This is an effective visualisation technique to improve emotional well-being, that helps you consider what you are focusing on and what you are holding onto that you should let go of.
Imagine that your mind is like a house. It has a large front door and as you walk in you can see various rooms going off to the left and the right. Your eyes are like the front door of your house. What you see around you and focus on is what will be coming inside your house. If you are focusing too much on that narcissistic ex, you are inadvertently welcoming them into your ‘home’. What you focus on direct to your emotional well-being. What we focus on gets collected in the rooms in our house. Consider the rooms in your mind and what they might contain.
The self-criticism room or honour-myself room?
In your house, there is a room that is devoted to all the things that you don’t like about yourself. Emotional well-being declines when we are self-critical. When you walk into this room in your house (your mind), what does it look like? Is it a shrine to all that you hate about yourself? If you spend a lot of time focusing on your weaknesses, your self-criticism room will be very cluttered. You might find posters on the wall that display the cellulite on your legs that you despise, or perhaps that extra fat roll around your tummy that you can’t get rid of. The more we focus on the things that we don’t like about ourselves, .the more baggage we bring into our house.
How do you feel when you step into your self-criticism room? Do you feel happy and light or do you feel heavy and desperate? If this room makes you feel negative emotions, you can minimise it’s impact by focusing on the things that you do like about yourself. Our emotional well-being is heavily dependent on where our attention goes.
Self-love and self-acceptance for emotional well-being
Now imagine walking into the self-love room or self-acceptance room. You can visualise this room as light and airy with pretty colours (or whatever brings you happy and positive feelings). When you focus on the things that you do like about yourself, you will generate more positive emotions within yourself. Your emotional well-being will be taken care of when you allow positivity and optimism into your foucs/mind.
If you could choose on a daily basis, would you rather step into the room of self-acceptance instead of the room of self-criticism If the room of self-love helps you to feel better about yourself it makes sense to spend more time there. Which room will support and nurture your emotional well-being.
Think about the other rooms in your house. When you think about what you focus on the most in life, consider these as rooms in your house. If you focus frequently on your relationships, consider what your relationship room would look like. Is your relationship room a happy place or is it a room where you feel anxious and worried about rejection or being abandoned? Your emotional well-being will be impaired by a lack of self-compassion. When you visualise your rooms in this way, it helps you to form a picture of the type thoughts you have around each subject.
Happy rooms represent happy thoughts and feelings. Emotional well-being relies on removal of our tendency to see the world (and ourselves) with a negative mental filter. The sad rooms in house will present your fears and your insecurities.
Typical rooms that many people have in their mental-representation houses
A room dedicated to yourself – for some people this room is a happy place because they’re like themselves and for others this room is a place they would rather avoid.
A room dedicated to your relationships – is there a sense of love and bonding, connecting in this room or is it filled with fear?
A room dedicated to your work/ career – what does this room look like? Is a field of Pride for your achievements or is it a room with unfulfilled dreams and fear of failure? If this room leaves you feeling unhappy, it’s time to redecorate. You can redecorate by making an effort to focus on your strengths and how far you have come rather than focusing on what do you still have to achieve. Put a big sign up on the door – “I am good enough”
Many people have a room in their house relating to their friends and family. If your social relationships and interpersonal relationships are happy and healthy this should be a happy room to enter. If you pause outside the door of your friends/family room, ask yourself what needs to be removed and what needs to be added? Are they toxic people in your life that you need to evict or break up with? Are there wonderful people time with that need to come into your life?
Another room in your house might be related to your goals and values. If you know what your top values are (for instance: honesty, adventure, integrity, love, kindness and so on), you might be able to visualise them written up on the wall. When you walk into this room you regularly see your values and you are reminded that your life is in line with the things that you find are a priority.
If your life if is Directionless, this room may lack inspiration, colour and energy. If you need more direction in your life, think about the times when you have felt really happy and fulfilled. What was happening and where were you? What gave you that wonderful feeling being in the zone?
Have you moved away from these things that make you feel so good? Perhaps you need to reintroduce some of these happy events and situations and remove the activities at drain you and leave you exhausted.
Draw your house and your rooms
Become an architect of your life and create your dream house for maximum emotional well-being. What would be your top 5 rooms and how could you make them as happy as possible?
When I did this exercise, these were my top five rooms:
The room dedicated to me
In this room I can visualise a happy smiling picture of me where I look well and my self-care is good. Also positive affirmations such as ” I can cope with whatever is thrown at me”. I have decided not to worry ahead of time about things that might never happen because all that does is ruin the present moment. I read a lot and I listen to podcasts and I Focus in on the information and the messages around me me that feed me and inspire me. I am aware of my inner bully, but I am getting better not pay much attention to her. He says no purpose other than to upset me and she’s not based on reality she’s based on my my earlier messages from my upbringing and my insecurities.
A room dedicated to friends and family and relationships
The little tricky because a lot of the furniture and decor in this room isn’t completely up to me. Dedicated to me is my sole responsibility but this room has to take on the views of others and a compromise is required. I still have I make sure that this room has some healthy boundaries. My partner may not 50% of the space of this room and I fiercely guard my side of the room. This has nothing to do with the literal possession material things. Rather it has everything to do with treated and what I will and will not allow in a relationship. I use assertiveness to protect my side of the room but I am happy to share where the space with someone as long as they know the boundary is there and can be used.
Relationships at work are built on trust and mutual respect. When someone starts to disrespect your side of the room and throw garbage in it that room starts to lose its magic.
The room dedicated to achievements/ career/ ambitions/goals
I love this room because it represents opportunity and personal growth. Keeping my mind active is essential for my emotional well-being. This room in my house is behind the room dedicated to myself and the room dedicated to my friends and family and this is because while achievements and ambitions are vital, they are not the number one priority in my life. Of course, I would not cope without this room because it allows me to progress and to learn how to feel inspired. This is my happy room because I am motivated by inner goals rather than external forces. You are true to yourself, happiness will follow automatically. It is when we get caught out in our social selves and start to lose our essential selves that trouble starts brewing. We can listen to what others advise us on but ultimately we know what’s best for us most of the time.
The games room
One of my favourite rooms in the house is the one where I can have fun, be silly and playful. This is the room where I laugh a lot, where I enjoy life in the moment and I remind myself not to take life too seriously. This room has pictures of all my travels across the world, my experiences in nature and my pets that I love to spend time with. This is my real happy place and nurtures my emotional well-being.
Thinking about your mind as a house with many rooms in it is an effective way to figure out which areas of your life are progressing well and which areas of Life need work. My relationship room causes me hesitation I have to keep going in there and redecorating until I get it right. Just because everything does not bring me as much joy as it should does not mean I can avoid it and keep the door closed forever.
Every room in my house needs work and at times there will be more rooms with stuff overflowing than at other times. When I have more clarity there are fewer rooms that need dusting and sorting and redecorating.
An important lesson in emotional well-being
The more mindful I am, the less amount of clutter exists. Clutter inhibits my sense of emotional well-being . Overthinking is like hoarding. It clutters up your rooms and creates confusion. You can be more minimalistic in life by living in the moment, being clear about what your values and goals are, being assertive in relationships and by by working hard to create balance.
Is there a one room in your house that has too much clutter? This can happen if you tend to focus too much on one area of your life such as being a workaholic. Visualise a house that is minimalistic without clutter. If clutter exists, I hope it is useful and inspiring clutter …
Mandy X
oto by Ярослав Алексеенко on Unsplash
Author: Mandy Kloppers
Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.
