Julie Hilsen

Host

00:00

Life of Love. Life of Love. Life of Love Life of Love. Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another great episode of Life of Love, where we focus on living in magic and discovery, and today is no exception. I have a special guest. She’s a multi-book author, she’s an engineer and a mother. She has written her most recent book about decluttering, so we have a great opportunity to hear about not only decluttering your space, but also decluttering your mind and your spiritual aspects, so I’m really excited to learn. Thank you, Connie Ellefson, for being here. I’m so excited to hear about your work and your creation that you’ve presented and how it’s changing people’s lives. Thanks for being here. Thank you so much, julie.

00:52

Wow, I just discovered Marie Kondo. I was just like, oh, I never thought of keeping my socks rolled up in a ball and I never thought about treating my things with. She seems to treat things in a sacred way that everything is important, and so that ticked something off in me that I was like oh, I like the way she’s looking at the world. I like the way she looks at thanking something. It provided joy, but you’re not using it and so you let it go. You thank it and release it and the energetics of your material things. You know, she opened the world to my you know my perception of you know clutter, and made me examine how I’m dealing with things in my life. But you’ve taken one step further and I would really just love to hear how you were inspired. What brought you to clear the space and feel the rush to write that book? Great.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

01:51

Well, I grew up moving about every six to months to a year when I was a kid because of my father’s work, and so I get, we got used to traveling light. But then when I grew up and had my own family, then I just started accumulating possessions like we do. About five years after I left college with everything I owned in my car. Then it took we moved house and it took me and five big guys four and a half hours to put everything from our house into a giant moving van. So I’m like what happened? And I also loved every organizing book I ever read, which I read a lot of them and I would try the method and I would go along and I would get it about 90% done and then I would just stop. I would never go all the way. So I thought there must be something else going on than just the perfect method, because if that’s all it was, I should have had it handled a long time ago. So I realized that the emotional clutter behind the stuff clutter is probably much bigger, like the bottom of the iceberg and the stuff is the top. We just see all the stuff because it’s around us. We can see it and we don’t necessarily see what’s in our heart or mind, so unless we’re really good at paying attention. So we tend to blame that. And then we get frustrated because Marie Kondo who I love what she started and all the ideas that she put out, but she states one of her first sentences I will show you a way to downsize your possessions that will change your life. And basically she says you’ll never have to do it again. But it’s fluid, it’s a maintenance type thing, just like you wouldn’t say well, I’m going to work out once and declutter my body and I’m going to be good to go. For the rest of my life I’m going to eat one good meal and I’m going to be good to go. So it’s the same with our belongings, because we always keep getting new belongings in, whether it’s gifts or every once in a while.

03:50

We do have to buy something, even if we’ve gotten a lot more disciplined about not buying a bunch of stuff. So things are always going to come in our lives and it’s really hard to keep things tidy all the time and it’s not even healthy especially if you’ve got kids around to make that your main priority. So there’s lots of stuff that goes into it. I just thought we should have a book that covers all those things because they all relate to each other. Like if you feel really sluggish because you haven’t been getting enough exercise or whatever, you’re not going to feel like tackling the junk drawer or the closet or whatever, you’re just not going to feel like it. And then once you get, maybe have some exercise or you go for a walk, even you feel a little bit more energized and then maybe you’re like yeah, I think I will go ahead and work on those bookshelves or whatever you know. So it’s all interrelated and that’s the approach I took.

04:46

Plus, I try to make it fun because, let’s face it, it’s really really hard for almost all of us to let go of our things, and I think that’s a biological thing, it’s maybe some protection the more stuff I have, the more status I have, or whatever. Or you can’t get to me if you can’t get past my stuff, or who knows, who knows what the basis of it is. But they say that in your brain, if you have something and you’re trying to let go of it, it’s kind of like a little paper cut or there’s some actual pain registered in your brain, physical pain that makes it hard to let go of stuff, so it’s kind of a hurdle to get over, to get started. But then when you start feeling the rush of endorphins because it just feels so good, and I think I put those two together the feng shui energy that they say is released when we stir up our stuff and reorganize it and maybe straighten it up and leave some space between the books and so you’re not completely crammed into your storage area. You feel a rush of energy and I think it’s the same thing, that feng shui energy, you feel in your body too. So at the very end of my job of writing this book, I suddenly realized that when you exercise for half an hour I many times heard you start feeling dolphins in your body. It’s like pain killing chemicals. You just feel so good. And then I realized well, if you have a good cry about something, if you have an emotional release or like, as we were talking, you like to do the tapping and I do too you feel really exhilarated when you’re, when you’ve just been doing it for a few minutes, and it’s the same rush, it’s the same endorphins. So I’m like it’s all the same rush, so it’s just all came together at once and I I’m looking at.

