How Your Home can Help You Discover Your Purpose
May 17, 2010 by Linda Binns
Filed under Feng Shui Space
Do you feel as though you are living your life purpose? Do you know what it is that you’re here to do? Some people do, and many do not. But did you know that if you are looking to discover and live your life purpose that your house can help you?
Your home represents you. It reflects exactly what’s going on internally. For example, it shows how you feel about yourself, how you feel about the various areas of your life – whether your relationships are happy, whether you enjoy or are struggling with your career, how vibrant your health is or how strong your financial situation. It’s all reflected in your home, if you know what to look for.
Your home can also show your aspirations, your dreams and whether or not you are living your life purpose. Here are a couple of examples to show you what I mean:
One of my clients (I’ll call her Susan) had spent many years at home being a wife and mother. Her children had now left home and she was feeling lost, not knowing what to do with herself – a situation with which I’m sure many women can identify.
In her home it was easy to see everyone else in the family – who they were, what they loved to do, what hobbies they had. But there were no photographs of her without her family (and only a couple of family photographs displayed with her in them). There were no signs of any hobbies or anything else that she enjoyed. She had no space to call her own. The house was essentially about everyone else, and not her.
First of all, I asked her to find a couple of photographs of herself – one by herself and one perhaps with friends, to display somewhere in the house. Secondly, since she now had some extra space with the children gone, I asked her to choose a space for herself, somewhere that would be uniquely hers. Once she had chosen the space I asked her to think about what she’d like to put in it – things that she loved, without worrying what anyone else thought about them. As she did this, she also did some journaling about things she enjoyed doing, things she could see herself doing or not doing and exploring all the things that came up as a result of thinking about those things.
Create a space that represents you and what you love to do.
By doing this she was able to re-connect with skills and abilities that were long forgotten. She had a real gift for counseling people and that’s ultimately what she went on to do. But she had lost touch with that because for so many years she had focused on her family and not herself. She was able to use her home to help her re-discover who she was and what she wanted from the next phase of her life.
In many cases I find people with homes that look fabulous, but with a bedroom (their bedroom) that seems as though it has been forgotten. The rest of the home looks great, but they’re not sure what to do in their bedroom. For some reason, their inspiration stops there. This is a classic sign that they are not in touch with their true selves. There is some aspect of themselves that they are not able to see and as a result they are probably doing something in life that they really don’t want to be doing, but they don’t know how to change.
Your bedroom is the room that is closest to you and has the biggest effect on you. It is your personal sanctuary and so, it reflects your innermost being. What does it say about you when you make the rest of your home beautiful but neglect your bedroom?
I have worked with many clients in this situation and I always encourage them to start thinking about what they would like their bedroom to look like. Usually they have no idea, so I suggest that they start by looking through magazines and finding items that they like that could potentially go in their bedroom. They may find a nice bed or dresser, or colors that they like or a particular style that they like. I ask them to cut out pictures and create a book of things that appeal to them. While they’re doing this, they also journal about things they like and don’t like to do. What would they like their life to be like in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?
By journaling and also cutting out pictures of things they like, they start to get a greater sense of themselves. Ultimately, they are able to create the room that best represents them, a room that they really love – and that whole process helps them transform into more of who they really are. It helps them find their true purpose in life, which is often quite different from what they are currently doing.
One of my favorite examples is a client I’ll call Anne. She had a very hard, assertive and even sometimes aggressive personality. She loved to ride motorbikes and ‘hang with the boys’. She didn’t indulge in anything frivolous or what she considered to be a waste of time. The big surprise came when she went through the exercise mentioned above and as a result created her ideal bedroom. It looked like the bedroom of a princess. It was very feminine and soft – not at all like the image that she liked to portray. This was the side of her she was shutting down – no wonder she didn’t know what to do with her bedroom before.
Biker Bedroom
If you are struggling to identify your life purpose or your true sense of self, try working with your bedroom first – but don’t forget to see where and how you are represented in the rest of the house as well.
Linda, I love your concept of putting “yourself” into your home. That is what I have always tried to do myself, with a certain amount of success. My stumbling block is my bedroom and I’m hoping you may be able to help here…how do you reach a compromise between masculine and femine, when married?
