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“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Here are some smalls steps to change your life and home to start feeling better about yourself

Your home, your energy

It doesn’t matter wether you’re renting a room, a house, or own a cabin in the woods. Your home reflects you. It reflects where your mind is and how you treat yourself. So let’s lovingly assess where you stand.

How do you feel when you first walk into your home?

Do you feel like you need to clean and tidy as soon as you get home? Do you get overwhelmed with to do lists? Are you relaxed and refreshed as soon as you take your shoes off or are you on edge and nervous?

Becoming aware

Have you ever stepped into someone’s house and noticed how pristine and organized it was and at the same time didn’t feel comfortable. As if you had just stepped into a store where things were being presented? That is the feeling that someone has created. They created and curated an environment that gives them the impression of being in control and having a clean and organized environment. There is nothing wrong with clean, it’s actually a great step towards self care, but we are trying to create a life where our home is a reflection of our authentic and nurturing nature.

So the first assignment is to just start noticing. Start noticing how you feel when you walk into an office building. Does your body shrink or start to feel tense? Start noticing the next time you go to your friend’s house. How do you feel in your body when you’re sitting on their couch? Is the floor full of things scattered or is there a place for everything.

Sometimes the most loving people that we know have the messiest houses. They are always giving and caring for others that they don’t notice their own needs for space and tranquility. There is no judgement here. It’s just noticing and lovingly accepting a different approach to the truth that you may have been loving and caring, and not leaving anything for yourself.

Step 2. Be brave

The second step may not seem like it’s relevant. Recognize how you feel in an environment, especially your own, and take a step towards accepting. Accept what you’ve been doing. This is not the time to be hard on yourself. The opposite actually. Lovingly and thoughtfully reflect on your choices and thank yourself for doing the best that you could at the time and take a step towards change. A change that will require you to be brave and perhaps vulnerable. Both if which will feel uncomfortable and that’s ok. It’s all ok. It’s ok to grow and tend to your garden which is your life.

Be gentle to yourself in the storm.

Ok so you’ve started to tell yourself the truth and now you’re stressed and hard on yourself. You may even start to wonder if what you’ve been doing is worth all of this effort and work. You may even start to identify the new stress with this new process. Why should you work harder to be more authentic and at peace when it feels so much worse than before.

It’s catch 22. You want better but you put the towel down and let yourself down gently, saying things like ‘it’s ok to be imperfect.’ Au contraire my friend, you are exactly in the right space and time.

Take the time to be extra gentle with yourself on those days. When the changes are extra hard, just breathe and know that you are moving mountains with a shovel. It’s not going to happen overnight and that’s ok.

Ok you’re ready to make moves.

So after about a week of meddling and stress, you back at it and energized. So what’s next?

Identity. Unlock it.

Ok imagine you’re on stage for a theatre play and the director tells you that you’re going to be playing the queen in some scenes and a servant in others. You gladly organized yourself to do both roles. Does the queen character carry herself like a servant? Does she apologize for being in the room? What identity do you have to tap into to play that role? Once you recognize how you should carry yourself for each role, you tap into your identity.

That is exactly how life is. We have identities and roles that we’ve all accepted and are playing out everyday. Some of these roles have been instilled in us since childhood. For example, when I was a little girl, I was expected to take care of my brothers and not think about my needs. I learned that my identity lies in being a caretaker. If I were to step aside from this role, I would not know what to do. I’d slip back into my caretaker identity.

So if I am to change how I see myself so that I can change my environment, I have to accept a new identity. An identity that I can’t connect with. I know how to be a mother. I know how to take care of others. So well that others get disappointed when I put myself first at times. It disrupts the patterns and expectations of what they see as my identity.

What if I were to start looking at myself in a different light? What if I start to see myself the way God sees his children? Children of existence and light. Will that view change how I treat myself and what I choose in my environment? This is so big. So volatile to the status quo.

You’re ok and it’s going to be ok.

Changing the way you view yourself can be triggering and harsh. It can stir up feelings of past hurts. That’s ok. Those triggers can be guides on your new journey.

Imagine that you’re moving that mountain and your shovel breaks. You are exhausted and now the tool that you’re using is broken! What else is going to go wrong? Haven’t you had enough hurt and disappointment already?

You’re ok. It’s ok to be not ok. This is saying that what you’re feeling is real and recognizing that the task you’ve taken is hard.