Happy Starts at Home: How Your Space Shapes Your Health, Habits & Happiness

Did you know your home could be quietly working against your mental health, sleep, and daily habits — without you even realizing it? In this episode of Thursday Tea with Sami, Dr. Samia Estrada sits down with Rebecca West, author of Happy Starts at Home and design psychology specialist, to explore how our living spaces shape everything from how we cope with stress to how well we sleep, eat, move, and even heal from heartbreak.

Rebecca shares powerful client stories, practical low-cost fixes, and a fresh perspective on why your environment might be the wellness tool you've been overlooking. Whether you're going through a life transition, struggling with clutter, working from home, or simply feeling stuck — this conversation will have you looking at your space with completely new eyes.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why your home layout could be sabotaging your health goals
• How to use design psychology to improve sleep, relationships, and daily movement
• Simple, low-cost changes that can have a big emotional impact
• How to reclaim your space after a breakup or major life transition
• What "wishful designing" is and why it creates unnecessary stress

🎙️ Connect with Rebecca West at happystartsathome.com and on Instagram @BeS​eriouslyHappy

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

I have two thumbs. And I swear to you, 20 minutes in a screwdriver, and I had solved this thing that had made me feel frustrated at my husband for no good reason for two years. Now, the good thing about letting it go that long is that forever after, every time I opened that door.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Welcome to Thursday Tea with Sammy, your sip of wellness and mental health. I'm your host, Dr. Sammy Estrada, licensed clinical psychologist and lifestyle medicine specialist. And every week we gather here for thoughtful conversations about mental health, well-being, and what it really means to live well in everyday life. Before we begin, a quick note this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or psychological care. Listening does not create a therapeutic relationship, and the views shared by my guests are their own and everyone's experience is different. Please seek personalized care from a qualified professional if needed. Now grab your favorite cup of tea or whatever brings you comfort, and let's get into today's conversation. Today we're talking about something we all have, but we rarely think about as a tool for well-being: our homes. Let me introduce you to our guest, Rebecca West. She is the author of Happy Starts at Home and also a former interior designer who specialized in design psychology, which really is how our spaces shape our behavior. Having lived in over 29 homes across two countries, plus having helped over 2,000 people get happier at home, she has seen firsthand how our home environments affect everything from our habits to our healing. Today she's calling in from Paris to help us look at a home in a whole new way. Rebecca, welcome to Thursday Tea with Sammy. I'm so glad that you're here. I am absolutely honored and delighted to be part of this conversation. Thank you for having me. Oh, thank you. I want to get started with learning a little bit more about you, allowing our listeners to know a little bit more about you. You describe yourself as a design psychology focus interior designer. That's a mouthful. For listeners who may be new to that term, what is design psychology and how did you come to focus your career on it?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

I mean, a lot of people, when they when I start talking about this, they ask, oh, is that like feng shui? And it kind of is. It's how literally our environments, our spaces, affect how we feel. And sometimes that's boiled down to something as simple as yellow should make you feel happy and red would make you feel passionate. But obviously it is a lot more complex than that because it touches on culture, it touches on our own memories. Like you could there could be the most beautiful color in the world. And if you were beat up at a bathroom as in grade school that was that color, you're not gonna like that color. True. I came to this because I had no intention of becoming an interior designer. I have a geology degree, I taught ballroom dance, like I was not on the path to becoming an interior designer. Then I got divorced and I got to keep the house when that relationship ended. And I had to figure out how to not feel like I was living in what I called a haunted house. And my journey through that and being able to find happiness again, not just in my home, but because of my home, was what made me go. I think people need to know about this tool that is right at their fingertips. And that's what started it all 20 years ago. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

I think that when things arise out of our own need, we put more of our heart into our work. And I think that's what's happened to you.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Absolutely. Otherwise, this is not, and it's really not an industry I would have ever joined because it's so focused on just aesthetics and luxury. And it's so much more than that.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Yes, yes, absolutely. I know that you have a book, your book, Happy Starts at Home. And that grew out of both your professional experience, but probably also your personal life transitions. Can you tell us a little bit about how your own journey changed the way that you see your role of home and well-being? I know you mentioned a little bit about your divorce and wanting your home to be something different, right? Something that was welcoming. So I imagine that inspired a lot of what's in the book. But tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah, I wrote the book because I was maybe five or six years into my job, and I was getting away from where my heart was, you know, helping people make the most of what they already had. And it was getting very, oh, how do I want to say it? Like not corporate, but it was, you know, just about the next kitchen remodel. And it was getting away from the meaning. So I wrote the book to start telling the stories, my own story, and the stories of the clients that I had helped through that psychological lens so that I would get back to that work myself. And it what inspired the book, for any of your listeners who know the book, The Artist's Way, that book was a life changer for me. And I liked how she shared her story and the story of other people, but she also really gave a lot of room for reflection. What do you what do you need from creativity? And that's how I structured my book too. What do you need from your home? Because that is going to be so personal. And so, yeah, it is a collection of my stories, the stories of people that I worked with in their homes. And some of the stories are crazy. We're talking about getting over depression. We're talking about making lifestyle changes that where your doctor said you're gonna die in six months if you don't make these changes. Like I couldn't believe people were coming to me in this situation. Little old me, you know, I'm not a doctor or a designer. But I was able, but I was able to, but I was able to use the tools because that's all design is. It's a toolbox, like any set of tools, to help them and meet them where they were at and help them get to the next place in their life. So that's what the book is for.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Oh, that's wonderful. I know that, you know, many people think of interior design in different ways, right? But you mentioned earlier that a lot of people think of it as just aesthetic, right? Maybe color or, you know, what chair goes well here or what, you know, chest of drawers goes best here. When did you realize that our homes actually shape our behavior, not just how things look?

