Getting Started with Your Own House Therapy
Feb 20, 2017 07:41AM ● By Ren Campbell
Getting Started with Your Own House Therapy
You can begin by doing a few very simple things for yourself. I use these 4 steps to teach my clients to think and make decisions for themselves. Try it.
1. The next time you walk into your home, do it differently. Walk through the front door if you always go in through the kitchen or garage. If you are in an apartment or townhouse, you could just stop and look around before moving into the main space—or go to a different room first rather than going to the room you would normally would..
2. Sit in the main room of your house, but sit in a different place than you usually do. Sit with the intention of seeing it from a different perspective. Then note what is great about it, what you don’t really like about it, what seems off to you and what seems right to you.
Find three things in your home that bring you joy when you see or touch them.
3. Find three things in your home that you enjoy, things that truly bring a joy that is based solely on the fact that seeing it or touching it lightens your psychic load—start with three physical objects, then move to three physical experiences.
4. Learn how to answer your questions for yourself with finger-testing kinesiology. This takes practice, but you can do it, and it will make your life easier because it will remove your attached ego from the equation. So, learn to finger test, open your spirit to your higher self and go for it.
On a personal note, I love this weird little garden whirligig I bought years ago—a little cutout dog and dog house someone made as a personal home project. It sits on top of a bookcase in my living room where I can glance up and be delighted (when I really should get out the vacuum). When I enter my day I love seeing the sunlight angle through my kitchen windows, not only a visual calendar as the months pass, but also a never ending amusement for my cat, Rufus, who chases the shadows created on the floor.
Do you know about finger-testing kinesiology? There are many books and online links for you to explore this interesting method for finding answers.
What do you already love about your home? Start there, don’t worry that it’s not perfect. Loosen the notion that perfection is either achievable (it isn’t) or desirable (questionable). Perfection is chimaera. The poet Robert Browning wrote in Men and Women and Other Poems “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Do me, yourself and your loved ones a favor and give up on caring what other people think about you and your home for a while—that’s as big a trap as thinking the DIY channel is real design and the shelter magazines are attainable (remember they are the Vogue and Glamour of the real estate world—and as true to life as the runway models’ figures and attitudes.) Using these resources as inspiration may be a good thing for you, but other people’s opinions rarely are.
Love yourself—begin at home.
Ren Campbell has practiced the discipline of architectural interior design for over 30 years. He’s been a University studio instructor and currently consults with individuals on their issues concerning their homes and how they live in them. For House Therapy questions, email [email protected].
