February 08

- RESPECT YOUR REFLECTION -

Our Homes help us remember who we are:

Many animals besides man either carry their houses around with them - or like us, they construct homes that are so critical to their well being that they cannot exist without them.

Macrotermes termite societies cannot survive outside the towering structures they build. They have become so dependent on the environments they create that one leading physiologist consider their mounds (homes) as “external organs” of their bodies.

But what about us?

Think for a moment what would happen to human societies if the structures that we have built were suddenly to disappear.

Civilized nations are the result of complex interdependent systems of relationship - economic, political, cultural, technological and others - that are utterly embedded in our built environment.

Our buildings and tools have become like external organs of our physical bodies.

Like our skin they protect us from the elements.

Like our brains, they organize our thoughts and store our memories.

Like our arms and legs they move us through the world and allow us to manipulate our surroundings.

……………This can happen only because we intuitively relate to those aspects of our environment as parts of our selves.

Our homes are distinct physical objects and not part of our bodies - but deep inside - that is not generally how we feel.

If our home is attacked, we react as though the assault is aimed at us.

Our bodies have “fuzzy boundaries.” Our experience of “self” does not end at our skin. Much of who we think we are lives outside our immediate bodies, in the world around us, and it has been this way for so long we seldom thinks about it.

Our homes are no longer simply structures we use to protect ourselves from the elements. They have become representations of who we are. They tell our personal stories and show others who we are and what we value.

They express our unique priorities, cultural traditions and family histories.

They demonstrate in a real and palpable way how we think, what we feel and what we hold dear.

Whenever we do Vastu rectification or decide to design and build a new home, remodel current home, or redecorate... we should always remember that we are creating an opportunity for transformational change in our life.

I believe our home can and should be the center of our life experience...the single place where we feel safest and most in control of our circumstances...the place on this earth where we most profoundly "belong."

It should be a place that nurtures and supports our family and us. It should be tailored to "fit" and empower each inhabitant's unique emotional needs, life goals and personal preferences……energies.

Accomplishing that goal is the purpose of Vastuworld , a central passion of my life….

Learn How Our Brain Creates Our Home.

Neuropsychologists estimate we are unaware of 95% of what our brains do each day.

Becoming aware of those unconscious emotional responses to our living space helps us predict more reliably what features of a house will help us truly "feel at home."

It also protects us from making choices that won’t fit our lifestyle or might make us uncomfortable later.

Use the automatic functioning of our brain to help us feel the way we want to feel.


How the emotional brain impacts our experience of home:

When a feature of our home causes us to feel good or bad, we are experiencing a very basic type of brain function, one that is largely coming from our unconscious.

Neuroscientists estimate that we are unaware of as much as 95% of what our brains do each day. These unconscious responses are built into the physical structure of our brains by our genetic history and developmental experience.

At Perfect home, we call these emotionally charged bits of associated memory “building blocks” as they are the bricks and mortar of our environmental response.

Most experts believe they are embedded in memory in a broad area of the brain called the “association cortex.” Associations can be any type of value, and conscious or unconscious.

“PERFECT HOME”

“Perfect home has captured a coalescence of the behavioral and brain sciences that allows the creation of a living environment that is truly a home, one that nourishes our psychological needs and enhances our biological state at the same time.

" Perfect home is a credible tool that seeks out the design that will prove to be nurturing to our needs, and allows us to heal when necessary, to take refuge from the stresses of work and the world at large, and to regain our equilibrium.

Clinical intuition supports Travis' work in this regard but, more importantly, the behavioral and brain sciences both lead me to believe it will be effective as a strategy for the design of positive, progressive, healing environments for living."