I had planned on releasing this blog at a later date, but given what is going on in the world today, I decided to share it now. It was intended to inspire you to look at rooms in your home that no longer serve you and to give you and example as to how to repurpose them. With the entire world virtually in quarantine at the moment, I would encourage you, at least for the time being, to create a meditation haven for yourself if possible. Carve out a little space in your home where you can go to decompress from the underlying anxiety, even if it is just for a few minutes each day.
When this is all over, and it will be, you can reassess your space and see if a meditation area is right for you or perhaps there is another use that can benefit you and your family better. Either way, now that a lot of us are home more, we have the time to think a bit more about how we use our space and how it can best serve us. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have my meditation haven during this time. This is how it came to be:
So, for the first time in almost 30 years of marriage and owning a home, I am without a guest room. Neither my husband or I are Tampa natives, so we have always had family visit and stay with us. Now that our son has graduated college and started his own life and parents have passed, we have less overnight visitors. When we do, most come with multiple children, so one guest room doesn’t really cut it anyway. They end up staying at a hotel nearby. I had honestly never, ever considered not having a guest room until my husband and I were talking a few weekends ago about what served/didn’t serve us in this house anymore. My focus was on moving to a larger space- but he somehow steered the conversation towards the guest room (deflection?) and to the fact that we already have two bedrooms (besides the Master) that rarely get used.
Of course there will always be a bedroom for our son to stay in, but why do I need a second bedroom taking up very valuable square footage and collecting dust? If you don’t use a room, the energy becomes stagnant and that is not something you want in your home. It seemed a radical idea to remove the guest room and create a space we would actually use. Once I slept on it, I could not wait to change the space. My husband suggested I create a “haven” for myself. A space where I could sit and read, do my daily meditation and practice yoga. We donated all the guest room furniture to a friend who just bought his first house and I proceeded to create the new space.
I was so in “the flow” the room actually came together in a little less than two weeks! The perfect pieces of furniture were miraculously available and didn’t have to be ordered and movers had a cancellation and it could all be delivered the day after I bought it. This is unheard of timing in the design world. I “shopped” around my house and gathered treasures l had spread all over – Himalayan sound bowls, live plants and throw pillows all came together beautifully in the room. I had a trip planned to our home in Sedona and of course came back with an amazing specimen for the room from http://wwwtouchstonegalleries.com. It is a gorgeous elestial smoky quartz, perfect for a meditation space.
I am so thrilled with my new space and with the fact that we “gained” square footage in our home. I find myself being pulled in there multiple times a day. I find the pups napping away on the meditation cushions I ordered from cb2. http://www.cb2.com
I encourage you to take a look around your home. You may not need a larger space, you may just need to rethink the existing space and make sure it is serving you to your highest and greatest good.
