16 Sep How to be a Good Partner with Your Home: Collaborative Feng Shui

Posted at 20:25h in Conversations with Your Home, Feng Shui by

Being a partner with anyone takes conscious effort even when you don’t feel like it.  This statement is no different with regard to your home.  Having a relationship with your home can be one of the most rewarding experiences you can have.  The unfortunate part is that we don’t realize the possibilities, looking upon the place we call “home” as a brick-and-mortar structure and nothing more.

Just as there’s give and take in any joint venture, there needs to be that kind of resilience with your home. Sometimes you have to fix the roof rather than take the vacation.  Or you may decide a party is best held at someone else’s home—-it just doesn’t feel right in yours.  Or a faucet leak draws your attention to a bigger plumbing problem.  This is all about relating to your home in a reciprocal way—-listening back and forth and responding accordingly.

Here are some tips for helping you be a good JV with your home. . . .

1.  Check in each morning with your home.  Saying “Good Morning” or acknowledging its presence is all that’s needed to open the door to further conversations.

2.  Don’t begrudge your home its repairs.  Something that breaks is probably not a vindictive action on the part of your house.  It may be its way to draw your attention to something that could develop into a bigger problem; it may be its way of saying “pay attention.”

3.  Listen for the name of your home.  Don’t simply give it your idea of a name—-let the name or word bubble up slowly from within the structure itself.  That is the name it wants YOU to call it—-someone else may have a different relationship with your home and will understandably hear something different.

4.  When you first enter your home from having been gone, stop just inside the door and feel the reception your home is giving you.  Whether you’ve been gone on a two-week trip or a short jaunt to the grocery store, your home is always happy to see you again.  React to this with gratitude for just a few seconds.

The experience of living with a home should be collaborative, not hierarchical.  Each one brings something the other one could use and could be of benefit.  You take care of your house, of course, but your house, in turn, takes care of you.  And that’s what a good JV partnership is all about.