Interior design has always intrigued me. I like walking into a space and seeing it’s potential. I enjoy cultivating a plan for change, sensing what a particular space needs, and what it doesn’t. It’s fun to notice how efficiency can be improved with traffic flow, lighting, or seating arrangements. And I like seeing how various colors, shapes, patterns, textures and sizes can be mixed and matched to alter the entire room.
And then it dawned on me not that long ago. There’s probably a link in there somewhere (meaning inside my brain) that connects my love of interior design with my love of therapy. In fact, when I started looking at it more closely, there are a lot of meaningful similarities. Here are my top
6 Ways Interior Design Reminds Me of Therapy
- Experiential learning is important. It’s easier for me to visualize change by engaging in an activity or participating fully. I think interior design requires a little blood, sweat and tears. I need to physically see the couch over there to know if I want it over there. Know what I mean? When I’m IN the process, and not just talking about it, I start to get somewhere. Plus sometimes the actions lead us to learn new things – either that we didn’t expect or didn’t know we wanted. The same thing goes with therapy. We have to do things, try them out and say them aloud to ourselves. They might be awkward at first or need a squinty eye and a deep breath and a tilted head while we say/do something new – “I am enough. I’m not perfect. It’s just a mistake. This is just a couch. I can try it again if I need to.”
- Finding potential takes open-mindedness. Sometimes we need to walk into a room and say, “this is better as a dining room, not a tv room.” Or “What if we changed this from an unused office space to a guest room?” Getting to a place where we are observing with objective senses, factual awareness or fresh eyes can really take us places. If I did this in my own life, with my own career choices, financial decisions, self-care routines or relationships, what would I notice about myself with a new, refreshed perspective? What would a new outlook provide for me in my own life?
- We can learn to be grateful for things just the way they are. We don’t need to get dramatic or glamorous if the space calls for cedar paneling. The same thing is true for us. We don’t need to try to one-up ourselves or aim for perfection. (Hint: It doesn’t exist anyway.) We are all human. We all make mistakes. And most of the time there is something positive to be gained, an opportunity to be seized, when we allow gratefulness to enter into our mind. The messy kitchen table? I’m grateful for the little hands that make it messy. The busy days where my head is spinning? I’m grateful for my career, my physical abilities, my brainpower, and the resources I have to BE this busy.
- Meaningful goals are super helpful. If I know what I want a particular room to look like someday, then that can help me plan out what I want to start working on now. Who says that I have to transform this room into the equivalent of the Pinterest board of my dreams in one week? There is such a thing as slow and steady. Piecemeal. Planning and mapping our path. These meaningful goals – both long term and short term – can greatly improve our forward momentum because we know what we’re after and we do less backtracking. It can feel like such a sense of accomplishment to first create the space to prep. This is also relevant to our own lives – our own sense of meaningful goal-setting that include our values about ourselves, others and our environment.
- It’s okay to break the rules sometimes. Pattern on pattern, what? Two different design ideas in the same space!? Yeah, princess theme and dinosaurs might not be my first choice, but they might be somebody’s. And this is all about being true to myself. We are unique and we should dare to be who we are – flaws, quirks, strengths and gifts. If there is a popular agenda and that is not aligned with our own plan, we can break those social norms and think/live/be outside of the box.
- It’s not all about me. As the designer and/or therapist, it’s not about my judgments. It’s about me stepping into the shoes of the other person and finding out their values, their needs, their desires. If they want floral patterns, then I’m designing with floral patterns in mind. If they want to work on their relationship with their partner, then that is the direction we go. It’s also a good analogy to consider that we frequently create spaces and design rooms with more than one person in mind. Who shares this space? What do they need as a collective? What is in the best interest of the group? These concepts also transfer into therapuetic ideas. How does my life/belief/agenda influence and affect others? How can I think differently about myself in the context of a relationship?
In conclusion: What are some ways you can use visualization and creative techniques to seek out change, build open-mindedness and cultivate meaningful goals into your life?
Individual Counseling and Hypnotherapy in Bucktown, Chicago
My name is Amber Bouda, and I’m a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and certified hypnotherapist (CHT). I received my masters in social work from the University of Michigan and my training in hypnotherapy from Dr. Brian Weiss at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY and hypnotherapy certification through the Wellness Institute in Issaquah, WA. I provide Individual Therapy, Hypnotherapy, and Supplemental Hypnotherapy in my private practice in Bucktown, Chicago.