Showing up for yourself, like any good habit, takes a lot of practice. Between figuring out your needs, setting and enforcing your boundaries, practicing self-care, and everything in between, acts of showing up can require a good deal of time and energy.

But showing up is fundamental to healthy relationships—both with others and with ourselves—and is especially important in the midst of our current crisis. This week, we’re sharing advice from the woman who (literally) wrote the book on how to best show up for the people in your life: The Art of Showing Up by Rachel Wilkerson Miller, out now! Rachel’s newest book is soul medicine for our modern, tech-mediated world—teaching us how to define our needs, reclaim our time, commit to self-care, be there for friends, end toxic relationships, and help those we love (and ourselves) feel generally more OK!

Since we’ve all been spending a liiiiittle more time in our homes than usual, this preview is all about how to practice showing up for yourself every day, starting with your space. Read on for an excerpt from The Art of Showing Up, and be sure to check out the book, available now!

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The Great Indoors
After I moved from Houston to Brooklyn in 2014, my new apartment was quite empty. I barely had any stuff, or any money to buy stuff. (Moving across the country is not cheap.) There wasn’t much I could do about this; I accepted that my apartment would simply have to exist in that frustrating post-move transitional state for the foreseeable future. After a few dark and anxiety-filled nights alone in the apartment, I realized I didn’t need money to turn my apartment into a home. I couldn’t buy furniture, but I could tape a large empty shipping box shut, set a small lamp on it, and call said box a nightstand. So that is what I did.

Even though most of my belongings remained in storage in Houston, there was something about moving my lamp from the floor next to my bed to a higher surface that made me feel like I was in a home. My home. It wasn’t a “real” nightstand, but it was a nightstand nonetheless—and one I had chosen solely because I knew it would make me feel a little better. It cost me nothing, but it helped so much, making the overwhelming and terrifying experience of a cross-country move (and a brand-new job) a little less stressful. When I think of what it means to show up for yourself in your home, I think of that cardboard nightstand.

If you don’t really care about decor or art or having nice furniture, that’s OK! But your domain is your domain! It’s the place you can be your truest self: walk around without pants on, listen to your favorite music as loudly as you want, examine every weird spot that appears on your body, talk to your pet like they are a human being. If you don’t feel good at home, it’s so much harder to feel good out in the world.

Throughout this chapter, I’ll use the term “home” and “your place” to refer to the physical unit you call home on a daily basis— whether that’s a single room, an apartment you rent, or an entire house. And when I say “space,” I’m referring to zones within your home (like your kitchen table, or your bed and nightstand) and other spots where you spend a lot of time—so your desk or office at work, your car, your yard, wherever.

And when I use the word cozy here (and throughout the book), I mean “giving a feeling of comfort, relaxation, wholesomeness, pleasure, and intimacy.” It’s less about things that are physically warm (like blankets and tea), and more about things that feel special, pleasing, gentle, and wholesome, and that make you feel more complete and content.

Your Stuff
A lot of people mock the idea that everything we own should spark joy—the central idea in Marie Kondo’s mega bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up—but I’ve actually found it incredibly helpful. It’s so simple, but it has been something of a North Star since I read the book, helping me to save money and time and to be a less wasteful person in general. As Marie Kondo’s star has risen, I’ve heard a lot of, “BUT MY TRASH CAN DOESN’T SPARK JOY SO I GUESS I SHOULD JUST GET RID OF IT AND THROW MY GARBAGE ON THE GROUND, HUH????” and I’m just like, Anyone who thinks a trash can can’t spark joy has clearly never owned one they hate.

You don’t have to love your trash can, but I hope you can agree that the things we buy and surround ourselves with matter. It’s not frivolous to love a particular towel or mug, have extremely strong feelings about light bulbs, or read reviews of laundry baskets before you buy one. (It’s also fine to think all coffee makers are created equal or to source your furniture from garage sales.) Like the foods we eat and the people we spend time with, our belongings play a big role in how we feel, so it’s worth figuring out what items will make your place feel like your place. (And yes, it’s worth doing this even if you don’t have the resources to buy said items, or to overhaul your entire home right now.) As a beautiful essay on the inspirational website The School of Life puts it:

The quest to build a home is connected up with a need to stabilize and organize our complex selves. It’s not enough to know who we are in our own minds. We need something more tangible, material and sensuous to pin down the diverse and intermittent aspects of our identities. We need to rely on a certain kinds of cutlery, bookshelves, laundry, cupboards, and armchairs to align us with who we are and seek to be. We are not vaunting ourselves; we’re trying to gather our identities in one receptacle, preserving ourselves from erosion and dispersal. Home means the place where our soul feels that it has found its proper physical container, where, every day, the objects we live amongst quietly remind us of our most authentic commitments and loves.

