HouseHeal

Balboa Press

Contents

Introduction How House Heal Came to Be...................................xvPart One: You and Your Home...............................................1Chapter 1 - The Connection between You and Your Home......................3Chapter 2 - Show Condition vs. Receiving Condition........................7Part Two: The 3 Keys to Living in Receiving Condition.....................19Chapter 3 - Key #1: Awareness.............................................21Summary of Awareness......................................................41Chapter 4 - Key #2: Desire................................................43Summary of Desire.........................................................67Chapter 5 - Key #3: Willingness...........................................69Summary of Willingness....................................................77Part Three: The 3 Keys into Practice......................................79Awareness, Desire & Willingness into Practice.............................81Chapter 6 - Shifting a Red Zone...........................................83Chapter 7 - Shifting a Yellow Zone........................................109Chapter 8 - Maintaining and Expanding a Green Zone........................129Chapter 9 - People, Money, and Thoughts...................................135Chapter 10 - Moving Forward from Here.....................................151About the Author..........................................................155

Chapter One

Some people say that your home reflects who you are.

Surprise! It doesn't.

Your home might reflect your taste, aspects of your character and personality, or your current circumstances, but it does not reflect who you truly are. It couldn't possibly. You are so much more than your home.

Your home says a lot, though, about how you are.

Your home and how you feel about yourself when you're there speak volumes about how connected you are to who you really are and how well you are taking care of yourself.

Look around the space in which you live. What do you see? What do you feel?

You and your home are connected energetically. What you see and feel in your home can tell you some important things about yourself right now.

The energetic connection between you and your home works something like this:

• If your home is filled with things you don't use, want, or need, your life will include things you don't want or need.

• If your home feels "not good enough" to you, you will feel "not good enough."

• If your house is a chronic mess, some aspect of your life will be a mess.

• If your house is in disrepair, some part of your life will be in disrepair.

• If your home feels overwhelming, your life will feel overwhelming.

• If your house is stuck in time, parts of your life will be stuck in time.

• If you can't relax and enjoy yourself at home, you won't be able to relax and enjoy your life.

• If you are concerned about what other people think of your home, you will be concerned about what people think of you.

• If your home looks perfect and beautiful but you feel no joy there, your life will look perfect on the outside but you will feel no joy inside.

• If you feel like you have no say in your house, you will feel like you have no say in your life.

• If you don't recognize and appreciate the good things in your home, you won't be able to recognize and appreciate the good things in your life.

And so on.

Before you start to analyze yourself or your house and jump into action, take a deep breath. It is important for you to understand the connection between you and your home and how it works. There is a lot more to it than you might think.

First, let's look at why your home is so important to your well-being.

If you want to love your life, feel good about yourself, and be genuinely happy, consider this question: How important is it for you to feel good where you live?

I hope you don't have to think too long on that one!

Whether you live in a mansion or in a tiny apartment, feeling good about yourself at home is vital to your overall well-being. Think about it. Your home is where you sleep, eat, and spend time with your family and friends. It's where you make love, read, listen to music, play with your pets, and take care of your body. It may also be where you work, write, or engage in creative projects. Your home is where you go for shelter and comfort when the rest of the world feels like too much. It's where you go to feel safe.

If you don't feel good about yourself at home, if you don't feel uplifted, supported, and loved at home, if you don't feel relaxed and comfortable and in control at home, what chance do you have anywhere else? No matter what personal or professional activities, relationships, or interests you have outside of your home, your home is your base, the foundation for your day-to-day living.

Now ask yourself: Where else in the world do you have as much choice and influence as in your own home? Everything in your home, including the people in it and your relationships with them, is what you have created for yourself. The look and comfort of your furniture, the feel of your sheets, the color of your dishes, the thickness of your towels, the art on your walls, the rugs on your floors, the clothes in your cupboards, and even the food in your refrigerator, are what you have chosen. What you do at home and how you spend your time there is your choice. You choose the people you invite in, the music you listen to, the books you read, the television you watch, the phone calls you make, the food you eat, and the websites you visit. You choose them all. Most important, you choose what you say, what you think, what you believe, and what you feel at home.

It's all your choice. Physically and energetically, your home is filled with what you have created, chosen, drawn to yourself, and allowed into your life. That's why your home and how you feel about yourself when you are there gives you more direct feedback about you than any other place in the world. And it's all within your direct influence and control.

How does it feel to know that you have influence and control in your home? Does it feel exciting? Or does it feel overwhelming? If you have that much influence and control, you might wonder why your home doesn't look and feel more like you want it to, especially if you have been intending to make changes.

