Everyone deserves a santuary

How do I make our home a safe place? How do I bring more peace into my home? How can I make my home a place I want to come home to every time I leave? These are questions I have been pondering lately. If I just had more money, I keep thinking, we could have these things. I could afford paintings, decorations and furniture that would reflect my personal style and energy. I would feel more at peace if I just had this, and that...

Peaceful...

 I know we'd all prefer to have our dream home. But finding the "right" home doesn't mean we have to break the bank. "Right" is anything that has good energy. It is anything that reflects light and love back to you. It is a home that has been built upon a good foundation: A home built with care, love, and intention. Preferably a home previously inhabited by good people, with good & healthy practices.

Chosing a home is one of the most important desicions you can make for your emotional and mental and physical well being. You wouldn't think it, but having high standards for what you will and wont accept in a home is just as important as the standards have for choosing a marriage partner. No it wont be perfect, but in general it has good energy and will flow with you - not against you. Sure there will be moments when you will wish you had a "nicer home" with this or that amenity, an extra room, etc. But overall you know that you are in the right place and you make it work.

These are things I have learned along the way. These are things about a home that can either add to your energy reserves, or will slowly drain you. If your energy doesn't flow well with the layout and the enviornment it will be much harder to feel at peace in your home. 

This isn't something I knew much of, nor did I think much about until I had children. Having children helps you to recognize "good and bad" energy. Perhaps it is Mother instinct, but it is human nature to want the best for your children. You want them to feel safe, secure, and at home.

"When can I get out of here?!" was the way I felt in the two homes previous to this one. Finding peace at home was even more difficult upon the arrival of my first child. For whatever reason the house just seemed to take without giving back. All the cleaning in the world didn't change the feeling. There seemed to be a negative imprint in these homes -- perhaps left by previous tenants.

One thing i've learned is that SMELL is everything, it has the most powerful effect on the mind. Our first home smelled like ciggarette smoke. I niavely thought that if we moved in we could easily get rid of it. All it needed was some airing out. Wrong. It never did seem to go away.

The second home we lived in had an old musty smell to it that never seemed to dissipate. It could have been the moldy, leaky basement. It could have been the drains in the sink. It could have just been the age. Either way the house didn't flow well with my energy and it didn't seem to want me there either.

Pay attention to things that may make your life more difficult. Don't worry about what you don't have, necessarily. Just go through the home and think about what may not work well with your family. Layout, lack of space, lighting, space in unnecessary places, the smell, the sounds, etc. Is it warm and inviting or cold and tiring? 

Sanctuary Room

The other week I was pondering over prayer. I was trying to figure out why it was so hard to do the things I know I needed to do every day?

The thought came to me that I needed to give myself space to do these things. I have crowded my life too tightly around things that are really not important. Moreover, I didn't feel like I had a space in my life that was "set apart" just for me to call my own. I recognize that I needed to create a empty space with just the necessities so that I could focus on doing the necessities.

We have a second bedroom that probably wont be used for a good year or so. Baby number 2 probably wont need his own room for a while since he will be chilling in a bassinet. for the first few months of life.

I decided to set the room apart. I cleared out all of Isabel's toys. She doesn't need 2 rooms for all her stuff, afterall. I left some things in there. I put a bench in there and set a picture of Jesus on it. I set my scriptures and hymn book on it. I then put some speakers in there so that I could connect it to my iPod for listening to music. I put Isabel's bean bag in there, her books, and that is pretty much all right now. I hope to put a couch or chair in there and a rug. A few sacred pictures of the temple or of Jesus. A plant. A bookcase. And some journals. I think that would call it good.

I have used it so far a few times, and I already feel like Isabel is starting to get a sense of the "sacred" more than she has in the past. She recognizes that it is a room set apart for doing sacred things like praying, singing, and reading scriptures and learning the higher arts. Even if we have to rearrange it and move it somewhere else in the future, or make it a part of the living room, I know I will always incorperate the space into our lives. I will literally fit the sacred into my life, and into my family.

 I want "sanctuary" to be part of our family's vocabulary.

I think it is so important for families to have a quiet place to rest their heads and to just be, and to remember that God is the center of our homes and lives. "Be still and know".

Peace will be taken from the earth, if it hasn't already, and where does that leave us? We need to establish a place of peace in our lives. We can't be dependent on others to bring it to us. It's something we have to create and then we can bring that peace to those in need around us.

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