Ever walked into your home and dreaded it? Dishes piled in the sink, the pile of laundry that magically keeps getting bigger, and this overall sense of just of “heavens, no”. Yup, you’re not alone (or maybe I’m just notoriously bad at keeping track of things to do at home). Nonetheless, the last thing anyone wants is to walk into their home, which should be a place to relax, unwind and be at peace, and feel like you need to run away from it.
I’ll take a moment to add that home life is different from family life. Home life is your everyday routine of living, what you do domestically. This is different from family life, which includes the other beings in your life whether parents, spouse, children, or yes, the furbabies. These two are intrinsically linked, and depending on the household cannot be unliked. For the sake of this post, we will be focusing on home life itself. So that brings us to what is likely one of our favorite mottos and what will be the key of this mini tirade, a healthy home = a healthy mind.
What’s a healthy home and healthy mind?
So, we defined the key distinction between home life and family life. A healthy home can be many different things depending on the individual. How do you want your space to feel? What is most important to you when you get home after a long day? Do you want to lay down on the couch and be a potato? Do you want to put on music and have space to dance, draw, and horribly recite poetry? What is most important when you get home and it’s been a really good day? I don’t want to get home after an amazing day out to a list of chores I have yet to even begin. The key point here is you. If you had to imagine your perfect space, what would it look like? Envision it and hold onto it while we go through this.
A healthy mind needs no in depth definition. In the modern day awareness of mental health and the necessity of it, a healthy mind encapsulates emotional, social and physical well being. These three aspects, in turn, help you to cope with stress and everyday situations. Why is the home an essential part of this? Because a home, outside of work, is where you spend the majority of your time. If anything made us realize how important a good home is, it was the pandemic. During it, the home became the center star of “where and how on earth am I living?” Utilizing each area to its full potential became a necessity. The physical and emotional toll the pandemic had on all of us will haunt us for a while. Our house haunting us alongside it, well it’s not such a good idea.
How to Make a Healthy Home
Listen, the wheel is already great so why reinvent it? These tips are by no means groundbreaking or set in stone. Some tips may be applicable while others are not, so just keep in mind what you can do.
#1 - Break daunting tasks into manageable pieces
A pile of laundry that takes over a room can be separated into colors or types of clothes. If it just isn’t manageable or you can’t bear to sort it, separate it into chunks and throw it in the wash. Dishes done as they are used are easier to manage than a sink full at the end of the day. Look at the boulder and break it down into parts whether it be with a chisel or a jackhammer.
Tip #2 - Set daily a track/schedule (or it can be weekly/monthly)
Cook some days and clean other days. You don’t have to do it all in one go. If you’re really busy and only have the weekend or one day, try to make a time table of things you have to do. Remember, you do what you can do, and if you don’t manage to get through the whole list, you did the best you could that day. Don’t dwell on what you couldn’t do but on what you got done. Being an adult is difficult enough.
"The good life is a process, not a state of being." – Carl Rogers
Tip #3 - Set up a YOU space
We all need a space to unwind, or at least something that works to ground us and melt away the day. It doesn’t have to be a huge room specifically for yoga, it can just be a little corner in the kitchen specifically to prepare tea. Classic, boring, but grounding. I keep my tea station organized with different tea’s I like, and have a cup specifically for the bad days. Just looking at it makes me happy. Make a space that makes you happy.
Tip #4 - Add what you love
Love a certain color? Decor style? Shiny quartz crystals (guilty)? Then add it. I understand some people love a clean, minimalist space with absolutely nothing to distract the eye, but if you like the mushroom figurine then don’t hesitate to include it somewhere. You don’t need to add it in the middle of the living room, it can be your room, the kitchen, some corner of the bathroom. Your space is you. Your home is you.
Tip #5 - Multifunctionality
As someone who has used the kitchen table from work space, study space, and drawing space to a space for cooking and eating, I know how important a multifunctional home is. Sometimes you don’t have to think about it, but if you live in a small space, then having multifunctionality is essential. Take a look at your space and see where it can be improved or better arranged.
Tip #6 - Healthy Habits
Yes, it takes 31 days to establish a habit and one day to break it, but even if you fall off track, get back on it. The more you keep up with it, the more it becomes ingrained, the less difficult it gets. I’m using healthy habits in its broadest sense. A healthy habit can be cleaning, cooking instead of getting take out, or even just setting 5 minutes to sit down on the couch and disconnect from the world. Your home should invite you to relax and get these things done.
Tip #7 - Remember to Let Go
It’s no secret that life is hard. If at the end of the day you just can’t find it in yourself to do things around the home as you should, then don’t leave the guilt pot simmering in the background. Turn the stove off, throw the water down the sink, and let it go. Tomorrow is another day. It may be the same, it may be worse, it may be better. There’s always the hope it will be better. If it is, then good! Maybe you can take small steps to make your home a healthy space to live in. Any step taken is better than no step taken at all. It’s not about grandiosities or doing everything in one day or week. Good things take time.
The Final Home Piece
So if you got anything out of this long tirade, it is that your home should ideally be a peaceful space, feel welcoming to you, and most of all, be you. There’s lots of ways to achieve that, even some that I may not currently think of or that you’ve seen others do. If so, please leave a comment about it! I love new ideas.
Remember that some may not like how you decorate or the colors you use and that’s okay. We all have different opinions and tastes, and we should all be respectful of that. At the end of the day, you are the one living in your space. If it feels right to you and is useful to you, that’s all that matters.
Now remember that vision of the perfect home I asked you to hold onto? No true home can be perfect. The vision is great to idealize what you want and help steer you towards it, but what makes a home great is sometimes that it’s not a perfectly polished piece. There’s always something to help it grow like, hey, us!
Signing off now!
PS. This is a safe, respectful blog. Anyone and everyone is welcomed.
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