One of my good friends is a words girl like me.  She has words all over her house as mental reminders of the signs she actually wants to pay attention to and what words she actually wants to let into her soul.  One walk through her house and you’d probably feel as if you knew her pretty well already-or at least a feeling of the warmth of her soul.  You’d learn she loves dogs and if you don’t like them, she’d be happy to “put you outside.”  You’d learn she believes in “the power of stillness and trusting yourself,” in going out and playing instead of staying in “to clean, as boring women do.”  You’d find yourself being reminded to “breathe and let go” and “trust in yourself and love who you are.”  I find these words so interesting because if you spend only a few minutes with this friend of mine, you would see that she truly radiates all of these things that are posted throughout her house.  They truly embody who she is, and she has consciously chosen to live by them.

As a writer and a reader, I pick up this trait pretty easily as well–decorating with words that is.  One walk throughout my house and you are reminded to “live fully, breathe deeply, love madly,” “put your hair up, drink some coffee, and deal with it,” that “good things take time” and “you are powerful, beautiful, brilliant and brave.”  You’ll even find a silly picture of a cow with flowers strung all throughout her hair reminding you that “life is beautiful.”  Then if you need an extra pick-me-up, you can open my three-door kitchen cabinets to a ridiculous amount of coffee cups for one human person to own, and choose any number of inspiring quotes to match the mood you are feeling that day: everything from “do not disturb, I’m meditating” to “believe there is a lesson for those who are willing to see.”  I have loaded my house with arsenals of words at every corner, ready to pick you up at a moment’s notice and remind you of your truth.

While these reminders are good for the soul and empowering to the mind if I actually take the time to read them each day and acknowledge their presence while I brush my teeth in the morning and really meditate on the fact that, “today is a new day,” I too many times find myself not even acknowledging them at all.  I begin to question, “How often do I actually utilize these sources of truth around me anyways?  What was the freaking point of all these WORDS if I’m not even going to read them?”  And too many times, I’m frightened by my own choice to (instead of reading the uplifting quote by the sweet beautiful cow with flowers) read the negative looming signs I have chosen to hang inside my brain that morning or whenever it is, as I go about my day.  

Much like our physical homes, we decorate our mind’s homes–our soul’s homes.  We decorate them with what is important to us, the things we believe about ourselves, our lives, and the pages of our life story.  If we aren’t careful, those signs can quickly go from colorful, uplifting, spirit nourishment to dark, sideways, upside down, looming “eek–run! Haunted house ahead!”  If you’re like me, there are times when you walk through your mind’s home and you want to quickly put a “do not disturb sign” on your door for else your negative home energy seeps out into the world and infects anyone else, or worse allows some poor unsuspecting soul to come in.

A good litmus test I’ve discovered for myself: If the silly cow with flowers on her head wouldn’t say the words on the sign in your mind’s home out loud-you should probably take them down off your mind’s walls.  I mean really, who would buy a sign from the store to hang on their wall that said, “You are doing a horrible job at everything.  What you do doesn’t matter”?  None of us who have a heart of any kind would say those words aloud to our own best friend or really even our enemies, hopefully.  So, they probably shouldn’t be on the signs in our mind’s “home” either. Words are a powerful thing, and we have to start changing the signs that are not only in our “home” home but in our mind’s home.

So here is my hope from me to you, from one words girl to another (as I’m sure most of you reading are): Start taking down the SCARY signs of doom that are hanging in your mind’s home.  If your best friend wouldn’t say it to you and neither would the silly cow with flowers in her hair, it’s not serving you.  Take it down, remove the nails, and spackle the wall.  Hang up a new sign.  Perhaps borrow a quote from one of your coffee cups or one of those silly signs they hang in the school hallways (if you are a teacher like me).  Damn, those signs are inspirational: “be your best self, don’t be afraid to be you, creativity is in all of us, and Girl, YOU MATTER.” 

Decorate like you’ve never decorated before!  Make it Christmas, Halloween (except leave the scary ones out), Easter, and Valentine’s Day.  Hang all the signs and the decorations you have.  Except, make it the holiday for you!  Your mind’s “home” is supposed to be celebrating YOU.  Make sure the words you’ve chosen to decorate with are abiding by the rules.  Use the colors, and say your mantras so many times they get engraved in the walls.  Forget that it ever was a scary frightening place with cobwebs and crazy, lunatic-like thoughts.  And, when every once in a while the cobwebs appear in your beautifully decorated corners, as they do because we are all only human, do your spring cleaning and dust your mind’s home.  Redecorate with the strength, the truth, and the beautiful bright color that is you.

Peace and Love and as always, a hope that you are uplifted and encouraged to “be the beautiful you that you already are.”  You got this girl.

Love,

Lauren