How to create a beautiful home that supports living a life you love

I will guide you through a powerful process that will help you to see the degree to which what you experience at home is yours to choose. Through the details of your home, you can learn to recognize what you want and see how easy it can be for you to get it. Once you understand your natural ability to bring about changes at home, you will feel more confident to make all kinds of new choices for yourself, in every area of your life.

What do you think is stopping you?

You might think that you don't have the time, money, taste, power, ability, or energy to make changes at home. Think again! The best bumper sticker I ever saw said "Don't believe everything you think."

What you think and believe can keep you living in compromise, frustration, resignation, and disappointment. Wouldn't it be a lot more fun to live in creativity, self-expression, love, possibility—and action?

HouseHeal will teach you how to start loving your home and your life at a whole new level. If you can create a home that feels good, a home where you feel good about yourself, where you feel safe and can be your best self, it will serve you in every area of your life.

The HouseHeal process is simple, but you need to be ready. If you are ready, and apply what is here, you will be unstoppable.

Are you ready?

Let's begin.

Chapter Two

If you are selling your house and want to get the maximum return from your investment, you need to have it in Show Condition.

When you are living in a home and want to get the maximum return from your life, you need to have it in Receiving Condition.

Receiving Condition is just what it sounds like: having your home set up to support you in receiving what you want to experience in life. The focus of HouseHeal is to teach you how to create Receiving Condition in your home.

The easiest way to understand fully the concept of Receiving Condition is to look first at Show Condition and compare the two. It doesn't matter whether you plan to sell your home or even whether you own a home. Examining Show Condition first makes it easier to understand the deeper distinctions of Receiving Condition.

Show Condition

When I work with people to get their houses ready to sell, the goal is to create Show Condition. Location and current market conditions will always be the prime factors in the speed and price at which a property sells, but the look and feel of a house also plays a role, sometimes a big role, in the results. When I am preparing a house or condo for Show Condition, I have one goal: to make it as appealing as possible to potential buyers. There are two essential components to getting a home into Show Condition:

1. Minimizing

2. Beautifying

Minimizing to sell

Minimizing is what it sounds like: reducing your stuff to a reasonable level so that you can show off the space to prospective buyers. No house can look good when it is cluttered, crammed with furniture, or has clothes falling out of a closet. For a home to show its best to prospective buyers, it needs to be neat, clean, and organized. It is common for people to rent a storage locker (or several) just to hold what they remove from their homes to make them look good for "show." When it can get you more money for your house, you have a strong incentive to clear things out.

Minimizing also includes tucking away personal items and collectibles from view. Family photos, grooming items, or cute collectibles on display can distract prospective buyers who come to see your house, or even make them feel like they are snooping. Putting personal items away helps buyers feel comfortable while looking around and keeps them focused on the features of the property.

Here are some general guidelines for minimizing to sell:

• Remove furniture as needed throughout the house. Leave only the pieces that help to show off the size and function of each room.

• Clear kitchen and bathroom counters and other flat surfaces of papers and small items. This includes furniture such as coffee tables, side tables, dressers, and desks. Leave only a few well- chosen items on display.

• Organize any open shelving to allow "breathing room." Mix books with a few decorative items.

• Organize the insides of any built-in cupboards that people will open when they look at the house, in the kitchen and bathrooms, especially.

• Arrange closets so that coats and clothing hang easily. Remove unused hangers. Keep a portion of closet floors clear and visible.

• Clear all main floor areas except for furniture and lamps.

• Tuck papers away neatly in drawers or baskets.

There's a lot more to it, but you get the idea.

Beautifying to sell

Beautifying means making your house look ready to move in and enjoy, which includes decorating the space as nicely as possible, at a level that is appropriate for the house. Beautifying also includes making sure that everything is in good repair.

Here are some general guidelines for beautifying to sell:

• Check that interior paint is in good condition in a color that has general appeal.

• Add lighting as needed to make the space bright. Check that light fixtures are current in style and in good repair.

• Hang appealing artwork to accentuate the space. Use larger pieces of art where suitable.

• Use mirrors appropriately to reflect light and make the space feel bigger.

• Arrange furniture to show off the space.

• Make sure bedding and pillows look fresh and inviting.

• Make sure that floors and rugs are clean and in good repair.

• Update hardware on cupboards and drawers as needed, especially in the kitchen and bathrooms.

• Make sure that fixtures such as taps and towel bars are current.

• Check that shower curtains and towels are crisp and clean.

• Clean the kitchen to spotless, including drawers, cupboards, and appliances.

• Clean the bathrooms to pristine condition, including the insides of cupboards and drawers.

• Add or replace window coverings where needed. Light colors are generally better than dark, depending on the space.

• Make sure grass and gardens are in good condition and include comfortable outdoor seating where possible. If your home is a condo with a balcony or terrace, use planters.

