Two years after my husband’s departure, I found myself standing in the middle of a house I had rented sight-unseen, in a town in Arizona I had never even visited before.
The path to get there had been a whirlwind of loss and transition. The pandemic had brought both my kids back home under one roof. Then, my daughter moved to Colorado for work, and my son was accepted to college in Arizona. I had houses to sell, an estate to settle, and a life to completely dismantle in northeastern Pennsylvania. So, I packed up and moved across the country, too.
With my son living in the dorms, I was truly living on my own for the first time in 25 years.
It was incredibly disorienting. I had space to fill, furniture to buy, and my parents’ belongings to unpack and mix in with my own. Because it was a rental, I was literally living in someone else’s house. It didn’t feel like mine. It felt foreign, ungrounded, and strange.
I knew that if I was going to build my new life here, I couldn’t just exist in the space; I had to claim it. I needed to feel centered, comfortable, and safe.
Once I had unpacked most of the boxes and started trying to make it feel like “home,” I did a somatic visualization exercise in the house to help me connect to the space that I was going to live in for at least a year.
This is the exercise I now use with my clients to help them regulate their nervous systems and reclaim their physical environments after a spouse has moved out or if they have moved to a new home.
Claim your space…
Your internal state and your physical environment are deeply interconnected. When you are surrounded by unfamiliar energy, or the lingering energy of your past, your nervous system stays on high alert. This practice uses your physical senses and body awareness to shift the energy of your environment to mindfully invite in the new.
Ground and Center Yourself Begin by standing or sitting in the room you want to connect to. Take a few deep breaths and bring your awareness into your body. Feel your feet planted firmly on the floor. Sense your physical connection to the ground beneath you – maybe visualizing roots securing you in place. This anchors you in the present moment.
Take a Sensory Scan Slowly engage your senses to perceive the room exactly as it is right now. Look around the space and notice the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the physical sensations, like the temperature of the air or the texture of the floor under your feet. Acknowledge any feelings of anxiety, unfamiliarity, or emptiness that arise, but just observe them without judgment. Give yourself time to explore where you are right in that moment.
Identify Your Desired Feeling Decide exactly how you want this room to feel. Do you want it to be peaceful? Vibrant? Calm? Creative? Safe? Clearly say this intention in your mind or out loud while looking around the space.
Visualize the Shift Close your eyes and visualize that desired energy as a tangible, physical force entering the room. Imagine a specific color or light filling the space, perhaps a calming blue, a vibrant white, or an energizing yellow. Sense the texture of this energy. It might feel like a soft, warm mist or a crisp, cool breeze. Visualize this light and texture moving through every corner of the room, gently dissolving the old, unwanted energy and replacing it with your new intention.
Feel the Resonance in Your Body As the visualization fills the room, invite that same feeling within your own body. If you want the room to feel peaceful, feel the sensation of peace expanding in your chest or settling in your stomach. Visualize the light and colors filling up your body and emanating out from the top of your head or your hands or torso to surround you. This personal, physical resonance broadcasts your intention outward into the space.
Take Physical Action – To go further, you can combine your internal visualization with an external action to solidify the change. You might move a piece of furniture to support a new flow, or use aromatherapy like lavender for calm or citrus for energy. You can also use sound, like playing your favorite music or ringing a chime, to clear the air. Whatever you choose, hold the visualization in your mind to build a connection between that, your action, and the space.
Set Your Closing Intention Once the space feels different (and you feel a connection to it), affirm your intention out loud. State clearly, “This room/home is now a space of peace and safety.” Take a moment to thank yourself and the space for the work you just did.
The more consistently you practice this visualization and maintain your physical space, the stronger that new feeling will become.
You get to decide what energy lives in your home now. You get to make it a sanctuary that reflects who you are.
Take the next step in your healing…
You do not need to navigate sudden waves of grief, anxiety, and panic on your own. Download my free guide, Managing Emotional Triggers After Sudden Divorce. It includes powerful somatic exercises designed to help you regulate your nervous system and find your calm when emotions hit hard.
