Somewhere between mismatched socks and half-folded emotions, I realised I wasn’t decluttering my home — I was avoiding decluttering my mind.
I once found three unmatched socks and a forgotten dream in the same drawer. Guess which one I actually dealt with first?
That’s the thing about motherhood — you start out decluttering the house, and somewhere between purging old baby clothes and saving half-broken toys, you realise your mind is messier than your wardrobe.
We tidy up toys, inboxes, and pantries, but rarely pause to sort through the emotions we’ve shoved into mental storage boxes labelled “later”
Guilt, overwhelm, comparison — they all sit there, taking up space like last season’s jeans that doesn’t fit anymore.
Emotional decluttering isn’t about fixing yourself — it’s about gently sorting through what you’ve been carrying and deciding what still fits.
But what if decluttering wasn’t just about drawers and closets? What if it was about making emotional space — for calm, creativity, and the version of you who doesn’t run on crumbs and caffeine?
Read This Your Way
(Best enjoyed in order — but jump to what you need)
- The Closet of Chaos
- The Day My Brain Felt Like a Junk Drawer – my story
- The Discovery
- The Emotional Laundry Pile
- Step One – Take Everything Out
- Step Two – Try It on for Size
- Step Three – Fold with Care
- Step Four – The Joy Check (aka the Sanity Test)
- The Beauty of Breathing Room
- What Happened Next
- Let This Be Your Gentle Reminder
- If you skimmed, here’s what matters…
The Closet of Chaos
It started as a simple Thursday “organising session.”
You know the kind — the one where you tell yourself, I’ll just fold a few things, and three hours later you’re sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by chaos, holding up a top from 2012 whispering, Maybe I’ll wear this again.
But somewhere between the old jeans and outgrown teenage clothes, I realised — it wasn’t just my closet that was stuffed to the brim. My mind felt the same: bursting, tangled, layered with things I hadn’t touched in years.
Unspoken worries.
Half-forgotten goals.
Tiny resentments tucked away like mismatched socks.
Turns out, I’d been hoarding emotions the same way I hoard tote bags — “just in case.”
Every mental shelf was crowded: expectations I’d outgrown, guilt I didn’t need, and that invisible “to-do” list humming in the background even when I was supposed to be resting.
My external clutter was just a reflection of the internal one — only this mess didn’t fit neatly into donation boxes.
The Day My Brain Felt Like a Junk Drawer
my story
After ZenZen’s birth, my brain and my wardrobe were in direct competition for “Most Cluttered Space.”
Four frantic workdays, seven family-filled ones, and approximately zero breathing room.
Miemie — emotional, wise, and powered entirely by invisible battery — never stops talking or thinking. She’ll ask questions like, “Mum, how do feelings work?” right as I’m loading the dishwasher or mentally rewriting tomorrow’s to-do list.
ZenZen, meanwhile, is my tiny CEO — bossy, hilarious, and absolutely convinced that possession is ten-tenths of the law. Her motto? “All my things are mine, and all your things are mine too.”
Between the two of them, a full-time job, and a never-ending list of invisible tasks — lunches, laundry, lost shoes, emotional management — my brain became a junk drawer of half-finished thoughts and postponed feelings.
Even our goldfish looked overwhelmed.
If stress had a soundtrack, it would’ve been the steady hum of the fish tank bubbling behind me while I tried to think clearly — the domestic equivalent of white noise over a panic symphony.
And somewhere between the bubbles, toys, and crumbs, I realised I wasn’t just tired — I was mentally overcrowded.
The Discovery
Then one evening, while cleaning, I found my old journal — the one from before motherhood and adulthood rearranged my entire world.
Its pages smelled like ink and dreams.
I sat on the floor — somewhere between a pile of clothes and toys — and read words written by a version of me who used to notice sunsets, recipes, and the rhythm of ordinary days.
She felt… light.
Her pages were full of travel notes, stories, and half-sketched dreams.
Finding it cracked something open.
Miemie peeked in, noticed my tears, and gently asked,
“Mum… is that a sad cry or a happy cry?”
“Both,” I whispered.
