Where do we start in terms of cultivating the home we want to live in? A good place to start might be to sit down at home at a time when you are unlikely to be disturbed.

Close your eyes, settle for a time and then, in an abstract kind of way, quietly reflect on what you would see the ideal home embodying, not so much in terms of what style of architecture, floor plan or colour scheme you might like, but what qualities would you like it to bring out in you or to communicate to yourself and all those who enter your home. Take a sheet of paper and, down one half of the page, write the key words or points that arise during this contemplation.

Then, when you have considered this for long enough and there is nothing more arising, open your eyes and quietly turn your attention to where you live, just look. Do this as non-critically, impartially and objectively as you can, as if you were a visitor walking in and seeing your home for the first time. See what arises. What does the place communicate to you? Now walk around slowly. What characteristics and qualities does your home reflect? What does it bring out in you? Write that down next to what you wrote before.

When there is nothing further arising, quietly reflect on what you have written. What are the similarities and differences between what you see as the ideal on one side, and what you see as the current reality on the other? Again do this in a 'discerning' but non-judgmental way if at all possible.

This is an extract from Mindful Home