I never set out to create a “brand.” Though I couldn’t name it at first, I longed for a way to live that didn’t feel like a constant scramble between exhaustion and expectation. For years, my life looked fine on the outside. I had ticked the right boxes: career, family, the respectable rhythm of progress. But inside, I felt like I was quietly unravelling.
I remember 27 years ago, sitting in the traffic on my way to work, seven months pregnant, blazer pressed, laptop ready with slides that I’d perfected well past midnight. From the outside, I looked steady, competent, on track. But inside, I was calculating the days until my sons’ birth, wondering if I could juggle my corporate career and motherhood. This was the first incident I remembered of making a counter-cultural decision, but right for me.
When I left corporate life and immersed myself in full-time motherhood, I thought relief would come. Instead, a new fatigue took over, which didn’t end when the inbox did. My days blurred into nappies, meals, and mountains of laundry. I had my first four kids in five years. I loved my children fiercely, but I often felt like I was drowning in the very life I had chosen.
There were moments of honesty I’d rather forget: crying in the pantry while the kids argued in the next room or staring at the cluttered counters and wondering how my house, and my mind, had gotten so out of control. Coaching courses and counselling manuals gave me theory, but theories felt flimsy when the baby was teething and the washing machine broke.
The turning point wasn’t one dramatic event. It was the accumulation of small moments: staring at a cluttered room and realizing my home had become a mirror of my tangled thoughts; crying in the car after school pickup because I felt both overwhelmed and under-fulfilled; buying things I didn’t need to fill a space that never seemed satisfied.
That was the soil from which the Declutter Me book series grew: What If I Don’t Have Enough, Stop Hoarding, Be Happy, and Happy and Home Free. These weren’t just about organizing cupboards; they were about asking harder questions:
- Why do I hold on to what I don’t need?
- What am I terrified will happen if I let go?
From Cupboards to Clarity
In What If I Don’t Have Enough, I shared the story of my wardrobe bulging with clothes I hadn’t worn in years. They represented versions of myself I was no longer living—outfits for the corporate job I’d left, “someday” dresses I kept in the hope I’d fit them again, items bought on impulse to fill an ache. Releasing those clothes wasn’t about tidiness; it was about honesty, letting go of the past I was clinging to so I could live the present more fully.
In Stop Hoarding, Be Happy, I wrote about the kitchen cupboard of mismatched plastic containers. It wasn’t just about the frustration of never finding a matching lid. That clutter symbolized my mental state—overstuffed, disordered, and draining. By finally clearing it out, I wasn’t only reclaiming space; I was reclaiming energy.
By the time I wrote Happy and Home Free, I was seeing that decluttering wasn’t just about cleaning a house—it was about freeing a life.
What Readers Found
I wasn’t sure at first whether anyone would connect with such simple truths. But the feedback that began to come in humbled me:
“This is much more than a how-to on removing the mess. It’s a deep dive into the real issues behind clutter. I felt like Renata was sitting in my kitchen with me, helping me uncover why I kept filling the same space repeatedly.”
“I thought What If I Don’t Have Enough would just be about fear of not having enough. But it goes much deeper into the psychological reasons we hold on and how to let go gently. It helped me deal with the clutter in my mind as much as in my home.”
“I’ve read a dozen decluttering books, but Happy and Home Free was the first that helped me see myself clearly. Clearing my house finally made sense because I understood what I was holding onto.”
Those words confirmed what I had been learning and experiencing myself: decluttering isn’t about the stuff. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves about enoughness, security, and who we think we need to be.
From Declutter Me to Slowsteading
As I continued writing, I realized this wasn’t only about clearing physical clutter; it was about redesigning life. My blog series explored how the smallest actions—drying herbs for tea, fixing a squeaky hinge, creating one unhurried ritual—could become micro steps into a steadier, freer way of living.
My trial-and-error projects with vegetable gardens, chickens, and whole-food cooking slowly taught me what energized and what depleted me. These were invaluable lessons that each of us had to learn for ourselves.
That became the heartbeat of Slowsteading: not waiting for acres of land or perfect conditions but starting where you are, tending to your life in cycles and seasons.
This led me to name this journey Rosemary Road, after the resilient rosemary plant that thrives in poor soil and gives abundantly, reminding me that growth is possible anywhere.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
When I think of the journey from Declutter Me to Rosemary Road, I don’t see a neat line of progress. I see doubts, setbacks, and plenty of false starts: weeks when my house was chaotic; days when my marriage felt stretched thin; seasons when I wondered if I was qualified to teach what I was still learning.
But I also see growth. I see a woman who chose presence over perfection. I had to reassess as recently as last week. My disorganized wardrobe and cluttered email told the same story as my neglected administration and unmotivated mind. I needed to declutter to get the peace and joy I signed up for many years ago.
No one else can complete this task for me. My clutter, my problem.
When I see shelves cleared, hearts lightened, and gardens planted, I know it is worth the effort to make the changes and revisit the truth as often as needed. And I see a community of readers who remind me daily that change is possible, because they are living it, too.
My Invitation
Don’t wait for a someday life. If my story resonates with you and your heart yearns to be free, commit to one minor change at a time.
Begin where your dirt is soft.
- Declutter one drawer
- Plant one seed
- Take one intentional breath
The road is already under your feet.