Pia Thompson

Pia Thompson is a Home Organizing Consultant and KonMari Consultant Trainee. She is on a mission to empower others to make life-loving choices and gain focus, freedom, and peace. She helps people transform their dreams of a tidy home and a joyful life into blissful reality. She wasn’t always so clear about who she is and what she wanted, but she definitely is now. I am so excited to feature her journey in our “Tidy Up Your Life” series.

If you want to learn even more about Pia Thompson, she shares her authentic, no-judgment, heart-centered approach on her instagram account @sweet_digs and at her website sweet-digs.com. 

Where are you in your tidying journey?

I define my tidying journey as tidying up my life. I spent many years pretending and performing – chasing a life that wasn’t mine. I am now a lover of learning, a perpetual student who loves to expand my perspective and personally evolve. So I think my tidying adventure will always continue.  Show me a new way of doing something, open my mind to something new and joyful I can add to my life and I’m over the moon!

In what ways have you tidied up your life?

I learned that authenticity is the foundation for a life I love. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had these feelings of unworthiness and sadness that would pop up every now and then. Somehow I learned to believe that being my authentic self simply wasn’t good enough. 

So I became focused on my external – excelling and gaining “success”.  If i didn’t meet my own high expectations for myself, I was my harshest critic. I ended up creating a life much like the American dream. 

1. Two undergrad degrees from a very well-regarded university.
2. A law degree from the #8 school in the country.
3. A career as a corporate lawyer with a VERY good salary. 
4. A 5-bedroom house in the suburbs and all the name-brand everything I could get my hands on. 
5. A marriage to Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome, with a sweet baby girl. 

Done, tied with a bow. But the truth was that I hated practicing law, my marriage wasn’t loving, and my house was full of things that didn’t spark joy.  I had no idea who I was behind my titles and degrees because I was terrified to face that person. 

I’ve now worked hard to get comfortable connecting with my truth and finally stop listening to what my life “should” look like.

I found freedom by embracing my power of choice – my choice to follow my joy. 

Once I became aware that I was living a life that didn’t align with who I was and that didn’t bring me joy,  I quickly realized that I had chosen every single aspect of that life. Every part!  No matter how much I wanted to blame everyone else, my life was designed by me and me only.  That helped me to realize that my power is in my ability to choose. So I gave it all up. Yes ALL of it. The career, the man, the house (and most of the stuff in it).  Deciding what sparked joy in my life and letting go of what didn’t is how I began to create a life I truly loved, how I learned to stop settling, how I figured out what brings me joy and to confidently choose to fill my home and life with only that. 

How did you know that you needed to tidy things up?

Over the years, every time those feelings of unworthiness and unhappiness came up, I pushed them away and chose to continue to work toward success. Easier to go down a sure path than to admit I needed to revamp my entire life! 

Two things happened that helped me realize that I needed to tidy up:

I gained awareness of why. I was in the process of getting divorced and at this point, I felt like a failure and horrible about myself because my marriage was ending. My low feelings of self-worth were just exacerbated by the whole experience. 

My best friend told me that she thought my ex-husband’s behavior resembled that of a narcissist. So I started looking into narcissism and I found an article called something like, “You’re not crazy, you’re being gaslighted.” And wow, it was literally all about my marriage. 

That got me to asking, how did I end up in a marriage where this was happening?! I started thinking about my childhood and past and what values I was raised with.  I started to realize that I had spent most of my life unhappy and living with low-level anxiety, valuing money, things and a life like a Disney movie (where Cinderella had a demanding well-paying job)!

I saw the power in my choices. About a year after my marriage ended,  I went on maybe a third or fourth date with this guy and was pretty quiet most of the time. I went out with my cousin afterward, told her what happened and she couldn’t believe that me, who ALWAYS has something to say,  was quiet for 3 hours. That made me notice that the same feelings I had in my marriage were coming up with this person – walking on eggshells and being constantly worried about what he thought – and that was causing me to make choices that hid myself to impress him.  Mind blown.

