How To Make Your Regular Old House Feel Like A Home

We're told that home is where the heart is, but when we have jobs, hobbies, social schedules, and any number of other commitments to attend to, it's easy to let our houses or apartments turn into mere holding areas for our stuff. We all want to feel at home in our living space, but that's easier said than done.

Intuitive counselor and author Tess Whitehurst tells us that performing a simple ritual, in which you cleanse and bless your house, can be just the thing that helps you reclaim your space. And the first step of that ritual is to reacquaint yourself with the purpose your house serves. "Acknowledge your space as sacred," she says. "That changes the way that you interact with it and think about it."

Even if you don't spend a ton of time at home, it still functions as your base, your comfort zone. If you view it in this light, you may feel compelled to care for it in the same way you care for yourself. That means performing important spiritual upkeep on it from time to time. Negative thoughts and bad memories are like dust, Whitehurst explains — they can accumulate in nooks, crannies, and dark corners if you let them. If your house really is a sacred space, you probably want to keep that stuff from building up too much.

So, if you've recently moved somewhere new or haven't shown your home much love of late, it's probably due for a little clearing out. Ahead, Whitehurst walks us through a simple home cleansing and blessing ritual and shows us how to make it part of our regular housekeeping routine.