By JR Robinson, CEO/Co-Founder, JustMyMemphis

Memphis is a city built on history. We are a city of stories, of ghosts, of blues, and of deep, soulful memories. We pride ourselves on our grit, on our ability to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders and keep moving forward. But lately, I’ve been asking myself a question that feels a little dangerous to ask in a city that loves its heritage:

What happens when the history we are carrying becomes the anchor that drowns us?

We talk a lot about "Grind" here. But sometimes, the grind isn't the job. It isn't the traffic on I-240. Sometimes, the hardest grind is the sheer physical and emotional weight of the stuff we have accumulated. We are living in museums of our own making, surrounded by objects that scream at us from the past, preventing us from stepping into our future.

On the latest episode of the Get Amplified podcast, I sat down with a woman who is trying to help us put those heavy bags down. Stacey Saed is the founder of Anastasis (https://staceysaed.com/), a move management company that has relocated professional sports teams and corporate titans. But she isn't just a logistics expert. She is a compassionate archaeologist of the human heart.

She is the author of the upcoming book The Space Between Us and Our Stuff: The 30-Day Freedom Journal, and our conversation wasn't about cardboard boxes or packing tape. It was about grief, relief, and the terrifying, beautiful space between holding on and letting go.

The Archaeology of a Pen

We tend to think of our clutter as inert matter. It’s just "junk." It’s just a pile of papers. It’s just an old chair.

Stacey stopped me dead in my tracks when she explained that there is no such thing as "just stuff."

"It’s about guilt and grief," she told me. "It sounds simple, but it’s not. There is a story attached to everything."

She picked up a pen from her desk during our interview. To you and me, it’s a piece of plastic with ink in it. But to Stacey, it was a gift from her mother, who told her it was the best pen she’d ever use. Suddenly, that plastic cylinder isn't an office supply; it is a connection to love, to a voice, to a moment in time.

This is why we freeze. This is why we can't clean out the attic. We aren't afraid of throwing away an object; we are afraid of throwing away the memory attached to it. We feel that if we let go of the object, we are betraying the person who gave it to us.

Stacey calls this the "psychology of stuff." We inadvertently turn our homes into minefields of emotional triggers. We walk past a dining room table we never use, but we can't sell it because it belonged to our grandmother. We keep a broken clock because it was a wedding gift. We are carrying the weight of a thousand invisible conversations every time we walk through our own front doors.

The Silent Roommate: Generational Trauma

One of the most profound moments of our conversation came when we discussed the concept of "Generational Trauma" in our closets.

We often think of trauma as an event—a crash, a loss, a fight. But trauma can be quiet. It can look like a silver tea set.

Stacey told me a story about her father, a young man in the Air Force after World War II, who carried a silver tea set all the way back from Japan in a duffel bag. Why? She doesn't fully know. But that object became a piece of history, a non-negotiable artifact of the family.

How many of us are acting as unpaid storage units for our ancestors?

We distinguish between honoring our loved ones and inheriting their unresolved burdens, but the line is blurry. Stacey notes that she can hear the "levels of importance" in a client's voice. When someone says an object is "non-negotiable," it usually has nothing to do with the object's monetary value. It has to do with the fact that letting it go feels like an erasure of history.

But here is the hard truth we arrived at: You cannot fly if you are holding onto rocks, even if those rocks are painted gold.

We have to learn that our memories do not live in the china cabinet. They live in us. And sometimes, the most respectful thing you can do for your ancestors is to live a life that is free, light, and unencumbered, rather than living a life that is cramped and dusty because you’re guarding their inventory.

The Dignity of Objects: A Personal Reflection

This conversation hit me harder than I expected because it took me back to one of the most defining moments of my life: moving my mother into a nursing home.

It was a crash landing. Mom had cancer, and for nine years she had beaten the odds. She was a fighter. But when the end came, it came fast. The decision to move her wasn't a calculated "right-sizing"; it was a medical necessity that happened in 24 hours.

I remember walking into that sterile room. It didn't smell like mom. It didn't feel like mom. It felt like a waiting room for the end.

And I refused to accept that.

I went back to her house and I started grabbing things. Not random things—her things. I brought her makeup mirror, the one she used to do her hair every morning. I brought her photo albums. I brought her television. I even brought the specific chair I used to sit in when I visited her, so that when I sat next to her bed, the dynamic would feel the same.

The nurses told me, "No one does this. No one goes to this much trouble."

But to me, it wasn't trouble. It was dignity.

When Stacey and I talked about this, she validated something I hadn't realized I was carrying. She told me, "Every human in that community deserved that level of love."

There is a difference between hoarding and anchoring. When I brought those things to my mom, I wasn't cluttering her space; I was tethering her to her identity. In her final days, when the morphine wasn't working and the pain was screaming, she heard my voice and she sat up. She was surrounded by her family, but she was also surrounded by the context of her life.

