Transcript:
[00:00:00] Good morning. I'm in my office and I wanted to talk to you about it - because this is my sanctuary. This is my special place, where I can come and know that everything is just as I left it. And it's pretty and it brings me peace. And there's pretty rocks everywhere. And they make me feel good, like I'm outside. And I've been able to arrange all of my pots and things so that they make me feel peaceful.[00:00:36] I wanted to talk to you about creating a sanctuary in your own home. This office is not in my home because my home is not big enough for an office, but my home DOES have a closet. I've shared on Instagram a few times about my closet, and I want you to know my closet is not a joke. Like, I honestly go in there to find peace all the time. At least once a day, I go in the closet. I've set it up so that there's a peaceful looking Buddha... and you can tell I like rocks, and I have some of my feather collection and pictures and things that make me feel peaceful. And the reason why I did this is because I was going straight up insane, I'm not I'm not kidding.
[00:01:31] I think having cancer really made me realize how much time and space I need for my brain to work, for my emotions to regulate — and how little I was getting that before. And I made a commitment to myself that once cancer was over, I was going to create that spaciousness in my life so that I didn't get back to the level of stress that I was at before - because I couldn't handle it. I was barely hanging on by a thread and it wasn't healthy for me.
[00:02:09] I'm not saying stress led to my cancer. There are lots of things that cause cancer, including my family history, but stress sure didn't help.
[00:02:18] So what I did in my closet was I cleared out a little corner and I just hung up stuff that made me feel happy. And I can just sit on the floor in there. And it's attached to our bathroom, so sometimes people think I'm getting ready and I'm actually just in the corner on the floor. And that's where I go.
[00:02:41] If you don't have a closet or if you have just gone through a divorce, congratulations, you now have the opportunity to make your house your sanctuary. I remember Oprah saying something a long time ago about her home, and how it's directly connected to your mental health, how peaceful your home is.
[00:03:08] I've always taken time to make my space beautiful. And it's difficult when you have kids. I'm not kidding. When I had a toddler when I was just divorced, I could have had her toys everywhere. Instead, I bought really pretty baskets to put them in. And I taught her about cleaning up and putting things back where they go. We didn't keep a lot of toys in the living room because that was a peaceful place.
[00:03:39] I also really love plants. So every home I've had has had a lot of house plants.
[00:03:47] And I also really think that paint on the walls makes a big difference. Like obviously in my office, if you're looking at this on video, you can see like I like a lot of color in my office — but that's also my brand of Mighty + Bright, which is really happy. My home, on the other hand, is very peaceful. There are a lot of earth tones and pictures of nature.
[00:04:13] I have literally framed shells and dried leaves and things. So a lot of this has to do with picking out things that make you happy and putting them in your space, and trying to decrease the amount of clutter there is. When you walk into your home, it should make you feel relaxed. It shouldn't make you feel stressed.
[00:04:46] Honestly as a single parent, as hard as it was, nobody else got to decide what I hung on the walls. There was no argument about whether I could get a hot pink chair, for example. If I wanted a rug that had, like, really girly colors, I just ordered that rug. It was awesome. So that's one of the benefits, I would say, of being a single parent, is getting to choose that stuff for yourself.
[00:05:17] But if you have a partner, they can support you in this. In our house, like I've mentioned before, my partner loves the holidays. And I've just said to him, "you can do whatever you want for tho holidays in the rest of the house, but we cannot have Christmas in the bedroom. We just can't. I have to go somewhere where I am away from this, where it is peaceful still, where I don't have the Grinch who stole Christmas, you know, peeking out from behind my sink or whatever."
[00:05:51] So my my message to you today is to see if you can't make your home a sanctuary. See if there are parts of it that can be just yours. Whether it's your closet, or your bathroom or your bathtub. Oh, my bathtub. Oh, my God. My bathtub is like . . . Yeah, it's near the closet and it has lots of plants, and I know how blessed I am to have this bathtub. I know.
[00:06:23] So no matter where it is, if you find a place that is just yours, that belongs to just you, where you can go, that feels like a sanctuary, where you can put your pretty things, whether it be a glass base filled with feathers and crystals or memories of your family, or whatever it is that makes you feel peaceful, I think it will help your mental health quite a lot. So I hope this has been helpful. And I wish you lots of love.