Alone in the Noise: Creating My Own Space in a Busy Household
Tips from an introverted hermit for regaining your sense of peace
I’ve read that it’s crucial to have a room of your own, a space you can control and retreat to. But what if that’s not an option? And what if, paradoxically, you want to be left alone, without being entirely alone?
My husband and I share a home with 5 other adults. Our household spans three generations, and are often visited by the fourth.
It’s loud, happy, tense, joyful, and bustling here! Sometimes all at once. With piano playing, whistling, and the occasional toilet humour.
It’s a precious stage of life that I’m sure I’ll miss when it’s just us again. Yes, I really will miss it, even though I value quiet and privacy — and staying home — more than the average person seems to.
The stained, ancient carpet is being ripped out of our bedroom as I’m writing this, and most other spaces are peopled. There’s noise, corridors piled with underlay and sharp bits sticking out of splintered pieces of wood.
Lest you get the wrong idea and start feeling sorry for me, I’ll confess something about the way I like to work, even when I do have a space of my own. When I had an office (read: dedicated room in our home), I couldn’t bear to be in it for more than an hour at a time.
It was too quiet, too empty. Too constricting, somehow. I started making excuses to leave, to take my laptop to the lounge room or the kitchen, to lie in the sun on my deck. Anywhere but in that room.
I don’t need absolute peace and quiet to write — I can work almost anywhere — but I do seem to need to have people around. To know that there’s other life and activities within reach.
Constant interactions? No, thank you! Just the potential for them.
And so I’ve forged my own key to the inner sanctum that allows me to write, by getting up before everyone else, or putting on my industrial earmuffs, or playing brown noise through noise cancelling headphones. I’ve become a human turtle, swimming gently through the day, carrying my equilibrium with me instead of demanding that other people create it by changing their ways.
I can’t control the bustle around me, but I can wake up early and enjoy the peace and quiet of the morning. I can take a meditative walk by myself and appreciate the beauty of nature. I can pack up my gear and go to the library for a few hours if I have to.
the way you think determines the amount of peace you experience, and there are things you can do to change the way you think
Now granted, I’m a work-from-homer who doesn’t have to leave home to go to the office. I have the freedom to head off to the library or a park whenever I want to, but the principle remains the same: the way you think determines the amount of peace you experience, and there are things you can do to change the way you think.
However big or small your home, your sense of peace and of space is a state of mind that you can tune into, much like a radio station. That’s how my favourite YouTube Qigong instructor, Jeff Chand, describes it. That’s the tip I’ll end on: when your energy is higher or lower than you’d like, go look up Jeff and treat yourself to a short healing session of gentle movement + breathing + peaceful intentions.