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What Your Home's Art Says About You—And How To Use It To Help Call In Your Dream Life

Emma Loewe
Author:
April 21, 2019
Emma Loewe
mbg Sustainability + Health Director
By Emma Loewe
mbg Sustainability + Health Director
Emma Loewe is the Senior Sustainability Editor at mindbodygreen and the author of "Return to Nature: The New Science of How Natural Landscapes Restore Us."
Image by Trinette Reed / Stocksy
April 21, 2019

Creating a vision board is one way to “call in” the life you want. The idea is that by creating a physical space to display your dreams and desires, you’ll be consistently reminded of them—and therefore more likely to attract them.

But the law of attraction doesn’t need to stop outside the confines of this space. In fact, all the art in your home can help you call in a brighter future, according to intuitive counselor and sacred space designer Elana Kilkenny.

How to choose the right art for your life and your space.

“Your home and your art are always telling a narrative, consciously or subconsciously,” Kilkenny tells mbg. “And the more conscious you can be of the narrative your art is telling you, the better.”

One of the easiest ways to make the subconscious conscious is by noticing the colors toward which you naturally gravitate. Sit with them for a moment, and see what associations come up. Have you always loved blues and greens because they remind you of being outside in nature? Do pinks and yellows make you feel calm, like a sunset would? Conversely, try looking at a color palette you absolutely don’t like, and consider what it represents for you.

Once you become clear about the story behind your color choices, you can move onto looking at your home’s art as a whole. What story does it tell? Does it motivate you? Or does it remind you of a time you’d rather push past? While every last thing hanging on your wall needn't have some deeper meaning behind it, it’s important to ask these types of questions from time to time to make sure your space still feels good to you.

“Sometimes you just like art—and you want to leave room for that! Part of the addiction we have now is that everything has to have a meaning. That’s not true,” Kilkenny stresses. “But generally there are reasons we’re drawn to certain things, and just being aware of that is helpful.”

Once you identify how colors and artwork make you react, it’s time for the fun part: Choosing ones that actively support you and your goals. While there are a million and one ways you can use art to evoke certain feelings or experiences, here are a few examples to get you started.

How to use art to call in….

Love

To draw in romantic love, start by asking yourself how you want to feel at home with a partner. The answer will be different for everyone: Kilkenny recalls that she's seen someone envision soft morning light coming through the windows, while others are more on-the-nose and prefer images like a pair of holding hands. Whatever comes up for you, consider choosing a sculpture or art piece that depicts it. “It can be bittersweet—having images of something you want but don’t have already. But that openness and willingness to desire something, even if you don’t have it, is actually part of the practical magic of why these things can help,” she says. “It’s a reminder to stay open to what you want.”

Relaxation

Where do you feel most relaxed? Is it in your favorite yoga studio, or the park near your home? Choose a piece of art to represent that space—whether it’s as literal as a photograph or more abstract, like typography of a mantra that brings you there for a second.

Health

If you’re feeling unwell, Kilkenny says that surrounding yourself with tons of images that evoke health and happiness actually might not be the answer. “If you’re in pain and you surround yourself with just beauty, there can be cognitive dissonance,” she says. Instead, she recommends going with a progression of pieces that reminds you that health is a journey. For example, it could be an abstract color series that starts a bit darker, then gets brighter at the end.

At the end of the day, art is something that should be fun. But by adding another level of intentionality, it could also become another tool in your wellness arsenal.

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