SPEAKER_00 7:08

You know, it's funny because it's in the small moments. And I remember viscerally, when I got divorced, one of the things that I wanted to gift to myself was getting rid of the TV. I didn't want a TV in my life. And it's not that I don't enjoy watching it, I enjoy watching it too much. And so since I had no husband, I had nobody to have to make decisions with, I was like, okay, I'm doing this. What was so interesting was that for two weeks afterwards, every single time I came home, I still reached for the remote. Even though I had intentionally given away my TV and intentionally didn't want to watch TV and have that habit. So that was just this incredible moment where the unconscious habits that we develop affect what we literally do during the day.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Absolutely. That's such a great mental picture, right? Because I can see you getting home and reaching for that remote. And that's that's exactly what happens. We create these habits and we don't even recognize them, you know? And so it makes sense. And I love that you said it's not it, it's not that you don't enjoy watching TV. You enjoy it too much. And so you wanted that, that maybe temptation out of your life, right? Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

And that's how I see a lot of these things. It's not even the big things. We're not talking a kitchen remodel. We're simply talking about how is the house set up in a way that doesn't sabotage me and instead helps me achieve what I keep saying I want to achieve.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Yes. So in essence, our home is like probably one of our biggest tools, right? One of our most powerful tools that we can use. And I think that if we don't know this, that tool can go unused, or we can maybe use it in a way that's not helping us. It could have the opposite effect for us.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, because then you start following other people's ch trends, other people's choices, the things that your sister-in-law says you should do to your living room, but it's not her living room. Yeah, and it does have a tremendous effect on our social life, on our sleep, on truly everything. And the big thing is, especially now, we have so little control over the world outside of our front door. Why wouldn't we exercise what we can? Why wouldn't we influence what we can inside of our homes since that is a domain over which we have control?

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Yes, yes. And why do you think a lot of people overlook that? Why do you think people don't realize or forget or never even think about what they could do with the interior of their home to help themselves?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

You know, two answers come up in my mind. The first one is really commonly people feel like it's self-indulgent, especially when we're talking about the private spaces. So if we're talking about your bedroom, people will frequently set up the public spaces or their kids' rooms, but they'll never quite get to their own spaces because they feel like it's self-indulgent. Even though if mom and dad aren't rested, ain't nobody happy, right? That's right. But I truly think people aren't aware of how profound the impact could be. One of the stories that really brought that home for me was a woman who invited me to her house because her husband had lost his job. He'd been laid off and he was pretty depressed. And so she bought him a massive TV as just a, you know, kind of a here, honey, maybe this will boost your spirits. And then she created a problem. She's like, This looks terrible. I don't know what to do. So she wasn't thinking that I could help her psychologically. She's just like, I created a bad situation. How do we fix this? So I came in and we made over the living room. Um, it was mostly about decluttering. They had too much furniture, using color a little bit to make things a little bit less big feeling, tie it all together. And the husband came to me later because he wasn't, he wasn't not on board, he wasn't on board, he was so depressed, he just didn't care. He came to me afterwards and he said that he hadn't realized that he was not only feeling really low because of being laid off. You know, so many of us identify with our jobs, but that his whole social life had come from work. And once he didn't have work, he realized that he also was embarrassed by the state of his home. So he'd never brought colleagues home, but it never mattered. Now he didn't have a workspace or work friends or a place where he felt like he could bring old colleagues back and still be part of his life. And so by making over this room, it not only helped him, like it did me, go, well, if this can change, maybe the future can change too, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Literally opened the door to them having their friends coming over again.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

What an amazing story. And it makes so much sense, right? I I know um, you know, when I see my clients, sometimes I have clients who tell me, you know, my house is cluttered, my or my bedroom is cluttered, and I want to clean it. I don't know where to start, I want to organize, I want to come home to a nice space. I just feel overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. And just like you said, the bedroom is often the dumping ground for everything. And when I talk to them about sleep, we talk about how the bedroom needs to be inviting and calming and soothing. And if it's covered in all of these things, it's not inviting or soothing or relaxing or any of that, right? So it's so important.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

It really is, especially for it's not only for parents, but I would say especially for parents, because all when you have no place in your own home that is a place of calm and rest, then you're always responding to stress. But how you have to you have to have a way to escape that if you ever want to recharge. Plus, you're also modeling behaviors for your kids, and you're saying, I'm not worthy of having a space that takes care of me. And they're gonna carry that forward as a story that they tell themselves in their own heads too. Right, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

We are role modeling for our children, so it's important to role model what we want to see in them. So if we want them to be happy and organized and relaxed, we have to do the same. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

If we think about it from a psychological perspective, because you know, as a psychologist, of course, I'm gonna want to go there. Right. How do you feel like our environment quietly influences our daily life?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, I'm like, like, what way does it not influence our daily life? That was my pause. I'm like, how do I answer that question? How much time do we have? And this is where it is tricky because it is so personal and what each home needs is so unique, right? So all of us have our own obstacles. What I do in the book is I start out with one of those wheels of life, like the different slices of your life that you're trying to improve. I often relate this to like your New Year's resolutions. I want to sleep more, have a better social life, exercise more. So let's just take exercising, for example. I want to move more. If your entry coat closet where your sneakers and weather gear is located, is so crammed full of one hockey skate and coats that don't even fit anymore, and the boxes that you're saving for the move you're never gonna take. If getting to the gear that you need to just take a simple walk is hard to get to, your goal has just been sabotaged. Yes. So, I mean, it's it's in such practical, practical ways. If the walls look dirty and dingy, that can make us feel either undeserving, like, well, this is my life and there's nothing I can do about it, or it can make us feel like, why am I working so hard in my career and making all this money? And then this is all I have to show for it. It's tied up in our pride, it's tied up in our self-worth, our social life as we talked about earlier, and literally accomplishing our resolutions.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Yes, yes. In your work with over 2,000 clients that you've had, do you find that people generally make fun or or maybe a handful of common home mistakes that work against their well-being?