She nodded, climbed into my lap, wrapped her little arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder like she knew exactly which part of me needed holding.
ZenZen toddled in, wiped my tears kissed my cheek, declared the notebook hers, and waddled away with it. Classic.
That night, standing in front of my wardrobe — baby monitor crackling, tea gone cold — I just stared.
Not at the clothes, but at the reflection of someone who looked like me but didn’t feel like me anymore.
That was my tipping point.
I realised maybe it wasn’t my wardrobe that needed sorting — it was my head.
So, I began. Slowly, gently — decluttering my mind, one shelf, one thought, one emotion at a time.
Clutter isn’t just stuff on your floor — it’s stuff in your heart that you’ve postponed feeling.
I remembered how writing used to make me feel alive. I started journaling again — quietly at first, between meal preps and bedtime stories. Those words became therapy, laughter, reflection.
As I began decluttering my thoughts, something new took shape: a spark to share these stories — the messy, meaningful, funny moments that connect us mums beyond the chaos.
That’s how Eat Play Travel with Sid truly began — not as a blog, but as a mirror. A place to rediscover myself through food, travel, writing, and a generous sprinkle of humour.
The Emotional Laundry Pile
There’s a certain mental load that mothers carry — the invisible list that never ends:
- Schedule the dentist.
- Buy milk.
- Reply to that WhatsApp message from three weeks ago.
- Remember who hates crusts and who loves ketchup.
- Pretend you’ve got it all together.
It’s like the mental equivalent of that chair in the corner — the one where clothes go to “rest” before they maybe make it into the wardrobe.
Every day, we pile more on — a worry about the kids, guilt about not exercising, anxiety about being enough. Add a pinch of comparison from social media, stir in a handful of deadlines, and voilà: you’ve got yourself a full emotional laundry basket.
Before you know it, your brain looks like that overstuffed drawer that won’t shut no matter how hard you push — full of half-folded feelings, neglected dreams, and self-doubt shoved to the back because “now’s not the time.”
The real problem? We keep trying to tidy the house when it’s our minds that need a clean-out.
Step One
Take Everything Out
Just like a proper wardrobe cleanse, the first step is dumping it all out.
Lay your thoughts on the floor of your mind — messy, honest, unfiltered.
The anxieties, the to-dos, the should-haves, the “why did I say that in 2014?” moments.
I didn’t edit. I just emptied.
It wasn’t pretty — it never is. But it was necessary.
Because when you pull everything out, you finally see what’s been taking up space — and what deserves to stay.
By the end of it, even the goldfish stopped swimming — like it knew something serious was happening.
Step Two
Try It on for Size
Every emotion, like an old outfit, needs a fitting session.
Ask yourself:
Does this still serve me?
Does this still feel like me?
Or am I just keeping it because guilt told me to?
Some emotions are like that itchy sweater you wear because it’s “nice” — but it doesn’t make you feel good.
Others are vintage — old dreams that still fit, even if you’d forgotten how fabulous they made you feel.
And then there are the jeans from your twenties — the ones that refuse to go past your knees no matter how much you tug.
They don’t fit anymore, and that’s okay. You’ve outgrown them.
Hold each one up.
Keep what fits your soul today.
Donate the rest to the universe — preferably with gratitude and maybe a dramatic sigh for effect.
I realised I didn’t need to keep guilt as a daily accessory.
I didn’t need resentment folded neatly in every mental drawer.
So, I kept what fits: compassion, gratitude, and humour — the holy trinity of surviving motherhood.
Step Three
Fold with Care
Now that you’ve sorted what matters, it’s time to put things back — gently.
Your priorities.
Your peace.
Your patience (yes, even that’s allowed back in small doses).
Folding with intention isn’t about perfection — it’s about creating room to breathe.
It’s saying, “I don’t have to carry every thought at once.”
It’s giving yourself permission to have a few mental empty hangers — so new, lighter thoughts can move in.
Once you clear the noise, you start to hear the gentle whisper of what you love.
For me, it was writing again — capturing stories of chaos, food, travel, and motherhood.
Words became my folded sweaters: soft, comforting, and easy to reach for.
