Bored? Find Some Meaning.

Are you bored? With your home? Work? Life? The lack of real spring? Occasional moments or a day of boredom is normal but staying in that mindset isn’t in your well-being.

According to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly, a Hungarian psychology professor who introduced the idea of flow states, boredom sits between apathy and relaxation and across from arousal. Flow is when you are feeling fully immersed in what you are doing with a sense of fulfillment and pleasure. Below is a chart he developed.

It is awfully hard to move straight from boredom to flow. Moving to relaxation is one avenue, such as reading a book or watching a movie. Some people force their way through it by using self-control to say, “I will go do the raking now, even if I don’t want to.”

I prefer to move to arousal (intellectual and emotional, that is). For that to happen you need to move up the left hand scale by identifying something that is more than moderately challenging, but still in your skill level. You might stop first and explore, “What does this boredom mean? What am I bored with? Is it inner boredom or outer boredom?”

If you’re bored with your home, try this. Find the right place to view your home. It could be outside looking at the front or inside looking at the sweep of your home from the front door. Use your intuition to find your “seat of observation.” Then, take it all in, close your eyes, and ask your home what would be exciting for you to do together. Expect an idea to come, perhaps right away or maybe over the next 48 hours. This will have planted a seed. I’d love to hear what happens. You could leave a comment below.

If you like this please share it by clicking on Facebook, Tweet, or Email below. I’d love to reach more people with these thoughts. Thanks for your help.

Inspire your boredom.

Consider a coaching session for your home. A coach sees your home with new eyes and helps you find hidden potential in your inner being and physical home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
612-920-0637
Margaret@lulicbooks.com
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Define “Home.” How Is It Different From a House?

There is a distinct difference between a house and a home. This deserves more attention. One of the biggest differences is in feelings. A home makes you want to stay and curl up. It seems to hold you, comfort you, and affect the quality of your life. It can even help you heal as discussed in another blog.

A house is a place to store things, to sleep, to go away from to other greater interests. It may very well be lovely, even prestigious, but it is a cooler environment. Really gorgeous dwellings have somewhat of a museum quality – look, but don’t touch. There is a pride of ownership perhaps but not a sense of companionship.

A home wants to be touched and to touch your heart.

Try this activity. Make two columns on a sheet of paper. Each member of the home can do this independently. Or, you could have a friend do this as well. One column has descriptors of what you think a home is like and the other is what a house is like. Make the comparisons be in parallel as below. After you each finish, share your lists. Then ask what you have already done or could do to make your special place more homelike.

Here are a couple of examples:
House                                                               Home
A place to live                                                 Place to love
Provides privacy                                            Provides peace and quiet
Right choices                                                  Right questions

There aren’t right or wrong answers. Often we want some of both columns. It’s a good reminder of what more we can have in the place we spend so much of our lives. And, a home can entice us to stay there more with a different set of benefits.

If you like this please share it by clicking on Facebook, Tweet, or Email below. I’d love to reach more people with these thoughts. Thanks for your help.

Inspire your concept of home.

Consider a coaching session for your home. A coach sees your home with new eyes and helps you find hidden potential in your inner being and physical home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

Special offer on a handful of Home-Inspired by Love and Beauty books. Some books are left from a small print run that have a few typos. I don’t want to waste the trees for minor typos. They are discounted to $15 (sales tax included). Contact me below to make use of this offer.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
612-920-0637
Margaret@lulicbooks.com
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Seek Meaningful Beauty. Know Why It Matters.

Have you considered why beauty matters to you and others? Even ancient cultures invested in beauty. Baskets were woven to incorporate lovely designs that served no functional purpose. So, beauty seems to matter to humans in some innate way.

I think it please our spirits in a meaningful way. In the book, If Aristotle Ran General Motors, author and philosopher Tom Morris writes, “We all intuitively know that beauty plays a role that can’t be duplicated by anything else in its impact on the human spirit, freeing our greatest energies, liberating our deepest insights, and connecting with our highest affections.”

If you keep your spirit present as you go about making decisions related to beauty, it will help guide you to meaningful beauty. It will also help your inner philosopher ask good questions like, “Will this beauty add to lasting happiness or temporary pleasure?” It might also raise questions of value such as, “This is gorgeous, but it costs an awful lot. Do I want to trade that amount of my life energy for it?”

Meaningful beauty is developed with patience, layer by layer, with patterning, and then a surprise overtakes us. There is some mystery, some meditation, that is sinking into our being, and then shining its light back out. We are changed by the beauty.