06:48

You Heard about an experiment that Dr Joe Dispinza did. He wrote one of his recent books it’s called Becoming Supernatural, which is not about the paranormal. It’s just about all the things humans can do that they don’t realize they can do. So many powers we have, and yet 120 people on a four-day seminar. They were asked to spend 10 minutes three times a day putting themselves in a high vibrational emotional state like gratitude or love or happiness, whatever. And then at the beginning and end of the four days, he tested them for immunoglobulin A, which is a protein that says this is how strong your immune system is right now, and it had gone up an average of 50% in four days from 30 minutes a day of being happy. And he said this is way stronger than any flu shot or vitamin C or something else that you would take, and it’s all within your body. So that was just like that’s what I’d like people to know.

Julie Hilsen

Host

07:51

Yeah, well, that’s just, there’s so much there. There’s so much there and it’s timely, because my friend was just telling me she got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, which is an overactive thyroid and it compromises your immunity, and so, like this, is interesting how these topics just sort of swirl around each other, and it also begs it to the question about the whole idea that everything’s connected. So if your environment’s cluttered, your mind is probably cluttered too, because if you’re not recognizing the physical 3D cluttering, then you’re not recognizing what’s cluttering your mind and your psyche. With your engineering background, it sounds like you did a lot of research and psychology also to write this book. That is very thoughtful how you put it together. Well, thank you very much.

Engineering, Research, and Spiritual Decluttering

Connie Ellefson

Guest

08:45

Mainly, I put that stuff in for people that need to hear about the science. To me it’s very intuitive, but I just like to cover all the bases and there are people that want they want to know what the data is and the research. So that’s why I put that stuff in, just for people to know that it isn’t just woo-woo Kind of like the tapping. There’s so many scientific studies about that now that show how effective it is and it’s very physical. It feels like it’s kind of a strange thing, but it’s very physical and it’s just like the connection from your mind to your body is just right there. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure everybody had their chance to understand.

Julie Hilsen

Host

09:35

Right, it’s a functional thing. People can say, oh, I’m cluttered and it’s easier to work on that first and then have. Even you can have grace with yourself, because sometimes I was watching that, marie, and I’m like, oh my goodness, it’s a little harsh. And then you told me that it actually causes a tear in your brain tissue.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

10:05

No, it doesn’t actually cause the tear, but it’s a feeling of pain in your brain. It’s similar to like a paper cut or a mild burn or something like that.

Julie Hilsen

Host

10:15

It doesn’t hurt your brain, it just feels like it is it just feels like it is yeah, yeah, I don’t want to. Oh gosh well, thank you for clarifying, because I’m thinking about oh my gosh, you’d have to take your time. Yeah, like you can’t do a whole closet, you’ve got to take your time, honey, because that’s going to be painful. Yep, yep.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

10:32

The first one is the hard ones, but then it gets easier. And the funny thing is the first part of February, Marie Kondo, who’s now either has had or is about to have her third child, has decided that decluttering is not her top priority anymore right now, because she’s realized that the kids take so much time and energy and she wants to spend it with them.

Julie Hilsen

Host

10:57

So circle things around and you know sometimes you know it’s the phases. Like you said, it’s a cycle. You know we’re cyclical and you know sometimes it’s just darn fun to make a mess. You’ve got to be in the moment sometimes, exactly, exactly, yeah. So I know that it’s really helped me to.

