Abundance Organizing Annual Retreat

How many people do you know that can wholeheartedly say they love what they do for a living and love the people they work with? I count myself as one of those lucky people who found my Dream Team with Abundance Organizing.

We are freshly off of our much anticipated annual retreat. It is a rare time for the team to share leisure time and strengthen the bonds of our sisterhood through laughter, games and food (and wine!). Our togetherness reminds us how fond we are of one another’s company while replenishing our passion for our work. It’s in this joyful retreat we learn applicable skills from professionals hired to expand our tool-kits. We come back to our work newly inspired and better prepared to up-level our organizing game in the coming year.

While it may seem that what we do mostly involves labeling and stacking bins, our work is really about people. People’s stuff and how they live with it tell a story. Stories of loss or endings, family and friends, new beginnings, or of hardship and change. Sometimes the stories are simple, having to do with lack of time and skill in spatial relations. No matter what the content we love the stories and honor their sacredness and worth. Hearing stories helps us understand the relationships between people and their possessions.

We put high value on acknowledging each client and their current relationship to their belongings, not on judging their behavior or their stuff.  We step into each situation with our collective and compassionate heart, optimistically holding the possibility for our client to shift the way they are living with their things toward their desired goal. In doing so, we need to be prepared for the unexpected. Organizing can, initially, be somewhat of an emotional and messy process. We understand when letting something go feels like saying goodbye to a memory or a significant person. We know that when we touch something it may trigger anxiety. We are prepared for the flood of unexpected emotions that come at discovering a long-lost treasure at the bottom of a forgotten pile. Having tips from experts in the mental health field helps us maneuver through and reframe the intricate, and sometimes unhealthy, connections people have with their things.

So, it is very fitting that the topic for our retreat this year was about mental health. When we, as a team, step into the sanctity of a home we are fully aware of the vulnerability it’s owner may feel at having us peek behind cabinets and doors, and dismantle a closet jam-packed with items.

Collaboration with professionals, in addition to the strength of our team, is so critical to getting our jobs done well because organizing work touches many categories, requiring vast expertise in many subjects. Hoarding? Check. ADHD? Check. Consignment? Check. Paper filing? Check. Junk hauling? Check. We have a solution for everything. As a unit we are like the Avengers, each possessing an organizing superpower that makes for a powerful and knowledgeable force capable of organizing things in a single day no human could do on their own. And we do it with kindness, gentleness and fun.

Honestly, I don’t blame people for calling on our team to help with their organizing project because I know in my heart that if it was my stuff I was dealing with, I’d feel a whole lot better doing it with my team. And, I know for sure that it would get done well!

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