Home As A Safe Space
I’m an incurable nester with a penchant for reading about homes. In the last year, I’ve made my way through The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Edith Wharton at Home: Life at the Mount, Home Sweet Maison, Bill Bryson’s historical overview At Home, and The Little Book of Hygge. I love homes, and I love how each home is different. If we’re on a family vacation somewhere, you can bet I’m dragging everybody on at least one old house tour.
I also have periodic bouts of depression and anxiety.
In the process of working through those things, though, I’ve realized that my fascination with homes doesn’t come completely out of left field. When the world outside feels scary and dangerous, your home can be your safe space. Here are some of the things I’ve found about homes when they’re living up to their full potential:
Home is where you practice new habits. When you’re trying to learn something new, home is a place where you can practice that new thing without feeling exposed yet. Home is where you can focus on implementing small self-care habits, like drinking a glass of water every morning, and practice scarier habits, like politely standing up for yourself in sticky situations. At home, you can look in a mirror and practice what you need to say without worrying that a stranger will walk in on you (the bathroom at work, well, isn’t quite the same).
Home is where you have a quiet space. Most workplaces are fairly busy and hectic. They don’t leave much time for self reflection or for quiet moments. At home, though, you can set up a quiet corner, take measures to make sure you’ll have a few uninterrupted minutes, and spend a little time in meditation, prayer, or just peaceful, quiet solitude.
Home is where you strengthen bonds. Home is, for many people, a special, private to semi-private space, so inviting people into your home is a real gesture of trust. Entertaining guests in your home is a more intimate experience than grabbing a drink together at a bar after work or volunteering together at a beach cleanup. It’s an opportunity to build stronger connections with new friends, reinforce old friendships, and shore up deeply important bonds with family.
Home is where you can be your authentic self. Sometimes, no matter how carefully you plan and prepare, you just have a bad day. That’s normal. Home is where you can do what you need to do to process that bad day: cry, meditate, exercise, vent to a loved one, or maybe just sit quietly and let the feelings pass. It’s also a place where you can be silly, hopeful, earnest, vulnerable, confused, and whatever else you may be feeling. Home is where the mask comes off.
Sometimes, though, home doesn’t live up to its full potential. You might be living with difficult roommates, spending a while in temporary accommodations that you can’t decorate much, or sticking to a very tight budget. Maybe, like me, you sometimes have trouble keeping your space neat when your mental health is not so great.
So here are some ideas to help improve your relationship with an imperfect home:
Have a manageable, daily housecare time. When things get bad, I set an alarm on my phone for a time of day when I know I’ll be home. When that alarm goes off, I clean something. Sometimes, it’s a very small something. Sometimes, I set a timer for 5 or 15 minutes and clean until the timer goes off. Doing a little bit each day can help keep the mess from spiraling and put things in a holding pattern until you’re better able to address it.
Set up a quiet corner. I keep a Pinterest board with inspiration for a meditation corner, but you know what? My quiet corner right now consists of a pillow on the floor and a pretty candle. That’s it. It’s a very simple operation. If you just need somewhere to have some quiet time, try grabbing a pillow and something soothing to focus your eyes on, and putting them in a corner somewhere. To counteract a noisy home, you don’t need a pair of expensive, noise-canceling headphones. Try these foam earplugs, instead.
Give yourself grace. Don’t let perfectionism derail you. My grandfather, an incurable tinkerer and carpenter, was fond of saying, “No home is ever finished.” It’s true, even if you’re not the sort to bust out a sledgehammer and knock down some walls yourself. Just about every home is a work in progress, and it’s okay if your home is, too.
At its best, home is a place where we recharge, restore, and prepare to go back out into the world. I wish you peace and comfort.
Have you developed any special habits or tips to help your home help you? We’d love to hear more in our comments!
Lauren Rad is one of the team members behind the scenes here at Myrth. During a particularly stressful period, a friend introduced her to mindfulness as a tool for managing emotional responses. She’s been a fan ever since. You can usually find her knitting, adventuring with her small daughter, or tending her rose garden.