When I was a kid, I’d rearrange the furniture in my bedroom every summer.
Sometimes, it was a simple as switching the placement of the dresser and the bookshelf. Other times, I’d slide the bed across the room, reorient the posters on the walls, and move the light fixtures from one corner of the room to another. (There was even a summer when I sprinkled my ceiling with glow-in-the-dark dots to emulate the night sky.)
There was never a conscious reason for tackling this great rearranging, but I think it may have had something to do with marking the end of one season and the beginning of another. It was a practice that fell by the wayside for much of my twenties (I was never in one place long enough and didn’t have much furniture to rearrange) and as a result, haven’t engaged with for a long time.
It’s only recently, as I find myself trying to step into a next phase of life and longing to take steps to a more realized version of myself, that I’ve begun to shuffle my furniture around again. I spent the last several days scooting the couch and bed and bookshelves around my apartment and already, I can feel the benefits. Changing the way I move through my physical space serves as a simple way to change how I move through my life.
The more I read and learn about psychology and breaking patterns, the more convinced I am that rearranging the furniture is the first step in rearranging myself.
joshua chamberlain 