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yes. One of them, one of them is workspaces, especially ever since COVID, everybody has had to navigate working from home in some way, right? And then for those of us who are entrepreneurs at homes, our workspaces a lot of times.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

So two things come up with that. One would literally be where you're working relative to where the food is in your home. You know, when you think about marketing food, the way they do it is to keep the food in front of our face at all times so that we're constantly thinking, yeah, fries would sound great right now. We're actually doing that to ourselves when we allow ourselves to work right in the kitchen or right in the zone of food. Because we start to procrastinate, we get a little wiggly, we want to do something, and we're gonna go with whatever's top of mind. And look, the snacks are right there. Another example, one of the clients that I worked with, she and her husband were both lawyers, like fancy lawyers. Then they had kids, and she decided to be the one who would work from home. But there was no dedicated space with a door that would shut in their home that she could use. So now she was always on call. She was half mom, half lawyer at all times. And it was taking a huge toll, not just on her actual career, but also her feelings of herself as a professional woman. She didn't have any divider between her roles. And then it was starting to cause arguments between her and her husband because she was feeling really neglected professionally, whereas he had all of this space to have these two roles. And so this was a bigger project. This was us figuring out a way to carve a part of their house into a distinct room, a beautiful room that she would want to go in, right? Not a dingy basement, no light kind of a space. And that, of course, resolved so many of those friction points because she could say to the kids, if the door is closed, mom's on a call. If the door is open, you're welcome to come in. And it created boundaries that didn't just require her shushing the kids and trying not to let people see that on a Zoom call.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Yes, I love that. And it makes so much sense, you know. Sometimes when I talk to my clients about leaving work at work and coming back home, we talk about having a transitional period. And that can be maybe stopping at the gym on the way home or going to take a little walk or maybe taking a shower as soon as you get home and then being in a completely different uh state of mind, right? But having that separation, right? Because when you go to work and you come back home, that's that separation, right? Work is there, home is here. But when work and home are in the same place, and if you don't have that door to close, there is no separation. And then it you can feel like you're you're never wholly at work and you're never wholly at home.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

And I want to clarify, it's not that it is a bad thing to work at your kitchen island. You have to be reflective. Is this a bad situation for you? Is it serving you? That's the only metric here.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

Yes, exactly. Because for some people it works just fine. Well, you and I were talking a little bit about the the bedroom and how that affects our sleep and and even just our like our sense of privacy, our time alone, all of that, intimacy, everything. What are some meaningful changes that somebody could make to their bedroom that actually would make a big difference in their life?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Uh I have two answers to this one, too. So for Okay. The position of divorce and breakups, because many times, this is in my story as well as in a number of my clients, it is about letting go of your ex through the material items that were left behind. You know, if you shared a bed, if you shared sheets, if you shared shared choosing things that are now still part of your bedroom and they are gone, some of those things probably need to go as well. Like let the baggage go with the ex. That was a big part of my story. We had a big, beautiful sleigh bed, queen bed. And when I got divorced, I sold that bed on Craigslist and I bought myself a twin bed. The psychology of it just being this is a bed for one. No one's even invited. Others, a lot of my clients did the opposite. They're like, no, I'm keeping a king because the whole thing's mine. But it's about claiming territory. For those who aren't coming out of a breakup, it is the small things. It is things like temperature control and light control. Studies show that we sleep better at cooler temperatures. So being able to leave a window open, having fresh air is ideal in a lot of climates. But does your home allow for that to happen in a safe way? Like, right, you know, is it ground level as on a street? So you have to think about how is temperature going to be controlled in a way that will help with sleep, but also still provide you a sense of security. How is light and sound gonna be controlled? Curtains can be a huge part of controlling both of those so that you're able to sleep past dawn or go to sleep before the sunset, depending on what your schedules are. But even just having decent doors in your house, because holocore doors don't keep out any sound. And if your bedroom is right off of the kids' playroom or off the kitchen, that's a lot of opportunities for disruption. So sound, temperature, light, the comfort of your actual bed, you know, the actual mattress, all of those things. And that's before you even get to the aesthetics of a fresh coat of paint in a color that you love, art that makes you wake up with a smile, not feel badly in any kind of way. And if you're looking for love, this is a whole nother place that this can come up because creating space for that second person before they arrive energetically makes you ready. And until you do, like if your closet has no space for another person, if your bureau has no space for another person, if you have one nightstand and not two, you're kind of sending out a signal that you really don't mean it if you're saying you want a date. You haven't made any space for them in your life.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Got it. Oh, that's so interesting to think about.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

It is a very different thing creating a space for a couple than for a single individual. I always say, my husband and I, I know what my home would look like, I know what his home would look like, but we're not creating either of those. What does our home look like? Is the question when it's a couple. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

How do you deal with when one partner Wants something completely different from the other partner. Let's say somebody wants something very classic and elegant, and the other person wants something very modern and sleek-line. I imagine that comes up a lot.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Well, surprisingly, a lot of the times it's actually that they're closer together than they think they are, and they don't know how to speak the language of design. So somebody will be like, I want a blue bedroom, and the other person's picturing the wrong thing. Like you say blue, but you don't picture the same thing. So frequently they're closer together than they think, and it's really a matter of figuring out the language together. However, I was laughing as you brought up that story because I literally had a couple where she was all pottery barn and he was stainless steel and glass minimalist. Okay. And it is very tricky. And in those situations, what we're trying to do, what we want to start with is figuring out what matters most to each person. You know, so set priorities. What hill are you willing to die on? Because we need to figure that out. Then making sure that both of these are being heard. Why is this important to you? What does this kind of design evoke for you? What do you feel like it'll allow you to do? And how will we use the space? Um, you know, and in their case, for example, she had they were pregnant. She was already thinking about nesting and babyproofing. And stainless steel and glass aren't exactly baby friendly. It's not just aesthetics. A lot of times when we get really stuck, it's because we're only thinking about aesthetics. And design is more than aesthetics, right? It's it's got a purpose. And understanding where the other person's coming from is golly, I think it's 94% of the problem. I remember working with a couple. The guy was widowed and he was remarried to a very nice woman who was very understanding about the fact that he lost his wife, somebody he loved. His wife and he had very expensively done the whole house, like all the way, expensive furniture. You know, and he he liked it all. He didn't really care. He's like, I wouldn't spend the money twice, you know. But what had happened, the reason she called me over is she's like, I literally feel like I'm living in another woman's house. And it had been a number of years, right, since both the death and since they'd gotten married. He needed help understanding that. She needed help understanding how to say that to him without feeling like she was dismissing his wife, his former wife.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

