No romantic relationship can flourish if you ignore your partner most of the time and then try to make it up with a single grand gesture. Why would your relationship with your home be any different?

Imagine if a couple tried to maintain a relationship with just two date nights a year. 

The rest of the time? No intentional communication. No loving touches. No kid-free dinners. No daily check-ins or bedtime chats. The partners live separate lives until one day they realize with horror that their relationship is falling apart. They panic and schedule a romantic weekend away. They shower each other with affection and attention, and their love is rekindled! Perhaps the marriage is saved after all!

But as soon as they return home, they fall back into their old habits. They don’t know how to sustain the love on a daily basis, and both of their needs go unmet. The relationship becomes associated with feelings of stress, isolation, and resentment until they break down and seek outside help from a couple’s counselor. If they can’t change the way they relate to each other, they may even choose to part ways completely.

When a relationship is struggling, we know that transformation cannot come from an occasional sweeping gesture or isolated declarations of love.  Instead, the healing comes from larger shifts, both in mindset and action. From a renewed commitment to intentional connection. Moments of kindness, vulnerable communication, and regular consideration of your partner’s needs.  Makes sense, right?

Now imagine that instead of a romantic relationship, it’s your relationship with your HOME that’s struggling. You can never seem to find a sense of control over your space. There is clutter everywhere. You dread cleaning and have desensitized yourself to the mess. You’ve avoided putting any time or money into decorating or setting up organizational systems, asking yourself, “What’s the point?”

Funnily enough, there aren’t many differences between a relationship with a person and one with your home. In order to stay healthy and vibrant, our connection to our homes must also be nurtured with loving attention, dedicated time, and regular action. 

So how does this comparison help us? Let’s take this analogy a little further and see what it would be like to treat our home like a person. With that in mind, here are two exercises I’ve designed to help improve your relationship to your space.

Exercise One: Write a love letter to your home. 

First of all, ask yourself how you’ve been treating your home. If your home was a person, how’d they feel about your current relationship? Write it down, taking the opportunity to reflect on the current state of affairs.

Then tell her (or him) why you appreciate her. Reminisce on special memories that took place under her roof.  Tell her how good it feels to come home to her after a long trip. Thank her for giving you the space and privacy to live your most intimate moments. Offer her gratitude for keeping you warm and dry.  Tell her how beautiful she is!

I recommend writing by hand and then placing your love note somewhere special. If you have an altar in your home, perhaps place it there. Let the note be a reminder of your gratitude and affection for this place you call home.

Exercise Two: Make a list of ways that you could regularly shower your home with love and attention.  

Now, instead of just telling your home that you’re grateful, how could you show her? 

Yes, I’m asking you to woo your home! 

Maybe you could show her you love her by wiping down the bathroom surfaces once a week. Or you could demonstrate how grateful you are for the roof over your head by lovingly mopping the floor beneath your feet every other Sunday. Display your appreciation by keeping your bedroom floor clear from dirty clothes and your surfaces free of used cups. 

The key here? Have FUN brainstorming ways to woo your space. Try adding specific time frames as much as possible to give yourself an idea of how often each home-care ritual should be performed.

Remember, the point of these exercises is to nurture your relationship with your home on a daily and weekly basis, instead of ignoring her needs until, all of a sudden, you have a huge, overwhelming project on your hands that fills you with dread and makes you want to bury your head in the sand. (We’ve all been there!)

Will this simple mindset change revolutionize your entire relationship to tidying and caring for your home? Perhaps not. There are a LOT of elements that influence why we may have trouble creating or sticking to tidying routines, and everyone’s situation is slightly different.

However, I hope that this fun mindset shift will infuse your home-care routine with a new, lighthearted, love-centered energy and inspire you to shower your special spaces with a little more TLC.