Discover Peace in a Simplified Home

Discover how transforming your home into a sanctuary of calm can be the perfect antidote to winter's chill. Could a simple concept like "house hushing," introduced by Myquillin Smith, really help cultivate peace in your living space? This episode promises to guide you through the art of decluttering and simplifying your home after the holiday buzz, so you can truly relish the quiet beauty of the season. 

We also take a twist on the traditional spring cleaning by integrating it into the more laid-back winter months. You’ll find practical tips for managing your household tasks one week at a time—whether it’s cleaning air filters, organizing your sock drawer, or even considering an upgrade for your trusty vacuum cleaner. By the end of our chat, you'll feel inspired to embark on a journey of renewal and find joy in the small, freshened-up corners of your home. Tune in to redefine your winter routine and discover the harmonious rhythm that suits you best.

To learn more, go to mycreateharmony.com

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome back to the Create Harmony podcast, and so this is a podcast about setting an intentional rhythm. We believe in savoring life's blessings and learning how to use your imagination as a way of listening to God. If you want to learn more about how to bring stillness and gratitude into your life, you're probably going to find a lot here that you love, and if you like to be creative and fun, you can find your place right here as well. In this place, we'll take a few minutes to celebrate everyday joys and remind ourselves how to notice goodness all around us. This is episode 106, and I'm your host, sally Burlington.

Speaker 2: 0:46

So it's winter time here and, as we always do, we're continuing through our winter well-being series. So during winter well-being, it's a time that we avoid letting those cold, dark days of winter get us down, but instead we try to find ways to be cozy and restful and whole during this part of the year. So for today, part of our winter well-being conversation is going to include house hushing. It's a little bit of a tongue tied word there tongue tier, house hushing and so this concept originates with Michael and Smith. She's the person that coined this term, and we talked about it last year in our winter well-being series. So if you've been around a while, this might be familiar to you already, but if you haven't, let me explain what house hushing is. This is when you take your home decor into a more gentle and quiet offering, and what that means is, after you put away all the glitz and the glamour of the holidays you know your bright lights and your shiny paper and your sparkly ribbons you just take a little extra time to declutter and makes your space more open and more calm in the wintertime. So some examples of how this might work would be like let's take your nightstand, for example. You clear off everything off of your nightstand but the very necessary items your phone charger and your book, maybe a candle. Everything else gets cleared away and you might want to put away any bright colored pillows or decor that draw your eye. You can save that pop of color for another time of year, another season, and just have more neutral surroundings.

Speaker 2: 2:30

The purpose here is to let your mind rest of stimulation. Just like nature is more quiet and dormant in the winter, you kind of create the same feeling inside your house. The way it works best is to just analyze whether something is really bringing you joy and, if it's not, just put it away for a little while. So in this year you know we talked about this last year, so we've covered this topic, but this year we're going to take house hushing just a little step further into decluttering. This is sort of my own take on the house hushing idea.

Speaker 2: 3:04

When we think about cleaning out stuff a lot of times we think about spring cleaning. We've talked about that here. Spring cleaning is a term and everybody does it, and you think that's what you're going to do. You open your house and air it out and declutter. But for some of us, spring is a really busy and full season and so it's hard to really get that done on top of all the other to-dos on your list. So I thought maybe you should incorporate some of those spring cleaning thoughts into your winter, which might be a little calmer.

Speaker 2: 3:34

So maybe while you're focused on house hushing, you could think of some places you could clean up or out. You could do it like this you could make a long list of things that need to be accomplished and then add one or two each week, like cleaning out your air filters or changing the filter in your dishwasher, or deep cleaning your refrigerator, maybe tidying your sock drawer, getting yourself a new toothbrush? Just put yourself in freshen up mode while you're, and while you're doing that, you could look for things that need to be refreshed, upgraded. You know, does my vacuum cleaner, you know, need to be cleaned and freshened up? Or the silverware drawer wiped out? To the extent that you have the money and the space for it, you might also take this time to do some restocking, and it does not have to be, you know, costco or Sam's style, where you get a whole bunch of stuff in bulk, but you might buy one extra bottle of shampoo or tube of toothpaste and that way, when your life is busy and you run out, you're at the end of the toothpaste, you've got an extra one on hand. And you run out, you're at the end of the toothpaste, you've got an extra one on hand. And then you can just add that to your next shopping trip to replace your extra when you go to the store Stocking up on a few extra air filters or batteries or whatever for your power tool.

Speaker 2: 4:53

During this slow time of year, this could be a good time to do that kind of restocking. It might be a great time to clean out your junk drawer or declutter your bookcase. Just take one room at a time, look at each space with fresh eyes. Sometimes fresh eyes helps you notice things that you've been passing by and not even seeing and you think you know what. I don't really need that anymore, or I can move that in here where I use it more often, or something along those lines, and for me this makes the project a little less overwhelming. Just adding one or two small tasks each day, or even one or two each week If your week is super busy, just put one or two each week, and then this house hushing, slash home freshening can add a little bit more peace into your regular rhythms. Slash home freshening can add a little bit more peace into your regular rhythms. So just take those ideas, maybe make a little list and hopefully you'll be busy house hushing.

Speaker 2: 5:47

So for my closing today I'm going to share a poem. It's called Sit and Look, by Steve Garnas Holmes, and it goes like this when chaos descends, sit and look. See what is right in front of you, the color of stones, the slant of light, the shapely shadows. A little spider makes her way toward the ceiling. Admire her calmness, her resolve. A sparrow receives communion from the open palm of the street. The plant in the windowsill, whether healthy or struggling, is doing its best.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Notice, because it slips your mind from the fist of bad thoughts. Looking and seeing places you back in your body and in its wisdom. It puts you back in the world, part of what is being created. It reconnects you with what's there the sparrow and the street and the sky and the world of which your worry is a tiny part, smaller than the sparrow, smaller than the spider. There's wonder in a prison cell to keep you alive when anxiety weighs. Look and see, notice and wonder. Thanks again for joining us today. As we talked about house hushing, hope you'll find lots of ways to bring more peaceful living into your space by quieting your decor and refreshing all your spaces, and we'll be back next week with more on our winter well-being series and hope you'll join them too. You won't want to miss it. So until next time, peace.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Thank you.