Your home is inspiration.
Have you experienced being on a vacation or at a retreat or conference and having an epiphany, easily embracing a new habit, feeling more positive, or feeling inspired to make a change?
What happens when you return home? Are you able to easily retain those new feelings, realizations, and habits? Or after a few days at home, does the inspiration and fresh perspective that was so clear while away begin to elude you? Do you start reverting to your old habits and find the good feelings begin to fade as you fall into your old routine? Unfortunately, for many, the latter is all too common because you may have changed but your environment did not. Your surroundings are still anchoring your old beliefs and energy in place. Your home is most likely supporting your old habits and routines and reflecting your old self. One of the reasons you so easily changed when you were away is because you were in a new environment—the new surroundings influenced and inspired you. Your surroundings can be powerful and have the potential to shape your life.
Our homes can be a great source of support and a vehicle for transformation.
So, if you want to make a positive change in your life—whether you want to enhance or attract a relationship, improve your health, finances, or career, or bring more joy, peace, or creativity into your life—you can begin by making positive changes in your home.
Your home is a reflection of self.
The environment you create and choose to live in becomes an outward manifestation of your inner experience: a reflection of who you are. Your home, how you decorate or don’t decorate, and the objects you choose to surround yourself with are a form of self-expression and a reflection of the life you are living. Take a moment to think about your home. What are the first words that come to mind? What adjectives would you use to describe your home? Is your home peaceful or does it have a lot of energy? Is it artistic, playful, elegant, traditional, light, dark, vibrant, stagnant, organized, or cluttered? Now ask yourself how many of the adjectives you used to describe your home would apply to you, your life, or an aspect of your life. If they do, are you describing the person you want to be and the life you want to live? Your home is telling (and writing) your life story, so make sure it’s the story you want to live.
Your home is a source of support.
Once you start to see yourself and your life reflected in your home, you now have the opportunity to make changes. You can begin by taking a moment to think about what you want to focus on in your life right now. What do you value? What are your goals, passions, and purpose? Do you want more time, better health, more energy, better relationships, financial freedom? Does your home support those goals? For example, if you want to improve your marriage, does you bedroom look like a place for love and romance? Or is it cluttered and is the focal point of the room the television that gets in the way of communication and connection? If you would like to have more quality family time, is your kitchen table a place for family meals? Is it clear and inviting or stacked with projects and mail? If you wish for more peace in your life, is there a place in your home where you can retreat to mediate, read, or relax?
You may also consider the reverse. Is there a negative habit that you would like to change and is your home reinforcing that habit? Are you often irritable because you are not well rested? Is it possible your bedroom is not supporting a good night’s rest because it is messy, the bed uncomfortable, or you have a television or home office in the bedroom? Do you often start the day late or on the wrong foot because your home is disorganized and you can’t find your keys or important paperwork, etc.? Does being late make you anxious, which makes you rush your kids or snap at your spouse? If you’re trying to eat healthier, do you have an organized, beautiful kitchen where you enjoy cooking, or is getting takeout a more appealing option than opening cluttered cabinets that aren’t stocked with the right food or having to clear counter space of bills and mail before you can even start cooking?
Even these seemingly little things in our environments—the piles of paper on the table or not having a designated spot for our car keys—are connected to and affect meaningful parts of our lives. However, when you make a change in your home—such as finding a dedicated place for your keys or rearranging your bedroom for a good night’s sleep or relocating the television to a different room or clutter clearing your kitchen—the entire pattern shifts. While it may seem like a small change, these are changes that affect our life day after day. Simple, small changes to our everyday living ripple out and shift larger patterns.
Your well-being is connected to the well-being of your home.
Your home is the foundation from which you operate everyday, and just as you influence your home, it influences you. Once you understand the powerful influence your surroundings can have on your life, you can use this new awareness to arrange and decorate your home so that it supports you in creating the life you desire. If you haven’t done so already, create a home that reflects your best self and highest aspirations. As we like to say: As you design your home, you have the opportunity to design your life!
Sisters Laura and Alison Forbes are authors, speakers, bloggers, consultants, and co-founders of the home and lifestyle company Inspired Everyday Living. They write and speak about personal development through the home and believe that our homes are connected to all aspects of our well-being and influence all parts of our lives. Therefore, when you change your home, you change your life. They are the authors of The Peaceful Nursery: Preparing a Home for Your Baby and have recently developed three iPhone apps: Easy Feng Shui, Feng Shui for Love, and, as a companion to their book, The Peaceful Nursery App. To learn more about Laura and Alison, visit their website or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.
