Please reach out to miley@harmoniouslivingateveryage.com if you cannot find an answer to your question.
Traditionally, life coaches work with individuals to set goals and make a plan to achieve those goals. Miley provides a more intuitive form of life coaching that looks at your skills and gifts and empowers you in overcoming obstacles to achieve the lasting change you're looking for in life. This method of intuitive coaching is combined with professional organizing to develop systems in your home that will help you look at your attachment to different things and hone in on what matters most. Once we figure that out, Miley will work with you to implement organization strategies that you can keep up with on a regular basis.
During your free consultation, we'll talk about what your plans are, what kinds of items you have and what's most important to you. At each decluttering session, Miley will visit your home for 2 - 3 hours and start some of the hands on sorting alongside you, coaching you through some best practices and helping you build trust in your decision-making when it comes to what you are willing to let go of. Don't worry - you won't be forced to let go of anything you aren't ready to part with yet! At the end of the session, Miley will leave you with some homework to complete for the week. If opting in to the virtual coaching sessions, these are a time to check in with you on your progress and develop the next week's to-do list. Depending on the size and pace of your downsizing project, you'll continue to have once monthly home visits and weekly virtual visits until you are ready to enter the maintenance stage.
Ongoing maintenance visits are offered as needed for existing clients and can be scheduled anytime you feel like you need to "re-up" your organizing systems.
If you don't feel comfortable with technology to engage in virtual visits, let us know! We can help set up virtual visits that are super easy to use!
We serve the Portland, Oregon Metropolitan area including the following counties: Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Columbia, and Clark.
Most likely, yes! I love receiving referrals from loved ones. Many times, family members can get frustrated with their loved ones because they don't understand why they don't just "get rid of it all!" Sometimes working with a professional instead of a loved one can reduce some of that contention and allow family members to be in more of a supportive role, while the person doing the downsizing goes through this challenging task.
It is crucial that the person needing to downsize must be in a place where they are open to changing their habits and ready to start letting go. I do not remove items that the individual is unwilling to part with and cannot perform a "cleanout" of their items (as you may have seen on TV). Research shows that this is not a long-lasting method for de-cluttering and can actually have detrimental impacts on the person's wellbeing. My process can be slow, but this is intentional - to create longer lasting results and form new habits to carry your loved one forward in this journey. If your loved one is ready to start downsizing please have them reach out to me!
People who struggle with too much stuff, may actually have a mental health disorder known as Hoarding Disorder. The Diagnostic & Statistical Manual (DSM-5) lists the following as the diagnostic criteria for Hoarding Disorder:
1. Persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions, regardless of their actual value .This difficulty is due to a perceived need to save the items and to the distress associated with discarding them.
2. The difficulty discarding possessions results in the accumulation of possessions that congest and clutter active living areas and substantially compromises their intended use. If living areas are uncluttered, it is only because of the interventions of third parties (e.g., family members, cleaners, or the authorities).
3. The hoarding causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (including maintaining a safe environment safe for oneself or others).
4. The hoarding is not attributable to another medical condition (e.g., brain injury, cerebrovascular disease, Prader-Willi syndrome).
5. The hoarding is not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder (e.g., obsessions in obsessive-compulsive disorder, decreased energy in major depressive disorder, delusions in schizophrenia or another psychotic disorder, cognitive defects in major neurocognitive disorder, restricted interests in autism spectrum disorder).
If the criteria is met to be diagnosed with Hoarding Disorder, it is highly recommended that the individual seek treatment by a mental health professional with expertise in this area.
Coaching and professional organizing can be very helpful in aiding a person with Hoarding Disorder by implementing strategies and systems that will help the person build skills necessary to reduce the amount of clutter and organize the items in their homes. However, they are not a substitute for mental health treatment and downsize coaches and professional organizers cannot diagnose or treat mental illness.
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