An opened door of welcome. A personalized sleeping space to beckon restful nights. Food tailored to your tastes and nutritional needs. Extra comforts when we stumble into a tough day. An astute, observant host/ess notices what we need, sometimes it seems, before we do, and when our needs are met, our stress evaporates almost instantaneously, and our ability to settle, to savor, happens with ease.

Over the weekend, a loved one came to visit me, and for the first time since living at Le Papillon, I was able to offer the guest bedroom to someone that offered a more intentional welcome than I have ever been able to offer before. Even though the room isn’t entirely finished yet (still to come: new carpet, finished décor details, and some lighting), there was a bed – a bed more comfortable even than my own in my primary bedroom!, a space of restful calm in its color and aesthetics, tabletops beside the bed and at the point of entry to place necessities and objects of simple beauty, and window treatments to provide softness and privacy as well as views of Mother Nature’s beauty.

In fact, as I type this, I am sitting in the bedroom (Nelle napping happily atop the bed next to me). It invited me to write, and I happily said yes.

We can be that host, offering tailored welcome, restful ease, and rejuvenation that we both give to our guests and appreciate receiving when we visit places that attend to our needs and make us feel at home away from home. Yes, this is how we live simply luxuriously, as you may have guessed I would say, but it is what provides our ability to steady ourselves, find our equilibrium, to then be able to greet the world when we leave our home, maintaining equanimity to live a life of true contentment each and every day.

Being a host to ourselves at home is a necessity that, when tailored and intentional, blossoms, affecting every nook, arena, and corner of our life and the world we step into.

How to be your own host:

1. Let go of any guilt for choosing to live comfortably

When we become the master of our mind and strengthen our awareness of knowing what calms us and energizes versus what drains us and agitates us, we begin to learn the manual of self-comfort that is nourishing, not inhibiting or debilitating uniquely tailored to us.

Mastering our mind is knowing how our mindset has been conditioned to view various approaches to living. Whether that is living on our own, living with others, living alone with our four-legged companions, living with or without [enter the choice that others have judgment about]. Once we recognize and then separate how we genuinely feel in certain arrangements versus how we’ve been told to feel, we can set any guilt aside and embrace fully and with exuberance the home we need.

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2. Give yourself food options for eating mindfully, well and enjoying what you eat

Fundamentally, a host feeds us well, knows what we will most crave after a long journey to arrive at the door, and lets us relax to enjoy what is served. What will satiate your tastebuds? What will make you feel you’ve received the nutrition you need while also being delicious and something you crave without guilt? A well-stocked (but not stuffed) épicerie/pantry is a great support to have, and we talk about how and what to stock it with in TSLL’s Intro to French Cooking class.

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3. Prioritize (have essential details stocked and ready) daily, evening, morning, any regular ritual that you enjoy at home

Rituals are those looked-forward-to activities, practices, moments that we have thoughtfully planned, prepared for, and made time for that not only bring ease to our days but deepen our savoring muscle. Having the accoutrements on hand for these rituals is how we become the best host to ourselves. Learn more and find inspiration for rituals (and discover how they differ from routines) in my book Savoring the Sojourn.

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4. Decorate for your senses and preferred aesthetics

How we decorate our homes affects fundamental components of our well-being. Until we realize either what we were missing or what we used to have that brought us calm, we may be unaware of the power of our interiors. However, when we learn the skills and approaches that can help us make choices and purchases to create the space that makes us feel most at home, we become that interior decorator that knows us best. In this coming Wednesday’s podcast episode #436 – A Sophisticated Sanctuary — How to Decorate Our Home to Reflect Our Private Self, we’ll talk about 11 specific ways to create a sanctuary that nourishes your most private self.

Also, in my new book Savoring the Sojourn, both in the Overture chapter and then in Cozying-In sections in each season’s chapter, we explore how to decorate a home that becomes an enriched environment for you uniquely.

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5. Reduce the bustle to increase the tidy, thus reducing the actual work needed

I can remember when I was still both writing while also teaching (a 12-year overlap), and it did feel at times as though I wasn’t able to keep up with how tidy I most enjoyed my house being. Knowing how relaxed I feel in an organized, clean space, my home was nearly always presentable, but there were times when my office desk would be piled with papers, books, and other items that needed to be sorted. I just didn’t have the time, and truthfully, the energy, to tend to it properly.

Choosing to buy a small home was a priority because I knew how full my life could be doing what I loved, and I didn’t want my sanctuary’s cleanliness and welcome to suffer. But it was when I finally retired from teaching and focused entirely on writing, which includes running the business of The Simply Luxurious Life, that I experienced how simple keeping my home tidy could be. It all came down to energy.

I went from cleaning my house once a week to cleaning it deeply only once a month. I honestly didn’t think this was possible, but when my life slowed down compared to the 12-year overlap, I realized I could keep it quite tidy each day, which reduced the need for intense cleaning once a week. What a surprise of a discovery, and my ‘hosting’ responsibilities were simplified. Cheers to that!

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6. Have the items at hand for the activities you love

From making sure you have books to read on topics that interest you (I tend to always have at least two books I am actively reading, so that I can pick up the book that speaks to my mood at the time of day or day of the week based on my energy and focus levels), to having the tools and supplies for your favorite hobby or pastime, these activities – often done at home – can feel like an oasis of escape from a stressful day or uplift even further the great day we are having as we get the opportunity to do what we enjoy without limitations. It is as though our ‘butler’ is offering us a ‘playdate’ with ourselves to while away time, step into our own world, and just tinker, potter, or discover.

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7. Have the clothes you need ready and easily accessible

From the robe hanging next to the shower, easy to grab and wear as you step out, to a place for your outdoor shoes to rest, tucked away when not in use, but easy to access when you are ready to head outside, the convenience of having the clothes we need, as well as the clothes and accessories that support and boost our confidence for living the life we have, makes a tremendous difference in being able to relax while we are at home.

When we have what we need in our closet and on the shelves, we can both enjoy and get excited about leaving our home and engaging with the world and all that we want and need to do, while also relaxing when we are at home instead of fretting about whether or not what we have is enough, or how or where we are going to acquire it.

Ensuring we have what we need takes time, both in curating our list of those items and then acquiring them, and that is why I created TSLL’s Lifetime Wardrobe 12-part series – Build a Wardrobe You Love and Live in Every Day. Explore it here. We are 10 parts into the series, with the next coming in November and the final part in December.

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At the heart of being an invaluable host to ourselves is self-knowledge. And with intention and the clarity we have gained from that knowledge, we then can make the necessary choices to stock, decorate, and prepare our home so that we can care for ourselves well. At first, this may sound over the top, but what we are giving ourselves is the steadiness, the calm respite from the outside world that includes many variables beyond our control, and strengthening our confidence about our life journey and what we are giving to the world and how we engage with it. Life outside our front door will still at times be exhausting, but when we know our home is a place of welcome, of comfort and tailored welcome and comfort at that, then we can give more fully to all that we are doing outside of the home.

Have a most wonderful week, and may each moment at home be restorative and a place you look forward to returning to.

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