This week I’ve been thinking about how different spaces in my house are used. As our family has changed some spaces have been repurposed, but others have stayed the same. We still have a family dining room with a large table and while this worked in previous years, now it seems empty and unnecessary for just the two of us (and the cat). When we talked about how else we could use this room, it was difficult to let go of the way things were and envision something new.
To help us open up the possibilities of it being something other than a ‘dining room’ we have started reframing the space. So far this has meant shifting some furniture around to show the space can hold something other than a big table and chairs. While the immediate reaction to this was not positive (‘Why have you done that, it looks weird’ being my favourite), the longer we sit with it the more ideas about the space begin to emerge within us. We begin to see how it could work for the lives we have now.
Usually I am in a rush to skip to the end and see the big change, but this time I am sitting with the uncertainty of not knowing how things will be. I am cultivating my curiosity about what the room will become when we stopped limiting its use to ‘dining room’. I know that in order to do this, we need to give it space to breathe and grow rather than swapping one label for another.
How often do we allow ourselves to become stuck into ways of being? Feeling we have to live up to labels we have been assigned (by others or ourselves). What would it be like to simply shift some of the furniture in our heads and let ourselves sit with how it feels? To be able to be curious about our own possibilities without scrabbling to be finished. Because we know we are never finished, the world around us continues to change and we must change with it, while trying not to lose ourselves to the external pressures.
Rather than holding onto things because they have always been, or because they were given to us, we can learn to sift through our heads and keep only those things that are necessary for who we are now, or who we wish to become.
Which rooms in your head would you like to repurpose?