Here is a lovely musical and visual display of beauty in motion that Barbara Shipka, a friend of mine, created. Let beauty inspire you.

Consider a coaching session for your home. A coach sees your home with new eyes and helps you find hidden potential in your inner being and physical home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

Special offer on a handful of Home-Inspired by Love and Beauty books. Some books are left from a small print run that have a few typos. I don’t want to waste the trees for minor typos. They are discounted to $15 (sales tax included). Contact me below to make use of this offer.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
612-920-0637
Margaret@lulicbooks.com
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Indulge Your Bathroom. Shower It With Love.

A recent coaching session with a client focused on her bathroom. Carol’s bathroom was white and blue all over. She wanted something nicer for a relaxing bath after her stressful days. My clients are looking for more than decorating and in this case it related to a spouse. Carol’s husband, Bill, thought the bath was  functional, so didn’t want her to do the big remodel. She was willing to compromise on money but wanted his engagement. Believing in simple beauty, I figured we could do something great with a small budget and find something that would interest Bill.

First, I had Carol describe the bath she already had. She said it was a cool feeling room that felt disjointed from the rest of the home. She didn’t like the wallpaper. I asked if it reflected anything about the people who lived there. She said, “I guess it reflects our attitude until now. It’s functional and clean.”

My job is to bring questions that stimulate new thinking as well as bringing some ideas. The questions we used were:
1) How do you want the room to feel when this is done?
2) What simple changes would make the bath feel connected to the rest of the home?
3) Where is the hidden beauty in this room that we should bring forth?
4) What would add some life and love to the room?

Those questions helped Carol think in new ways and led her to very workable ideas. Take out the wallpaper and paint a new color to add warmth and connect it to the rest of the house. There was a perfect spot for a large fern. Adding crown molding of the same type as in the bedrooms would provide warmth, connectivity to the upstairs, and a touch of class. Add a couple scented candles. After 20+ years in the house, Carol said the beauty was well hidden. She was stuck on that one.

I found the archway to the bath tub unique. It was almost like an elongated Hobbit entrance without the door. Knowing the couple were big environmentalists and nature lovers, I suggested getting a dramatic shower curtain of something like the rain forest or a lake scene. Then paint and stencil along the outer edge of the arch in a complementary theme. Carol loved the idea. It was time to try the ideas on Bill. The nature theme hit the mark.  All of a sudden he was interested as well.

This would have a significant effect and make the bathroom a delightful place to be. I sent her to a website for inspirational shower curtains for ideas. If she didn’t want to spend that much money, this would at least give her a vision of what to look for. Or, knowing she sews, another alternative would be to get some fabric and make her own.

When I left, Carol and Bill were well on their way towards a hobbit bath all their own that reflected who they were.

Consider a coaching session for your home. A coach sees your home with new eyes and helps you find hidden potential in your inner being and physical home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

Special offer on a handful of Home-Inspired by Love and Beauty. Some books are left from a small print run that have a few typos. I don’t want to waste the trees for minor typos. They are discounted to $15 (sales tax included). Call my at the number below or email me to make use of this offer.

Get inspired.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Capture Your Dream Home. Find it In Your Heart.

Some colleagues and I had an incredible event this weekend looking at the theme From House to Home. Near the end, during a Q&A, one attendee made a remark that touched our hearts. She said, (as close as I can recall) “I want to thank you for this wonderful event. I have looked at decorating magazines and books looking for inspiration for my home. You’ve taught me that I have looked in all the wrong places. I could be looking inside myself.” She made our day.

According to the drivers of the housing market here is what a dream home should look like. It would have 4-10,000 square feet, towering ceilings, every bedroom a suite, huge TV screens in many rooms, gorgeous exotic woods, and more bathrooms than the typical number of household members.

Obviously some people agree with that. It isn’t what I want and it isn’t what a lot of other people want, but sometimes we can get seduced into wanting at least some of it. I want to support those that are discovering their dream home inside their own hearts and souls. The dream home of the heart focuses more on what feelings do you want in this home? What kind of relationships do you want to foster – seclusion for each family member? togetherness around a table or a television? What sense of meaning and purpose and values to do you want this home to declare?

Yes, a home craves beauty because it touches our souls. What beauty is soulful? meaningful? values filled? Often visitors, even people we don’t know well, will say, “Your home is so lovely. It makes me want to stay and curl up for a while.” In an earlier post I described how my husband and I created a stained glass for a problem door. You can see it on this blog as my symbol of simple beauty. Instead of a major construction project, we did a small work of art together (with the assistance of an expert). I also described stenciling a meaningful ivy pattern in my kitchen resembling my wedding bouquet.

