Make it nice in there

“Self and world, inner and outer, are not entirely separate, and the question of what the future will be intimately involves ourselves.”—Charles Eisenstein

I have a friend who is obsessed with home makeover shows. Switching up décor, lighting, even floor plans can make a big difference in a living space. There’s even a profession now where stagers come in and wave their magic wands to transform the inside (and probably even the outside) of a home to make it more appealing to buyers.

I, on the other hand, haven’t updated my house in years. For one thing, I travel, but mostly it’s because I believe all important redecorating happens “inside my head.”  I’m the only one who lives there so my priority is to make it nice in there.

Sometimes, my mind isn’t a fun place to be. It gets dark and fearful and I forget to open the windows.  

But when I’m on top of my game (and regular practice sure helps), my decorating scheme involves the following pillars:

Generosity. And while, yes, this means being charitable to others, mostly it means being generous to myself, letting myself off the hook, giving myself a break and realizing I’m doing the best I can.

Gratitude. Yesterday, like we always do at my possibility posse, we talked about the wonders of the world. We laughed (maybe even less than charitably) at an unknown person who, my friend noticed, was bitching about the fact the cruise line only had six sugar-free deserts. Our chuckling mostly had to do with recognizing ourselves, those times when we ourselves forget to see the incredible gifts always available to us. Stars, my gosh. Full moons, tiny seeds that grow into kale leaves. I mean, the beauty out there is almost too much to take in. We live on a spinning rock in the middle of a ginormous cosmos, for heaven’s sakes.

Open windows. This is my number one redecorating tip. When things get stuffy and stale inside my head, when I start believing any number of OMG’s, I simply remind myself that there’s a heck of a lot of reality that I don’t know or see or understand. How can I possibly judge or be less then generous and grateful towards anything when I only see a teensy part of its truth.

I find whenever I follow these design techniques, my head is a more pleasant place to be and life outside my head tends to follow suit.

Have a stupendous week, my friends. #222 Forever!

Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World) that has just been turned into an app. Badass ACIM (badass-acim.com)