My Simple Weekend Refresh: Space, Mind, Body & Soul
This past weekend I could feel a few areas of my home needing a serious refresh - two specific projects that had been on my to-do list for some weeks - and this weekend I was determined to get to them.
Why was I so determined that now was the time?
Two reasons.
The first?
The Feng Shui of the particular areas...
One area happens to fall in the Travel & Helpful People area of my home and my husband was about to set off on his last work trip before the baby comes. Being 35 weeks pregnant, I wanted a smooth trip for him and plenty of help with my first two while he was away.
The areas houses a bay windowsill full of potted plants. They thrive there, so much so that I haven’t repotted them in years (5 maybe?… eek!) and most of them have been pretty much okay... Actually, a few have died, and others have begun to show signs of needing some love and attention, plus I had clippings that I diligently water way too frequently... to keep them somewhat happy. It was time to consolidate, to repot, to root the clippings, to ground.
(For more information on how & why to align these life areas over your floor plan, visit my blog post on the subject.)
The second project falls squarely in my Journey & Career area: a fountain with the specific purpose of uplifting this area and remedying a People Block I’d discovered (according to the original style of Feng Shui - not the one I typically practice) when we bought our home.
The fountain needed fresh water - badly. It was murky and moving like molasses, hardly making a sound at all as it seeped out. Gross.
Water elements are helpful in certain areas of your home (Journey & Career, Family & Ancestry, Abundance & Wealth), but only when they are fresh and well functioning. When they are not, they cause problems.
My work-life has been feeling exactly like my fountain - like molasses... at a time when I would prefer to be ticking things off my list in my last few weeks before the baby comes (and my focus changes entirely). It was time to bring in fresh water and clean the algae off the rock collection it hosts.
The second reason I was adamant (as if the first one was not enough)...
During a visualization I was guiding a group of clients through earlier in the week, these two areas specifically came up when I asked the question: “What area of my home needs love and attention right now?”
I do my best to follow my intuitions and inspirations that arise.
I did indeed consolidate my plants - there are now five potted plants in the windowsill rather than eight. It feels cleaner, fresher, more solid, more grounded.
I also rooted some starts that have graced my bathroom for years. This is my fame & recognition area - or being recognized for my strengths - one in which it is always helpful to ground down, to inspire growth.
And the fountain runs clean. It took me maybe an hour to clean it out, scrub the rocks and put it all back together. (That’s less time than I’ve spent thinking about how I should get it done over the past month!) It once again makes its happy burbling sound.
Here’s the thing about refreshing areas of your home:
There is generally an emotional component that unexpectedly comes along with it.
Old emotions are unearthed just as you uncover dust and dirt that you clear away.
Emotions flow more freely along with any water feature. (Clogged sinks, dirty fish tanks, grimey fountains represent a clogging of your emotional life.)
The evening after repotting, I found myself awash in uncertainty of where I was headed - needing desperately to root down.
The day following the fountain cleaning was a rough one: my husband left town for the week (which I had been feeling just fine about), I started the day throwing up after having a zinc lozenge on an empty stomach, my morning was emotional.
All kinds of emotions were bubbling up - I could cry at the drop of a dime (which only happens to me once in a blue moon). I was feeling overwhelmed and hopeless about the state of my work and worldly responsibilities - something I generally have dialed in.
Pregnancy hormones? Perhaps.
All that gluten and dairy I ate at last night’s potluck? Could be.
My emotions flowing freely just like my fountain? I think so.
I spent the afternoon following my impulses, rather than hunkered down in front of my computer pushing through the resistance.
I took 30 minutes to re-evaluate my work plans for the week - I always feel better when I’m planned out in way that feels doable.
Releasing where I thought I would be felt good.
Realizing that I could accomplish the same feeling of closure and success while dropping two major projects was enlightening.
I spent a good few hours concocting delicious creations in the kitchen - something I always love.
Homemade coconut milk hot chocolate felt just right on for the rainy, emotional day.
Smashed potatoes that promised to be amazing were a start to a dinner the kids would love.
While I cooked, I listened to the exact snippet of Abraham Hicks I needed to hear. (I highly recommend listening to any of the 100’s of clips available on Youtube that speak to you.)
That snippet led me to remember to get clear around why it was that I wanted to accomplish all the work projects I’d laid out (sometimes that part gets forgotten).
What feeling would that bring that I was yearning for?
Accomplishment
Success
Closure
Drilling down - what do those emotions inspire in me?
Release, Surrender, Allowing
Being present in each moment with my soon-to-be three children
Trusting that everything is always working out for me (it always does!)
After a delicious dinner with the kids, bath, stories, bedtime, cleaning the kitchen and closing down the house, I crawled into bed and took the five minutes before lights-out to journal and feel into those emotions: what I wanted to feel and all the ways I already feel that in my everyday life
I want to be in the flow of life, to allow what is happening to happen (a powerful labor practice), to release my expectations, to surrender and know that life is getting me where I want to go much faster than I could do so on my own. These are practices I return to daily.
The process of aligning your current self with the place you want to be is powerful in manifesting your desires.
Think:
- How am I already allowing the flow?
- How do I already surrender in my daily life?
- How is everything already working out for me?)
And overnight? I dreamt two dreams…
One of a musty, cluttered home that was not my own. The space was overwhelming and I couldn't help but focus on the layers upon layers of stuff.
Houses in dreams, generally tend to be a reflection of your body and what it houses.
The second? Floating down the river in my town. It was cold, high, murky spring flow, but I felt at ease. There were many people with me and I was helping direct the young past the places that might catch us up… pushing off logs and rocks. I came into an eddy where the water was warmer and a group of women friends were laughing and talking, drinking wine from glasses and simply taking in what the river had to offer.
When I awoke, it seemed clear that these two dreams represented not only the duality of the experience I’d had the day before, but also my options that lay ahead: to wallow in the layers of emotional stuff - hardship and stagnation (most of which isn’t even mine) that can clog my experience… or… to go with the flow, to be in the river, however cold and murky and fast it might go, and to enjoy the ride, trust it will take me to new and wonderful places.
I love it when I have a weekend that covers that breadth of work I do with my clients: from physical space clearing and living intentionally in your space with Feng Shui to emotional clearing and Mindset work.
It is all interconnected, interwoven in this fabric of life. Physical clearing helps to clear away the emotional cobwebs. And when you are aware of what is happening emotionally, it makes the process flow so much more gracefully.
It never ends. Your space accumulates and stagnates, calls out for love and inspires you to see things with fresh eyes. As you intentionally shift your space, you have ever more access to release the layers upon layers of emotion built-up inside as you work.
I love this work.
Two weeks left before I intentionally go on maternity sabbatical! :) At this point, I'm only taking one-off consultations. If you feel like now is the time for an appointment or two to help get you started, get in touch today!
Enjoy that spring transformation we're in the midst of (in the northern hemisphere) - it's glorious inside and out,
:) Tenaya
