Is Your Home Your Ally?
by Denise
Linn
Your home can be
your greatest ally in helping you to achieve your potential.
This is true because your home is not only a reflection of you,
but in its deepest sense, it also has the power to mold you and
shape your future. When you implement changes in your home, you
will notice that often your life is also transformed: instantly,
dramatically, and permanently.
Your home
fulfils many functions in your life. On the physical plane, it
provides shelter from the elements and offers you protection and
privacy. Beyond this, it is also a place where you can relax and
be yourself. It can serve as a canvas for your self-expression.
Your dwelling is also an outward expression of your inner being,
and on a very profound level it is also a place where you can
grow spiritually.
In the deepest
sense, your personal space is a sharply accurate mirror of your
subconscious desires, hopes, fears, and dreams. It reveals your
beliefs and decisions about yourself and the world. It is a
reflection of your identity.
A mirror of
yourself
You cannot help
but implant your identity on your home. Every object you place
in it expresses some inner aspect of yourself. As you mature,
your development is mirrored in the choices you make in your
environment. The style of your home, your possessions, and the
colors you like all reflect your inner being. The Swiss
psychoanalyst Carl Jung said that everything in the
unconscious seeks an outward manifestation. This principle
explains why we continually project our subconscious beliefs and
feelings onto our home.
When you want to
find out what someone is like, all you need to do is look around
his or her home. The spindly teenage boy who plasters his
bedroom walls with images of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester
Stallone is subconsciously saying, 'I want to look like a body
builder'. The data processor who decorates her home with photos
of unspoiled wilderness, carvings from Africa, and an animal
print duvet cover on her bed dreams of having some adventure in
her life. A house with natural fabrics, hand-carved wooden toys
strewn on the floor, and biodegradable laundry soap on the shelf
speaks of a belief in living naturally and organically. If you
want to discover your subconscious dreams, fears, and beliefs,
just look around your own home. You will find them represented
in every nook and cranny.
Our homes also
chronicle our personal history. Our past experiences form a
framework that gives structure and context to our lives. We use
the past to define ourselves. Our history is carried into the
present through the symbols with which we surround ourselves.
Our past is displayed in the photos on our walls and in the
objects we treasure. The teapot from your great aunt, the baby
blanket from your childhood, and the silver napkin rings from
your mother are all physical relics embedded with memories. They
all say something about the way you define yourself, based on
your interpretation of the past.
An anchor to
the earth
Your home can
serve as an anchor to the earth and to your roots. Ken Colbung (Nundjan
Djiridjaken) the senior male clan leader of the Australian
Bibulmum Aboriginal tribe, spoke to me of how important this
connection between people and their land can be. He said,
'Western man is connected materially to the land, but we are
connected spiritually to land. It's important that we continue
to secure our connection to the land because it is our spiritual
embodiment.' Your home is the connecting point between heaven
and earth. It is the place of your center, your axis -- it
connects you to the land.
A template for
spiritual growth
The soul is
always yearning to expand and grow. This is the reason why we
are subconsciously drawn to home environments that can give us
what we need at a particular point in time. The homes we choose
often provide what we most need to progress on our journey
towards wholeness. Some of these environments may seem to lack
harmony or even have unpleasant aspects, but they always offer
us an opportunity to grow.
Just as we are
drawn to individuals and experiences that contribute to our
spiritual growth, so too we may seek environments that can help
us to learn the lessons that we need in life. The Dalai Lama
once remarked that you don't learn tolerance from your friends.
What this means is that it is sometimes the people you find the
most disagreeable who have the most to teach you. This is true
with our homes as well.
Your soul is
drawn to what it needs. In traditional feng shui, a home at the
top of the mountain is usually considered bad feng shui because
it is too exposed. The bottom of a valley is also inauspicious
feng shui because it can be too cloistered and constricted.
However, living on top of a mountain may suit your soul because
the vast open expanses make you feel more expansive . . . and
this is what your soul needs. And other people, living down in
the valley, may find this environment perfectly meets their
requirements for seclusion: its constrictions might help them to
focus their otherwise somewhat frenetic energy.
