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Beauty-full Tuesday: Carrie of Inside the Bungalow

I absolutely and entirely adore this woman. She is strong, smart, and so beautiful. And she’s even put together a kit for perfectionists (I think she’s doing it just for me). Meet Carrie Hensley of Inside the Bungalow.
As a perpetual people pleaser, I have spent most of my life molding myself into what I thought everyone wanted me to be. Reflecting back, I realize how much energy was spent trying to achieve perfection, invisibility, fitting in, shutting down, measuring up, measuring down. As a perfectionist, one tends to focus solely on what’s wrong, missing countless opportunities to celebrate what’s right. Through yoga and mindfulness, I have learned to embrace the gifts and talents that are unique to me.
One method, in particular, called R.A.I.N has been instrumental in releasing my deeply rooted perfectionist tendencies & self-criticism. Rain is an acronym for:

Recognize

Allow

Investigate inner experience with Intimate attention

Non-identification
The first step of R.A.I.N is to Recognize when you have been triggered/hooked: Can you recognize when you become irritated, annoyed, stressed, busy?

The second step of R.A.I.N is to allow your emotions: Okay, I’m irritated, annoyed. Don’t try to change, control, judge…Just pause and allow.

The third step in R.A.I.N is to Investigate your inner experience with Intimate attention: Tightness in chest, heat in back, clenching jaw, jumping out of skin…Dig deeper…Can you put an emotion to it?…Anger, sadness, alone…The second I is getting intimate with it. Can you snuggle up to the anger, sadness, truly allow yourself to experience it? For me, I learned as I sat with the sadness and anger of being a perfectionist, underlying was a feeling of unworthiness.

As we do this, we begin to experience the N in R.A.I.N. Non-identification. We start to see that we are not our emotions, beliefs or thoughts. They are impermanent. They come and go.

As I sat with the anger, feelings of unworthiness, an amazing gift occurred…they lessened their hold on me. I began to see that I am more than my emotions, thoughts, and beliefs. Each of us is worthy to wake up to the beauty and awe that exists within.

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My Husband has a Mistress

He spends sun rises with her, sunsets, and all day Saturday. She gets all my shopping money, my special date night cash, and has devoured several years of fancy vacations.
Her style is utterly different than my own: to my sweet and fancy, she is sleek and minimalist.
She is my future home. Andrew says I should consider her a sister wife.
Now, a quick run down on mine and my Mister’s articles of home organization. Andrew and I spent at least the first 32 months of our marriage battling over lamp shades, the house cleaning schedule and door knobs. I’d want a cobalt blue love seat with velvety tufting and romantic rolled arms, he’d want a sharply angled, gray number with exposed legs. We can appreciate each others styles, and occasionally we can blend them, but that requires a lot of emotional energy and time to compromise.
A few years ago, I started noticing my dear one’s immense collection of paint chips, carpet samples, and wood floor-ettes, collected with no distinct purpose. (I try to use them as coasters, for Martha Stewart is yet to show me how to display this disparate collection.) I also observed how post indi-movie night, he’d end up talking about the set’s baseboards and ceiling fans rather than the themes of emotional slavery or middle class mediocrity. In short, I noticed that Andrew cares a lot more about home design than I do.
He isn’t better at decorating than I am, I am far better at picking the most expensive item in a decor line up. What can I say, I have an eye for Cost vs. Benefit when it comes to decorating. But he really, really loves it, a lot. And I really, really love him, a lot. So I conceded the home design front.
Sister wife was not a pretty, nor a low maintenance mistress I’d say we took her down to the studs, but we took those out too. And very soon she will be his mid-century modern palace. Until the doormat is officially placed, I’ll keep missing my Mister. Sister wife has had him since Levi was born, eight months ago. (Did I mention he closed on his harlot house the week of my son’s birth?)
And I will smile when he shows me the rectangular pool in the back, and shake my head enthusiastically as he gestures at the clean front cherry cabinets free of visible hardware and beveling, and verbally applaud his honeycomb tiled bathroom floors. Because it is well done and cohesive. And he has worked really, really hard to accomplish said feats. I imagine he would employ services similar to furnace repair upper saddle river nj to ensure that the home is well heated for his family as well. I’ve heard that having a new furnance installed can improve your chances of keeping your home warm and cost effective.
But I will have a closet. An enormous, monstrous closet. And I am going to decorate my chamber of solace. Its going to display my collection of embellished sweaters, and lovely patterned shoes, and it will have hat boxes for my hat collection.
And I’m going to show you how I’m going to do it. I’ll be speaking at the Hello There! House: Home & Garden Event October 7th and 8th. and I’m going to teach you how to decorate and organize your closet. Whether it’s ten square feet like my current closet, or two-hundred fifty square feet like my soon to be closet. And I’ll show you how to do it without spending all your pennies. It’s going to be really pretty and really organized and it will have pretty baby outfits.
So, come to this Saturday afternoon’s meet and greet. And we can get started with a little jewelry organization preview.
Until we can talk in person, what’s your favorite room of your house?

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