So it was really, it's really couple's therapy. I mean, we joke in design about it being therapy all the time. Yes. But if you can't hear each other, there's no chance of coming together on the design.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Yeah, I can see that. And I can see how difficult that must have been because it's such a touchy subject. Of course, his his wife who passed, you know, that was that was his love, and and they shopped for all that together. It made sense that he was attached to some of those things and the memories. And on the other hand, this new wife, she really needed to have a little bit of say in her own home.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Exactly. And the nice thing about that story was he actually wasn't that attached to the stuff. He was just like, why would I spend the money twice? So when he realized the value of why spending some money, like what that would do, he was all in.

SPEAKER_02 25:23

A good story with a good ending. I'm glad to hear that. And I do think it's it's like therapy, right? Because you do need to know how to communicate. And um, I think making choices for your home and making your home a space that works for both is part of building that relationship and caring about each other's needs and things like that. So definitely is a lot like therapy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

And how you present your design ideas really matters. You know, if you're just dissing their taste and saying, I hate your chair, you have bad taste. Well, obviously somebody's gonna get defensive about that. So choose your words and choose your timing. Don't do it when they're exhausted, for example.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We talk a lot about how things work in different ways, like how the bedroom might work to sleep better. We're talking about how choosing the decor for our home might work to have a better relationship with your spouse. I know that people struggle a lot with movement and exercise. How can our homes and the way that we decorate our homes either encourage that daily movement or completely shut it down?

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Well, we'll start with shutting it down first. That one's really easy. If you buy an exercise machine and then you shove it in the basement where the spiders are, you're not gonna go down there. Right. Like you are literally setting yourself up for failure. So, yes. If the goal is to use it, you need to create the conditions under which you are more likely to do that. And then it's also about building a habit. So it doesn't just magically get used. You need to maybe so I mean, I'm gonna tell you some of the things I did for myself are so silly. But when I ended up with a TV again and needed to manage my habits around that, I would put post-it notes on the TV that says, Rebecca, have you gone for a walk yet? Just little cues that say, Is it is it time for TV or is it still time for something else? Right. So it's it is about setting, like literally creating the space that you will enjoy using the equipment that you're gonna use, or if you're gonna go out into the world making the gear that you need to do that available. Part of this is our ergonomics, like literally how we sit in our chairs and going back to work from home people. How many of us decided, oh, I can work from a stupid little rattan dining chair? It's fine. That won't hurt my body for sitting there eight hours a day. Ergonomics are real. So even when we're not moving, we need to think about the mechanics of our body so that when we're 20 and 30 years later, we're not regretting our choices. And even in, even, this is funny, a lot of times in ergonomics, especially in the corporate design world, we're trying to minimize steps. We're trying to make sure that you have to take as few steps as possible from one thing to another because it's all about productivity and efficiency. That can be something you can apply to, for example, a kitchen design. How am I gonna make sure that it's easy for me and quick as possible to prepare dinner? But on the other side, and this might be a little controversial, American homes are designed to be exceptionally comfortable. Sometimes they can be too comfortable. Sometimes taking a few extra steps in your day is not a bad thing. I agree. So designing discomfort in saying, no, I'm gonna have to go, like literally putting your printer across the room or in the next room so that every now and again you have to stand up during your workday. That is an intentional design choice that can help you stay healthy.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

I love that. Yes. I the minute you said that about being too comfortable, I immediately thought about the difference between my husband and I. He loves recliners. I hate recliners. And he finally got one a couple years ago. We've been married for almost 23 years now, and he finally got his recliner after all this time. But then he'll sit in the recliner and turn on the TV, and you know, it's a long time before he gets back on. Whereas I'm not in a recliner. And and you know, if I think about how the recliners were, and not that there's anything wrong with recliners or, you know, I think he works a very long day, he works a lot of hours. If he wants to sit in the recliner and watch TV, that's great. So I just wanted to clarify that I'm not saying anything against recliners. But if I think about the mechanism of the recliner, right? Once you're reclined, it takes so much more effort to get up, right? Because now you have to make sure that, you know, you push down on the feet part of your of your chair and then kind of push yourself up from it. And it's comfortable and it's, you know, you don't want to get up. And so it's harder to get up from a recliner, not just emotionally also harder to get up from a recliner. You know what I mean? And if I sit down to watch TV, um, I sit on the couch and it's our couch is comfortable and I don't mind sitting there, but I also don't like sitting there for a long period of time, and I don't like watching TV for a long period of time. He and I are very different in that respect. And I can see a hundred percent what you're talking about that sometimes our homes can be too comfortable and can can lead to a lot less movement, right? Because if I was in a recliner, I probably would not want to get up either because I would be so comfortable. And who knows, I might fall asleep. You know, my dad has a recliner, he falls asleep on his recliner all the time, and that's just not what I want to do when I'm in the living room, you know? And so it's just very different perspectives. And and again, good for my husband. That's what he likes, that's what he loves to do. He gets to do that after a long day of work. I prefer not to do that, but everybody has to do what works for them.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

