How Your Home Can Help You Move Forward in Life
Have you ever been at a point in your life when you wanted change, believed you were ready for change, tried to change, and yet nothing seemed to be moving forward? I certainly have and I suspect I’m not alone. While most people know that change doesn’t happen until we are truly ready, what can we do if we don’t understand why we are seemingly “not ready?” This is where I have found looking at our environment can have huge benefits.
The environment that we have control over, usually our homes, almost perfectly reflects what is going on internally if you know how to look at things metaphorically. Our energy on the inside syncs up with the energy on the outside. The beauty is that once you understand the story that is being told, you can start to make changes in your environment to help support the changes that you need to make internally to truly shift your life in a new direction. Let me offer you a story.
About a year and a half ago, I made a number of major life changes. They were terrifying and the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I was committed to figuring out how to live in alignment with my soul. With each emotional bump in the road, I sat and listened deeply to what it meant, why it was there, and what was needed in order to heal. I made so much space for listening and healing and yet, not much changed in my life outwardly. This confounded me until one day I started to take an even closer look at my front door area. In Feng Shui, this is considered the mouth of chi. Where all energy enters (or doesn’t enter) our home.
During this time of making space, I had gone on quite the DIY home improvement tear. In the front of my house, I dug up a weed infested lawn and planted beautiful xeriscape plants. I rented a jackhammer to tear out 6,000 lbs. of uneven concrete from my walkway and made my own concrete pavers and gravel path. I built a large deck in front of my door to expand the welcome sitting area and built a half stucco wall to serve as a planter bed at the end of the deck to help define the space. I wanted new opportunities to flow into my life and yet I wasn’t actually ready. Despite all of my massive DIY efforts, this lack of readiness was very clearly being told by my environment.
What I haven’t mentioned yet are the things that I didn’t finish. It wasn’t actually necessary to undertake such large projects (so don’t be intimidated, Dear Reader!). What was necessary was to show the world that I was ready for change. But here is how I was showing the world that I wasn’t actually ready. First, there was one last board on the deck that I didn’t get around to installing. It required a special cut that intimidated me, and it also happened to be the very last board before entering my home. And so, I put a wobbly placeholder board in its place and stuck my old, worn-out outdoor mat on top of it. I got used to just stepping over this wobbly board but sometimes guests would step on it and feel destabilized. Then there was the issue of the deadbolt not working. It was old and unreliable and could sometimes lock me out of my own house. I got used to not using it and just used the push button on the bottom handle – a far less secure option. And then about those pavers I made. They turned out well but one cracked. I tried to make another one before the weather turned too cold, but it didn’t come out right, so I just left the cracked one there and promised myself that I’d make a new one in the spring. Spring came and spring went and still I didn’t make the new paver.
When I finally decided to slow down and look deeper, the message was clear. Sure, I wanted change, but I was still insecure about being seen and unsure of how much opportunity I actually wanted to arrive in my life. The unknown is usually scarier than the known. What might we have to release or embrace to step into a new realm? Upon deeper reflection, my environment revealed to me the ways in which I was holding back.
Once I got clear on my stuck pattern, I used my environment to serve as baby steps in my emotional evolution. I figured that I could start by getting comfortable with being seen at home. I sucked it up and made the scarry cuts to finish the deck (which weren’t that scarry after all!), poured the new paver, got a happy welcome mat and threw out the lifeless one, put two, friendly sitting chairs out front, installed a working door lock, and painted my front door a bright, cheerful color. After painting the door, for about two hours I was nervous about what the neighbors would think. You can’t walk by and not notice it. I definitely wasn’t “fitting in.” I let myself make space for this discomfort and soon, I noticed my own authentic joy rise to the surface. I love this new color and all of the changes that I have made.
From a Feng Shui perspective, there are still more adjustments that I could make but I believe that the real magic is already taking place. I found a way to move through what was emotionally holding me back. I used my environment to take the necessary emotional journey and since then, I have been making new moves in my business that I just couldn’t get myself to traverse before. Now, taking these steps feels easy and exciting rather than foreboding and murky. What a change! This is the power of how your house can help you move forward in life.
Perhaps as you take a closer look at your own home, you can begin to uncover the symbolic story of your own life. What is the state of your home reflecting back to you about yourself? What changes might you make that symbolize where you want to go? You don’t have to follow any set rules. Your intentions and the power they hold is always what matters most. Go on. Trust yourself!
Wishing you well on your journey,
Katie