11:22

It’s not so much clutter to me lately, it’s more being a conscious consumer and you know I try to recycle and my recycle place you can’t put glass in. So I just started going to the city recycle because I’m not going to pay them to come pick up my recycles at the street because I can’t recycle half my recycles, the glass I got to go to the place anyway to recycle and I’m not going to throw in the trash because that goes against my ethics, right, and I just when I don’t buy, like I’ll look at the packaging lately and I’ll be like I think I’m going to buy something else because this packaging is insane when you have to cut through the plastic cover to get to the product that is going to be fine, like it doesn’t need a plastic cover. So I’ve started to really appreciate companies that are mindful in their packaging and just you know, think of ways where I don’t have to buy something else. Think about repurposing, because, well then, you walk a fine line when you repurpose stuff, because then you’re like, oh, I’m going to keep this jar because I might be able to use it for this. Like, if you don’t have a specific place to store these jars or these empty containers, then you could go down another hole, right, and you’re hoarding containers, right, right, it’s definitely an exercise in discipline and awareness and it takes a lot of time. It really does. But then you feel good about Mother Gaia when you help take care of her. So really, it’s a cool space to be in, right? I don’t know Every time I throw a glass bottle in the recycle bin. It’s just, it’s fun. And they say, when glass breaks, it’s like an energetic release, you know, and even the mausoleum top when you break glass, you know that tradition of you’re starting something new because you’re breaking something to a thousand pieces. So I just I find it therapeutic to dump the glass into the big container and hear the rattle, and everyone at the recycle place is always in a good mood. It’s always a fun place to be.

13:36

How did you come about? I said you were realizing that it’s an emotional thing to declutter and that you need to clean out spiritually. So I was wondering what are some symptoms that you might need some spiritual detox? Or, you know, I like to say emotional cleansing. You know everyone’s doing cleansing, but you know your emotional body needs cleansing too. Is that mostly? Did you realize it when you started tapping that you had all this stuff, energy? Or how did you come about the spiritual or in the emotional part of the decluttering?

Connie Ellefson

Guest

14:10

I think it was just I started. I started going to chiropractors when one of my when my older son, was young, he had, he had some back trouble. So and some of the some of the chiropractors did emotional releases. They call it neuroemotional technique and it’s similar to tapping, except it’s much more. They have to take a lot of training to do it. And so my chiropractor would, without even really touching me it’s more of an energetic thing he would.

14:39

He would release stuff that was stored in my nervous system that I wasn’t even aware of, and and and they they trace it back in your, in your history, to something that might have happened when you were five. And you might remember something that happened when you’re five that you know, maybe even wasn’t that traumatic, but you just took it wrong. And so they get, they get rid of it, and all of a sudden you’re like, oh, it feels so good, even just a chiropractic adjustment. You can feel the energy coursing through your body. So it’s. It’s very interesting how it all kind of feels the same. Another thing I learned from Dr Dispenzo was he calls it chakra blessing massage, and that’s where you pretend like you’re bringing energy from outside your body into your lowest chakra. Are you familiar with those. Don’t wear the shock.

Julie Hilsen

Host

15:33

Seven yes, your root chakra.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

15:38

And then you pretend like you’re bringing that energy up to the next chakra and you pretend like you’re bringing more in. So it’s all just kind of gathers and it keeps moving up your body and I’m like that feels really good. I would sometimes take 45 minutes to do that and I’d just be a bliss out and eventually I realized it’s just endorphins being released again. It could be serotonin or dopamine or you know, it could be any of the neurotransmitters, but I just call it endorphins because that’s easy to remember and a lot of people have heard of it. But it’s sort of been an ongoing journey of different sources that I’ve been energy healers I’ve gone to and I realized too this is the science part of it.

16:23

If you think about the theory of relativity from Einstein, he said E equals MC squared and so if you think about, no matter what your body weighs, the C part, that’s the speed of light. The speed of light squared times your body weight is the amount of energy in you and the speed of light is a very big number. So whether you weigh 100 pounds or 250 pounds, it’s still like the C is the big part. So you’ve got massive energy in your body and I thought surely that would be more powerful than a chemical, for example, even though chemicals are also energy. But it just kind of made sense to me. So I put the scientific part with the intuitive and the experiences I have with different energy healing techniques.

Julie Hilsen

Host

17:18

So did you believe that you activate the Kundalini? The Kundalini is that force up your spine of the energy that you visualizing that was affecting that could have been related.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

17:30

the two things. I never thought of that that way, but yeah, there’s, it’s.