So I finally started to see, slowly but surely,  what I had been doing to my life – making choices that didn’t align at all with my authentic self.   

The final turning point came when I finally decided to trust my intuition. I got to the point where I knew practicing law was no longer for me. Frankly the feelings of low self-esteem had now turned into feeling like I was spending most of my waking hours living a lie. I’d begun to read books like The Power of Now by Echkart Tolle, doing real full-on self-work and attracting friends who were doing the same. I was finally seeing that being my authentic self was something I had literally never done before. And the more choices I made in that direction, the more free and joyful I felt. 

It soon became clear that it was time to leave my career.  I made that decision (in my mind) and got laid off about  2 months later. (Hi universe!) My intuition said wait and for the first time in my life, I actually listened. Instead of forcing and doing what others wanted, I waited an entire year and 1/2. Then one day I saw Marie Kondo’s show on Netflix and within 5 minutes said – oh yes! that’s it! I felt FULLY aligned and knew practically as soon as I turned on the TV that becoming a KonMari Consultant was what I wanted to do for a living. 

What aspects of work bring you the most joy?

So I get really excited when I’m working with my clients and they say something that makes me realize that their clutter has nothing to do with their stuff.  I then see the opportunity to make them aware – which I believe is the first step to lasting change – being aware of why you are doing something so you can choose a different reason.  

For example, I recently had a client who had a lot of clothing in her home that her grandmother had crocheted tucked away in drawers. As we joy checked them, I learned that she was raised by her grandmother who leaned toward being judgy and controlling. As a result my client grew up with people-pleasing tendencies (sound familiar?) and kept these things out of guilt and fear that her grandmother would ask after them. We worked through the issues, she decided they did not spark joy for her and she was able to let them go.  

Also a client’s reaction to their own before and after is really super to witness. For some reason, it’s always hard to remember what the space looked like before tidying once you are done. So when I show them the picture, they can’t even believe it!

I also love when a category is done, let’s say clothing for example, and my client texts me and tells me how easy it was to get dressed and how excited they are to do it everyday.  And that’s the whole point isn’t it? For your items to continue to spark joy. For you to love what you own. When you do it’s like living in paradise!

How do you describe your work to others?

The things in your home tell the story of your life. They are your choices, decisions, habits, dreams deferred and dreams realized.

I’m a truth seeker + joy finder.  As a home organizing consultant and KonMari Consultant in training I inspire people to gain self-awareness, embrace their power of choice and find freedom to choose authenticity and joy through tidying their homes at my company Sweet Digs.  So my clients move from external abundance to internal abundance evidenced by the things they now choose to own. 

What routines are you looking to revamp this season?

I’m in the midst of revising my morning and evening routines. I believe that the way you start and end the day are really important.  

For my morning routine, I’m incorporating more guided journaling and affirmations.  Because I spent most of my life not loving or valuing myself, it’s important for me to remind myself on a daily basis that I am worthy. So my affirmations are ones that fill me up and remind me that I am valuable. I also continue to expand.  Guided journaling helps me to explore because I often don’t know exactly the right question I should be asking myself. 

For my night routine, I started writing down things that spark joy for me every day. That has been a great way to remind myself that there is always something joyful  to notice and to be grateful for.

What is next for you?

I have so many big dreams!  Will try not to list every single one here. 🙂

I want to get certified by KonMari so I can be officially official. I’m in the midst of that now. Hopefully that will be happening very soon!!

I would also love to do speaking engagements combining motivational speaking with tidying (putting that out into the universe with this article) and I would love to put together a course with a group tidying journey. I see a lot of value for people in community around tidying. 

Personally, I’m actively working on my parenting skills. I have a 9-year old daughter who is the light of my life and I want to show up in the way she needs as she is approaching middle school. (Oh my goodness, I can’t believe she is approaching middle school! I feel like she just got here.) 

If you want to learn even more about Pia Thompson, she shares her authentic, no-judgment, heart-centered approach on her instagram account @sweet_digs, Facebook, Pinterest and at her website sweet-digs.com. 

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