There are no
wrong homes. Each home offers you unique opportunities for
spiritual growth. The so-called feng shui imperfections of your
home may well be exactly what you need for polishing the rough
edges of your soul. For example, a man I once knew lived in a
rented home that had a very low entrance door. This is usually
considered bad feng shui. Henry was a tall man, and every time
he entered his house he had to incline his head. Sometimes he
would be in a hurry and forget to do this. He would then hit his
head on the door lintel which made him angry. Sometimes he
yelled at the door. Occasionally he banged his fists on it. One
day he came home, looked thoughtfully at the door lintel, humbly
bent his head and walked in. It was a moment of truth, a moment
that changed his life.
Henry was often
in confrontational situations. Many people found him arrogant,
because he was always trying to prove that his point of view was
right. The instant he bent his head at his threshold, he was
filled with an indescribable peace. In that moment, he realized
that he could navigate around the obstacles in his life.
Afterwards, whenever Henry walked through the front doorway, he
bent his head in humility saying to himself, 'I accept my life
with love and compassion', and he found more harmony unfolding
in his life.
Sometimes
problems encountered in feng shui bring to mind the classic
question about the chicken and the egg. Which came first? Do we
subconsciously choose homes that contain metaphors for the
issues that we need to work on? Or do we experience blockages in
our life because of the bad feng shui of the home? Although the
answer is probably some of each, I generally feel that we
subconsciously choose homes because they have something to teach
us. On a soul level, there are no bad homes. Every home is
filled with lessons and opportunities for spiritual growth.
Sometimes the
soul is drawn to a house because it has energy that will help
activate hidden potential. Shortly after my husband and I were
married, we moved into a ramshackle little house by the sea. We
did not have much money, so I decorated our home with things
found in thrift stores and with treasures washed up by the sea.
I framed paintings with driftwood, and placed on the windowsill
pieces of glass from the shore that looked lovely in the
afternoon sun. Our shabby little house began to glow, igniting
an incredible creativity within me unlike anything I had ever
experienced before. Without the limitations of our income and
this tiny home, I might never have discovered this side of
myself.
What is home to
you?
To gain clarity
about your home, you must first look at what 'home' means to
you. The hidden symbols that you discover within your four walls
can be decoded to reveal your overall beliefs about what a home
is. This will be slightly different for each person.
For many people
their home is the place where they sleep every night. Other
people may think of home as the place where they were born and
grew up, even if they have lived elsewhere for many years. For
many native people, home is their ancestral village or the place
where their ancestors are buried.
I have spent
quite a bit of time in Scandinavia. Many people in these
northern countries live in city apartments for most of the year,
but for a month or more during the summer they go to a cottage
by a lake. Often this will be the place they call home. Their
definition of home is not determined by the amount of time they
spend there, but the amount of happiness they feel in a place.
Some people's
sense of home will be linked to a certain kind of geography,
such as the moors of Scotland, the lakes of Sweden, the
mountains of Switzerland, or the great plains in the middle of
the United States. Whenever these individuals find themselves in
this kind of terrain, they feel at home. It is useful to ask
yourself, 'Where do I feel at home?' When you have discovered
just what the word home means to you, then you can begin to
create the kind of environment that has this sort of energy in
it.
I once had a
feng shui client, named John, who was a perfect example of how
this process can work. When he considered what the idea of home
meant to him, John realized that he felt most at home whenever
he was in the mountains. I suggested that he place paintings and
photos of mountains within his home and office to help create
the feeling of mountains in his space. He reported that after
doing this he felt much more at home with himself and his life.
For some people,
ideas of home can be tied to the traditions, heritage or
religion of a particular culture. They feel at home when they
are surrounded by things that symbolize these associations for
them. For example, one of my clients found that he felt at home
in environments filled with things from the Japanese culture. He
wasn't Asian and hadn't grown up in an Asian culture, but none
the less he found that including Japanese objects in his home
filled him with a great sense of peace and contentment. Another
client found that she felt truly at home among relics and icons
reflecting Spanish Catholicism. She said that she felt serene
after placing antique carved statues of Jesus and various saints
around her home.
These yearnings
to be surrounded by objects from a particular culture may be the
product of early childhood experiences, ancestral memories, the
collective unconscious, symbolic associations, or even
former-life memories. Discovering the reason for the attraction
is not always important. What does matter, however, is honoring
the preferences of the soul. Something that may seem trivial,
illogical, or even somewhat silly to the conscious mind often
fills a deep need on an unconscious level. Listen to the
promptings of your soul. It will lead you home.
This
article is excerpted from Feng
Shui for the Soul: How to create a harmonious environment that
will nurture and sustain you, © 1999, by Denise Linn.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Hay House, Inc. www.hayhouse.com.
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