Consider a coaching session for your home. Often we can use the help of a coach to see our homes with new eyes and help us find hidden potential in our inner being and physical home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

Let your heart inspire you.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Change Negative Feelings About Your House. It Will Improve Your Well-being.

I was on several radio programs recently. One of the questions was “Can a house negatively impact your health and life?” The interviewer proceeded to explain that she is hearing a lot about the declining value of houses and how upset and angry people are about it. Increasing property taxes just adds to the pain.

The answer to the first part of the question is “Yes, a house can affect us positively or negatively or be neutral.” It can add to or subtract from stress. It can enhance or deflate relationships. Those things then affect our emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical beings.

I understand the second part of the question. My taxes are going up and value down as well. For those of us who are staying in our homes despite this situation, I’d offer some thoughts. First, don’t be angry at the house; it didn’t do anything. You can be upset with the situation separately from the home.

Second, remember you have a choice of what kind of relationship you want with your home.  If you have an I-Thou relationship with your home, you will feel like your home is your friend and partner in dealing with the situation. You might work with your home to help with the stress of the situation. Perhaps you spend some time retelling the stories of the value your home has given you – a place to raise your kids, a place to love and be loved. Perhaps it has cared for you through an illness or been a place of celebration. That kind of value hasn’t decreased. It can keep increasing.

If your house is just an “It”, then the only measurement of value will be how it is working out as an investment. That doesn’t give you other measures to balance your emotional life. For more on this, visit my website below for a great seminar on “From House to Home – discover the potential your home holds to positively influence your life.” Or, here is a link to one of the radio interviews: KFAI The program is called Health Notes.

Also, consider a coaching session for your home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

Inspire and increase the emotional value of your home.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Improve Your Healthy Home. Love a Pet.

Even if you don’t have a pet, think about this. Which animal which you rather be: a dog, cat, horse, tiger, lion, or panda? Why?

Professor Yi-Fu Tuan,  a famous Chinese-American humanist geographer, notes that humans need to see their virtues. “Animals, serving as metaphors, answer that need. Thus the dog stands undeviatingly for loyalty, the cat for independence, the horse for elegance, the tiger for power, the lion for nobility, and the panda for cuteness.”

Thinking about our attitudes towards animals can offer insights that might affect our self-awareness and health. Companies spend money teaching people about EQ – Emotional Quotient to increase their effectiveness with other people (and indirectly therefore happiness). Maybe they should just give their employees more time to go home and play with a dog. Dogs have high EQ – Emotional Quotient. Maybe we could learn something while having fun and reduce our stress and its related health costs all at the same time.

Pets aren’t right for everyone and some pets have serious behavior issues that can’t be ignored. But for 62% of U.S. households they are part of the family. Good pets can have a positive benefit on your home and your health. The Center for Disease Control reports numerous benefits from having pets:
* lower blood pressure
* lower cholesterol and triglyceride levels
* reduce feelings of loneliness
and we all know they can make us laugh which is healing as well. And they are a source of comfort when we are down.

Some pets seem particularly attuned to us and our moods. I wonder if that is genetic or related to how we bond with them when they are young. They take time and attention just like all relationships. When that bond is there, animals serve us in so many ways. Hopefully, we reciprocate.  I highly recommend, Dogs that Know When their Owners Are Coming Home by scientist Rupert Sheldrake.

They do take time and energy, so may not be right for everyone. For many of us, pets are part of the family. Children gain so much from that relationship as they learn about love, kindness, patience, responsibility, and more. I’m thankful for all the pets we have loved and cherished and who have given us so much.

If you are in the Twin Cities region, visit my website below for a great seminar on “From House to Home – discover the potential your home holds to positively influence your life.”

Also, consider a coaching session for your home. I do whole life coaching. See my website for details.

Gain inspiration from your pet.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Delight a Child. Make a Box Their Joy.

Children love small spaces. Even as adults, we don’t totally outgrow that desire for a private space.

One of the best entertainment centers for a younger child is a big box. It could be the size of a big grocery box that they can sit in, or it could be an appliance box that they can stand in and use the flaps as doors. It will entertain them for weeks. Find a spot where it can stay for a while even in a closet if you are short of space.

Check with stores to see if you can find one. If you can’t, then it’s time for your imagination to use sheets, blankets, chairs, or tables to create a special nook. If the child is under four, you may want to set it up for them, and then surprise him or her. If they are over four, engage them in the creation process.

