What Does Your Home Say About Your Heart?

How do you feel about housework, decorating, tending to your home?

Hate it, tolerate it, enjoy it, avoid it? (I had a friend for whom hiring a housekeeper was a non-negotiable expense. She never even owned a vacuum cleaner.)

While I’ve never really minded housework or decorating, I never really got around to doing it as often as I actually wanted to. There always seemed to be higher priorities, both in terms of time and money, and besides, I “should” do it myself, right?

These days, however, I find myself looking around my home and feeling like I’ve really neglected it over the years.

Awareness started as I delved back into Stephanie Bennett Vogt’s A Year to Clear What’s Holding You Back. One of the lessons nailed something for me that I can no longer ignore: I’ve treated my home with the same neglect I grew up with, and continued to practice myself.

This particular lesson featured an audio meditation in which she led us to get quiet, visualize our home, and see afresh how we feel about the entrance we habitually take.

Since I usually go in and out through the attached garage, I started there in my visualization. What did I see? 

the garage

The usual garage clutter: boxes that housed various yard maintenance equipment (whether we still had the equipment or not), said equipment, trash cans, shelves with oil cans, car-washing accouterments (when was the last time we washed the car ourselves?), empty boxes, a bag of mulch that is probably soil by now, other lawn and gardening supplies we haven’t used. 

But I might have time someday to get back to it, you know.

From the garage I enter the utility or “mudroom.” This room is truly utilitarian: washer, dryer, sink, closet, cabinets housing the spillover from the kitchen, bathroom, and other rooms. It’s a truly useful room, but . . . not very pretty.

entering the mudrom

In particular, I never liked the color of the walls, a green reminiscent of pea soup. When we first bought the house, I said the first thing I’d do was paint that room. I’m too embarrassed to tell you how long we’ve lived in this house and never painted those walls.

That room cried out for beauty, order, and simplicity. 

Beauty, order, simplicity. My soul is also craving those things these days.

Next Stephanie led us to see where our heart moved us. I found myself mentally wandering into my office. First feeling, hitting me like a load of bricks? Overwhelm.

my corner office

So much INFORMATION in that room! Books, files, binders full of notes from the countless online courses I’ve taken. Not to mention the tech paraphernalia and office supplies lurking in my desk drawers.

It’s. All. Too. Much.

One of Stephanie’s reflection questions was, What does your home tell you about yourself?

My answer was clear. It told me I craved beauty, order, and simplicity, and that I have been neglecting my home like I’ve neglected myself.

It also showed me that I have a lot of shame to heal about the self-neglect.

I applied my healing techniques and self-compassion to that shame.Today, when I cleaned my house, I did it with an attitude of gratitude for my home, and a resolve to give it, as well as my body and soul, the attention they all deserve.

Author and coach Cheryl Richardson did a “Zoom gathering” on “Living Clutter-Free in the Wisdom Years,” and she had a very interesting spin on clutter that you who understand energy will appreciate. She acknowledged a conversation with Dr. Bruce Lipton on how our environment has a huge influence on our genes, turning them on or off (a science called epigenetics).

Clutter is not neutral; it affects our health. It can either support our genetic expression, or turn on the “negative” genes.

She convinced me that eliminating clutter and creating beauty, order and simplicity is not something that is optional in these, my “wisdom years” as Cheryl calls them. The effort begs to be a priority. Our health and future quality of life may well depend on it.

Have you ever thought of clutter that way? I haven’t. I knew disorder and clutter can spike stress and cortisol—there are studies on that. But turning on or off gene expression? Wow!Let’s make it personal.

Think about your own home, and how you tend to it (or not so much). Take a mental tour of each room and check with your heart how you feel about each one. Allow the feelings, and learn from them.

Address any heart issues that need attention, like the shame and self-neglect that came up for me. (Another thing I’ve been working on is what I call my “not enough and too much” issue. In this context, the fear of not enough leads me to take in too much, and that leads to the overwhelm I often feel.)

What would you like more of in your home? What would you like less of? Does it satisfy your deepest soul needs, whether it be for beauty, order and simplicity as it is for me, or something else?

What will your next steps be to bring more life into your home? What tiny action can you take in that direction? (Make it tiny as you start; maybe you’ll gain momentum, but if not at first, don’t worry. Remember my motto: “a little bit is better than nothing.”)

Feel free to comment below on your experience with this little coaching session.