Home: How is Your Home Life?
June 24, 2014 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Is your home a sanctuary of safety and security or is it a part-time job? Is your home a place to unwind or it is a place that winds you up tight? Take a look at the emotional and physical environment that surrounds you and opt for low-maintenance alternatives. How are your relationships and your leisure lifestyle? What we do in our free time speaks volumes more about us than our job title.
Are you creating an authentic lifestyle the way YOU want to live, and not following somebody else’s guidelines? Are your relationships energizing or emotionally draining? Is your home life congruent with your work life? Does your home life recharge you or exhaust you? Does your home accurately represent who you are today or are you living amongst hand-me-downs or yesteryear’s things? Does your home really reflect your spirit and who you want to be?
Look at your leisure-time patterns and adjust them to improve your energy. Our home life needs to be refreshing, rejuvenating, and nurturing for us to recharge for the workweek or whatever the world throws at us. Do an inventory at home and figure out what is holding you hostage. Take action to create a welcome and hospitable home to envelope you in peace, comfort, and joy.
What Colors Can Do to Specialize Your Space and Affect Your Mood
November 8, 2013 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Colors have a powerful effect on mood, and work their magic spell by helping us get in touch with our emotions. Colors can soothe, inspire, energize, and rejuvenate, and they set the mood and atmosphere of a room. So what is your home doing for you? Is your living room a drab den or a sensational salon? What about the bedroom? Is it a run-down retreat or a palace of passion? And what changes can you make to ensure that your living spaces are working for you? Understanding the rules of color and mastering the secrets of color mixing will help you create the right mood for your rooms. There are no rights and wrongs — the most important things are to have fun and to be creative. And the simplest way to revitalize your home is with paint.
Color wheel. Do you want warm or cool, dramatic or neutral? The color wheel is an invaluable tool for choosing the hues, tints, and shades based on your personal preferences. An unlimited amount of color combinations are possible. The wheel is divided into 12 equal sections, each displaying a primary, secondary, or tertiary color. The “warm” and “hot” colors are on the right hand side of the wheel, and the “cool” and “cold” colors are on the left. Black, white, and grey are the neutral colors, and don’t appear on the color wheel.
Primary colors. These are the three key colors that cannot be formed by any combination of other colors — red, blue, and yellow.
Secondary colors. When you mix equal amounts of two primary colors you get secondary colors — purple, green, and orange.
Red + Blue = Purple
Red + Yellow = Orange
Blue +Yellow = Green
Tertiary colors. Mixing primary colors with secondary colors in a 2:1 ratio will produce tertiary colors — red-orange, yellow-orange, red-purple, blue-purple, blue-green, and yellow-green.
How to use the color wheel:
Knowing the colors that harmonize and work with each other will help you create a tasteful theme and avoid making a rainbow riot. Here are some basic color schemes to get you started:
Complementary colors are found opposite each other, such as red and green or yellow and purple. They always go well together, hence the term complementary, and are easy on the eyes.
The meaning of colors:
Green. Bountiful in nature, the color green is life, growth, and health — a reassuring sign of renewal and regeneration. Situated in the center of the spectrum, green brings balance and order. The eye makes no adjustment to accommodate green striking the retina, making it a restful and soothing color.
Pink. Gentle and soft, delicate and feminine, pink quietly nurtures and soothes. It is the tender side of red, and invokes feelings of romance and enchantment. Bright pinks are energetic and youthful, while vibrant pinks are full of passion, though they are not as aggressive as reds.
Orange. Warm and sensuous, orange represents ripeness and happiness. It is a fun and exhilarating color that promotes feelings of excitement and hope. Orange is a combination of red and yellow, and shares common traits with both. It is forceful and demands attention, but is less intense than red, being mellowed by the presence of yellow.
Brown. Natural and organic, down-to-earth, and neutral. Though sometimes saddled with a reputation for being boring, brown is representative of wholesomeness and goodness, and promotes feelings of stability and order. It is simplicity in a chaotic world. Lighter shades are particularly soothing, while darker hues are confident and dependable.
Red. The color of passion, romance, love, and lust. Red is hot, fiery, and tempestuous — a powerful and intense color that evokes a sense of urgency and excitement, and stimulates the heart to beat faster. Red demands attention and will bring out the extrovert in you. It’s not for the shrinking violets.
Blue. Cool and calming, blue symbolizes serenity, purity, and loyalty. In many cultures blue has an important role in religious belief as a bringer of peace. Darker shades project an image of power and authority — police uniforms are blue, and a blue power suit is a favorite of the corporate world. Lighter shades are refreshing and uplifting — they encourage creativity and stimulate the imagination.
Purple. Full of magic and mystery, purple is the color of royalty, and represents opulence, wealth, luxury, and magnificence. Balancing hot red and cool blue, it has the properties of both. Purple can be uplifting, and is a soothing balm to mind and nerves. It also offers a sense of spirituality, and it symbolizes intuition and imagination.