If it is a box, let them help decorate it. You will have to cut out the window if they want one, but they can choose where to put it. Most importantly, let a child of any age take the lead in making the house into a home. Let them furnish it with blankets, stuffed animals, books, toys, or maybe a flashlight.

Creative play (where the child’s imagination leads, not the adult’s) has enormous positive benefits. It’s more important than taking a class or watching Sesame Street. Check the American Pediatrics Report and you will be amazed at the beneficial effects of creative play. The United Nations has even proclaimed that to be a right of all children.

Children need a balance of structure and direction with room to try on being a human being who can influence their environment and experiment with making decisions and experience consequences. Their most formative years come early so give them an early foundation. Playtime is an ideal time for the balance to shift more towards freedom and responsibility.

If you are in the Twin Cities region, visit my website below for a great seminar on “From House to Home – discover the potential your home holds to positively influence your life.”

Also, consider a coaching session for your home. See my website for details.

Inspire a child you love.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Indulge In Beauty. Inexpensively.

You can have beauty without breaking the bank. That combination will reduce stress. Try my Simple Beauty Philosophy. It has four criteria for your beauty enhancing activities.
* straightforward and uncomplicated
* costs are trouble-free
* the feeling of inspiration makes your time and energy investment satisfying and fun
* involve those you love

Pick a time when you can engage for an hour or two. Decide where you want to focus. This is often hard for people. They want to do too much. Start with a corner of a room, a table, or a bookcase. This helps keep it uncomplicated. If you have more time and resources, then you can focus on a whole room.

Decide now on a trouble-free budget for this area. If you are going to feel bad, worried, or guilty during and after your beauty treatment, it will rob you of benefits. Beauty touches our hearts and souls and lifts us up and improves our health. If you overdo the budget, though, you are setting up a contradictory force.

Invite your inspiration to come out. When we are in a flow state of energy and creativity, it is like magic and will give you an internal makeover as well. Using YOUR imagination will make your home unique, a true reflection of you. Adapting someone else’s idea to your space is still doing it your way.

Inviting a loved one to join in the fun can add to the creativity and enhance a relationship. With children it can also be a wonderful learning experience for them. Sometimes, however, we want to engage with diverse parts of ourselves, rather than other people. We might get to know the child-like part or a spiritual part of ourselves. So love that other part and invite it along.

We all have different resources and talents so this philosophy adapts to you. What is simple for one person is not for another. The important thing is to get out of feeling deprived because you can’t do the big thing you want.

If you are in the Twin Cities region, visit my website below for a great seminar on “From House to Home – discover the potential your home holds to positively influence your life.”

Also, consider a coaching session for your home. See my website for details.

Inspire your philosophy of beauty.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com

Can’t Sell Your House? Have the Blahs?

Many people feel stuck in their houses. They want to sell, but can’t, due to the economy. Others just are in the winter doldrums. Don’t stay in either state. It isn’t good for your health or happiness. Here’s what you can do.

If your place is a house; turn it into an inspiring home. (Same goes for apartments, condos, etc.) If you have a home, but you don’t love it the way you used to, then re-inspire it. Neither has to be expensive. Make it a fun and rewarding adventure. Spend the money for that evening out on your home instead. That will last longer.

You love yourself and your family. Invest your creativity, your passions, and your time into your house. When your home truly mirrors yourself back to you, it makes all the difference. Maybe you will discover a new part of yourself or a loved one.

We helped our six-year-old with a right-of-passage before starting kindergarten. The “decorate your own bedroom project” was a wonderful experience for all of us. She discovered her imagination. We discovered things about her inner world that we didn’t know. We all grew from the experience. It took time, imagination, masking tape (for stencils), and paint.

Paint works wonders. You don’t even have to do a whole room. Maybe you can just add some detail in a contrasting color to a fireplace, the linen closet door, or a boring soffit. Here is a before and after using paint and a match.

Move furniture within a room, between rooms, and even to another floor. Add some new pillows or curtains. Enlarge one of the best photos you ever took, frame-it-yourself, and add it to a room that needs more of you.

When someone visits and jokes,”mind if I curl up and stay awhile?” you’ll realize you want to stay awhile, too.

If you are in the Twin Cities region, visit my website below for a great seminar on “From House to Home – discover the potential your home holds to positively influence your life.”

Also, consider a coaching session for your home. See my website for details.

Inspire your blahs.

© Margaret Lulic 2011
Inspired Home Coach available nationally by phone, Skype, iChat
Author: Home — Inspired by Love and Beauty
The Examined Life   http://www.lulicbooks.com