Let’s Design A Home with Integrity
Living with integrity at home is a radical act of self-trust and self-love. When your home is honestly aligned with your hopes, dreams, values, needs, and desires, it allows you to practice being your fullest self and prepares you to feel confident out in the world.
In my last blog post, we explored how familiarity bias and social media trends have shaped and limited the way we design our homes. In essence, we have become so used to seeing design styles and decor pop up on our social media and Pinterest feeds that we have trained our brains to think we like the same styles as everyone else.
This is because our brains are programmed to recognize patterns, and patterns often signal safety – something we’re all looking for since the world is a scary place right now.
But what if there was another way to bring that sense of safety into the way you design your home?
That’s where integrity comes in. Let’s talk about it.
What Does “Living with Integrity” Mean?
Integrity simply means finding an honest alignment between your values, ethics, needs, desires, and dreams. And it’s not easy — especially if you’re a fellow (hopefully recovering) people-pleasing perfectionist.
One of my favourite books on this is called The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. In it, Beck explains how living with integrity can impact your health, make you feel more confident, and help you find greater success. Because when we’re tuned into our values — and our values align with our goals — we remove some of the scary guesswork that impacts our decision-making.
I believe that everything starts in the home, which is why it’s so important that we discuss how designing your home with integrity can impact the way you show up in all areas of your life. Integrity is a practice, and it’s hard to practice new things out in the world. So, we’re going to practice in the comfort of your home first.
Why Integrity at Home Builds Confidence
I’ve really had to learn how to be myself. And if that sounds crazy to you, you are ~truly blessed~. But I’m sure someone is reading this who can relate to the experience of learning how to be yourself through practice.
My home is the foundation of who I am. It’s where I have experienced my lowest lows and highest highs. I love being at home because I don’t have to try to be myself — I just am. That’s because I’ve cultivated a relationship with my home, and I’ve filled it with things that tell the story of my life, fill me with joy, and push me to go after my dreams.
These walls are so me that living in integrity with myself is as natural as breathing. It also means, since I spend so much time at home, that I have a lot of opportunities to practice being myself in a safe space. My home supports my nervous system, my relationships, my creativity, my productivity, and the aspirational side of me that is always looking to be better.
I’ve spent years cultivating a sense of self in my home, and this level of deep integration between my body, mind, and environment stays with me even when I leave. I know how to be ‘Rowan’ in the real world because I learned how to be ‘Rowan’ without the presence of outside opinions, in the calm, loving safety of my home.
How to Build a Home That Reflects You
My entire approach to design is grounded in the idea that my clients are always the experts on their home. I might have the design expertise and the eye for pulling schemes and stories together, but my clients have their life expertise, which is the heart and soul of every design.
This process is extremely collaborative, and I often feel more like a guide than a designer. When people come to me, they don’t usually have answers to my questions. But with a little coaxing, a lot of trust, and asking ‘why’ about a million times, we always end up with a beautiful room that feels like an extension of their inner world.
If your home doesn’t reflect you, please know that this isn’t a failure. It’s just the beginning. Your home doesn’t feel like you, yet. But it will. And since familiarity is such an important part of building safety, I love starting with nostalgia, memory, and stories. I want to hear about your grandmother, your favourite birthday ever, and why you chose to travel around South America for a month when you were 21.
Then, I love to dive into those memories and see what sensory experiences you remember that we can integrate (see what I did there) into your home. Perhaps the smell of sweet peas reminds you of your Grandma’s garden, or the feel of soft flannel sheets brings you right back to your favourite summer spent at your family’s cottage. If there are any sounds, textures, scents, or colours that you can attach to a special memory, those are the elements we start with to craft the design. These sensory cues feel truly familiar, not just social media familiar, and can help you feel safe enough to dive deeper into your truest self.
Your Home as a Place of Practice
Taking care of your home and learning to live in your truth is a practice. Much like the practice of yoga or meditation, living in integrity takes time, mistakes, and patience. Out in the world, it can feel vulnerable to try new things, especially if you don’t feel naturally confident. But at home, you hopefully have the space, time, and opportunity to work on this.
Practicing integrity at home is kinda like the dress rehearsal of life. And they always say that a bad dress rehearsal leads to a great show. At home, you get a chance to set your heart and creativity free! And before you come at me with the ‘but Row, I’m not creative’, I’m going to stop you and tell you that every single human being is inherently creative. Creativity is literally what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
Remember that confidence comes with time. That truth and integrity are built on a foundation of teeny tiny wins. A win looks like bringing home a piece of art from the thrift store that your friend thinks is weird, but you think has potential. When you bring that weird piece home, hold it up to the wall, and feel that little shimmer of excitement in your body because the weirdo piece just works. Maybe you can’t explain why, but you can feel why. Practicing integrity at home is about actively seeking the things that light you up in a (sometimes) unexplainable way, and just going with it.
Sometimes this leads to terrible mistakes, and sometimes it leads to something beautiful that makes you feel like the stars have aligned just for you.
Bringing It All Together
When the world gets hard — and we know that it will — it’s important to have a strong foundation to keep us grounded. Home is that foundation. And even if you didn’t have this strong foundation at home growing up because of tough circumstances, please know that it’s possible to create that foundation for yourself.
This is why I believe that my clients are the experts on their home. They hold all of the answers to the question: “What is the most true and beautiful life that I can imagine for myself and my family?”
It’s my job to coax those answers out from underneath layers of pain, shame, loneliness, or fear, and bring them to the surface in a way that tells a story with design.
That is living with integrity at home.
If you’re curious about how to tune in to your inner knowing so you can create a home full of soul, I’m giving away my entire design process for free (yes, free!) through my newsletter. My guidebook, Secrets to a Soulful Home, takes you through exercises, prompts, and templates to help you design a space that’s rooted in your truth.
I hope it helps you discover your truest and most beautiful self.
Need support transforming your home into your personal sanctuary?
My virtual holistic design packages are here to help. We will work together and consider style, function, and lifestyle to ensure the end result is not only beautiful, but also supports your mental, physical, and emotional wellness.
