Saturday, February 2, 2019

What I learned from Cuz Wendy and Marie Kondo


Part 2
Open houses on Saturdays and showings during the week and sometimes on Sundays, that was my life. My schedule was dictated by the showings. I had to literally work and schedule things around this huge endeavor.
Several people have told me that selling a house is one of the most stressful and biggest things one can undertake. I mentally paused. Indeed, our home is our safe haven. It’s literally our foundation, where about half our lives is spent, as our beds cocoon us every night and let our bodies recover from the day. 
If we were trees, our home is equivalent to the roots. Home is linked to the root chakra: where we feel safe and provided for, where our bodily needs are met - eating, sleeping, loving. Home should be a place of security, comfort and familiarity, where we nest, grow and live. It’s the floor beneath our feet, holding the bed when we are sick and sometimes our final resting place. They say home is where the heart is, and that is literally where your heart is half of the time.
When I was talking to my cousin Wendy, who coincidentally is going to be listing her house soon, she commented how this house had been good to me and asked me if I had thanked my house. I was silent for a few seconds, thinking about this. I did Reiki on my house to clear the energies. I anointed the air by diffusing pure essential oils (these are the ones I use). I cleaned, vacuumed, dusted every surface. I painted it, I improved it, I fixed it. I had poured much love into this house, but no, I had not actually thanked “her.” The word for house in Portuguese is feminine, so I am calling my house “her.”
I had to thank her. So, I did. I thanked her for being my home. I had found her in disarray almost 10 years before. I had given her quite a makeover, with many improvements over the years, and I acknowledged that more still needed to be done. I told her that the next people who live here would hopefully continue that task, and that she would be the haven that she had been to me for another family. It felt good to thank her and it reminded me of Marie Kondo, when she helps people tidy up their house on Netflix, the first thing she does is “feel” the spirit of the home. She kneels, closes her eyes, and mentally and spiritually connects with the house, greeting it and offering her respect for it. In a way, even though I did not kneel when I thanked my house, I was connecting mentally and spiritually with it, and thanking “her.”
It was not under my control when the right buyer would come along or when I would be moving. Our plan was to explore a new area and start a new chapter elsewhere, but first things first. Just like Julie said, there is a step for everything in this process, and my other half said: “Patience, dear.” If only I could muster some of that! I had to: my life depended on it.




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