Your Home is a Living Entity

Photo by Scott-Webb

Breath is the beginning of all life.

As you read, I warmly invite you to deeply inhale and fully exhale.

With each deep inhale, feel your blood cells filling with life-giving Oxygen.

With each full exhale, feel your body release all the stresses of your day.

Every living thing breathes. Animals, plants, fish, insects, humans. I’m sure there are more living creatures, but hey, you get the drift, right?

As we breathe, we feed the cells that give us life. As we bring Oxygen into our bodies, we ignite the body’s ability to pump blood through our veins, to digest the food we eat, to process the thoughts we think, to heal the bruises and tummy aches that ail us.

Inhaling fills our body with that which serves its greatest good.

On the contrary, exhaling not only expels Carbon Dioxide, it also releases that which no longer serves us.

What does breathing have to do with Organizing? Well, here it is. Maintaining a tidy home requires that we see our home as a living, breathing entity.

Remember that every living thing breathes, right? Every living thing is made of energy. Everything around us is made of energy that is vibrating at different frequencies.

Now, I want you to recognize that your house is also a living entity. The walls you live within, whether made from wood, plaster, steel or glass, are made with materials that have come from the Earth – a living thing.

When you bring something into your home, it is taking in something new. It is inhaling.

• New furniture
• New clothes
• Groceries
• The newspaper
• Mail
• Friends
• New pet
• A new baby

You see, when something new enters this living entity, its walls are expanding, the energy must shift in order to accommodate this addition.

Have you remembered to inhale and exhale while you’re reading this blog?

Take another deep breath in….

Now hold it for as long as you can….

How long are you holding your breath for before you have to let it all out?

Now, consider this. You bring in groceries, newspapers, mail, flyers, pets, friends, extend your family, new plants, new clothes, shoes, toiletries, tote bags, new food containers, new linens, halloween decorations, Christmas decorations, Easter decorations, your in-laws furniture, your childhood memorabilia from your parents’ basement, ……YOUR HOUSE IS TAKING A BIG DEEEEEP INHALE.

What happens when we bring stuff in but nothing goes out? Our house cannot take the EXHALE it needs. This is when chaos ensues. Anxiety grows. Stress skyrockets.

Breathe in deeply.

Hold your breath at the top….

Then slowly exhale fully.

In breathing, both the INHALE and the EXHALE are equally important.

Your home is a living entity. It must inhale and it must exhale in order to create a harmonious energy within the walls.

I’m not asking you to purge your pet or give your new baby up for adoption.

What I’m warmly inviting you to do is to help your home EXHALE. Purge things no longer serving you and your family and interrupting the harmony in your home?

Here are some of my regular habits that I know will help you and your home to INHALE AND EXHALE fully and deeply on a regular basis:

• Flyers go directly into the recycling bin before they make it into my home. I know we don’t read them, so we just don’t bring them in. One less thing for our walls to inhale.
• An organized garbage and recycling station to help sort what is being EXHALED from our home.
• No impulsive shopping. Shopping (online or in-person) takes place intentionally, with the consideration of whether we have space for something we want to buy. If not, then something’s got to give. Either we don’t buy it or make the deliberate decision to purge something in order to make space.
• When we get home from grocery shopping, everything is put away into the pantry and fridge. It is fully INHALED into the space.

To achieve harmony and balance, your home must be able to inhale and exhale. When you bring things in, something has to exhale from the home.