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In our busy lives we all need a safe nest where we can actually relax, feel nurtured, and melt into the safety of a sense of home. If your house does not feel like a sanctuary for you, it is worth making a few adjustments.
With a supportive and pleasing home environment, it is a lot easier to feel rooted, confident, and effective in the world.
Green It Up
One of the simplest things you can do to transform your space is get some (easy to care for ) house plants. Numerous studies indicate that house plants improve indoor air quality, reduce stress, boost the immune systems of the residents, and add to quality of life. There are many varieties of house plants that can add beauty and vitality to your home.
Make An Electricity-Free Zone Whenever Possible
We are bombarded all the time with constant electromagnetic frequencies (EMF). These vibrations stimulate our sympathetic nervous systems to create stress in the body. Limit the use of electronic devices in your home. Unplug appliances that are not in use.
Install a breaker switch that allows you to shut off the electric current to your bedroom when you sleep at night. When weather permits, consider turning off the power in our whole house at night. This will save you money and help preserve your health.
A Garden to Love
Turn your yard into a healing and nourishing environment by cultivating a vegetable, herb, or flower garden. This is a longer term project, but well worth it to provide food, pleasant sights and smells, and a soothing atmosphere for your home.
Planting a hedge and ornamental plants in your front lawn can create a buffer between your home and the street, reducing noise pollution and providing a more serene atmosphere.
Baths Make It All Okay
There is nothing like a hot bath to make everything better – as long as your bathroom is a soothing place for you. Turn your bathroom in a healing space. Make it sparkly clean, and empty out all nonessential items.
Decorate your bath room with calming colors and shapes. Devote at least 45 minutes, a few times a week, to your luxuriating in your bath. Use scented candles, herbs, sea salt, and a bath pillow to give yourself a rejuvenating spa experience at home.
Turn Bedrooms Into Nestrooms
Bedrooms should be the place where we sleep and make love. Doing anything else in the bedroom makes it harder to get good rest. In addition to kicking out the electronics, make sure your bedroom can be completely dark, quiet, and pleasantly cool at night.
Do not watch movies, work, or read in your bedroom, and especially not in bed. Make sure your bed is a perfect firmness for you and you have appropriately comfortable pillows and bedding.
Eat Like It Matters
When you eat, just eat, and be together with your family if possible. Nothing else. Make it clear to your family (and yourself) that dinner is not for checking social media or watching television (another reason to boot the box).
Eating a meal while practicing full presence with each other will help everyone enjoy the meal more, and give your family time to connect. It is also a great opportunity to feel and express gratitude.
Keep It Clean
There is a reason that cleanliness is considered important in most traditional cultures. A clean environment inspires physical health, mental clarity, and productivity. Nothing makes a home stressful like stinky odors or having to search for your keys every morning.
With a few organizational tools and structures, and maybe a chore wheel, you can keep you home neat, orderly, and clean to help it feel more relaxing.
Establish an Emotional Safe Zone
With all the masks that we usually have to wear in the world, home should be a place where we can simply be ourselves. Invite everyone in your home to be free to feel whatever they are feeling that day.
This does not mean that family members dump their problems on each other, but rather that authenticity is encouraged and respected, and no one is expected to pretend to feel a certain way. This kind of safety engenders trust and comfort within a family.
Full Sensory Delight
Make your home a place that inspires joy in all the senses. Chose color schemes that are pleasing to your eyes. Use high-quality diffused essential oils, incense, or scented candles to spread soothing and uplifting smells. Get throw rugs, couch cushions, and other textiles in soft textures and interesting shapes.
Use a fountain or wind chimes to provide pleasing sounds. And keep a bowl of fresh fruit on the table. Home is our sanctuary, our place of refuge from the crazy world. Or at least we hope home can be that for us.
To ensure that you have the energy and sense of rootedness necessary to thrive in our busy world, use these tips to make your home a safe, comfortable, and nurturing place to rest and be renewed.
Give Away The TV
Peace is impossible with a screen blaring the craziness of the world at you. Some programs can provide life-affirming stories and supportive information, but most television shows are violent, negative, or promote consumerism and gossiping. Give your TV away and start talking to your family, playing board games, making art projects – activities that inspire you to engage with each other and awaken your creativity.
