by  Cindia Carrere

I like a clean house. No, that’s not completely true. I looooove a clean house. And fresh sheets, beautiful flowers in vases, sunlit rooms, and open windows. Home is like an oasis, a sanctuary, a nest, and thank God I married someone who feels the same way.

Domestic bliss and household harmony could be Groom’s and my “brand.” It’s at the top of our lifestyle values, and we somehow managed to figure this out in our 20’s. We threw out the gender assignment roles of household chores and instead, selected the ones that were a better fit to our personalities. He chose cooking, yard work, and taking care of the garbage/recycling. I picked dishes, laundry, and general housekeeping.

And guess what? Everything gets done without quarrel or argument. We are a committed team in life, love, and business.

“Well, frickin’ La dee dah,” you say?

This was actually a personal challenge for us to begin with. His mother was a master gardener/interior decorator, and their home could’ve been photographed for a magazine at any given moment. He couldn’t even get up in the wee hours of the morning for a quick run to the loo without coming back to his bed made. Whaaat?

My Mother-in-law’s kitchen garbage bags were cinnamon flavored. Cinnamon flavored!  And she had a beautiful tea service set up on a table in her mauve bathroom next to her toilet. Um, I don’t even know how to respond to that.

And on my side of the aisle? I’ll have you know, we were “Upper white trash,” thank you very much.

Everyone in my family is a “collector.” I came from a tribe of accumulators, squirrels, magpies. The technical term is “hoarder,” but let’s not rest on formality.

I’ve had to heal from the chaos, purge from the clutter, and create a standard of living for myself that feels in alignment with my vision, dreams, and goals.

Waaaaay before Marie Kondo and her Tidying Up movement, Groom and I designed one-of-a-kind jewelry. Over the years, we were always on the lookout for intriguing gewgaws, baubles and fripperies to dismantle and recombine in unusual ways. This path led us to many antique shops, estate sales, and picker’s paradises. 

It was then I began to notice. . . . Almost every proprietor of a treasure-filled shop had misshapen hands. After a while, I knew it had to be more than a coincidence. As I was conversing with these shop keepers, they inevitably would start talking about the aches and pains in their joints. It got to be downright predictable.  

Then I started paying attention to the energetic symptoms and physical diagnosis of my relatives, and each of them had health issues that could be directly related to the piles of books, furniture, and miscellaneous items stacked one on top of the other. Asthma in a home that had layers and layers of archeological dust, with carpets and drapes that had not been cleaned in decades. Increased cortisol levels of stress, anxiety, depression, and memory loss associated with the visual distraction of clutter. Arthritis from the grasping and clutching, and never letting go of items or grudges.

That inspired me to prove a theory, if only for myself. What would happen if I let go of my “collections?” With the intention of letting go and cleaning up our act, Groom and I faced a looming mass of items to sort and release. We lived in what people referred to as “the haunted house,” in the Willamette Valley. It was a beautiful dump. A dilapidated jumble of a house in a wildly romantic garden.

We held several curated yard sales and eventually reclaimed some of our space. This made room for an upgrade in housing, renting a charming 1920’s bungalow with the option to buy. Continuing to downsize our hodgepodge, we upleveled again and bought our first home. We remodeled the entire place to match our next-level style.

If you’re not familiar with the backstory, here’s the quick version. My mother and one of my dearest friends were sent to hospice on the same day in different towns, 6-hours apart. I was devastated and needed a holistic practice to keep me focused, functioning and moving forward during this period of transition and grief. Not finding one, I created my own.

With my mother dying, Groom and I realized we could not let my 88-year-old father go through his widowerhood alone and decided to move to Southern Oregon to be near him. I used the perfect blend of science and spirituality in the Living Vision Board to manifest our dream home within a few hours of making the decision to relocate. The house we found is our soulmate in the architectural realm.

And I used the same Living Vision Board process to sell our Portland home within 24-hours, tripling our money, when the house next door had been on the market for over a year!

If you saw the four houses Groom and I have lived in, from the haunted house to the bungalow, to our starter home, and now where we currently reside, the transformation is undeniable. I credit three things:

1. Our determination to uplevel and beat what I nicknamed, “The White Trash Rash,” of clutter and accumulation
2. Faith in the spirituality and science implemented in the Living Vision Board
3. The power of a daily success ritual

With the bona fides of physical and energetic transformation, people started to ask how we did it. One woman came to me, bothered by her husband’s drinking. She invited me to her home, and I was amazed when I walked in the door, considering the problem.

Their house was a virtual shrine to alcohol. They had invested thousands of dollars in oil paintings and other artwork celebrating wine and different versions of the “Seven Deadly Zins.” Everywhere on the walls, including over their bed, were images of drinking. I was blunt. I told her to change up her art and redecorate if she wanted her husband to stop drinking, or at least slow down. Talk about mixed messages! Nagging or begging or criticizing would be in direct conflict with the approval of their liquor-friendly décor.

Guess what? The husband stopped drinking and has been sober for three years! Changing up your space to align with your goals is a key to manifesting what you desire, instead of continuing old patterns. Inviting new energy into a place sets the tone to reinforce your objectives.

A cottage rental by the sea, for example, is usually furnished with beachy stuff, or a ranch in the desert with cacti and horses. I’ve never been in a church or a holistic spa with neon beer signs, or a restaurant designed around a theme of toxic waste with the wait staff in hazmat suits. That’s because places of business and worship understand how important setting and a sense of place is to alignment of purpose.

Your body is the temple of your spirit, and deserves a safe, healthy home. The Living Vision Board community is all about supporting women with big dreams, including manifesting your dream home and space.