Not every house starts out feeling like a home. Sometimes there is stress and even trauma surrounding a move or a change. Whether it is a change within an existing space, or moving to a new place, sometimes you just have to engage the energy and start afresh! E was in that position. Forced to move because her last apartment was sold, she looked for something to buy. She found a cute place that met none of her needs and moved in with some trepidation. The nightmare started almost the very day she moved in when she discovered that not only was her upstairs neighbor a noisy person with irregular nighttime habits but that he had a leak in his bathroom that was dripping into hers. This discovery started six months of hellishness that involved sleep deprivation, stress, unhappiness and feeling like a victim to the circumstances that brought her to this new place. Every quirk of the house was annoying and she found herself depressed and miserable.
One day it all became too much and she made a decision that it was time for a change. Time to stop feeling like a victim. Time to stop harming herself by dwelling in negativity. Time to take back her power.
We met on a gorgeous day in March and talked through her goals. She wanted to feel safe in her home and she wanted to practice detachment from the ongoing leak and the fact that the neighbor was not taking responsibility. She basically wanted to claim her space.
We talked through different energetic actions she could take and created a ceremony to do with friends that would help clear and re-energise her space.
To protect her at night from the upstairs neighbors’ energy and to create a sense of safety, she put mirrors reflecting upwards on the ceiling. Feng shui says that mirrors can deflect incoming negative energy. She then swagged a chiffon cloth over the mirrors above her bed to create a canopy feeling. In the bathroom with the leak, she installed a small shelf and added a plant and a candle to help balance the over prevalence of water and to help her focus on something beautiful rather than just the damage.
For our ritual, 5 of us gathered in her space and after creating a sacred circle, we moved through 4 phases of purging, clearing, protecting and blessing. Phase 1 was purging. E needed to release and express all the emotions surrounding the experience. We held space with her while she spoke and closed that section with a chant. Phase 2 was clearing where we used chant, bells, incense and essential oils and moved through her entire space including outside and in the hallway to clear the space. For Phase 3, we placed stones in key areas around her home as well as outside. Finally, in Phase 4 we blessed E and the space and spoke into the space what the home would be filled with: friends, dance, song, delicious food, safety, beauty and joy. For our final blessing we wrapped rainbow thread from wrist to wrist to remind E and ourselves that we were witness to the energetic shift and that we honor the time it takes to bring in new mindsets. We closed with a libation and snacks.
When I checked in about a week later, E said she felt very differently about her home and that she now felt protective of her space and that she loved it. The leak and the problem haven’t gone away but E has reclaimed her power and has leaned into loving her home with gratitude. The big shift was moving from a place of rage and victimhood and hating her home to a place of loving her home and being able to handle the problems in a way that is not harmful to her wellbeing.