Feeling butterflies
Do you remember when you bought your favourite piece of art home and hung it on the wall for the first time? How you'd stop and enjoy it - marvelling at the details? It made you so house proud and you loved the way the room looked.
Perhaps you rearranged some cushions to draw out a colour in the painting.
You'd show visitors 'this piece I just bought'.
You set yourself up for zoom meetings in front of it to casually show it off.
But over time, it became 'normal' instead of 'new' and now you walk past without giving it a second glance.
Want that I-love-my-new-art feeling again?
Though it sounds like psychotherapist jargon, 'Habituation' is to blame - it occurs as you grow accustomed to something and, over time, pay it less attention.
It also applies to:
- neighbourhood noises - people who live near train tracks learn to tune out the trains, but guests have trouble sleeping through the rumble,
- perfume - you stop detecting the scent as you get on with your day, but others you meet later on will compliment you on it, and
- relationships(!) - the butterflies of a new relationship that dissipate over time (hopefully into a more meaningful and deeper bond...)
2 steps to get-back-the-butterflies
Fall in love with your favourite art - and the way your home looks - all over again by doing these 2 simple things:
1) Move it. Changing the painting's location will encourage you to see it again. 'Shop the home' and accessorise it with new groupings of decor to compliment and reignite your love for the art.
2) Appreciate it. Remember how much you wanted it originally and take some time to stop and marvel again. Grab a cuppa and spend a few moments in the audience of your art: recall the feelings it evoked initially, admire the intricate details or the confidence of the sweeping brushstrokes.
Will you try this at home?
Knowing that Habituation is responsible for gradually tuning out things that initially brought great joy, helps us take a couple of simple steps to find that joy again.
Will you try these tricks? I'd love to hear if they work for you too :)
x Mel