Tag Archives: LIfe Designed

Traditions in Design – Your Life’s Narrative:The things that Define our Memories and Experiences

17 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by in Antique furnishings, Emotional Design, Heirloom Furniture, Inspiration, Memories, Tradition

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It’s 8pm on a Monday night and I am with new clients deciding on which of their existing furnishings they want to use at their new apartment. Their relationships  with the items are varied but defined by their emotional connection to each piece. And yet, underlying each is a story, a narrative built on memories of the life they have lived together and apart. I am intrigued by these stories and more so, reminded of the collective narrative told by the things we own, of the life we have lived, live and will live. In a world of individual identity I wonder, what do our furnishings say about us and who we are?

Tables similar to these


Two antique tables are a point of discussion, mainly because of differing associations to the items.  They look fragile and reminiscent of furnishings you would find in an old home from the early 1900s. They were once in the home of the wife’s grandmother and when she speaks of them, she speaks of a connection to her past and a connection that she’d like to carry through to her future.

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I understand that connection; I live that connection. I grew up in my grandmother’s house, a house characterized by her special touch  – from the mid-century chairs in the living room, to the faux flowers in the overly embellished vase in the corner of the living room, to the china cabinet set to the right of the room, filled with fine dinnerware my grandfather had brought back from his travels around the world.

I remember laying next to my grandmother, head tucked into her arm, staring at a picture of the Taj Mahal that hung in her room, just across from her bed. I imagined myself there, and the feeling of standing in the presence of this great place, engulfed by an overwhelming feeling of love, nestled in the comfort of my grandmother’s embrace.

Moments like these are what lives are built on and are central to sharpening our ability to understand emotion in the things we have in our lives. This is the connection my client felt with her grandmother’s end tables and the emotion of memories, that will become a part of the narrative that she will pass on to her children, and their children.

Our lives are collections of well curated memories, cumulatively creating the narrative to our individual and collective stories. Our ability to be story tellers is steeped in being able to create visual and imaginative constructs;  backdrops to each memory. These settings contextualize the memory, provide detail and dimension, allowing us to feel a spectrum of emotions. These differentiated emotions provide a scale of range, allowing us to articulate what and how we’re feeling. We can then better gauge and categorize each memory to reference at different points in time when we need to draw on an emotion and place in time.

What we choose to include in our lives, to use as the backdrop to our memories,  is essential to being empowered to construct every memory as we wish to remember it. Being an active participant and life stager allows us to  create the types of memories we would like to remember and draw on in times of need.

“When all else is gone and we have nothing else to draw on for strength and positive reinforcement, great memories can be a resource of emotional fuel.”

Understanding your connection to the things in and around your life is to speak the language of emotion and to translate it into your space. Find your voice, within a life designed, one room at a time…

The Beauty of Emotion

30 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Design, Emotional Design, Empowerment, Inspiration, Language of Emotion, Life Designed, Nature, Physical World

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“I came into this world on the fringes, born of a broken love, marked and scared by a hurt set into motion long before my first breath.”  

I was born into a struggle I could not avoid, destined to be my life’s challenge, spending each and every moment convincing myself that I am worthy, that I am good enough;  good enough for me, good enough for them, good enough to have a place in this world. Thrust into a world without my parents present and accessible, I was introduced and dysfunctionally nurtured by this marginal state of being. I yearned for a sense of belonging, constantly questioning why and how, set on a journey with no map, going in no direction.

At my core was an empty spirit space, surrounded by walls built on mistrust, firmly held together by my fear of abandonment and no matter how I tried, no matter who else tried, nothing could repair the loss of that which I never had. I lived in a reactive state, with no sense of being, no real sense of self.

As a child, I imagined reality as I wanted it to be, the framework to a life built on constructs of a young mind. I found refuge in imagination, forged relationships with the inanimate and began to understand, relate to and converse with the physical world around me. Things were and just are; no pretense, no disappointment. I could understand them more than I could understand people, more than I could understand myself.

If you quiet your thoughts from all the external noise just enough to hear the  physical world’s echoing voice and see its true, enduring beauty, you’ll begin to understand the language of emotion. Where people could not speak to my soul authentically with this language, the physical environment spoke to me through color, and texture,  and shapes. This, I later came to realize, was and is the way through which I would speak to the world around me.

