Aesthetics Matter
I love area rugs and HGTV. I love flea markets and yarn pom poms. I love love love rearranging the furniture. Not just mine. ANYBODY’s FURNITURE. I love to ReConceive spaces so much, I’m turning this room-therapy into a whole new kind of recovery process.
Meet Claudia (not her real name, age 45. Claudia came in for therapy feeling exhausted and anxious. As a therapist, she wanted more joy in her life. She wanted to lose weight and take better care of her body. “I work all the time, I eat out every day, and my house is a mess,” she said. “My life feels out of control.”
After a month of gentle EMDR resourcing, Claudia felt more hopeful and her sleep improved. But she feared failing as a counselor in private practice. Her house was still cluttered and her closet full of tight clothes.
“Do you meditate?” I asked.
“I’ve tried,” she said, “but I don’t really have a good place.”
“I have an idea,” I said. And I got out my sketch pad.
Making the Space for Change
When we got to Claudia’s house, we sat in her spare bedroom, filled with old clothes, gifts from relatives, and mementos that belonged to her grown daughters. She literally had to kick things out of the way to walk between treadmills and bags and plastic tubs.
Claudia made her way to the blue chair she wanted to use for daily meditation. I found a sturdy box and perched there. We visualized her space, what it could look and feel like without the junk she saved from her parents and adult children. We drew the new room with colored pencils and brainstormed different ways to arrange the space.
After that meeting, Claudia read Marie Kondo’s book about clearing. We used performance EMDR to focus on the unique style she wanted to bring into her home and office. She discovered a love of ocean colors that reminded her of growing up near seacoasts. She let go of gifts (and guilt) that didn’t suit her. The performance EMDR, EFT tapping, art exercises, music therapy, and meditation allowed Claudia to reconceive herself a new woman, starting a new adventure.
After a few weeks, Claudia cleared the room. She donated ten bags of clothing and household items. She got rid of trophies and band uniforms nobody wanted. A few weeks later, she turned on her favorite music, brought in a soft rug from storage, another blue chair, and a potted plant. We hung art on her walls, including ocean-inspired watercolors we made during her sessions. She opened the drapes so sunlight poured in from the backyard; she grieved her empty nest and she started meditating, every day.
More transformations happened quickly. Within three months, Claudia lost fifteen pounds. She refined her counseling practice to specialized work with military families. She took a marketing course. Referrals started calling in faster. She filled her calendar – and gave herself a vacation.
Enter ReConceive Space
Spaces help us grow . . . or they create barriers. We get stuck in old patterns of working, moving, and thinking when our spaces can’t change with us.
But when we clear our spaces of unneeded debris . . .
- we make space for change of all kinds
- we look at our lives completely differently
- we notice solutions we’d never dreamed possible
And when we curate our spaces with the things that bring joy . . .
- we find more joy in our inner lives
- we find more energy for living
- we become more creative and innovative in our work
You may already know my podcast, ReConceive, about all the different ways we heal. Now, meet ReConceive Space. This program takes my more than 25 years’ experience doing therapy and mentoring therapists, my love of curating and artmaking, and combines them into one unified aesthetic coaching experience. Designed with helpers and healers in mind, this program gets you focused on what you really want, both in your space and in your life.
Let me know when you’re ready to move some furniture!
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