Julie Hilsen

Host

17:37

I believe that that’s what you’re referencing. And people, people say, oh, kundalini, and they think it’s always like sexual or something. But no, it’s just, it’s just energy up through your spine, like when you’re coupling it up through, and and we have, you’re right, we have so much magic in us that it’s just a matter of saying, hey, think about it this way or try this. You know, just walk around barefoot. The electromagnetic current of the earth can bring that up. And you know I don’t know if you’ve ever been around lay lines that you knew about.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

18:12

I heard a little bit about it from a friend of mine once and I’ve even got some little wires that she gave me.

Exploring Energy and Higher Vibrations

Julie Hilsen

Host

18:19

She gave you the copper wires for the.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

18:22

She said put it around the edge of your room, and I’m okay, surely, whatever you say, I’ll do it.

Julie Hilsen

Host

18:28

Yeah, but I mean, there are, there’s grids where there’s power centers, and you know, people do react to these lay lines and these, the connecting of the lay lines, and it’s not, it’s not coincidental that the pyramids are lined up along lay lines and then, like, there’s some monuments in Washington that line up with the pyramids in a certain shape, and it’s so. It’s so amazing how energy has been influencing us, and maybe it’s a lost science from the Egyptians or you know, maybe you know, I saw the pyramids have a burn hole of the middle. The one has a burn hole to the energy through. That pyramid gets so high that it burnt a hole.

19:07

Like you know, maybe we don’t have the whole story about the pyramids that they’re fancy tombs. You know, maybe, their energy they used to have crystals on top and they’ve taken the crystals down. So I just, I’m fascinated by energy and I just, you know, when you can, when you can take it down to you know how you’re processing energy and then think about how the all the energy is connected throughout the whole universe, then it’s just sort of blows your mind. We’re so small but we’re so mighty too. So I just, I love the idea of tapping into that, to that idea.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

19:48

Well, I do I have to do. One time a couple, three years ago, I was just so darn busy with my work that I have to that I couldn’t even stop to think about the last project. I needed to quickly jump to the next one. And then you get down to the end and you’re saving the file and you have to sort through it on your computer and for some reason, about three years ago, I started putting my hand up in the air like this my left hand when I was working away trying to save the file to just the right place, and it helped me focus like I could just. I could just come right here and not be distracted by anything around me. If I did that and one of my friends said, oh, you’re tapping into a higher vibration, I said, okay, whatever you say, but it worked.

Julie Hilsen

Host

20:35

You have a sense that you have a special ability to feel energy that not everyone can tap in the way you have intuitively, but your purpose is to raise awareness about it.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

20:48

Right, yeah, and it’s something I’ve developed, I don’t. Or when I was a kid, they my, my parents, especially my dad always said why are you so sensitive? And he met thin skinned. I get my feelings hurt at the drop of a hat, but I could also tell when people were feeling bad too. I could I just it would make me feel like oh, I better, you know, better be quiet, or whatever. So, yeah, I think I was that way, but I didn’t really realize it. I couldn’t put a name on it.

Julie Hilsen

Host

21:19

Yeah, we didn’t talk when we were kids. It wasn’t. We’re talking about empathy or empaths, or you know, I guess. I guess I did learn about empathy in a counseling class in high school, but we didn’t say anything about empaths. That wasn’t a thing. So, yeah, these things have been, they’ve been slowly uncovered and I’m really excited about the direction we’re going in, because even there’s there’s things happening in the astrological sense and you know, there’s comets coming through and we’re going into a photon belt and it’s cyclical, but it’s a lot of energy that our Milky Way galaxy is going through. So you know, who knows, this is going to be very useful to a lot of people. So congratulations on your book. I’m really excited to share it. I’m going to pick up the Kindle. He said it’s on special right now, so that would be a great. That’d be a great read for me, because I’m always trying to get through and prioritize the stuff around me, because I realize stuff sort of owns you. You don’t really own the stuff.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

22:25

Yes, one of my friends. She wrote a book called what the Soul Wants for Christmas. She lives in Jacksonville and she said in one of the things, who’s had a chapter on clutter? She said, if you need some help to get you started like a professional organizer or friend, that stuff is just sitting there, it’s not going to move itself and your life is ticking by and your time is going, you’re being unpleasantly hampered by inanimate objects and I said, boy, that really puts it into perspective. But it’s understandable. And the thing I want to mention, as you were talking about, we were talking about being sensitive. Some people are not that sensitive and that’s where the disconnect comes between different members of a household that are more or less sensitive to clutter, Like some people, just completely, they really do tune it out and we may think how can they do that when it bothers us so much? But it’s each person’s physiology, so that takes some negotiations too and it’s all a big process. You can look at life as a big science project, LESLIE.

