Let Go and Breathe
A few months ago the University of Rhode Island Magazine reached out to me and asked if they could write a story about my organizing business. Me? Really? I couldn’t say “Yes!” fast enough. I’ll be sharing excerpts from the article, “The Emotional Power of Tidying Up”by Nicki Toler, in the next few blog posts. Thank you to the URI Magazine team (Nora, Cindy, Nicki, and Barbara) for telling my story!
Part I — Let Go and Breathe
Most of us spend our waking hours feeling overwhelmed. We have too much to do, too much to think about, and too much stuff—our actual physical possessions—weighing us down. Have you ever noticed how many items on our to-do lists are related to managing our stuff? Where did it all come from, and do we really need it?
Enter Marie Kondo, the decluttering guru who started a movement with her first book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Kondo’s novel approach did not focus on finding the perfect container, storage unit, or custom-designed closet. She wanted us to let go, to release things that were not serving us well—even if they were “still good” and we “might want them someday.” She wanted us to be able to breathe.
It actually was a life-changing message for Laurie, who lost her husband to cancer in 2010 when their daughter was only 7. When Lindemann read Kondo’s book, she realized that in addition to raising her daughter, working, taking classes, and dealing with grief, she was struggling under the burden of all the things her husband left behind. “To add to my grief, I had to admit that all these things weighed me down both mentally and physically. I understood that although they made my husband happy, they had the opposite effect on me.”
Lindemann was inspired by Kondo’s book and followed its guidelines to declutter her home—and she saw something different, something that worked for her. When she learned Kondo would be appearing at New York City’s 92nd Street Y, she hightailed it from her Rhode Island home to Manhattan for the event.
By the time the presentation was over, Lindemann was sold—and was the first to put her name on the Kondo mailing list. “That night, on the drive home, I was already thinking about how I could do what Marie Kondo was talking about,” she says. Before Kondo had even mentioned training consultants, Lindemann imagined she was one. She knew she could do it. A natural entrepreneur, she had worked for years in communications, design, and operations and was running her own web design business. But her interest in Marie Kondo’s approach was based on something deeper and more basic than her entrepreneurial spirit.
“After doing the process myself, I finally felt hopeful again. I felt a renewed sense of energy, of myself,” she says. “I wanted to help other people feel like I did.”
Now, five years after that trip to New York to see Marie Kondo, Lindemann is a certified master consultant, the highest level of KonMari™ certification. Her company’s tagline is “organizing without judgment,” and she works with people throughout New England, and beyond.