Create Your Home As Heaven - Gina Lazenby

Create Your Home as Heaven

There is a wonderful little story about a journalist who asked Mother Theresa how she would create peace in the world. Her answer was the advice to go home and love your family. It's such a beautiful and powerful thought that a home can be a potent place for the nurturing of peace…. that peace out there cannot be created unless we have peace in here, be that in our homes or ourselves.

I had a similar inspiring conversation with a spiritual leader. I was spending time in India and had the privilege to be with Dadi Janki, the head of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, at their headquarters in Mount Abu. We were in a small forum where we could question the organisation's leaders. I asked Dadi about the role of women working alongside men in changing the world, intending to use her response on my Feminine Leadership blog.

To my surprise, her response was that women should make their homes as heaven. It was pronounced with great power, and I had to take some time to explore the meaning of the words. Like Mother Theresa, Dadi was endorsing the power of home. This idea that we can make a change in the world by going home and doing something there is both curious and powerful.

Admittedly, at first, I was disappointed because I thought Dadi was recommending that women should leave the world of business/work and return home. But she was a world leader, and head of a vast organisation in over 120 countries, so her focus was not on domestic work.

She was really talking about the role of women as leaders of peace and the power they have in the home …. that it is up to us to create heaven at home for everyone who lives there.

Women have traditionally had the leadership role in the household. It is women who are largely responsible for homemaking and child care.

They're in charge of food and nourishment - often combining the roles of quartermaster and chief cook, overseeing mental wellbeing, growth and development of children and their activity planning and management. Women take on the healing of the mind, body and spirit, give encouragement and provide what I heard Aboriginal elders call, 'emotional labour'. So women have that real opportunity and responsibility to provide a calm, peaceful oasis that is the foundation of everyone's life.

Home is where everyone sets out from each day to go out into the world in whatever endeavour they are doing.

Creating even a little piece of heaven to experience in your home is essential, especially in a time of planet crazy.

Your home should give you feelings of calm, peacefulness and stillness … at least somewhere in the frenetic activity because this affects your frequency. You are an energy being. You absolutely need coherence for your optimal wellbeing and for confidently looking to your future and making good decisions.

It's only in the quiet and the calm that you can hear the needs of your spirit and the needs of your body. When everything 'out there' seems to be beyond your control, safe shelter is what you need to retreat to and surround yourself with. This is how you feed your power. It is from this power base that your energy ripples out into the world.

How to create your Home as Heaven

1. Deepening your Connection with Nature is essential.

Nature is the cornerstone of our well-being, our healing and our future.

Everything about us is supported by our connection to the natural world, and disconnection from it is the source of all our problems. Bring nature into your home with living plants, as many as you possibly manage. Grow things …. take cuttings, plant seedlings, sprout beans and pulses…. all of this connects us to the process of growth and cycle of life. And where access to real nature is restricted, you can add images of nature. I have an entire wall in my lounge with a mural of an early morning walk in the forest, and it feels like I am there. It does actually have an effect on me biologically and mentally.

2. Disconnect from the Un-natural.

Switch off the wifi when you are not using it, and of course, this is primarily important when you are sleeping. Nothing interferes more strongly with sleep than being bombarded with discordant electromagnetic impulses. Turn off the TV and shut your computer earlier in the evening.

Do not watch a screen until the last minute; give your body a long transition space between exposure to the frequencies that disrupt the natural slowing down of your body and your getting into bed. Turn the lights down lower as the evening wears on … let your body know you are moving into wind down and sleep.

(Above Right) Gina Lazenby with spiritual leader Dadi Janki

3. Entrain Yourself with the Cycles of Nature.

Routines and rituals are important to help us tune in to the natural world on a daily, monthly, quarterly and annual basis. We need to sustain our own natural rhythms within these larger cycles. Plan ahead with the seasons; adapt your menus every quarter at least. Find ways in each season to enjoy being outside in the light.