Yellow. Representing the warmth and radiance of the summer sun, yellow is energetic, vibrant, cheerful, and optimistic. It’s the good mood hue, and shines with hope, happiness, and joy. Yellow enhances the intellect, activates the memory, and aids communication and concentration.
Upgrading your living spaces:
There are plenty of other ways to bring a burst of color into your life without the use of a paintbrush.
Living room
Use these additions to make your dream living room warm, cozy, and inviting. I found a wild rug and I mean wild in color and pattern and just HAD to have it. It so happens that it perfectly matched the cicles design on my chairs and my apple-green wild couch. Something happened on my way to being “of a certain age” that I replaced all my silk Chinese traditional dark green rugs with some crazy patterns and fun colors. Guessing I’m feeling like a freer spirit and can decorate however I want and this makes me happy…it’s light and luscious.
- Decorative throw pillows and cushions — add some fresh color and a touch of style and vitality.
- A colorful painting or digital photographs — take a few snaps in the park or around town, and frame the best images to create your own art.
- Colored pillar candles, plates, and vases — place on a sideboard or table, and think of grouping them in threes. Objects look more interesting in groups than on their own.
- Flowers — let nature enhance your living space.
Bedroom
- Your decision of whether you want your bedroom to be a passion palace or a blissful oasis will determine your color choice.
- Layer your room with linen — use embroidered sheets, satin quilts, pleated cotton bed skirts, and cozy and colorful drapes.
- Change the lighting — buy colored lampshades and painted light bulbs.
- Rugs — add to your room’s rich and lush appeal.
- Artwork — buy a huge canvas or print or hang your own creations.
Bathroom
Your bathroom is a serene sanctuary, and there are some simple ways of adding sparkle to your cool, calm oasis.
- Accessorize — consider a decorative mirror, colorful containers, pictures, matching towel sets, and decorative towel bars.
- A colorful rug — freshen up the floor.
- Color-changing faucet — provide quite literally a splash of color, as the water changes color as it runs through the faucet.
Colorful tricks
- To make a room appear larger — paint all surfaces with the same color from the warm end of the color wheel. Paint the ceiling a lighter shade to make it appear higher. Large furniture appears smaller if it is the same color as the walls.
- To make a room feel cozier — use colors from the warm end of the color wheel. A warm color on the ceiling will make it feel lower, and therefore comfier and more intimate.
Edit, Add, Appreciate, Energize
October 20, 2008 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Sunday evenings seem to be a time to get revved up for the coming week. It’s at this time when I tend to think about these 3 simple things that will energize me for the coming week – moving me forward in creating the life I want to lead.
- Edit: What can I edit from my life this week? A material object, thoughts, habits, behaviors, people, work or activities that don’t serve me well any more. It could be an article of clothing, a negative perception, a food, an annoying or sniggly trait. Let it go and move on to greener pastures. What is holding you back or what is causing your stress that you need to edit? Where are your bottlenecks or frustrations? Do you have excesses in your life that you need to edit or dial down? How about unfettered consumerism, debt, or unbridled shopping or retail therapy that is out of control. Edit your perspective on your point of enoughness, your needs and wants.
- After all my moves, I’ve realized you can’t just edit once and be done with it for material things. Life changes and your needs, wants and priorities change. That’s why I keep going back to re-edit and simplify. Pare down to the essence of what it is that creates joy and happiness in your life and edit out the clutter – internal or external clutter.
- Add: What can I add to my life that will bring me more joy, happiness, energy, health, wealth or whatever. Reinvent one thing such as perceptions, creations, activities, objects, recipes, people, business contacts, a route to work or walk, a new friend, new music or a new book. How about adding new beliefs or trading some of the old beliefs that may not be true to you now for what works for you as an adult. Take inventory of what your parents taught you that worked when you were 8 or 18, but not when you’re 48. Times have changed and our thought processes and perhaps some beliefs should change as well. Our beliefs rule our behaviors and our results. What can you add or edit in that area? What might be missing in your life that you’d like to add for a fuller, richer experience on Earth?
- Appreciate: What or who needs more appreciating this week? More fully appreciate someone or something and say your gratitude out loud or to yourself for these things. Act on your promptings. Send a card right now to somebody who needs to hear from you: send me an email and I’ll show you how to send a free card at Gail@BizBuilderCards.com. The more you do it, the more it gets ingrained into your brain. Do this one on a daily basis for even more impact than weekly and this can become a new habit that you add which adds to other people’s lives. Appreciate your surroundings, show your acknowledgement to those who serve you, rejoice in your beautiful environment. If it’s not so beautiful – add to it or edit to make it so. Who needs to hear from you today or who needs appreciating?