Yeah, and it goes back to thinking about for each individual, what did you say you wanted in your life this year? And then looking at the conditions of your life that are getting in the way of that goal or helping that goal, and then making a small change. You know, if if let's say your husband wanted to move more, then he could just say, all right, well, before I sit in my recliner, I'm going to make it a habit that I do, you know, 10 minutes of stretching and a series of sit-ups. And then I'm allowed to sit in my recliner all day. These things can go together. They don't, it isn't black and white.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Yeah, yeah. Just like how you put the note on your TV, right? You knew that first you take your walk, then you watch TV.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

And it seems so silly that we have to use such small things to remind ourselves, but it is all, it is a all habit, and B, we are inclined towards comfort and relaxation. That is a natural space for us to want to be in. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

That's true. And uh that's where the whole culture of binge watching comes in. Exactly. Yeah. Right. There's so many times I hear people, you know, what did you do this weekend? And and I hear people say, Well, I binge watch this, this show or that show. And and that's that's what Netflix and and other uh yeah, I don't want to blame it all on Netflix, right? But Instagram, all of it, yeah. Yes, yes. That's what this uh, I guess, more technological culture has created for us.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Exactly. And some of these changes don't have to be permanent. If you're trying to change a habit, it can be temporary. They talk about things like drinking and smoking, they're they're very place-triggered. And so think about smoke breaks back in the day with work. It was actually a way to be social. So social cued smoking. And then if you tried to quit smoking, but you still wanted to be social in that moment, it's really hard to take those things apart. Or if every single day you go past past the same Starbucks to get the same, you know, 17-gallon Frappuccino, it becomes a habit instead of a choice. And so you can just take a week and drive home a different way. You can just take a week and put your TV in the garage just so that it becomes a thoughtful process again instead of an unconscious process. I love that idea.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Yeah. And, you know, you were talking about designing kitchens for efficiency, right? And I know that as humans, sometimes our food choices are often made on autopilot, right? How does kitchen design and the layout of our kitchen influence how or what we eat?

SPEAKER_00 34:19

This is a tricky one. And I have given this a lot of thought because I think this is really coming into the realm of home organizing. Where is what stored? Because if the snacky, high-calorie, low-nutrition foods are the first thing you see when you open the fridge or the cabinet, then obviously you're going to reach for them. So, really, this isn't so much about the design of the actual space. This is what are you going to see when you open up your main doors? Yes. It will now I will remember I said that thing about you have six months to live. This is a this is a real story from a client. She came to me and she says, My doctor says if I don't go on a raw food diet, I will be dead in six months. And what was interesting about her situation is she and her husband, they've been married for like, I don't know, 30, 40 years, their whole life was being foodies together, going out to eat. So this was a really big deal. Meanwhile, she had never liked her kitchen, but it never mattered because she never used it. So now she was faced with not cooking at home, right? She had to prepare raw food meals, but she but you can't eat out like that. That's not something that you can do and go to a restaurant. So she called me because she's like, I just need to make this kitchen someplace that I don't hate being. And our work was very surficial. We had the cabinets painted, we changed the backsplash, and we changed the counters. We didn't do any layout work, we didn't change the cabinets, but we created a space she wanted to go into, which allowed her to feel better about this massive life shift that she was facing.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

And it worked. And she is still alive to this day. Good. Absolutely loved her home. And that was the start of her kind of creating a lot of spaces in this in the house now that they were gonna be spending so much time there.

SPEAKER_02 36:10

Perfect. What a great story. And I can imagine, you know, having a new kit not a new kitchen, but new to her in in like the colors and the counter and all that. Just made it more inviting for her to learn a little bit more about food and preparing it and things like that, and then welcomed that new experience in a way that maybe she might even start liking to cook. And and they and she and her husband can still be foodies, but in a very different way, you know, much in the same way that somebody who goes from from being a foodie and going to restaurants to being a person who's vegan or vegetarian, right? You have to learn a whole new way of cooking. And and that process, you can either hate it or you can love it. So the more that you can make these changes and help yourself to make this a process that you can enjoy, the better it's gonna be for you over the long haul.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

Yeah, it's just fewer obstacles. That's all we're going for.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yes, yeah. Well, and you know, that brings me to another point. We on this podcast talk about stress a lot, mostly trying to avoid stress or trying to manage stress. But what aspects of home design do you think either increase stress without us even realizing it, or what aspects of our home help us to calm our nervous system instead? Oh, yeah, two really good questions.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Okay. For adding stress, I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk about this, which is that I always say we need to design for the habits of the people who actually live there and not fall into wishful designing. Wishful designing looks like perfect tiny shoe cubbies that nobody in your family will ever use. Or wishful designing is putting a desk in your daughter's room because you think she should work at a desk, but she's the kind of girl who is always gonna plop on her bed or on the floor to study. That's a waste of the desk. So, and then, you know, now you've spent the money and you did all this effort and they should appreciate it. And now we've got friction in the family. So, wishful designing, try to avoid it. In terms of calm, this is an interesting one because this does come down to what you need from your home. This has come up with my parents quite a lot because my mom and my stepdad are very different people. My mom is a very calm, quiet person. And my stepdad is a person who takes up a lot of room. He's he's also a tall bit man, but he just takes up a lot of room auditorially, energetically. If they didn't live together, she would actually have a lot more artwork up, she would have a lot more chotch keys out, she could have more visual noise, but because he already fills the house with so much content, she really needs her space to be more, more minimal so that it is sort of a balance to his energy. So calm will vary depending on who you're living with and the chapter of your life. Another chapter in my parents' life was when he had a very social job, lots of energy, needed to come home and have the house be quiet and calming. She would have spent all day being quiet and calm and was looking forward to some social interaction and some noise. And so, who's in charge of the music? How much auditory information are we gonna have in the house? Does the TV get turned on right when somebody gets home? But the other person is like, all I need right now is quiet. It's it's kind of gonna be on design, but that's because design is also how does it sound? How does it flow? Does somebody have a space that they can go away to and be quiet in? Or is everything so open concept that nobody can get away from each other?

