you should write a book. That's next. Put that in your Asana.

EE: Well we actually have… there is a project.

AO: Right! I cosign that on that.

EE: Let's just get these other big things out of the way. Our house renovation is almost complete - that was a major undertaking, that I was not emotionally prepared for. And I'm very excited for the podcast. It makes me so happy just to be in conversation with people who I find interesting and inspiring. And then on Friday, Friday of this week, I'm going to pick up the keys to our first ever brick and mortar space. And my dream for that is, you know, again, like we have no intention of becoming like a container store, like contrary to my belief system. Although we will sell some of the products that like we have tested throughout the years. And there's so much that's being made out of sustainable materials right now. And I really want to showcase that aspect of things but we're also going to have like workshops and events that are all just geared around teaching people, you know, teaching people how to organize their lives in a way that supports their vision for themselves and how to be more minimalist, whatever that means for you. I mean, I'm certainly not like a minimalist, but I think just being a conscious consumer and setting your life up in a way that's good for the planet and good for your own soul. So that's what I’m really the most excited about is just having people together in one space where we can have these conversations.

AO: Well, thanks for creating the space for us to start to have these conversations. This is so great. I really appreciate you having me. Thank you so much.