That is the balance Stacey teaches. We don't get rid of things to erase the past. We clear out the noise so that the things that actually matter—the photos, the mirror, the chair—can shine. We clear the clutter so we can see the love.

Right-Sizing vs. Downsizing

We need to change our vocabulary. The world tells us we need to "downsize." The word itself sounds like a defeat. It sounds like you are becoming "less than." You are going down.

Right-sizing isn't about subtraction; it's about alignment. It’s about asking, "Does my environment match my current reality?"

Stacey shared the story of a "cool Memphis couple" living in a massive Central Gardens home. They were the hosts, the party-throwers, the curators of a big, beautiful life. But they reached a point where the house was running them, rather than them running the house.

They moved to Crosstown Concourse. They traded a yard and granite countertops for vertical living and community energy. To some, that looks like a downsize. To them, it was a liberation. They are living a lifestyle that fits who they are today, not who they were twenty years ago.

This is the question for all of us: Are you living in a home designed for the person you used to be?

If you are 60, why are you maintaining a home for a family of five that hasn't lived there in a decade? If you are an entrepreneur, why is your office filled with files from a career you left three years ago?

The Corporate Wake-Up Call

And let’s be clear—this isn't just about your attic. This is about your business.

I have ADHD. I know intimately how my physical environment dictates my mental clarity. If I am in a stagnant, cluttered room, my brain stagnates. If I go to a co-working space, or a coffee shop like The Hub at Mission Church, the energy shifts. The "stuff" isn't there to distract me.

Stacey pointed out a massive blind spot for corporate leaders. We obsess over strategy, KPIs, and quarterly goals, but we ignore the fact that our file cabinets are suffocating our calendars.

"What's going on in your file cabinet is messing with your calendar," she said. "The procrastination is not just in your head; it is in the stuff you've got around it."

Your "work home" is just as important as your "sleep home." If your desk is a graveyard of unfinished projects and old prototypes, you are subconsciously telling yourself that you are behind. You are working in a museum of past failures rather than a laboratory of future innovation.

The Divine Download: The Courage to Pivot

Perhaps the most inspiring part of Stacey’s journey is not what she does for others, but what she did for herself.

Moving from running a successful logistics company to becoming an author and keynote speaker is a pivot. It’s a risk. I asked her about the scariest part of that choice.

"Financial insecurity," she said without hesitation. "It’s the dragon I’ve been running from."

But she followed what she calls a "Divine Download." It’s that itch you can’t scratch. It’s the whisper that turns into a shout. She realized that while moving boxes was helpful, moving mindsets was necessary.

She is building a new ship while sailing the old one, driven by an insatiable need to help people find freedom.

"I know what liberation has felt like for me," she said. "And I want to share it with other people. We’re going to have to break up with that sofa, sweetie. He’s been cheating on you and he’s got to go."

The Space Between

This brings us to her new tool: The Space Between Us and Our Stuff: The 30-Day Freedom Journal.

This isn't a book of tips on how to fold your socks. There is no shortage of YouTube videos for that. This is a book about the why.

It is designed for the person standing in that quiet, terrifying moment between holding on and letting go. It is for the person who looks at a room and feels defeated before they even begin.

Stacey suggests that we shouldn't do this alone. We aren't meant to grieve alone, and we aren't meant to declutter alone. Whether you hire a professional like Anastasis or you grab three friends and a pot of coffee, the act of witnessing each other’s stories is what makes the letting go possible.

Imagine gifting this journal not as a judgment—"Here, clean your room"—but as an invitation. "Let’s sit down every Tuesday, drink coffee, and talk about the history we are carrying. Let’s decide together what we want to bring into the future."

Tomorrow is a Choice

At JustMyMemphis, our motto is simple: Tomorrow is a Choice.

You can choose to wake up tomorrow in the same house, surrounded by the same piles, carrying the same guilt about the things you haven't done. You can choose to let the past dictate your square footage and your mental bandwidth.

Or, you can make a different choice.

You can choose to look at your environment honestly, without judgment. You can choose to forgive yourself for the clutter. You can choose to pick one drawer—just one—and reclaim it.

As Stacey said, "Decluttering is a muscle. You don't start in the attic. You start small."

We are moving into a new season, Memphis. The world is heavy enough. The news is heavy enough. Your home should be the place where you put the weight down, not the place where you pick it up.

Let’s be a city that honors our history by making room for our future. Let’s be a community that helps each other carry the load, and more importantly, helps each other decide what is worth carrying.

Go check out Stacey at StaceySaed.com. Pick up the journal. Call a friend.

And remember: You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be willing to let go of the things that are no longer serving you, so you can grab hold of the greatness that is waiting for you.

Let’s Get Amplified.

- JR