The part of this article about the bedroom really hit home with me, as I’ve been aware for years that the state of my bedroom is very indicative of my own internal state. The fact that I hate, positively hate(!), my current bedroom really bothers me … yet, as Joanne somewhat alluded to in her comment, what is to be done when you’re married?
I would have no problems blossoming up this bedroom tomorrow! But my husband thinks functional is fine and that money needs to be put into other areas of the house and not into a room “no one ever sees” and that we “only sleep in.” (Can you tell we’ve argued about this before?)
A few months back we did have to fit up the spare room, and we enjoyed doing it together. It’s now a lovely little space: I prefer it over our bedroom! Hmmm … what does this say, I wonder?
At any rate, thank you, Linda, for this thought-provoking post.
Great questions!
Joanne, ideally every room should be a balance of masculine and feminine (yin and yang). You don’t really want any space to be predominantly one or the other. I think the key is for both of you to be fully involved in the design of your bedroom. For example, if you’re going to buy a new item of furniture or a new picture for a room, you should both choose it together. It should be something you both like.
Men aren’t always particularly interested in spending time deciding what should go into the bedroom, but this room is your most personal space, it is a reflection of your relationship and ideally you should both love it. I have found that when couples engage in choosing items and making decisions about the bedroom together it has a way of bringing them much closer together.
Chania girl – I totally understand your frustration. I always have a hard time getting my husband to spend money on items for the bedroom. Here are a couple of approaches that can work well:
1. Point out that, although this may not seem important to him, it is important to you and that you believe that the fact nobody else sees the room is irrelevant – the two of you see it and you spend a lot of time there. It is a reflection of both of you and your relationship and you deserve to have a room that you feel good in.
2. Compromise is often something that works – you know, he wants to buy something that you don’t particularly see as essential, but you say that you’re happy for him to buy that thing if he will agree that you can buy an item for the bedroom.
3. The most important thing is to try to involve him in the whole process. But men are men and often they just won’t want to be or they’ll just use the excuse that the money is better spent elsewhere. I actually think it’s THE most important place you can spend money, but they’re not going to just take my word for it! So if you find that there’s no compromise and they are not willing to give in at all then first of all, I think there are some deeper relationship issues to explore, (that’s another topic for discussion) but have a look to see what you can do that really doesn’t cost anything. Do you have something already somewhere else in the house that you could move into the bedroom that would improve it? Could you just apply a fresh coat of paint in a color that you love? Could you refinish the furniture you already have to make it different?
Even if you hate your bedroom, if you can just bring in one item that you absolutely love, then you focus on that item when you come into the room. Even one thing will change the energy a little bit. Look for simple ways that you can improve the room and change the energy little by little. That energy improvement will help both of you.
Always focus on what you CAN do, rather than what you can’t. That way you can bring about positive change that will ripple out to other areas of your life. Even bringing in a photograph of you and your husband that you absolutely love will help.
If you’re not sure on what to do in the room or how you want it to look, start looking through magazines. Cut out pictures of things that you really like – I love that bed, I love that color, I love that painting, those curtains, etc., etc. Create a book full of pictures of things for the bedroom that you do love. This will give you an idea of the style that appeals to you and from that you can find that you start to attract the things that will work perfectly for you.
Hope that helps!
Linda
Linda, thank you for such a thorough, thoughtful response. I appreciate your taking the time to respond to my question and will attempt to put a few of these very good tips into practice. I think it will just be a matter of bringing my husband on board. As I mentioned, we really enjoyed fitting our spare room just before Christmas. And I’m lucky: we have similar tastes in color schemes and furniture items we are drawn to. Fingers crossed!
And thanks again!
Chania Girl – I’m glad you found something helpful in my response. I think if you can work on the bedroom together, even if it’s just a little bit at a time, you’ll both find it to be a very rewarding experience, particularly as you worked well together on the spare room and you both have similar tastes. My husband is always resistant to any change (and spending money) but when we’ve done it he always says it was the right thing to do and he loves it, and I always make a point of involving him in it.
Good luck!!
Linda