Thank you for subscribing to Home.ology.
I am so glad you’re here. I’m guessing that since you’ve made it to my website, your life is in major transition and probably feels chaotic, overwhelming, and ungrounded. And I’ll bet that your home reflects what’s going on in your internal world. You are not alone. Take a deep breath, make a cup of tea, and get comfy. I want you to meet some other folks who have been exactly where you are now and have come out on the other side. Read their home stories and see how your home always reflects your inner world.
From Despair to Delight—When I met Bo, he was very depressed. His wife of over 20 years had recently moved out of the house where they had raised their four children and their divorce was in process. She had left almost all of the furniture and the house was still set up just as it was prior to their divorce. Unopened mail was piled literally two feet high on the entry table. The blinds were all drawn, making the house dark and dreary. The living room was littered with trash from TV dinners and junk food. The house was messy, uncared for, and utterly neglected. Bo was living amidst the furniture, art, and objects collected with his wife and children over the twenty years of their marriage, and with that, the reminders of the twenty years of marriage that had just ended.
He was stuck, despairing, and hopeless and this was reflected in the state of his home. He hadn’t cleaned, changed, or rearranged his home at all since his wife moved out. He was sitting in the middle of a pig-sty that was mirroring back to him how he felt about himself. How could he begin to heal when his home wasn’t healing either? The good news is that Bo DID heal, and so did his home!
Are you wondering how Bo got his life back on track? Keep reading to learn about Bo’s Home.ology process and how it moved him from chaos to clarity.
Bo’s home had always been a refuge for him. A beautiful contemporary home tucked into the woods, it was where he relaxed and returned to himself during the many busy years he had worked a high-pressure job. It was the place where he raised his children and spent the bulk of his married years. After his wife moved out, the house became unrecognizable. It was no longer the well-kept and lovely nature sanctuary that it once was. It was as if it had been abandoned and trashed. Bo had a lot of grief and anger related to the divorce and his home mirrored these emotions right back at him. He had completely stopped caring for it just as he had stopped taking good care of himself. He hadn’t invited anyone into it in months, reflecting his own isolation after the divorce. He had left the house set up exactly as it had been when he was married, which revealed the difficulty he was having in changing and transitioning into his new life.
But here’s what happened in Bo’s Home.ology process, and here’s how he came out on the other side…
Bo and I spent time in deep conversation—in his home and in my office—about his relationship, divorce, his ex, his home, how home and self are connected and what happens when the home and self connection is not acknowledged. In the safe presence of a professional, he felt his sadness, anger, and grief and understood that his home was grieving, just like he was. We did several of my favorite activities, the Home Dialogue and the Home Art Map, to clarify how the state of his inner experience was reflected in his home.
As Bo moved through his grief and depression, he felt a new sense of hope and optimism—for his life and for his home. Once he started feeling better, he started cleaning his home again and giving it quality attention. And in taking better care of his home, he began taking better care of his health. His weight gain and poor eating habits diminished. We did creative visualization exercises to start imagining what his new life would look like and how this could be reflected in his ‘rediscovered’ home.
He became excited about the new life that awaited him rather than terrified by it. He imagined inviting friends into his space and doing new hobbies at home. We took direct action and worked inside of his home to change it to reflect who he was NOW as a newly single man with clarified purpose and passions. After his Home.ology process, he was a new man ready to fully step into his new life. He celebrated by having a housewarming party for his rediscovered home!
Home.ology recognizes that working with your home is an essential part of your healing process. It’s a crucial and often overlooked step in making the transition from the pain of separation and divorce to a new life of freedom and happiness. When you add this often missing piece, your healing journey dramatically speeds up, you find new resources within yourself, and you can feel hopeful that things really will be better one day.
This is Home.ology. A system that addresses the challenges of separation and divorce from all angles. A system that’s helped others get their lives back on track and can help you get yours back on track, too.
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