When you make room inside, you find space for joy to unpack.
Miemie and ZenZen didn’t notice the emotional spring-clean directly — but they felt it.
The house grew calmer. I laughed more.
Even the goldfish swam in satisfying little loops, like the energy had shifted.
Step Four
The Joy Check (aka the Sanity Test)
Your mental wardrobe should feel wearable — not suffocating.
If it doesn’t make you feel lighter, calmer, or a little more you, it’s probably time to let it go.
Because here’s the truth: not everything we once carried still belongs to us.
Some stories have finished their chapter. Some emotions have done their job and are ready to retire. And some worries — well, they’ve just been loitering around rent-free for far too long.
So, I started asking myself one simple question:
Does this bring me peace, or does it pinch?
If it pinched, it went.
If it softened something in me, it stayed.
And sometimes, letting go doesn’t mean forgetting — it just means not letting the past take up your best shelf space.
Because joy deserves the top drawer.
Always.
The Beauty of Breathing Room
There’s something addictive about space — once you feel it, you crave it.
Decluttering my emotions gave me back time, creativity, and a sense of myself beyond chores and schedules.
After my little emotional decluttering spree, I felt… lighter.
Not the kind of “I just did yoga” light — more like “I found the floor under the laundry” light.
I started remembering things I’d buried: tiny joys, ideas, even my sense of humour.
(Turns out, she’d been hiding behind old guilt and a pile of mum obligations.)
Because when you make space inside, the world outside feels calmer too.
The noise turns down. The pace softens. You find your rhythm again.
And sometimes — just sometimes — you even find the matching sock.
It’s amazing what happens when you stop storing every guilt and start hanging up a little grace instead.
What Happened Next
As I journaled more, the words started turning into stories.
The stories began to weave together the parts of me I thought had nothing in common — food, travel, motherhood, and self-rediscovery.
But they weren’t separate threads at all. They were pieces of the same fabric I’d been stitching together all along.
What started as quiet journaling between school runs slowly became stories, recipes, and reflections that connected everything I love — food, travel, motherhood, and the humour that keeps it stitched together.
Now, this space reminds me — and anyone reading — that decluttering isn’t about losing who you were.
It’s about finding who you still are.
Let This Be Your Gentle Reminder
- Let go of the guilt that doesn’t fit anymore.
- Air out your emotions — not just your bedsheets.
- And remember, decluttering your mind isn’t about emptying it — it’s about making room for what matters most.
Because peace, like a favourite outfit, should fit comfortably — not tightly around your thoughts.
And when it does, everything else — the laughter, the patience, the sparkle — slips back into place almost effortlessly.
You don’t have to be perfectly put together to feel put back together.
You just need a little breathing room.
If you skimmed, here’s what matters…
Emotional decluttering isn’t a one-time clean-out; it’s a practice — a promise to keep checking in with yourself before the clutter piles up again.
Some days, the mess will return — the mental laundry, the guilt, the noise — but that’s okay. Because now you know where the floor is, and you know how to find it again.
You don’t need a perfect plan. You just need a pause — a few deep breaths and the courage to ask, “What do I actually want to keep today?”
The rest can wait.
You can’t organise a storm, but you can dance in the calm between thunderclaps.
So tonight, before you fold another thing, take a breath.
Open the mental drawer you’ve been avoiding.
Hold each thought up to the light.
If it doesn’t bring peace, let it go.
When I made space within, joy slipped quietly back in.
It hummed like calm between the hangers of my heart.
Tell me – what’s one emotional “sock”, you’re ready to donate to the universe today?
Drop it in the comments or tag me on Instagram @eatplaytravelwithsid — I’ll be cheering for every bit of breathing room you create.
I’ll be on the other side of the screen, pen in hand, heart a little lighter, cheering as you make space for you.
The Sidentity Trilogy
Rediscovering Me
Three stories. One truth.
You don’t have to lose yourself to love them — you just have to come home to you.
A three-part journey back to the woman beneath the mum badge. Read the full trilogy:
- Rest: The Art of Doing Nothing
- Release: Emotional Decluttering
-
Rediscover: Repacking My Dreams