I found purpose in my passion for design, life-design; life designed. I found strength and assuredness in my creative voice. I began to feel worthy because a collective something was listening, speaking to me. I felt like I was not alone! My identity to that point was premised on who I came from, what they could not give and not on what I was born into; a world of extraordinary beauty with a higher consciousness that spoke to my spirit. I surrender to that voice!

I lived my pain, in the shadow of my self; faceless, voiceless, hiding in the shame of my parents past, limited in possibility by what I did not have. And only when I was able to find my language, to speak that language, was I able to hear my voice, resounding, loud and clear. I could intimately speak the language of my conscious self.

Underlying the beauty of things is a stream of emotion that transcends the physical and speaks to the soul.  A life, openly communicating with the physical space, the backdrop to life’s experiences, of each memory, is a life that allows the world around me to speak to me, about me – “I am not alone, you are not alone, and we deserve to be here, to be heard, to be happy.”

On this journey, find your voice within a life designed, one room at a time!

“Find your voice, within a life designed, one room at a time.”

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by in Empowerment

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I started my design business under the precept that the modern woman has a very different value system as compared to maybe the women of my grandmother’s era. Today’s woman, professional woman, all woman, characterizes a new definition of femininity, defined with no limits. I stand in awe at this real life “Wonder Woman”.

And then as I sat down for the initial consult with many of my clients, I began to understand a woman articulating the same fears, the same concerns, the same wants of any woman, at any time. I felt her expressing her truth, as concisely, as honestly, as openly, as any woman could at any point in time.  I realized early on that I was privileged by what I do. I had a front row seat to an intimate show aptly titled, “The Identity of a Woman”.

I had a personal connection to understanding that woman. Hearing her wants, her fears actualized and verbalized, could help me reconcile my past. For years I had a skewed perception of my mother, and of this identity. In the mind of a child, and for that matter, in the mind of an adult emotionally stuck at a point in childhood, I kept asking myself, “If women are maternal creatures and protectors, why did my mother leave me when I needed her most, abandoned to that kind of love only a mother could give, creating a void that no one else could fill?”

On the road to discovery, somewhere between the past, the hurt, and the now, I came upon “self”; a loner, aimlessly walking, hoping to be found and guided back to meaning and purpose. It felt unwanted; I felt invalidated! I carried the burden of rejection, used it to feed my insecurities and fears and allowed myself to be mired in my dysfunction; too weak to take the time to find and connect to my “self”. But I was soon reminded this was and is the story of my clients, the story of many women, the story of my mother. Amidst their unfolding narratives, experiences expressed with great emotion, each client poignantly gave me insight to a woman’s mindset:

“I feel like I am not enough!”

“I don’t take time for myself!”

“Where am I in the equation?”

“I need a change!”

“I don’t feel like my space reflects who I am.”

I never would have guessed that my life-design would come full circle by being present, spiritually accessible, so connected to what I do through understanding other people’s experiences. And that to me is the essence of progressive womanhood. These modern mothers, wives, professionals, friends and lovers are on a movement toward an alignment with self and being cognoscente of the all-encompassing human experience we share. Against that, and more relevant to my mother’s situation, I also realized that if you don’t have a sense of self, you can’t give that which you didn’t know, at that point. I was blaming her for not being able to give me what I already had and have, my sense of self.

Beyond the aesthetics is an underlying emotional current, driving our impulses, our receptiveness to life and experience. And what I’ve learned, within my design cognition, is that the modern woman defines herself with a greater yearn for connecting with her “self”, even though she holds to many traditional values. I imagine she’s saying to herself, “I can get married, have children, run a household, be professionally successful, have an opinion that counts and most of all, make time for myself.”

With the ability to think freely and live in a world progressively stripped of oppressive social conditioning, the modern woman is at a point where she can define her life by who she truly is, rather than by what she is not. In the wake of my initial uncomfortable feelings toward a client’s tearful expression of gratitude, I am consistently reminded that she’s not just crying or being happy for a pretty room, but rather, she is seeing her “self” actualized in her space. Imagine how it feels to wear a pretty dress and the feeling you get from being confident about yourself? Now magnify that one thousand times as you find yourself engulfed by a space that positively reinforces all that you are.

On this journey, find your voice within a life designed, one room at a time.