How to make your home a sanctuary when the world feels like it’s on fire

....and it involves more than switching off the big light

This month has been a full-body eye twitch.

Not just personally - though that too - but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The world feels like it’s spinning at 90mph and everyone’s either screaming or slamming the door.

The news? Unwatchable.

Social media? Like drinking acid and calling it breakfast.

The discourse? A bin fire in a wind tunnel.

Everyone’s shouting. Nobody’s listening. I’m crying on the tube. And in between the hot takes and hashtags, the quiet people - the ones who are still trying to understand, not just react - are being flattened.

And I don’t know about you, but I’ve hit a point where my nervous system is about to spontaneously combust.

I’ve spent the last few weeks ricocheting between wanting to scream into a megaphone and wanting to throw my phone into the Irish Sea and run away to a field.

Sometimes I want to fight.

Sometimes I want to hide.

Sometimes I want to lie in the bath and eat buttery toast and read a book about slow dopamine.

And that’s f*cking OK?

We are not built for this constant stream of horror and conflict and judgement and pressure. We are certainly not built to have opinions about everything all the time.

Not everyone is meant to march or argue or rage in public.

Some of us do our best work in quiet rooms. With people we trust. Without cameras. Without needing to win.

That doesn’t make us passive.

It makes us people.

If you’re like me, you might be feeling totally fried right now. Burnt out by the expectation that you always have to know, respond, react, perform. But the truth is - there’s power in stepping back. Not forever. Just long enough to breathe.

Which brings me to this:

It is not weak to protect your energy. It is essential.

You cannot fix the world if you are falling apart.

And sometimes, the kindest, most radical thing you can do is close the door and make the home you love (if you’re lucky enough to have one) a place that loves you back.

Here’s what I’ve started doing and I swear it’s changed everything.