How to find your home's story
- Inbar Lee Hyams
- 16 hours ago
- 3 min read
Humans are story-telling animals. We didn't survive as a species by accident. We survived because we knew how to tell stories that gave us meaning and kept telling us what we owed each other.
That's the claim underneath this week's Torah portion, Ki Tavo (Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8). A farmer stands at the altar, a basket of figs and pomegranates still warm from the field in his hands, and recites a fixed passage of history: we wandered, we were slaves, we were taken out of Egypt, we were given the promised land.
What made this story different, according to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, is what it was aimed at. In their reverence to nature, older religions asked you to dissolve into an endless present, cycle after cycle, no destination. This one pointed toward redemption. A partnership with God, in which we're responsible for helping change the world into what it could be. That idea became Judaism's contribution to humanity, a story that didn't just explain the world but insisted it could be repaired.
So the story a person tells about themselves is more than decoration. It's the difference between cycling in place and building toward something.
Our homes are one place we tell that story back to ourselves, and the same question applies. Not just what does this room say about who I am, but what is this room aimed at.
I've been thinking about this all week, as I get ready to move into my new office. It's a blank slate, with no one else's leftover furniture and no inherited layout. What kind of office do I want to create, and what does it say about who I am, where I came from, and where I'm going?
Feng shui concept: guas 1, 3 and 8
The bagua map is one of the ways feng shui can help us answer questions about our story in our home.
Who am I? The Knowledge gua holds self-cultivation and stillness. It's what you already know, but more so who you're becoming as you keep learning.
Where do I come from? The Family gua holds your roots and what you inherited before you had any say in the matter, ancestors, upbringing, the shape you were given before you could choose one for yourself.
Where am I going? The Career and life path gua holds the direction you're walking in and the choices in front of you. Beyond your job title, it also looks at the larger path your life is on.
These three areas already exist in your home right now, whether or not you've ever thought to ask them a question, and people have been reading them the same way for thousands of years. You don't need to imagine anything. You can walk up to a specific room, a specific corner, a specific wall, and start there.
To find these three areas in your own home, stand at your main entrance and look in. In BTB feng shui, that doorway sets the whole map, not a compass. The image below shows where each area falls once you're standing in that spot.
This week's experiment: find your story
This week, walk through your home and stand in each of these three spots, Knowledge, Career, Family, one at a time. Don't fix anything yet. Just notice what's actually there. Does the Knowledge corner hold anything that reflects who you're becoming, or is it storage? Does the Family area hold anything from the people who shaped you, or has it quietly become a catch-all? Does your Career corner point anywhere, or has it gone stagnant? You're not looking for what's wrong. You're looking for what story these three spots are already telling, whether or not you meant them to.
