Hello! Welcome back to the Bonfini Playbook Podcast, where we help you move through life’s big transitions with stories, tools, and wisdom. I spent 20 years in fashion, and my closet proves it. Bags I never carry, shoes I never wear, boxes I don’t open. So for this episode, I brought one of those pieces to someone who’s seen more closets than anyone I know. Grace Brooke has spent 26 years as a professional organizer inside other people’s homes. She’s the founder of Sacred Simplicity, where she helps people let go of what they’ve been carrying in their closets and in their heads so they can live with more freedom and a lot more peace. I talk a lot about untangling who you are from what you do. Grace helps people untangle who they are from what they own. Turns out it’s the same work. Two Kinds of Masks Grace grew up in a cluttered home. Her mom was a high school teacher running on survival mode, and the house held it all. Grace had headaches nobody could explain. They went away when she moved out. Then she swung all the way to the other side. Her dad said you could eat off her floors. “All I did was throw a mask over it, a different mask, and cover that anxiety up with perfection.” I grew up in a spotless home too, and I still carry some of that in how I dress and show up. The difference is knowing why you do it. When you understand it, you get to choose it. When you don’t, it runs you. The Closet Door Nobody Opens A house can look perfect on the surface. Then someone says, “Don’t open that cabinet,” and “Definitely don’t look in the garage.” Grace named it plainly: shame. And she was just as clear about what happens next. “Once you shed light on it, it goes away.” Underneath it all is scarcity. Not enough time, not enough money, and way too much stuff, kept just in case. Grace sees all three as the same story. Your Brain on Clutter This part stuck with me. Too much visual noise shuts down the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that handles decisions, focus, and emotional regulation. So clutter makes it harder to decide, and indecision creates more clutter. A loop, until something breaks it. Where to Start Grace’s first tip is one she only started giving recently: get grounded before you touch anything. Take a ten-minute walk, or a few minutes of quiet. Don’t come home from a full workday and attack the pile with your cortisol through the roof. Then start small. One drawer, one surface, something easy enough that you can feel the win. And pay attention to the pause. When you love something, you say so right away. “When I see somebody hesitate, that hesitation tells me a lot.” The Muse Bag Then I put Grace to work. I brought my Saint Laurent Muse bag from around 2007, one of my first designer bags, from my first big job in New York. I’m keeping it. But it stands in for a whole closet of things I never pull out and can’t seem to let go of. Grace explained why. Once we own something, our brains treat it as part of us. “It’s like throwing a piece of us away.” For me, those pieces belong to the version of myself who came of age at Valentino and Saint Laurent, when my title was my introduction. Of course I’m attached. The question is whether I’m keeping something because it means something, or because I think I have to. Hard Doesn’t Mean Wrong My favorite line from the whole conversation: “Just because it may feel hard or icky or uncomfortable, it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.” Your brain is built to keep you safe, so anything unfamiliar sets off the alarm. Knowing that lets you decide anyway. Rapid Fire: The Carry-On Edit Grace is more of a traveler than a shopper, so we packed light. Book bestsellers: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker and You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero. Her favorite line: the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Last trip that filled her cup: Greece, her second time. You can’t take a bad photo there, and Athens is thousands of years old. Next on the list: the whole month of May 2027 in Bali, working, playing, and practicing turning her brain off and back on again. Final Thoughts We hold on to bags. We hold on to titles. We hold on to old versions of ourselves because letting go feels like losing something. Grace’s work reminds us that the stuff isn’t the problem. It’s information. When you understand what you’re holding on to, and why, you can build a home, and a life, for who you are now and who you’re becoming. Find Grace: Website Instagram Listen to the full episode here, and send it to a friend with a closet full of past lives. Leave a comment below, we would love to hear from you and connect! Until next week, Jackie Hi, I’m Jacqueline. Ex-luxury fashion exec turned certified coach. I work with burnt-out leaders in creative industries who are ready to escape the doom loop and reclaim their time, voice, and confidence. If you’re ready to stop that loop, book a call. Thanks for being part of this community. If this piece resonated, share THE BONFINI PLAYBOOK with someone who needs it. For deeper playbooks and tools, upgrade to paid here. Get full access to BONFINI PLAYBOOK at thebonfiniplaybook.substack.com/subscribe