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

All of this informs what does calm mean for whom?

SPEAKER_02 39:58

Wow, that's so important and so eye-opening. I feel like a light bulb just went off in my head as you were speaking. So to give you a little background, I used to work with kids and eventually I moved on to adults because sometimes I found that it was too hard on my heart to work with kids. You know, I would take a lot of it home, and we need to know what works for us. And working for with adults has been much better. But back when I worked with kids, you know, I would do home visits. And a lot of times you have parents who are complaining that their kids are too active and too hyper and there's so much going on and they just can't get them to quiet down. And I would go do a home visit, and um, and this is no judgment on the parents because everybody's doing the best that they can, right? But their home would also be very cluttered and very chaotic and and sometimes very colorful, which is beautiful. But if you already have a kid who's very hyperactive, that might be too much stimulation, you know? And so again, parents and people in general don't always know about these things, right? And so they set up their home in a way that they think is is the best way, either because this is what they've seen growing up or this is what they've seen neighbors or friends have, or but when we think about who's living there and what do the people that live there need, that's a completely different story.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

And you know, living here in France, one thing that can happen is if if a bunch of Americans go out to dinner, our volume builds on each other, right? And the next thing you know, the whole table is being looked at by all the French people. That's the same thing that happens in the home. If there's already a lot of noise and a lot of competition to be heard, it's just gonna keep crescendoing. And it's not just the people, it's the putts, it's the color, it's the clutter, it's even the small psychological things. Like if you walk into your living room and there's a sharp corner on the coffee table that you're always kind of having to dodge so you don't hit your shin on it. That's another point of energy that you're having to put out that probably could be better spent.

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Wow, a lot of really important and interesting things for us to talk about. And you know, you talk about making the good choice and not necessarily the easy choice, or or the good choice can be the easy choice. Can you give us a concrete example of how someone might do that at home? How could they make a good choice?

SPEAKER_00 42:31

You know, a really simple one. One thing that gets away from people when it comes to clutter is incoming mail, bills and junk mail and right, piles and piles and piles of recycling. And something that has worked well for a lot of my clients is to make a part of their entry, wherever the landing zone is, have a recycling box. So that the very first thing that happens is you go through the mail and only pertinent mail ever makes it past the box. Simple things that can change one small thing. And it doesn't take a lot of small things to start feeling lightness in your soul. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

It has to be what works for you. Exactly. What you just mentioned is what I see. Sometimes I'm I have to mail packages at the post office and they have P.O. boxes there. And right next to the P.O. boxes, a big old trash can. Exactly. And I see people pull, you know, I'm I'm over there buying my postage or whatever, you know, and I see people pull their mail out, and half of it goes in that big trash can. And I think to myself, that's so smart that they put that trash can there. You know.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

And there's another example I just remembered. This is a funny one. It's it's from myself. I spent, and I'm embarrassed to say this, I spent nearly two years coming home to my my my husband and I's house, because I I got remarried. This is my new husband. And I would I would get so annoyed every single time I came home because my husband was a contractor. Like he can build a house from the ground up, he's very good with school. Okay. But our door had one of those locks where you had to kind of lift it a little bit and jiggle the key just right. So that meant every single time I came home with my arms loaded with tile samples and all the things I carried, I would have to put everything down and do the little jiggle. And I'm like, you know, would it kill him to just fix this lock? Then I realized I have two thumbs. And I swear to you, 20 minutes in a screwdriver, and I had solved this thing that had made me feel frustrated at my husband for no good reason for two years. Look at that. Yes. Now the good thing about letting it go that long is that forever after, every time I opened that door, I was like, I'm so cool. Look at the door I fixed. So silver lining. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

It gives you more pleasure in what you did.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

Exactly. But yeah, it is so often small, small fixes. Change the light bulbs on your front porch, dust away the cobwebs, make the bed in the morning, create tiny oases of calm. They will build on each other.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

Yes. You know, earlier you we were talking about movement, and you said if you put the treadmill downstairs where all the spider webs are, and it immediately brought a picture in my mind of I love to garden. And so my husband got me this really cute bag with all the tools in it. You know, it has the little shovel and the fork and everything I need to, you know, plant my seeds and all that. But then he put it in the shed. And every time I opened the shed for the last, as long as we've lived in this house, every time I've opened that shed door, there's been at least one black widow in there. I was waiting for it. And I do not like spiders, especially black widows. So I end up not using it, you know, and and it's so dumb because as I'm saying this, I I hear how ridiculous this sounds. Why didn't I just move the bag somewhere else, right? But I end up sometimes grabbing a spoon instead of my little hand shovel because I don't want to go in the shed where the spiders are.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

That's the point of the book. It isn't, we're not talking about huge, massive investments. We're talking about opening your eyes and seeing problems differently, and then simply making a different choice.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Right, right. I could very easily keep that bag in the garage and then grab it every time I need it. That would not be a problem at all. And that's such an easy fix.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

One of my favorite stories from one of my clients, not my one of my clients, but somebody who read my book, she is kind of short and she'd moved into this house, and it was a closet system in her closet, and she could never quite reach the top rack for her of her closet, and she had no place for long-hanging clothes. She reads my book and she goes, it made me realize my closet is modular, and I could change where everything was at. And in a half an afternoon, she had rearranged where all the rods were, and now it's not annoying to use her closet.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

Small, small things.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yes, it's the small things, exactly. This is what we need to remember. Everybody needs to read your book. And hopefully everybody will after this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

I do think it's what keeps us paralyzed when people are like, I don't know where to start. It's gonna cost too much money, it's gonna be too big of a project. It might lead to a big project, and there are some times when a big project is called for. But when we're talking about design psychology, there's usually some pretty low-hanging fruit.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

Yes. We've touched on sleep, we've touched on relationships, we've touched on movement, we've touched on food, we touched on a lot of things. I want to talk a little bit about creativity now. Okay, because I can imagine that our homes can be very inviting to creativity as well, right? How can we create homes that support that creativity and that self-expression, even for people who maybe don't see themselves as creative?

