If I was to ask you to tell me about the condition of your home, how would you respond? Would your eyes light up and would you immediately start telling me about the new floors you’re putting in or the way you love how cozy and safe your home makes you feel? Or would you feel defensive and change the subject because you suddenly feel vulnerable.
I’m one of those people who don’t particularly enjoy surprise visitors, even if they’re friends. My house is never clean enough. I apologize for not dusting above the window frame that people aren’t looking at. Or maybe I didn’t vacuum that day. If I’m preparing for visitors, my anxiety goes through the roof. I want everything to look pristine and I regret not doing laundry on a more frequent basis. I question my life choices. It’s ridiculous!
But what if I wasn’t even asking about the condition of the literal house? What if I’m asking about you? What if you’re the house?
On my YouTube channel, Running With Scissors, I started a new series. I have a Saturday morning show called Coffee and Badness where I discuss deep topics. We just finished up a series on toxic relationships and now we’ve started a self reflection series. In this series, I use the analogy of a house. We are the house.
A house isn’t meant to be just a shelter. It’s meant to be a home and over time, it’s weathered many storms. It has had visitors and loved ones come and go. Many have left beautiful memories. Some left damage. And we tend to get so busy maintaining other people’s homes that we ignore the damage in our own.
We put a rug over the cracks or deep scratches in the floor and just step over them. The junk drawer keeps filling up and we never purge, we just keep adding to it. We do the quick wipe ups but we fail to do the much needed deep cleaning. There is a slow leak in one of the pipes, we’ve heard the drip-drop for months and we keep saying we’re gonna call the plumber to take a look at it but it never makes it to the top-ten on the to-do list.
Imagine your body is the structure of a house. The environment inside is your mind. Your relationships are the doors and windows connecting you to the outside world. And your spirit is the foundation that gives your home purpose and stability.
So now when I ask, what condition is your home in, let’s first take a deeper look before answering. Let’s examine those four areas I described: mental, physical, social and spiritual. These are critical elements of our lives that impact our wellbeing and if one is neglected, the other three are also hindered and our resilience is greatly weakened. However, if all four are nurtured, we can withstand all storms headed our way.
It doesn’t mean we’re impenetrable. Resilience doesn’t make you a brick wall; it makes you able to bounce back. But you have to nurture all elements of wellbeing.
Check out the show here!
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