‘Crimbo Limbo’ Week: Former Borderline Hoarder offers help to clutterholics and hoarders during ‘Crimbo Limbo’ Week
As the nation prepares to celebrate Christmas for 5 short days, a former Borderline Hoarder from Banbury is offering free help to clutterholics and hoarders across the country who want to clear their clutter in 2021 and become one of the 8% of people who will succeed at achieving their New Years Resolutions.
Clare Baker, who is herself a former clutterholic and borderline hoarder, has supported clutterholics and Hoarders virtually from her shed at the end of her garden throughout the pandemic. As we face the prospect of going back to living under Tier restrictions from 28th December, Clare wants to help clutterholics and hoarders have something positive to focus on between Christmas and the New Year, what Clare calls ‘Crimbo Limbo’ week, to take their minds off the uncertainty of what’s going on with the pandemic.
‘Crimbo Limbo week is the week between Christmas and New Year that feels a bit like an endless weekend’ explains Clare. ‘You don’t know what day it is, you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing or where you’re supposed to be because you’re just waiting for the New Year to begin’.
‘Often Crimbo Limbo week is when we go and see friends and family, but this year is probably going to be very different. If we’re not careful it will be a time when our mental health, already fragile from a tough year, could spiral downwards with the prospect of more of the same in 2021 while we wait patiently for the vaccine rollout.’
‘Most of us are likely to be at home, staying safe so it’s an opportunity to start thinking about want we to achieve in 2021- our New Years Resolutions.’
With the prospect or more restrictions and lockdowns in 2021, Clare wants to help hoarders and clutterholics who want to make a New Years Resolution to clear their clutter in 2021 by giving them the support they need so they don’t feel lonely and isolated like she knows they have throughout the pandemic, while at the same time giving them something positive to focus on during Crimbo Limbo week to help maintain their mental health.
‘Too many people make a New Years Resolution to clear their clutter without having a clear plan of how they’re going to do that’ says Clare. ‘A New Years Resolution is all about changing something about our lives and the way we live. That’s going to take time to achieve, so if we want to succeed we need to have a plan of how we’re going to get started and stay motivated long enough to make those changes ‘stick’.
It’s a well known fact that 80% of people give up on their New Years Resolutions by Valentines Day, and only 8% of people succeed at achieving and maintaining their New Years Resolutions to the end of the same year.
That 8% didn’t just ‘wish’ their New Years Resolutions would happen. They made a plan and got help to stick to it.
According to Clare, the challenge for clutterholics and hoarder is that many of them have already faced significant struggles during the pandemic, so believing that they CAN turn it around in the New Year will be a challenge, especially with the ongoing restrictions and probable lockdowns that will mark the start of 2021.
‘Before the pandemic many clutterholics and hoarders survived mentally by getting out of their homes and away from their clutter on a daily basis, but obviously this year they haven’t been able to do that as much and their anxiety and depression levels have increased significantly’ says Clare.
‘Many of my clients don’t have functioning kitchens’ Clare goes on to say. ‘At a practical level this means that many of them have to go food shopping daily because their fridge or freezer doesn’t work, and many also have to go to launderettes rather than being able to stay home to do their washing.’
‘Before the pandemic, having to go out daily for basic supplies and services actually provided welcome relief from having to be at home with their claustrophobic clutter, but obviously that all changed back in March.’
It’s because Clare knows that clutterholics and hoarders have been struggling in silence that’s she’s inviting clutterholics and hoarders to join her on her free LIVE Crimbo Limbo week during which she’ll help them get a Clutter Clearing Plan together so they can confidently make a New Years Resolution to clear their clutter and ensure that by the end of the pandemic – whenever that may be – they have less clutter and more confidence whilst also maintaining their mental health.
Clare will help them during Crimbo Limbo week by joining them LIVE, via zoom to guide them through a practical exercise, and enabling them to share their experiences with others who are just as determined as they are to clear their clutter in 2021.
‘I don’t do blitz’s, I don’t tell people what to keep and what not to keep, I don’t need to go into people’s homes to help them. I help people get back control themselves, learn how to make decisions and break old, bad habits. I’ve been doing that virtualy for 10 years, way before the pandemic so I’m well practiced at it now’. Clare explains.
‘So far this year I’ve helped people in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and even Japan and Dubai clear their clutter. And I’ve done it all from the shed at the end of my garden.’
Clare’s 7 Secret of Success for anyone wanting to succeed with their New Years Resolutions, whether it’s to clear their clutter or anything else are:
- A New Years Resolution is like setting yourself a goal of eating and elephant. And how do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite. Break down your New Years Resolution – the elephant – into manageable bitesize pieces and take one at a time.
- Understand the BENEFITS of having your clutter. Unless we understand WHY we have our clutter and find an alternative way to keep those benefits, we’ll never successfully clear it forever.
- Get a clear goal. So you want to clear your clutter – why? How specifically will your life be better if you clear it?
- Accept that because your New Years Resolution is going to enable you to change your life for the better, you’re going to need to LEARN the skill of how to do whatever it is you want to do and you’re going to make mistakes as you learn – and it’s OK to make mistakes. The trick is not to let the mistakes make you give up.
- Be accountable to others to make sure you ‘do the doing’ so you don’t procrastinate or give up and you have the support you need to keep going through the mistakes and tough days and weeks that you’ll inevitably have. The classic example is joining a gym. You’re much more likely to go to the gym if you have a personal trainer that you’re paying to help you and make you go rather than if you just ask a friend to go with you who you can make excuses to.
- Do a little and often. The minute you give all your time to trying to achieve a New Years Resolution you’re doomed to fail because it’s too much too fast. Pace yourself – this is a marathon, not a sprint.
- Record and reward yourself for your successes as you learn the skill and start to succeed. Start to appreciate the significant successes that are shifts in your thinking and habits as well as the big successes that you can SEE.
Clare is inviting clutterholics and hoarders to join her on her FREE ‘Crimbo Limbo LIVE Week’ – a daily LIVE zoom workshop that she’s hosting from Monday 28th December until New Years Eve.
It will enable determined declutterers to get her help to put a plan together so they come out of the pandemic – whenever that is – with less clutter and more space.
For anyone who wants to join Clare and other clutterholics and hoarders on her Crimbo Limbo LIVE Week, they can sign up for free at:
- https://journey.clutterclearing.net/crimbo-limbo-live-week
- search Clutter Clearing Consultancy on Facebook
- or find her youtube channel: ClutterClearing