The World Health Organization describes health as "the condition of perfect bodily, spiritual, and social well-being and not solely the absence of illness and injury." How many of us feel healthy spiritually, socially, and physically on a daily basis? We work in structures called "sick-buildings"; we go home to care for families so tired that we are almost unable to function; and we increasingly lose our connection with any sense of our place in the universe. How do we reclaim our lives and start to believe that we are important in the overall scheme of things?

One way of doing this is to create our own sacred space. Creating our own space restores our peace of mind and enables us to stand back from the turmoil in our lives. It enables us to provide a place of sanctuary where we can reconnect with our sense of self and reclaim our power. Uses for our sacred space include such things as writing in a journal, meditation, and a place of peace and quiet for thinking and dreaming. It needs to be a place that is safe and comfortable and where we will not be disturbed.

Two aspects to creating sacred space involve clearing the clutter — both physically and emotionally. Clutter is defined as: "to fill or cover with scattered or disordered things that impede movement or reduce effectiveness." (www.m-w.com)

The first type of clutter is in our physical environments. When you look around your home, office, or garden, what do you see? Can you lay your hands on the items you want, or do you rummage through the whole house? What about the office, garden? Karen Kingston in her book, Creating Sacred Space with Feng Shui, suggests that "clutter is stuck energy" and when we live surrounded by clutter, it is like carrying the ball and chain of our past — no wonder we feel tired.

Clearing the clutter releases huge amounts of energy in the body and when we get rid of everything that has no significance for us, we literally feel lighter in body, mind, and spirit. Different types of physical clutter include books, photos, things that need fixing, magazines, and stuff you are keeping (just in case).

1. Walk around your house and really look at hallways, closets, passages, counter tops, drawers, etc.
2. Clear one room at a time.
3. Sort out and recycle that which no longer serves you. Many other people need items that you no longer find useful including women’s safe shelters, etc.
4. Ask yourself, "What does this do for me? Does it lift my energy or does it drain it?"
5. Affirm to yourself: "It is safe to let go." Clearing clutter is about "letting go" to create space for something different to enter your life. This includes more energy and a sense of peace.

Emotional Clutter

Emotionally clearing the clutter means examining the deeper levels of clutter in our lives, in other words, our communication skills and our relationships with self and others. According to holistic thinking, our bodies exist in a state where biochemistry is closely related to thoughts and emotions. Stress and emotional "dis-ease" can upset the balance within our systems and ultimately affect the function of all body organs. Emotions have a profound effect upon our physical well-being and thought patterns focusing on the negative are often reflected in our physical well-being. Emotional clutter includes unproductive relationships, putting off to tomorrow what you could easily do today, hanging on to feelings of anger and resentment, keeping yourself stuck in negativity, and using past-future thinking habits.

1. Pay attention to your self-talk.
2. Change the negative into the positive.
3. Stay in the "Now" — past thinking is guilt and future thinking is fear (what if?) and creates stress.
4. Use affirmations such as: "I choose to feel peace."
5. Practice forgiveness. The pathway to love and healing is forgiveness of self and others.

Now that the clutter is cleared the next step is to find an area for a sacred space. Some questions that you may want to ask yourself before you decide are: What feelings do I want? What features do I want? What sounds do I want? What colours do I want? What plants do I want?

Ideas for the location of your sacred space in the home are a corner of a room, an unused room, bathroom, bedroom, or a wall. In the office a corner of a desk, bulletin board, or bookcase can be used. In the garden use the corner of your yard, balcony, deck, or patio for your sacred space.

An important component of our lives is colour and our sacred space needs to include colours to which we are attracted. Colour therapists believe that we are instinctively drawn to the colours we need for our healing and to balance the energies in our bodies.

The physical and emotional meaning of colours are: Red — energy, vitality, colour of happiness, wealth; Orange — optimism, courage, good colour for putting your life back together again when grieving, divorced, or in shock; Yellow — contentment, clarity, feelings of optimism and self-worth; Green — growth, emotional healing, feelings of peace; Blue — alleviates stress and anxiety, colour of communication, relaxation; Violet — Indigo — calming, colour of creative visualization, conducive to meditation; and White — peace, spirituality, healing quality.

Using life in your space such as plants, flowers, and water also optimizes the feelings of peace. Green plants not only provide the healing colour of nature but also clean the air. In his book, How To Grow Fresh Air, B. G. Wolverton says, "The lack of foresight by architects, engineers, and health officials in predicting the consequences of modern building design for the quality of the air we breathe has brought us to the brink of a modern day health disaster." We can alleviate much of this problem by using plants in our homes and offices. In his book, Trowel Tips, Ken Beattie tells us, "The next plant you buy may save your life."

Researchers have found that all green plants help clean the air, so any plants you like are conducive to helping. Flowering plants clean the air and emit colour energy in your sacred space as well. Water, which is sacred in all cultures, provides sounds of tranquillity and filters out noise in the environment.

Home:

1. Create a space where other people cannot enter except with your permission.
2. Use the fridge to put inspirational quotes on as reminders.
3. Start a gratitude journal and list the things you are grateful for everyday.
4. Practice listening to self and others.
5. Create an altar with items you love such as candles, rocks, water fountains, wind chimes, music, plants, flowers.
6. Prepare meals with reverence and gratitude.
7. Use colour to provide healing, peace, and calmness.

Office:

1. Place a piece of tape on your computer and touch it to remind yourself of your sacredness.
2. Breathe — just a few minutes. Close your eyes and breathe more slowly, bring the breath from your toes to the top of your head, and drop your shoulders to relax.
3. Place inspirational quotes on bulletin boards.
4. Use terrariums for plants.
5. Use table top water fountains which help provide humidity.
6. Use the most important prayer in the world identified by Meister Eckhart as just two words: Thank You.
7. Use the colour green, in particular plants, to provide calming and peace.

Garden:

1. One plant in a pot can create a place of peace (a sacred space).
2. Use water fountains to engage the flow of prosperity and abundance.
3. Use wind chimes to draw music from the wind.
4. Create circles, which represent wholeness.
5. Encourage wildlife which represents offering hospitality to the other creatures of our planet (don’t use pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers if you want birds and butterflies).
6. Grow plants for all senses — hearing, sight, smell, taste, and touch.
7. The most important component — some place to sit — bench, chairs, lounge.

Finally, in creating your sacred space, remember you are unique. There will never be anyone on the planet like you and you have a right to spend time caring for yourself. As Richard Bolles says in his book, What Colour is Your Parachute, "You are God’s gift to the planet and your uniqueness is the gift to the rest of us."