4. Set Up a Calm Corner.

Find a space in your home that is an ongoing invitation to sit still and be quiet. If it is already set up, you can choose that place at any moment and drop down into the quiet… look out the window, meditate or lose yourself in a jigsaw. Make it a moment of slow. And turn off any music. You might consider noise-cancelling headphones if you cannot get away from other busy household sounds. As much as we all need a walk outside in nature, you must have somewhere at home that is a place of rejuvenation. Even create a time in the day when that is ring-fenced for your daily retreat. I favour a break in the busy midmorning to sit in front of my large picture window, in my most comfortable chair already facing the view of my garden, and I watch the birds and latest flowers to bloom … or the rain, whatever is happening. You might choose a 15- minute nap. Give yourself permission to have a break in the forward motion of the day.

5. Create Order and Plan Ahead.

Not being able to find something, running out of an item and not knowing what to prepare for dinner (especially when you want to eat) adds to your stress. All these little things rob you of calm. Planning meals ahead is important. In fact, my colleague Roger Green from the Academy of Healing Nutrition, where I have been studying, says the foundation of spirituality is cooking nourishing food for your family and providing welcome hospitality to your friends. He describes the most evolved person as the one who can look into the future and plan ahead for the days to come. Hurrah to Roger, thank you! Knowing what we're going to eat, providing the menus and shopping for those meals is an essential rhythm in your peaceful home. The worst-case scenario for any of us is arriving in front of an empty fridge at 7 pm in the evening after a long day and wondering what's for dinner. I have been there many times in the past. Creating order, tidiness and setting up good organisation removes hundreds of tiny stressful moments that add up and create unnecessary peacelessness.

6. Ensure Mindfulness in Your Space.

You have heard of the maxim "As without so within", and I have quoted it before, so you will understand it is a foundation principle of feng shui. Look around your home for areas of difficulty, lack of flow, excess, clutter and disarray and note that these will play out in your life and even your body. I bet you notice the difference in the energy of a room after it has been vacuumed, so know that everything you do to create ease and remove obstacles to flow will lower stress levels in the body and increase feelings of calm.

7. Energy Follows Thought, Choose Art Well.

Your home is constantly in dialogue with you. It's sending messages to you through the arrangement of the space, the state and condition of everything and the images you choose for art and decor. These images should reflect your desired state of being. Be careful what you put into your space and program yourself with. I have seen homes with dreary, grey art which spoke of hard work and difficulty and then I have been told that the problem in the home is what I could see in the art. You want a space filled with high vibe images for your high vibe life. Choose well.

8. Prioritise the Most Important Rooms in the house.

Firstly, the bedroom needs to be a sacred space for deep, peaceful sleep. It should be dark (when you sleep), have a good air supply, be protected from electromagnetic fields and free of excess clutter. Plus, remove all reminders of things that have been left undone and sight any of your work. Invest in a good mattress (I have slept on a magnetic one for 25 years) and high-quality cotton bedding. Why save that delicious feeling of slipping into a luxurious bed with high thread count sheets on that occasional weekend away … create that in your own bedroom now.

Secondly, the kitchen is the heart of the home. There needs to be good organisational flow, good storage and presentation of food …… an inspiring space that is tidy and clean, and everything ready for food preparation. Calm cooking equals peaceful food, which is doubly nourishing.

Gina Lazenby

Healthy Living Activist, Feng Shui Expert

Gina’s beautiful hilltop home in the Yorkshire Dales, featured on many TV programmes and the inspiration for her Healthy Home book, is now let as a retreat house to facilitators of yoga, transformation work and wellness. It’s also a special place to hire for family gatherings and celebrations.

She has always understood the management and care of a home as a highly feminine skill set. Her work in the last twenty years has been in the exploration of the changing nature of gender roles and the value of home-making in our lives. Her feng shui skill set enabled her to teach hundreds of students the value of aligning your home for success and wellness. She has also produced and presented a radio series called ‘The Rise of the Feminine’ exploring the shift in values in the world and the unique contribution of women.

Gina is a veteran conference speaker and has led gatherings for women entrepreneurs all over the globe. Most recently, she has taken on the role of global host for Conscious Café, a consciousness raising initiative, and hosts the northern community group based in Skipton. Gina is a born organiser and has created thousands of events since she was a small child and led birthday parties for her reluctant toddler brother. You can join her online or in-person at one of the many gatherings she creates around her passions of conscious conversation, feminine leadership, wholefood cooking, Feng Shui, living well and wisdom. Her Healthy Home podcast is about to be launched from the Retreat House with tips for making your home the foundation of your abundance and health.

http://www.thehealthyhome.com/