Making Your Home Your Sanctuary.

By creating a sanctuary, we create an atmosphere that enables us to find peace and stillness, and this helps us contemplate our inner life. 

I was a professional organizer for many years, and one of the joys of my work was helping people find inner peace.

When people are overwhelmed because they have too much going on, and have a lot of distractions from their personal lives, work lives, and inner lives, it can be extremely challenging to relax the nervous system, as it becomes activated with every day living.

The first step is decluttering. 

I think of decluttering as a cleansing. Many of us have lots of things that don’t necessarily make us feel good. The more stuff we have, the more stuff we have to clean, gets ruined because it is in corners crunched underneath other things, and we lose track of what we own.

When we live in a home that is very cluttered, it reminds us of all the things we need to do, as well as all the things we spent too much money on, and all the things that are broken and need to be fixed. This can create a lot of stress.

It can be difficult under these circumstances to truly find peace and contemplate our inner life. It becomes a vicious circle. We don’t feel at peace because we have created a space that is chaotic, and that, in turn, creates chaos internally. It goes around and around in circles.

If things have no value to you, bring you down, are a part of your past that you don’t want to live with anymore, then release it. Unapologetically. Creating a blank canvas helps us keep from becoming distracted so we can then contemplate life in a really healthy way. This helps us feel at peace, focused and calm.

Once you cleanse the palate, make it your own.

Be resourceful. Find pieces that you have and love, and put them on full display. If they need sprucing up, be creative with what you have. Going to home improvement stores offers lots of options. It’s not as expensive or daunting as you might think. 

To get ideas, watch home and garden shows, look through magazines, search online. Take screenshots of things you like on social media. We have so much access to ideas and information now. Use it to your benefit. 

Doing something as simple as finding new pillows or changing paint color, can do wonders. Do you have something that you have drawn that you can frame, perhaps something from one of your children? Even a picture in a magazine can work beautifully.

Throughout this process, think of your ideal lifestyle. 

Do you love to garden, but don’t have the space? Utilize your deck or your backyard, or even display some herbs and easy to manage plants in your kitchen or home. Do you love a different culture, but can’t quite get there? Find items that are styled after a certain country and put them in your home so you feel like you are there.

Keep it organized. 

Things can fall apart pretty quickly. We shop, get gifts from other people, and manage to just find new things in our space that we don’t quite remember how they got there. We need to maintain, so subtract whenever you add an item, and continually manage things as best you can. 

Enjoy Your Sanctuary.

Your home is your sanctuary. It should be a place where you can relax, a place that makes you feel good, represents you, and not a place that embarrasses you. Treat it like your little space in the world, the space that brings you peace, that space where you can go inward, grow spiritually and enjoy your life.

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Aries ♈︎, The Zodiac Sign of Fun, Inquisitiveness, and Determination 🤪🧐💪

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, indicative of the excitement and enthusiasm of new beginnings. If you think of the zodiac as the lifespan of a person, Aries is the beginning of life. They are fun, inquisitive, fearless, and sometimes impulsive. As the first sign of the zodiac, there is a freshness and fullness of spirit to Aries. They are forever hopeful, and will fight the good fight to defend the underdog.

Aries is also the fire sign of the four cardinal (leadership) signs, which gives them the instinct to lead with passion, enthusiasm and action (Cancer leads with intuition and emotional intelligence, Libra with intellect and sense of fairness, and Capricorn with authority and pragmatism). Being the first sign of the spring season, their energy brings vibrancy and liveliness.

Aries can be a ram or a sheep (depending largely on their other signs in their astrological chart), and they are generally people who like to get things done. Even the more shy ones will show you what they are made of if they feel they are pushed into a corner. Most Aries don’t let life keep them down for long. For them, it is about action, whether it be push or pull.

Aries are generally strong willed and independent and love to show their inner fire (think Lady Gaga, Elton John and Diana Ross). The Ram generally loves to work, so making money is not an issue, although spending it as soon as they acquire it might be. 

Our Aries friends are creative, imaginative, very sympathetic and kind. They bring excitement and passion to their relationships, but need to be stimulated long enough to keep committed, as they can quickly become bored. 

In conclusion, Aries are very dedicated and determined, and are perfectly aligned when they are in their natural leadership state and being creative. Aries are at their best when they are channeling their natural passion and enthusiasm into whatever they do. They are always thinking of the next step, as well as the people around them. 

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Getting real with our emotions.

My latest vlog is a short video about getting real with our emotions. Feelings don’t need to be stuffed down or justified - they are the key to our well being and healing process, as well as creating healthy, fulfilling relationships with others. Accepting how we feel, as well as honoring how other people feel without judgement and shame, is a path to becoming whole through spiritual and emotional well being.  

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Healing the pain, without the apology.

This card is the Eight of Cups from the Tarot Deck Golden Art Nouveau by Giulia F. Massaglia

I chose this card in the tarot, as it represents emotional dissatisfaction and being able to walk away toward a journey of self discovery.  

                                                                

If we were in an accident, and were badly hurt, no one would ever say or expect us to “just deal with it” and move on. They would appear indifferent and heartless to even suggest it. Yet somehow, when we get our hearts broken, people will give that advice, especially if they are the ones who hurt us.

The “let’s move on” without discussing it, or us not getting the accountability we feel we deserve from those who hurt us, is about them, not us. Many times, when other people hurt us it is because they have not dealt with their own pain and loss. They have been told to “move on,” and haven’t grieved what has happened to them, and what has not happened for them. 

We all get triggered by our unresolved pain, instead of asking for help (and appearing weak) many of us lash out and hurt someone else instead. Addressing an open vulnerable conversation with them will be futile, as it is just too risky. They don’t want to hear what they have done when they were not at their best. So we all walk around a bit wounded, and stuff down our feelings. Then we may get told we are not strong enough if we can’t move on.

Strength is “looking the devil in the eye,” as they say. It is having the courage to face our pain and address it. It’s in those vulnerable times we find the courage to move on, as we have honored ourselves and the people we have hurt.

For some, being confronted with an comfortable situation will lead to defensiveness and denial, and may lead to personal insults. This is a defense mechanism, and has nothing to do with us.

But we don’t need that apology we may never get. We can heal on our own, without begging for understanding or over-explaining, and feeling small and insignificant. We are better than that, and we can hold onto our own spiritual sovereignty. Love from another wants to heal what they have done. Love for ourselves will not accept anything less.

I find that in order to feel the strength, I need to take good care of myself. It helps me to keep balanced. It is  going to bed early when I need to, eating healthy and light foods, moving (even if it’s not working out in the gym), journaling, talking things out with people I can trust, and treating myself as that little girl inside me who needs the pain to heal.

I am sending you love, and kindness - and assurance that your feelings are real and very much matter, even if you don’t get that apology.