Remodeling Your Own Reality
Sarah Winchester – the heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune – felt such remorse for all the victims of gun violence that she embarked on a never-ending remodeling of her California mansion – adding room after room after room until her death. This is an extreme, but one’s home is a symbol for one’s body, one’s place in the world, and by remodeling our homes we can feel like we are renewing and revitalizing our lives. Thus home improvement can be symbolic of spiritual improvement - of leaving the old behind and beginning anew.
For example, room additions make us feel like we are expanding, moving forward in life, growing emotionally and spiritually. They can make us feel freer to express our inner vision and needs. Similarly, because (as Freud pointed out) the bathroom is the place where we perform functions for which we feel shame, bathroom remodels can symbolize a release from the toxic shame which has held us back from expressing our true feelings.
The kitchen is the place of work – it is the no-nonsense room in our house – so kitchen remodeling symbolizes bringing a new, creative impulse into our working lives and reality. Kitchen renovations can make us feel as though our daily work is more purposeful and meaningful.
Similarly, windows are our eyes on life; thus window replacement symbolizes looking out at life with a fresh perspective or point of view – releasing our obsessions and looking our lives in a new way. It is important that we make these sorts of symbolic gestures – irrevocable acts of renovation which symbolize breaking with our past and beginning anew – in order to pull ourselves out of our psychological ruts and the mired-down feeling of drudgery. Remodeling our homes can make us feel that we are remodeling our reality – giving ourselves a new lease on life, with fresh hope for the future.