I had really high expectations when I hired Stephanie; I wanted her to come in and change my life. I was ending cancer treatment and was ready to start fresh. I thought going through treatment as successfully as I did would have caused some miraculous transformation but my closet was still a mess, and this made me feel like one too. I saw so many failures when I looked in there; that I didn’t have the ‘perfect’ walk-in closet, that I didn’t have the ‘perfect’ wardrobe, that I’m a mess who can’t keep anything looking nice. I was aspiring to be the ideal woman with everything completely under control, much of which I attribute to social media pressures to appear that way, but I just wasn’t making it.
While I struggle with wanting to feel like ‘who cares if it’s a mess’ – it feels trivial in the grand scheme of life – I understand the benefits of uncluttered living. The process of working with Stephanie helped me drill down to say, ‘I don’t need twenty ok shirts, I need five great ones’ and to separate myself from the pressures of social media. It opened my eyes so that I know what I do have is what I like, is top quality and is functional for my life. It allowed me to realize that what I have really IS enough and that I already HAD enough, and still do even after we donated a trunk full of clothes.
I am shocked that I have been able to maintain the state of my closet; it was organized in a sensible way and I value how it truly changed my life for the better. It is one small thing I can control, and now when I walk into my closet, I have a real sense of relief knowing I can make something good happen in there. The experience ended up being transformational and gave me a really fresh perspective.
– Stephanie Copelin, Non-Profit Professional, Single Stop
