Spirit of the Home: How to make your home a sanctuary. Jane Alexander
Читать онлайн книгу.
done because they need doing. You will always know the right place to go to get what is needed and your home will be in perfect order.
Sarah Dening says:
Someone I know with a strong sensation function has all his tools hanging perfectly neatly on the wall of his garden shed; the screwdrivers in ascending order of size and different kinds of nails and screws all neatly filed in their own boxes.
If you’re a sensation type you might recognize this as you will generally be very good at DIY. You will tend to ‘make do and mend’ and only make changes when things around you start to wear out.
INTUITION
Intuitives are highly sensitive to atmosphere and the flow of energy. They are exactly the kind of people who would be drawn to feng shui, space cleansing – and to books like this! You can be the most original of all the types when it comes to creating an unusual and individual home. You may well create highly idiosyncratic surroundings, mixing styles, periods and influences. Sarah describes an intuitive who had her apartment decorated (they don’t do DIY by the way) in French Empire style, complete with totally impractical white carpets and curtains, in the middle of the city. Practicality is not a major concern and your environment may well seem very eccentric to more design-conscious people. You are always on the look-out for possibilities. And while a kitchen, to the practical sensation type, is simply somewhere to cook, to the intuitive it could be anything – a studio, a conservatory full of plants, a mini temple – with the fridge and cooker hiding beneath greenery or drapes. Intuitives will make quite radical changes to their spaces and are not unduly concerned if this means having to get rid of perfectly serviceable items.
THINKING
If you have a strong thinking function you probably barely notice your surroundings at all. You are much more concerned with ideas than with things, and as long as you have somewhere to put your books and papers, you will be happy. Your house may well look chaotic to an outsider, but you know where everything is and will become quite upset if somebody comes along and tries to tidy you up. You really barely notice clutter building up and will have the most problem in the decluttering and clearing chapters of all the types. This is the archetype of the absent-minded professor with mouldy coffee cups all around the home.
Strong thinking types are not really interested in fads and fashions and so you will rarely make radical changes in the home, except maybe to upgrade the computer. You can be methodical when you are sufficiently interested in something practical and are able to devote energy to it. However, it tends to be in response to something going wrong – maybe the bookshelves collapsing, for example. If someone comes along and shows you how much more comfortable you could be in your surroundings, you tend to be perfectly amazed.
FEELING
Feeling is the opposite to thinking in Jung’s system. The feeling type has very strong responses to everything in the home: style of house, furnishings, design, colour, tone. You are the type of person most likely to call in an interior designer or to take great pains in designing your own home. Most likely you will want your home to feel good to others as well, so you go in for comfort – but always fashionable comfort. On the whole, feeling types have good, if somewhat conventional, tastes. Because you trust your feelings, you tend to be confident that others will find your home as beautiful and harmonious as you do yourself. You may well be offended if someone fails to appreciate what you have so carefully created.
Sometimes, however, the feeling person’s home can be rather chilly: exquisitely appointed but somehow lacking a ‘lived in’ atmosphere. It could be the kind of place where you worry about dropping crumbs or marking the table.
Often a feeling person’s home can be filled with inherited family furniture which doesn’t really suit them. It seems surprising until you realize that the value attached to family history is stronger than the aesthetic considerations.
Many people in therapy or analysis spend ages trying to decide which is their primary function, their secondary function and, perhaps most importantly, the inferior function (the function which is unconscious and often ignored). But Sarah Dening’s key-note sketches are, to my mind, a remarkably simple way of finding out which way you view the world. You will probably recognize yourself instantly, pinpointing either your primary function or gaining a strong feeling of your inferior function. In Jung’s system, your inferior function is generally the opposite in a pair: thinking and feeling; sensation and intuition. So if you had a primary function of thinking, feeling would most likely be your inferior. The secondary functions would come from the other pair, that is, sensation and intuition. If your primary function were, say, intuition, then sensation would be your inferior function while you could back up your intuition with thinking and feeling.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR TYPE
But why should it matter? Because by understanding your psychological profile you can learn your blind spots and also find yourself on a path to deeper self-knowledge and growth. The inferior function can be our weak point. While we use the other three functions more or less consciously, the inferior function is often completely unconscious. You can see it in people who are primarily thinkers who totally deny all feeling; in intuitives who live in their heads, rather than in their senses. And vice versa. But while the inferior function can be our blind spot, it is also the source of great riches. By tapping into it we can access our unconscious, with all its vast potential for growth.
DEVELOPING THE INFERIOR FUNCTION
The following are some suggestions for getting in touch with your inferior function. They will most likely sound very unappealing or even distasteful. That’s a good sign as it shows you have identified your weak spot. If you can bring yourself to develop this shadow side of your personality, you would almost certainly take a huge step forward in your Self development.
Feeling
If you have a very pronounced thinking function then you could discover huge depths by allowing yourself to access the feeling side. Sarah Dening says the key is to find a way of relating to others while still maintaining clear boundaries. Working with a psychotherapist is an obvious starting point – group work would be particularly beneficial. You could join an evening class where you will be part of a group or find a team sport or other activity you might try. Dancing (line, folk or ballroom) would be ideal. Music can open the hearts of thinking types – so can keeping a pet. Working on your dreams in a dream group would be ideal.
Intuition
Sensation types will just not understand the strange twilight world of the intuitive – they will probably dismiss it as complete nonsense. But daring to venture into the realm of intuition will bring remarkable results for sensates. You could open yourself to the unknown by dabbling in oracles – try studying the I Ching, the runes or the tarot. Suspend disbelief for a while and see what happens. Learning to dowse would be an interesting activity for you – justify it by the fact that it’s so practical and useful! You could also benefit greatly by working on your dreams – either alone or by joining a dream group.
Thinking
‘I’m just not logical.’ ‘I rely on my feelings, not my rational mind.’ Both classic comments from feeling types for whom the sane, logical function of thinking is a world away. Yet for a balanced psyche, feeling types need some processes which don’t involve any emotional input. You’ll turn up your nose but try getting into crosswords, puzzles and chess. If you’re terrified (or totally uninterested) in computers, challenge yourself to tap into the electronic world. A basic course in mathematics would be an incredible step. Try anything logic-based.
Sensation
The world of sensation, the physical, the here and now, is a foreign realm for some people, particularly intuitives. And yet getting into the body can be enormously helpful. If sensation is your weak point, try practical activities which involve handling the shape and substance of things: pottery, gardening, dress-making, woodwork, DIY. Drawing or painting can be very useful.