SPEAKER_00 48:04

Yeah, well, again, there's kind of a couple of different questions in there. I actually want to start with the intersection of creativity and couples. Because a lot of times one person is the project person and the other person isn't. Yes. And a lot of times one person is a, I want everything out in my pile so I can see it, and the other person isn't. And so one thing about creativity is you have to have the gear available. If it takes work to go get out the paints and get out the easel and get out the whatever, you're much less likely to do it. So, first is figuring out how we can create a space where it's easy for me to do this. So, my husband and I, we really love puzzles and we have a cat. So, one of our solutions was getting one of those puzzle boards that's got a cover that we can slide under the couch, but then we can bring out the puzzle board when we want to work on the puzzle, and it'll be safe when it's hard. So, for this couple that I met, he was really into painting miniature figurines, little fantasy figurines. And she was tired of looking at it because it was all in the living room. The way the living room was configured, there was this kind of pocket of space that wasn't really well used. We ended up just drywalling in two walls with a couple of pocket doors, and we created a creativity closet for him. And when the pocket doors were open, it was all the way open to the living room. He could still be there with his wife. They could, you know, craft together, she could do her knitting. But then when craft time was over for him, he didn't have to touch any of his stuff. It could stay there drying, set out, the doors would slide shut. And now she didn't have to have all the clutter of his crafts. So it's the combination of how do we keep it out, but also how do we put it away. Yes, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

What a great solution. I'm really proud of that one. It was one of my favorite favorite projects. Yes, yes, absolutely. I have a story to share with you that's very similar to that. We have one daughter that's still living at home with us. My older kids have moved out, but my daughter and I both love to paint. And so we have, you know, acrylics and pastels and, you know, all kinds of art supplies. And we don't have a specific, we don't have a studio or anything like that. So we don't have a specific designated space for that. Generally, if we paint, we're gonna paint in the dining room. We're gonna use the dining room table. And everything was stored in my office, which is upstairs. So anytime we wanted to paint, we would have to carry all these totes with all our supplies down the stairs to the dining room table. And then we felt like if we're not quite done with the painting, everything has to sit out, everything felt messy. I just it got to be too much, and we hardly ever would do it because it was just such a hassle. But I ended up just getting a buffet, you know, a big piece of furniture that goes in the dining room. And instead of putting dishes and stuff like that, we filled it with our art supplies, and now we can paint all the time and put everything right back and not have to worry about that. It has made all the difference in the world.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

This is such a perfect example. It's exactly what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Yep. Oh, I love it. Yeah, yeah. So so you're right. You know, a lot of times the solutions are easy solutions, you know. I it was for us, it was buy this piece of furniture, it looks beautiful. Nobody knows what's inside except for us. And when we're ready to paint, we open it up and everything we need is there. And, you know, it just made all the difference in the world. Now we can paint whenever we want. We don't have to worry about dragging everything out of the office, down the stairs, into the dining room, and then all the way back inside. So, and you you have lived in many homes, many transitions. You have also rebuilt a home after a divorce. You mentioned how redoing your home became part of your healing process, right? I imagine this is the same for many people. Do you work with individuals who maybe are going through part of this process? And do you see the difference as you work with them in just, you know, how they begin to heal, seeing their home coming to life? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 52:11

And, you know, you you you literally can watch their weight fall off their shoulders. And it's really so much of the job I is number one, helping them uh see with new eyes to see possibility where they just couldn't see it for themselves because we're all too close to our own problems. But the second part is permission granting. I watched a woman, a woman came to me because she bought a couch, a gorgeous couch, and she hated it because it was completely uncomfortable. Nobody would sit on it. Everybody it's beautiful, expensive, and nobody was sitting on it. And she she was really having trouble with this. But the problem is nobody's using it. That's not gonna change, okay? There's no fixing the couch. Instead, she's punishing herself by keeping it because every single time she walks in the room, she has she has that voice that says, You're so stupid for spending your money that way. We've all done that to ourselves. Had some got a closet, right? That never goes with anything, and it was so beautiful and so expensive. Keeping those things is a form of masochism. We are self-punishing. Why are we doing that? Exactly. Recognizing where the burden is. For another of my clients, she she was like, I just am not sleeping good. Turns out, big bookcase right at the end of her bed that came from an ex. I literally helped her hoist it to the to the curb that afternoon. And again, physically, you could watch her relax. So I just took a deep breath as you said that, because it's like I can feel it too. So recognition, I mean, that's gonna be true in all therapy. We gotta identify the right problem first, otherwise, we're gonna solve the wrong problem. And sometimes you do solve the wrong problem. Maybe you solve a little problem that reveals the bigger problem. There are steps, but identify the problem. Step two is take action. Even if you spent the money, throwing good energy after bad money is not serving anybody. And even if you're willing to punish yourself, remember what you're modeling for your kids.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

I think you you just hit on something really important, right? Because a lot of times people feel stuck. Like if I spent this money, I need to keep it. But it's it's all about the energy that that brings to your space. And do you want that negative energy there? What would you say to someone who feels stuck emotionally, but hasn't really considered that their physical environment might be part of the story?

