Take a look around your home, what do you see? Is it a mess? Is it disorganized? Is it clean and tidy? If we analyze our environment through the lens of quantum physics our external environment is a reflection of our internal self. If you have chaos around you, is there also chaos in your mind, body and soul? My desire through this article is to explain the concept of beauty and inspire you to overhaul your home to reflect a state of being that aligns with a higher vibration.
Everything around you should inspire you, your friends, your family, your things. How you care for your home is a sign of how you are living your life. When you take a look around your home, do you ever find yourself saying, ” I may need this someday, just in case”, “I am not sure whether to keep it or not”, “It is too expensive to throw away”, ” I need to keep it because of all of the memories it has”, “My husband does not want me to throw it out”, “I inherited it”, “I am going to refurbish it”. Often as I drive by the mini storage in my hometown I think about it as a building full of procrastination or a warehouse of indecision. Piles and piles of inefficiency and fear about losing something of importance. There is no beauty in indecision.
I have built seven different homes and each home was a huge learning process about me. Looking back I realized that most of those efforts were about creating a home for everyone else, as if it was a new outfit that I would put on. I had to step out looking my best. It reflected the external world that I was trying to impress. Little by little as time went by, my home began to reflect my own needs, what made ME feel good. I started to realize my own style, not a picture in a magazine made me the most comfortable. I realized that each place I was in needed to be a setting of peace. Every object that I brought into my house should make me happy. There should be places that make me smile. I needed to feel inspired by the colors that are the most advantageous to the harmony of the land and the place. This is now my focus as I build my new home now.
If you are in a house that does not feel beautiful one of the best ways to get started is to imagine each room as a blank slate. Go room by room and ask yourself what you would want to add to it? Ask yourself, “will adding this to the space bring order or disorder”? Will it bring joy to see it every day? Will it bring beauty and comfort? Creating a beautiful home requires paying attention to many details. Colors, textures, lighting and scent are all areas to take into consideration. If our home is overfilled it can spiritually mean that there is no room in our life for the new, for the possibilities that exist beyond our home.
To achieve a home of beauty does not mean that we remove all imperfection, that is not realistic. I see most of my homes as lifetime projects that evolve as I evolve. The most beautiful homes are lived in and loved in. The dining table may be a little worn out from the stories that are told over and over, the couch may have a few scratches from your cat that nurtured your soul when you had a cold, these are things that remind of the love and enjoyment in a place and represent a life well lived. Energetically these things are the foundation of the vibration that will exist in the home for a long time.
So how do you determine what is beautiful to you? The first place to start is with you. Not everyone is inspired by the same design. Some people will walk into a modern home and think it is horrible, others will feel a sense of order and peace. Not all of us are inspired by the same design. It is personal taste and our “stuff” should reflect that. The goal is to see beauty around you and begin to define that through the lens of how much it inspires you. It can be helpful to take a ride through Pinterest and see what really catches your eye, and instead of just pinning it, ask yourself why? What does it bring up for you? Why did you pick that particular photograph? What does it mean in your life? Why are you attracted to it? When you can better define what you are attracted to, you can better determine what needs to go! Now that you understand what and why you are attracted to certain things, ask yourself if you are fulfilling a need or are you fulfilling a response to beauty? For example, is having a closet full of blankets that you don’t need a sign that you have not been nurtured in your life? Perhaps you survived a cold and ruthless mother? Are they beautiful or are they perpetuating an old myth that needs to be dealt with and entertained on some level and then tossed out. Clutter can represent things that are unloved, forgotten or in the wrong place. Take your environment to another level of perception. When clutter takes over it is usually because there is stress, frustration and feeling out of control. I may be that you have invited disorder into your world through your indecisiveness, fear or attachment to things that do not serve your highest good. Clutter is not beautiful.
The search for beauty is when we are honest with ourselves and when happiness is an inside job that creates an outside reflection of who we are. Beauty is organized and requires space for what you love, otherwise you are a slave to stuff. Your budget may not allow you to have everything you think you love, but a can of paint may be your best investment in creating the foundation of your vision and achieving the goal that you are longing for and can inspire next steps. But the time is best spent on determining what you love, that way your decisions are not whims but wisdom and you end up with real beauty.
Now for my pet peeve about accessories. How many homes have you walked into a place where you felt you were looking at just stuff? A lot of times we go to a local home store to buy things to accessorize our homes. This is not a way to find what you love, it is like buying a cheap pair of earrings that you will wear one time and then sit in your closet. The problem with home accessories is that you walk by them all day long so they gotta mean something. I have realized that I prefer a coffee table with nothing on than something that I bought just because of the color or the shape. It does not belong in my home unless it has MEANING which inspires BEAUTY and alignment with the other objects in my home. We need to embrace the items around us and if not, find them a new home. My mother and I will often trade off things. I might feel like I need a vase she has so I will ask her if I can have it for awhile, when she wants it back, she simply asks for it. We both know it is time for it to go.
I want to also warn you against “themes”. Themes can bind you into something that overtime becomes a habit or obsession and not beauty. Word can get out that you love something and you will then be inundated with it, too much of anything will overwhelm not enhance. Leave room and space in your home for it to evolve. Your budget will thank you for not rushing off and filling it up and then getting ready for your next garage sale. Enjoy the discovery of finding the right pieces. Maybe it is better to simply find the perfect piece of fabric instead of buying a new chair? Perhaps repurposing things might be a better choice? I am converting a filing cabinet into a TV cabinet to hold pillows for my guest room. Sometimes using things in a new way can breath life into their purpose.
Beauty is always harmonious. Being surrounded by what you love is fine, but if there are too many things we may not feel the beauty of it all. Sometimes beauty can be chaos. It needs to work together, one things accents another, like an orchestra that is in tune. Perhaps you have walked into a room and spot something and just know that it does not “go” with the space. That can be the piece that is throwing everything off. It may overpower the space, bringing too much attention instead of flowing. Think of how nature presents itself, it never is overwhelming, it just flows.
Here are my top tips to ensuring that you have what you love:
1.) Question everything and remember that you do not have to display everything that you own. Maybe it is time to “retire” something for awhile, share it with someone, borrow something or simply put it in a box marked “whatever” and put a date on your calendar to visit the “whatever” box. That is the day you will determine if it stays in your life or goes to someone else.
2.) Group things for more energy. Take your crystals for instance and blend them with other objects. Tying things together is more powerful. Things that are not related strung around your house do not make a statement or carry the same feeling when grouped.
3.) When you walk into a room, try to be objective, as if you are walking into it for the first time. If something keeps screaming at you, address it, do not keep ignoring signs of things that are trying to share an energetic message.
4.) Do not settle on the phrase “someday I will have my perfect house”, make sure that you have a perfect house everyday by realizing that it is the love in the house that makes the difference. Selling your house short, will mean you house will never be fulfilled.
5.) Choose simplicity over the big splash. After designing all of my homes, the most successful were the simple ideas that got the most attention. Happiness is the goal here, not more clothes, more toys, more gadnets and more accessories. If someone asks you, how are you? Do you say I am great, I have all this stuff! No, what we most want to talk about is our spiritual selves when we are living a life of beauty and intention. Simplicity reduces decision fatigue and we can recover faster if we and not bombarded with choices and options.