• Check that outdoor surfaces (such as door frames and window trim) are in good condition and painted or stained as needed.

• Repair everything that is broken: drawers, door handles, missing trim, broken steps, holes in the plaster—every little detail.

And so on ...

This may seem like a lot of work, but if you want to get top dollar for your house, it can be worth the effort. Buyers will be more drawn to a clean, tidy, bright home than to one that is out-of-style, cluttered, and dirty. It's that simple.

While your home is on the market, it's best to keep things as perfect as possible: kitchen counters clean and clear, bath towels neatly hanging on towel bars, toilet paper rolls full, lamp shades straightened, beds made, pillows fluffed, floors cleaned, and so on, right down to the last detail. Well-selected reading material on display can even give people the hope that if they move in they will have time to read good books!

Keeping a home in Show Condition demands extreme discipline. Show Condition is great for selling your house, but it is not a sustainable, healthy way to live.

It's surprisingly close, though. The optimal, healthy way to live is in Receiving Condition.

Receiving Condition

On the surface, Receiving Condition is remarkably similar to Show Condition. In fact, if you look at the description of minimizing and beautifying for Show Condition, pretty much everything on the list will benefit you even if you are not selling your house. It's not rocket science to figure out that a beautiful, clean home in good repair will support you in living a life that you love more than will a home that is cluttered, dirty, and in disrepair.

Still, there's a whole lot more to creating Receiving Condition. Cleaning, tidying and decorating will get your home into Show Condition, but it is not a guarantee that you will live in Receiving Condition. Receiving Condition goes far beyond how your house looks.

A home in Receiving Condition looks good and feels good. A home in Receiving Condition supports you in living life fully, happily, and with ease. A home in Receiving Condition helps you receive the experiences that you want in life on a daily basis. A home in Receiving Condition radiates with love and good-feeling energy.

Five Distinctions between Receiving Condition and Show Condition

As similar as Show Condition and Receiving Condition are on the surface, there are five key distinctions between the two that will help you to understand Receiving Condition better:

Distinction #1:

Show Condition is straightforward and physical.

Receiving Condition is complex and personal.

The goal of Show Condition is universal: to sell your house or condo for as much money as possible as quickly as possible. That's it. It can be a lot of work, but it's straightforward. If you brought in ten different people to give you an action plan to get your house into Show Condition, you might get some variations, but for the most part the advice would be similar.

Receiving Condition is far more personal. Receiving Condition requires that your living space support what is going on uniquely in your life and in your household. If you have ever worked with a designer or decorator, you know that before they give you ideas or recommendations, they spend time with you, ask questions, and get to know you. They ask about your likes and dislikes and the activities that are important to you and your family. They take the time to understand what you are trying to accomplish with your home.

To help clients achieve Show Condition, I don't need to ask questions about their personal tastes or their favorite activities. It's great when clients like what their house looks like in Show Condition, and of course they retain full say in what we do in their homes, but in the end it doesn't really matter whether Show Condition suits their tastes. All that is important is that we help them get the most money possible.

Receiving Condition, in contrast, is highly personal. The functioning components of a home in Receiving Condition are different for each person because they are based on individual needs, tastes, and interests.

Distinction #2:

Show Condition requires clearing things out of your house.

Receiving Condition requires clearing things out of your life.

To minimize for Show Condition, you can simply pack up whatever is not needed and put it somewhere else temporarily. To create Receiving Condition in your home, it is not enough to transfer your excess things to a storage unit. Receiving Condition requires that you deal with your stuff once and for all, and let go permanently of things you don't use, need, or want, and that do not actively support you in living a life you love.

If you have boxes, bins, or furniture stored in your friend's basement or your sister's garage, you stay energetically connected to those things. Whatever you still own remains in your energy field, whether it is in your home or not. If you have possessions lingering in storage, especially things that you do not miss, and that are not that important to your daily functioning and happiness, chances are those things are weighing you down without you even realizing it. I have an expression: Out of sight, out of mind. Out of sight, still in vibe.

Note: There may be circumstances where it makes sense for you to store things for a time, for example, when you are preparing your house for sale, undergoing renovations, traveling, or in a temporary personal situation. There may also be times when the size of your living space makes a small, long-term storage unit a logical, practical choice for storing items that you use and want to keep, such as seasonal decorations, sports equipment, or snow tires. Those are exceptions.

Distinction #3:

Show Condition is intended to appeal to others.

Receiving Condition is intended to please and support you.

Beautifying for Show Condition typically means making things in your home more neutral to achieve broader appeal to potential buyers. Show Condition helps other people imagine your home as theirs.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from HouseHealby Sara Brown Crowder Copyright © 2012 by Sara Brown Crowder. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.