Julie Hilsen

Host

23:30

KENDRICK, expressing your frustration in a calm, heart-centered way goes a lot further than being like you guys are swabs. I can’t believe we live like this and it creates this angst in your house when you just need to come at it Like this stresses me out. Can we try to clear off the counter every night before we go to bed? I can’t look at this and it makes me hurt. If you tell somebody this makes you hurt, they’re going to take a lot more seriously than you calling them names or projecting on them LESLIE KENDRICK.

Connie Ellefson

Guest

24:00

That’s a good line. I’m going to take that on the right thing down. Really good. I heard that the key with man is you say it would really help me a lot if you would take on this chore or whatever, Instead of how come you never wash the dishes or how come you never do the laundry. I really could use some help and it would help me a lot because men like to help and women like to feel. I mean the feminine is feeling and the masculine is doing, and I just saw this recently in another presentation. But when you’re always offering to help people, then you’re actually doing the masculine thing and if it’s a man, you may feel resentful if you’re being overly helpful, Like you’re not my mom.

Julie Hilsen

Host

24:46

LESLIE KENDRICK. Great and controlling. It can show up as controlling and men do not like that at all. I wrote about that in my book. I’m like that’s the surest way is to try to micromanage your man. It’s a great way to push him away and you’re just trying to bring him closer. And sometimes the harder you try to hold on to something, the less it wants to be with you. So just let it. Let it go and come and make it more exciting. And oh my goodness. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Men want to be the hero. Let them be the hero. Let them show how they. Let tell them how they can show up, you know?

Connie Ellefson

Guest

25:24

but the trick is doing it before you get frustrated Right so yep, it’s always an experiment, it’s always interesting.

Julie Hilsen

Host

25:35

You’re right and then you know, have compassion for yourself If it doesn’t go the way you wanted and you did scream at them or you lost it. You know, say I’m not proud of the way I did that. Can we try to do it better, because I don’t want to show up in this way? And then everyone can learn. You know, and, like you said, have the experiment, look at your life as an experiment and you get to. You get to relive it. You don’t have to do you know Groundhog Day. You don’t have to do it the same way every day. Free will is huge. Yes, well, thank you so much for your time in this and you know the whole idea that look at, look at how you’re detoxing, at least how you’re clearing out your mental clutter. It’s. I love the way you presented it. It’s approachable and just so practical.

Insights From 10-Minute Meditation

Connie Ellefson

Guest

26:24

So, thank you so much, oh, thank you, julie, and if I could mention my, I told you I had two favorite tips. One of them is the tapping and the other one is I talk about a 10 minute meditation where you just do nothing. We’re just sitting there looking out the window or whatever. You’re not praying, meditating, thinking, planning anything. You’re just kind of sitting there and you’d be surprised how, even in 10 minutes, what amazing insights come into your head. So I think that’s your higher self talking to you and you give it a chance, to the voice to come through.

Julie Hilsen

Host

26:56

So give it. You’ve given it space. I think you said if you, if you’re so cluttered, your higher self doesn’t have any room to exist. So that’s, that’s a great decluttering tip. Thank you, oh, that’s it. Yes, and it’s okay. It’s not indulgent to take 10 minutes for yourself. Good Lord, we deserve it. We do so much. Turn off the phone, turn off the TV, just do that. Thanks again, and I will put a link to your book on the in the show notes and it’ll be there for anyone who wants to go see. Do you have a website?

Connie Ellefson

Guest

27:33

Yes, it’s clearthespacecom. You can order my book through there. You can get a paperback copy signed by me if you want it sent to you. There’s links to some of the other podcasts that I’ve been on, so we’ll put yours on when it, when it comes out. Clearthespace.com.

Julie Hilsen

Host

27:52

Yes, I love it. Excellent Thank you, excellent, thank you.