Monthly Archives: July 2017

I am featured in the second issue of The Empath magazine in an article about designing homes for the highly sensitive. Over the years, I’ve worked with a number of people with an active interest in spiritual matters, and sometimes their focus on crystals, sacred geometry, and other realms can create a space that is unintentionally more challenging to feel restful in because it is over-stimulating. While there is no issue having any of these items present, the volume and location is important – one client recently had so many crystals in her bedroom that the area felt over-charged. Once she minimized the displays and catered more to her physical comfort in the space, she was able to rest much more profoundly.

I still think that having an image of nature or two in the space – as well as real plants and flowers – can be wonderfully grounding, helping us feel connected to our deeper nature while sustaining physical presence. It is equally important not to vary the ‘flavour’ of our space. All of the Chinese healing arts refer to the Five Elements of Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, and Wood. Having all of their colours, materials, and shapes appropriately and stylishly present throughout the space can help create a unified space – if it has all the essential ingredients found in nature, you have all of the building blocks in your space that supports your full nature.

You can read the complete article at this link – my article is on page 10.

Although they serve an important purpose, the walls and ceilings that shape our homes can feel limiting to our boundless consciousness. Blank walls feel like an artist’s canvas on which the first stroke has not yet been made, and can subconsciously feel like a block – our eyes then naturally go elsewhere, usually down, which is certainly a less uplifting (in every sense of the word) way to focus our attention.

Images of natural settings and meandering paths help us connect to the innate sense of possibility and expansiveness that exists in the natural world. Placing images such as this one – where there is depth, openness, and a natural sense of growth – in a narrow entryway, hallway, or other constricted area of the home can help us sense a possibility of moving beyond limitations. The great blue sky, lush green fields, and inviting curved paths all stimulate moving beyond our current circumstances in a natural way.

Although I took this photo at a shop in Japan, it is not just in that more traditional country where gender roles are still often colour-coded: Western countries still market an abundance of cool colours to men. Every shop I go into, I’m greeted by an array of cool, bland, hard colours that do nothing to inspire warmth, intimacy, and connection.

If the colours of the room set the thermostat to ‘cool’, how hard to you end up having to work to heat things up? And if the tones are blue or grey, how easily does your mindset follow suit? Blue bedding in particular can lead to any number of challenges, from moodiness to fuzzy emotional boundaries, while blue towels in bathrooms can strengthen the downward energy flow already present in these spaces beyond comfortable levels.

Both of these spaces benefit from neutral to warm colours, which create a welcoming, comfortable atmosphere (and in the bedroom, warmer relationships). It doesn’t mean you have to go full-out pink or red – balance is key. But warming things up in these spaces – where we will spend time in various states of undress – can go a long way towards raising one’s mood and inclinations for connection.