To get started, take a little tour of your place! Here are some questions to consider as you go.

What items or spaces make you feel extremely cozy?
These can be extremely small—a wall hook, a dish, a particular color. What specifically do you love about them? Pay attention to how different objects feel to the touch; to the lighting (try this during the day and then again after dark); to how things smell; and to what sounds you hear. Note: There might not be that many things that you feel excited about right now, and that’s fine!

What items or spaces make you feel angry, sad, embarrassed, or annoyed or make your life demonstrably more difficult?
These are the things that you curse on a regular basis, that you’re always apologizing for when people come over, or that make your life harder in some way. And the “make your life difficult” question is an important one—if you struggle to fall asleep at night because your window doesn’t have shades, that’s a problem. Also take note of which of these things bother you because they are broken and need to be fixed, and what, if anything, is just obsolete and could be tossed. Pay close attention to anything that causes you legitimate shame or stirs up bad feelings.

Which (if any) of your observations—good or bad—are related to cleanliness or chores?
For example, you might feel good about your nicely made bed or uncluttered kitchen table or feel anxious about the pile of clean laundry that needs to be put away. Speaking of chores, resist the urge to start fixing or tidying as you take your tour! I get the impulse, I do—but if you follow that urge, in a few hours you’ll find that your bed is covered with every single item that was once in your closet, and you are no closer to understanding what you like about your home.

Next, think about other homes you’ve spent time in (e.g., your friends’ homes, your family members’ homes, and the home you grew up in).
What are the best, coziest things about those homes? Again, be super specific; is it the colors that you love? The windows, the lighting, the floors, the textiles, the plants, the fact that there’s always a candle burning? Also think about anything that makes you feel bad or stressed out in those places.

How do you feel about your home’s location and style?
You might not be able to afford the exact neighborhood or type of home you want to live in, but thinking through your preferences can still tell you a lot about yourself and help you make more informed choices going forward. How important is it that you live in a bustling neighborhood? What about proximity to a park? Which do you value more—an older building with charming molding or modern amenities like in-unit laundry? Think about what’s most important to your overall well-being.

Once you’re done with this exercise, you should have a better understanding of what things—big and small—actually matter to you and have an impact on how you feel on a daily basis with regard to your space. From here, the task isn’t to go out and buy a bunch of new furniture, or to give up entirely because you can’t gut your house right now. It’s about understanding what you need and want in general so that you can figure out what you can do in the near future and down the line. The goal is to build a home you love and feel less guilty about the things you can’t or don’t want to attend to right now.

As a next step, make a list of everything you’d like to change or add to make your home feel cozier, and note whether said change will take time, money, energy, or some combination. Then rank the tasks by which ones matter most to you, taking into account how much TME you care to spend right now.

So, your list might look something like this . . .

Very important/tackle ASAP

• Install towel rack in bathroom (money, time, energy)
• Call landlord to have broken door handle fixed (energy)
• Add cozy lighting to bedroom
  • Hang the string lights I bought two months ago (time, energy)
  • Find and buy a lamp I like (time, energy, money)

Kind of important

• Deal with mail pile of shame (time, energy)
• Deal with closet of shame (time, energy)
• Hang stuff on the walls
  • Print photos (time, money, energy)
  • Buy picture frames (time, money, energy)
  • Hang up said picture frames (time, energy)

Someday

• Buy new rug for bedroom (money)
• Patch hole in living room wall (time, energy, money)
• Buy good knives (money)

And remember: It’s OK if your “very important/tackle ASAP” list is short. Maybe all you can do for right now is open the windows to get some fresh air flowing, straighten that pile of laundry so it’s not falling over, stick up a Command hook for your keys, and add a better trash can to your wish list. Maybe all you can do for right now is realize that you care a lot about nice lighting and not tripping over power cords, so you’ll turn an empty cardboard box into a nightstand until you can afford to buy a real one. Maybe you’ll be surprised by how much these small changes can help.

Basically: If you have the means to get a nicer couch and that would make you happier, then do that. If that’s a non-starter, maybe just take all of the shit off your couch?

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We hope you enjoyed the excerpt! The Art of Showing Up is brimming with practical and timely advice for developing more fulfilling relationships with the people in your life—and with yourself. Check out the book page for more information, and don’t miss Rachel Wilkerson Miller’s other books, Dot Journaling—A Practical Guide and Dot Journaling—The Set!