House with 4 rooms concept

Throughout our lives we search for the right tools and ideas to help make our lives meaningful, authentic and rich. It is like a treasure hunt along our journey in life.  We have these “aha” moments, and there is this wonderful recognition and we realize that this new idea or tool is exactly what is needed to help you along in your life journey.

The Mental Room

This room houses your thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, and thinking patterns.  Paying attention to this room is important so you are not stuck in old thinking patterns but are open to learning and growing.   Deepak Chopra has said that more than 80% of our thinking is the same as yesterday.  The power of thought is one of the most creative forces in the universe. Some would say – the most powerful.  We do not usually give a second thought to thinking, but our thoughts are constantly creating our experiences.  The language we use – to think and speak – is the narrative of our inner and outer world.  Our thoughts are the domain in which we can exercise our greatest control. Not rigid or authoritarian control, but choice.  In the moment to moment choices we make, we demonstrate the power of our thought.

The mental room affects not only your work-life but also other areas of your life that you may be stuck in.  So make sure you visit this room and pay attention to what beliefs may be holding you back; what thinking patterns are keeping you stuck; and how your mental state is affecting the overall quality of your life.

Some suggestions to air the Mental Room:

•        Learning new things
•        Reading
•        Non-judgmental awareness of inner dialog
•        New experiences and trying different activities
•        Exercise and breathing send oxygen to the brain to improve productivity

The Emotional Room

This room represents your feelings.  Emotion is a kind of energy that vibrates at different frequencies and is experienced beyond the limbic brain in every cell of the body.  There are over 2000 words in the English language that refer to feelings and yet our personal emotional repertoires remain relatively tiny.  We have not built a language and recognition of emotions as they arise in our bodies.  Yes, our bodies.  Talking about feelings is not the same as experiencing them.  Emotions speak through our bodies – what neuroscientists call “embodied cognition.”

Sensuality is not a word we often associate with our emotional lives.  It’s a word often reserved for sexuality or the enjoyment of certain tactile or taste pleasures.  But it is, in fact, through our senses that we experience our feelings.  If we’re not “in touch” with our bodies, except through the limited experiences of sex, physical exercise, eating and illness, it is difficult to listen to the emotions that are speaking through us all the time.

The way we breathe is an important clue to how we relate to our emotions.  Feelings of anger, fear, jealousy, resentment and frustration are all emotions that contractus physically (and mentally).  These feelings pull us in, forcing our breathing to become very shallow, even halting.  Yet, when we experience feelings of contentment, calmness, elation and gratitude, we feel a sense of breathing out – of expansion.  Even emotions that some might think of as sad, such as empathy and compassion – provide us with a feeling of release. 

Besides impacting the body, awareness of our emotions and how we deal with them is also important at work and in our relationships with others.

Some suggestions to air the Emotional Room:

•       Family time
•        Hugging
•        Cooking and other nurturing activities
•        Compassion and generosity
•        Spending time with your dog, cat, or other animal

The Physical Room

This room refers to the body and its physical interactions with the world.  It dwells on basic physiological needs such as hunger, thirst, sex, and so forth.  Each of these needs can be meet mindfully contributing to the mental health and that of the other rooms.

This is also the room that stores the stress from all the rooms that can lead to physical ailments.  Even though the body is physical, most of us are not really in tune with what our body is telling us – are we eating the right food, are we getting enough exercise and rest, are we getting enough human touch and so forth.  So let us take a look at what we can do in this room.

Some suggestions to air the Physical Room:

•        Mindful eating
•        Making love
•        Exercise
•        Time in nature
•        Breathing
•        Tai Chi
•        Yoga
•        Dance
•        Massage and Human touch

The Spiritual Room

This room houses the spirit and self-awareness.  It deals with how you find meaning and purpose in your life. It is easy to ignore this room when we are having fun in the other rooms.  It normally takes a crisis for us to notice this room.  But why wait to be hit on the head to take notice, why not spend some time in this room on a regular basis so you minimize crisis and even when it hits you are able to manage it with ease.

In the past ideas about spirituality and self-awareness were confined to philosophers and yogis on mountain tops.  But more and more people are realizing that we can be our best in relationships and at work, when we have awareness of the self.  We cannot hope to manage our business and relationships without having the ability to manage our own minds.

Some suggestions to air the Spiritual Room:

•        Meditation
•        Tai Chi
•        Shamanic healing
•        Non-judgmental observation
•        Time in nature
•        Gratitude and compassion

The real question is -  What room do you dwell in the most?