House coaching, or your house as a reflection of your soul
Do you walk into your home and feel like going out again? There's something about your home that makes you uncomfortable, that doesn't fit in... but you don't know how to change it?
When you think of your home... what ideas come to your mind? Do you see life in colour or does it look like a real Guernica? Do you feel that you are really your home is your territory? All these questions, as simple as they may seem, are the basis for understanding the House Coachinga successful combination of interior design and technical coaching to bring out the full potential of our home so that it ends up being a true reflection of our personality and our dreams. We chat with Vanessa Matascertified expert in House Coaching in Spain, to give us a better introduction to the subject.
Monapart: Take a quick snapshot of your life!
Vanessa: In 2004 I graduated from the interior design school in Palma and worked for 3 years in an architecture studio. Then the opportunity arose to move to Lima (Peru) and I spent 7 years, until 2016, working on my own, doing a lot of projects, participating in CasaCor 3 times... It was a super rich experience professionally and personally. The Vanessa who left and came back is another one, I have kept a lot of Peruvian vocabulary and when I returned to Palma I was just another Peruvian.
When did you discover House Coaching?
In 2015, through a customer with whom we had purchased some decorative items in the shop BoConcept in Lima, we were invited to a talk by Kirsten StenoI was an interior designer who had created a new concept of coaching through the home. When she started talking, I immediately realised that this was exactly what I had always wanted to do. I'm passionate about interior design and I love helping people to bring out their full potential, and it's something I've always done very intuitively with friends, even clients, who also become friends. I would ask them personal, intimate questions, to find out how I could adapt their homes to their personalities as much as possible. Sometimes they didn't understand the process... Kirsten insists precisely on the importance of the house for your personal growth. Your house speaks about you, and if you are not super connected to it after work, you will start every morning without energy... Your house is everything: from the pillow you sleep on, the mattress, how you sleep, to the smells, something much more subjective and broad. The talk made a big impression on me and I felt that Kirsten and I had really connected. She talked about the transformation you can make through your home as an analogy to the transformation of the butterfly, conceiving your home as a cocoon and that allows you to transform and eventually fly like a butterfly. Coincidentally, a month before this talk I had this tattoo... (it's a butterfly; laughs), it made my hair stand up on end.
How did you become part of this trend?
I started a deep transformation on a personal level already in Lima and decided to return to Palma. As soon as I came back, I saw that Kirsten was giving house coaching classes to a group of initially 10 people from different parts of the world. She travels a lot and gives talks in all BoConcept shops and other meditation centres and energy connectors. In these courses he teaches house coaching, shares his own method and issues a certificate. In the end, we certified 4 house coaches worldwide. We are interior designers who apply the tools of normal coaching but adapted to the home. At the moment I am the only house coach in Spain.
"House coaching changes your way of thinking, it makes you connected to your house, and being connected to your house means being connected to yourself again. Only then will your house be the reflection of your soul".
How does house coaching work and how does it work?
It all depends on the client. No two houses are the same, just as no two clients are the same. There has to be a common thread, which is mainly anyone who wants to make a change in their life, who wants to improve. You are healthy, you don't need to go to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but you still want to improve your life. You feel that there is something you can/want to improve, to enhance in you. To be a better version of you.
Actually you don't even know what house coaching is. But I see/feel/hear how you start complaining about something in your house. For example: I hate the entrance of my house. That's the first thing you work on: the limiting thoughts that come out through talking about your house. House coaching changes your way of thinking, it makes you connected to your house, and being connected to your house means being connected to yourself again. Only then your house will be the reflection of your soul.
And when the problem is not an individual problem, but a couple problem?
There are couples who move in together and don't realise that one brings all their stuff and the other brings nothing. That's not right, in a couple there has to be a 50/50 split. The technique we use is the 40-40-20, where each one brings their 40 and the remaining 20 is bought together. It has happened to me many times that the man is very busy and delegates the process to the woman. At the end of the road, the man comes along and says, "What have you done? I don't like this". The couple has to be actively involved.
Tell us about a case of which you have a particularly good memory.
Before I met Kirsten I had a client, in Lima, who had a huge wall in his duplex and had the double height of the staircase. He wanted to go and live abroad because he couldn't find himself in that city, he couldn't spread his wings... And he wanted to live in Berlin, but he managed the family business and felt very tied to it. Without my knowing what house coaching was, I told him that a mural should be made on that wall. But not just an ornamental mural... it had to be a mural of what he wanted. He had the typical light in the middle of the staircase, with a horrible ceiling, and we transformed it so that the light reflected all the things he wanted, like getting a partner, changing city... After 3 months he moved to Berlin and I think he has a partner today. The effect of changing one's home is immediate. All clients who do a house coaching therapy change their life within 3 months.
It is vital to make your home a true reflection of your personality.
Carl Jung talked about how he made his house, how he built it and added to it according to his consciousness. It is pure psychology, it is our way of expressing ourselves. The house helps you to be the best version of yourself and, obviously, as you don't stop changing, your house doesn't stop changing either. It's something I've noticed in my house, I'm always transforming it because I'm constantly transforming myself. That's the butterfly process.
The girl who told me "I hate the entrance to my house". had a very nice entrance, but he had placed in a corner, under an archway, a huge piece of furniture that they had bought for the previous house. This piece of furniture overhung the archway and was also full of glassware belonging to his mother, who had passed away two years ago, something that affected him very much. If you walk into your house and the first thing you find is your deceased mother's crockery in a piece of furniture that doesn't fit the space either, nothing helps. Obviously you will hate the entrance of your house because it doesn't identify you. We removed the piece of furniture and on that wall we made a "happy wall" of her and her partner.
How much can a house coach cost me?
It depends on what you want to do. I have created a circle, which is like the layers of an onion, and you start from the outside simply with a diagnosis of the house, in a 2-3 hour session, which costs about 200€. I tell you what I see from what we talk about and what you tell me about a space in your house, not the whole house. House coaching works space by space. There are very neutral areas, but there are very clear cases of which space needs to be worked on. Simply by listening, and listening especially between the lines, beyond the words that are said. Each of the layers of that onion has a rate. Generally, as you see that a big change is starting, you go deeper, always depending on the budget.
In the end you end up with an interior design project. I don't care about an Ikea chair as long as it's the chair you really want. Anyone who wants to make a life change or who is going through a life change is a potential house coaching client. Even an elderly person who is going to live in a nursing home. Bringing the essence of that person's home into the nursing home room is vital for that person to feel good. Kirsten has done this with her mother. Home doesn't have to be just a place to eat and sleep. It has to recharge you.
Be sure to follow Vanessa in the networks (Instagram, Facebook and especially its nourished Pinterest) to stay on top of this trend. Your home, your mind and your soul will thank you for it.
