Earlier today I began moving the furniture in my bedroom.
I do this every couple of years to change my perspective. I throw out anything I haven’t used in a year, or anything that make me feel bad. It’s my way of feng-shuing my life while working on my dreams.
It’s a butt-kicker of a project though, because I have heavy, antique furniture – all wood.
It took the better part of the afternoon to move one dresser and my big bed to the other side of the room. I went through the dresser bagging anything which wasn’t important.
One small drawer contains old letters, cards, and notes from different friends throughout my life. There’s love and joy in the frayed edges of the envelopes. There’s old love notes, letters from past boyfriends, and post cards from friends who’ve traveled far and wide.
It’s my special “good feeling” drawer where I can go to be reminded how much love has existed in my life. Everyone should have a “good feeling” place in their home for when life is kicking our butt, so we can surround ourselves with the things that make us feel better.
Fung shui to the rescue . . .
The idea of feng-shuing your environment is the practice of adjusting your space in order to harmonize your inner self with your environment. If your space is cluttered, blocked and disorganized then your inner self is cluttered, blocked and disorganized. Your space and you are one.
Sometimes this thought scares the crap out of me.
You’d have to see my room to fully appreciate that sentiment.
If you really think about it, everything in our immediate surroundings has a psychological effect on us. You can look at clothes in your closet and have good or bad feelings about different pieces. You know how annoyed you get every time you hear a certain drawer creak, window open, gate slam or curtains close.
These distractions dilute our focus.
Feng Shui means wind and water . . .
Think about the direction of your home – how does the sunrise and sunset hit your rooms? What about the wind? I bet if your house wasn’t planned correctly, there can be aspects of the wind and the sun hitting your living environment that you may love or hate, so might see how feng shui could work.
Moving the furniture makes my brain think about my environment, and I become more aware. I have to change my thinking as I enter a room that is different than it was a few hours earlier.
Otherwise I’d bump into the hard corner of something and knock myself out. Maybe it’s in this state that my dreams will come true . . . ?
In the book, Home Possessions: Material Culture Behind Closed Doors, Daniel Miller says,
Moving furniture as a form of redecoration is an attempt to reinvigorate a perception of staleness or impose a missing dynamism.
It could be a sign that I feel I don’t have control over my life and moving the furniture around makes me feel like I am at least in control over my personal space. It’s true that there are many things about my life I’d like to change: I’d like to work from home; I’d like to be able to take long walks everyday; I’d like more time alone to write, and I’d like to be around happier people (this does not include my son, for he is the joy of my life).
Maybe to deal with the impatience over the things I long for . . . I move furniture around? Does it fool me into a false sense that I am working on making my dreams come true, even though evidence of this is lacking?
How does changing your space make you feel?
Catherine
Catherine Hughes is the founder of 8 Women Dream. She is passionate about helping women step out of their own way and strike out into a world waiting for their special talents. She’s a published author and a former award-winning mom blogger. Catherine has helped companies both large and small create engaging web content, social media narratives, and unique blogging platforms. She claims to be a redhead but don’t hold that against her.
