What I learned when my inner vision took me on an adventure to The Home Depot
My inner vision adventure to The Home Depot helped remind me of my abilities, what patterns in my personal wounding have meant to help me heal, and opened my mind to new possibilities for my home.
For the last two weeks I have been moving in and out of feelings of anger, resentment, and grief as it relates to family (both the one I came to this earth with and the one I have chosen) and home. Reflecting on this, home and family have always been the areas in which I have experienced the most contrast. It is the part of my life where I experience the most wounding and growth.
As a Manifestor (human design), anger is my not self theme. It is loudly and clearly showing me where things need to change. This understanding has really changed my relationship with anger, because I now know how to harness it. I understand that it isn’t about directing it at a family member, friend, or colleague who I perceive is contributing to the experience. Instead, it is about going within and determining what action I need to take, boundary I need to set, or change I need to make in order to find peace.
It isn’t a total surprise that I am experiencing all of this right now. Mars stationed retrograde on October 30, and it is moving through all areas of family and home for me. It has been excruciating, enlightening, and deeply uncomfortable.
Yet, I am in alignment.
The work I do with myself and others is about diving into the unseen to connect seemingly unconnected experiences, and then to take action to bring in new energy and alignment. The Universe has been showing me that I need to start focusing on two things: being fully myself and actually making my house feel like my home.
I've been in this house with my partner and bonus kids for 5 years, and you'd never know it. The dining room has the table and chairs...and that's it.
Our bedroom is filled with mismatched childhood furniture. Nothing on the walls. This says a lot about what my partner and I seem to think we’re worth, eh?
The bathroom I share with my partner is like a cave. A hideous, brown cave. This works for my caves environment boyfriend, but really depresses this mountains environment woman.
I had an urge to dig into Feng Shui to better understand and change the energetics of my home, and there in my view was Amanda Gibby Peters’ work. I listened to a few episodes of her podcast and decided that I would start with the front doors and the bedroom.
At the same time, I am currently in a human design experiment to play with my variables, led by Vaness Henry, and it has been truly illuminating. Vanessa invited us to go on an adventure and work with our cognition (I am Inner Vision).
The TL;DR
So, I went to The Home Depot this past weekend and it opened my eyes: I can actually renovate my home. I can buy new fixtures, decor, and paint. I could potentially redo the small en suite bathroom to better suit my tastes.
In the 5 years I have been in the house, none of this had ever really occurred to me. Some rooms were decorated on an urge, but I never really had the money to do much. This has changed for me the more that I have owned my skills and abilities, refused to accept less than what I am worth, or to stay in an environment that was making me sick.
The whole story
When I decided to use this weekend to go on an adventure and try something new, my original thought was, “let’s check out that Trader Joe’s that’s a bit of a hike to get to.”
It’s something new to me, in a town I am not overly familiar with, and I’m in this phase of having as much frozen food (fish, produce, etc.) as needed, which is something TJ is known for.
But the first activity my inner vision guided me on was getting breakfast and a coffee at a local shop, and then meandering around The Home Depot and letting my inner vision guide me.
This ended up being a really fun experiment.
I did go into the store with an intention: check out a new storage/tool situation for my fireplace area. This space is not aesthetically pleasing, and I wanted to create something that looked nice, made the room more puppy friendly, and also made it possible to store wood for when I wake up in the morning and need to rekindle the fire.
When I actually got to the store and started meandering, however, I was drawn to potentials for my front doors.
I saw wreaths for Christmas that didn’t really suit me, but I also saw a cinnamon broom that I thought might be a nice touch to my front porch. Snapped a photo and kept meandering.
When I got to the paint section, I saw my conversation with my partner about needing to redo our bedroom…or, frankly, DO our bedroom. It has been untouched for the entire 5 years we’ve lived in our house. He asked if we were going to paint the walls. So I picked up some paint sample books.
Meander some more, and I’m seeing lights. I see a fixture that really touches me, and realize that we could replace all of the outdoor sconces with fixtures that suit our taste instead of the builder-grade ones that came with the house. Snapped a photo and kept meandering.
I saw the front door mats and thought about the front door that we have, but never use, and asked myself if I’d like a doormat there. Yes, yes, but none of these touch me. Data collected, meandering on.
Oh. New front doors! My partner has been saying he can’t wait to replace the storm door in the springtime. I see two that touch me, snap photos, and meander on.
As I get to the middle section of the store, however, I notice that I’m starting to feel woozy and dizzy. A little nauseated. Chemical smells? Weird energy? Not sure.
So, I keep meandering.
I’m in the bathtub section and it occurs to me that…maybe we could have a bathtub/shower combination in our small master ensuite. This feels less certain, but I snap my photos and meander on.
I double back around because I realized I didn’t see any potential bathroom mirror replacements. It’s because there were two options and they did not touch me.
Meander on.
I’m about to leave the store and I realize I want to get some rocks for the bottom of the planter that will hold my herbs on the windowsill in my kitchen. They aren’t where I expect them to be, so I head out to the nursery side of the store.
As I walk to the back, I look up, and I pause. I am so touched by this sweet wreath and murmur, out loud, “oh, I love that!” It’s not what I had envisioned, and it’s better than what I had in my mind’s eye. It feels more seasonal than holiday, and it will look beautiful on my poor abandoned front door. I feel gleeful, excited.
What a beautiful touch!
The lesson from this experiment, for me, is that I started looking at my home as a project I can work on for the very first time. It had never really occurred to me that I could make improvements to things. Sure, I can buy furniture and art and paint, but I started re-envisioning my home for the first time.
I had owned a home before, but never had the urge to do anything with it. There are many reasons for this, and none of them matter for the sake of this story.
I realized that if I want to change out light fixtures, I can do that!
If I want new mirrors in my bathroom, I can do that!
If I want to renovate my bathroom, I can do that!
My partner has always had a better sense for this. He’s better at having a home than I have been historically. There is something about not being able to take the home with me, or not feeling like it is mine, that seems to have held me back.
But as I move through this season of life, I realize that I want to feel more rooted. Like this home is my home, and I am not just a guest here.
Maybe I won’t be here forever, but I deserve to live in a place that grounds me. That allows me to have clear sight. That feels like an expression of me, of my partner, of our family and isn’t just the cookie-cutter, builder-grade experience given to us when we bought our house.
We are worth more than that.