SPEAKER_00 54:43

Usually if I'm talking to somebody in that situation, I'll ask them to imagine one of two different scenarios. Either what is a small thing that if it changed in their home, it would make them feel just a little bit lighter. Or what is a big thing that if it changed would make them feel tremendously lighter? Because some people are built to attack a big project. Some people need baby steps. So that's what we have to figure out first is what kind of stuck are we in. So we try to identify one thing is the key here. One thing, one small thing or one big thing, and then do something about it. Like, don't worry, you don't even believe it's gonna change anything. Just say, I'm gonna organize my stupid sock drawer. Because, and you can be like, like when I started journaling, I think I was like 12, my stepdad said, You might want to try this. And I my first entry was, This is so dumb. He's so stupid, this is never gonna work. And my what 70,000th journal is sitting right next to me. I've been journaling for 35 years, however the math works out. You don't have to believe it'll work. You just need to try something. Paint a wall, clean the sock drawer, sweep off the porch, and then check in with yourself. Do you feel at all better? And if you do, take another small bite.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

What do you have to lose? Such wonderful advice. I think that's that's something that everybody needs to hear. Yeah. Are there any questions that you feel listeners can ask themselves to start looking at their home through new eyes? I I think sometimes we don't we don't know what we don't know. So if we're looking at a home, we might not recognize, but sometimes maybe if we start thinking about things differently, is there something that we can say to ourselves or ask ourselves that will help us to look at our home with new eyes? Um, and and and really start thinking about it differently.

SPEAKER_00 56:35

Hmm. Um, a lot of places we could start with that. I think I would probably begin with going into one room. Don't choose the heart the hardest room, like the one that's most charged for you. Just a neutral room and walk into it and look around and just ask yourself, why is it like this? Why are these things in my life? And if they, you know, ideally the Marie Kondo way, it should spark, either should either spark joy or be something you use. And I'm guessing that if most of us walked into most of the rooms of our house, not everything could pass that filter. Yeah. Don't try to make over the whole room, but say, why are these things here? And as soon as you land on one object that makes you feel more negative than positive, doesn't matter reason, give it to goodwill. Get rid of it. Just move one thing out of your life that shouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_02 57:27

And I I think you touch on a really important piece because if we think about somebody who's maybe renting a home versus owning a home, these are things that we can do no matter what. You don't have to own the home, right? So even if you can't paint a wall or change the flooring, these are things, steps that people can take no matter where you live. Absolutely. Or, or, you know, if you're renting or not.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

And and it doesn't mean you can't do some of the bigger things too. This has been a really interesting part of moving to France for me. I have gotten the privilege of living in very permanent homes, even though I've lived in 29 and counting. And I was set up a home. They were mined to shape always. Because we've been moving a lot in this European adventure and they've all been rentals, furnished rentals. I have not gotten to do what I normally do. So I've had to explore what does it mean to create a home and a sense of permanence when things feel temporary. I'm, you know, could paint the walls of the room that I'm in right now. I would love to, but you have to decide how much energy you're willing to put out, money to, but also energy. Because I can, you know, get on a paint, 35 bucks, paint it back when I'm done. But instead, I can make a huge impact with colorful bedding. So bedding never really mattered to me in my other houses because I was painting the walls. Here, bedding does matter. So you won't be able to use the same tools, but you can still make a difference. And permanence is a part of security and safety. If you always feel like you're about to move, it always looks like you're about to move. Some people are okay with that, right? It's all about who you are and what you need. I need a sense of permanence at some level. So if there's not art on the walls, at least hanging some posters, putting some things up that say, I plan to stay a while, and this is my home.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

That's important to me. Absolutely. I love that idea. Even when you know you're gonna leave, still make it your own, still make it a place that you enjoy coming home to. Exactly. You talked about having people imagine a small change and a big change that would have a big impact. And, you know, in psychology, a question like that is called the miracle question, right? If you could do one thing that would change your life, what would it be? Or if you could have anything that you want, how would you want this to turn out, you know? Um, so I'm gonna ask you a miracle question too.

SPEAKER_03 59:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 59:56

If you could have the listeners have one reframe about their home, it could be something that might shift how they how they see their home starting today. What would that be?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:05

All right, I'm gonna answer it this way. And if you want a different answer, you can tell me. But this has been a it's not what I want. It's what this is your miracle question. This is a little bit of a woo-answer. All right, so I have lived my life with the serenity prayer as a touchstone for a long, long time, right? It's really important for me to think about my sphere of influence and not waste my energy on things I can't control and to focus on the things I can. Recently, that was turned on its head for me, and somebody said, grant me the courage to change the things I can no longer accept. And I think that can apply to our home as well because sometimes it's just recognizing that we do have agency, that we can make a change, and that it's our choice whether or not we take action.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

Wow, that's beautiful and so true and so important. Thank you for sharing that with us. I love it. Yes. Well, this has been such a wonderful conversation. I know that our listeners are gonna want to know more about your work and about happy starts at home. Where can people learn more about your work?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:16

Well, like I said, I'm a former interior designer, so I'm not doing a lot of interior design work, but I do still do design psychology coaching by Zoom. And you can schedule that at my website, happystarts at home.com. There's also the book listed there. You can get the book on Amazon and at Barnes and Noble and various independent stores. Um, and then if you want to just come hang out with me, come find me on Instagram. That's where I spend most of my playtime, my social playtime. And I'm at BeSeriously Happy. Be Seriously Happy.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Perfect. Thank you. And I will add that to the show notes too, so people can find that easily. Rebecca, thank you so much for this conversation. It has been so wonderful, so eye-opening. I love the reminder that our homes are not just backdrops to our lives, they're active participants in our life, in our health, our habits, our healing, everything. So thank you so much for joining me today. I love this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

It was an absolute pleasure, and I really hope that it helps people out there make a change in their lives. Thank you. I'm sure it will.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:17

And for everyone who's listening today, thank you for spending your day with us or part of your day. Thank you for taking this moment with us. Look around your space, look with fresh eyes, you know, think about what's helping you thrive and what might be quietly working against you. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with someone who might need a gentle nudge, maybe, to rethink their environment. And until next time, stay well, keep being your best. Thank you so much for tuning in to Thursday Tea with Sammy, your sip of wellness and mental health. I hope that today's episode gave you a little inspiration in your journey. Remember, your journey to wellness starts here. Until next time, stay well and keep being your best.