Sacred Spaces: the Power of Interior Design

Like it or not, it’s been a year of spending a lot of time at home. While we all have the practical need of shelter, how else does our personal space effect us? What does our home-space say about our inner space? This month, we are publishing an interview with interior designer Jennifer Scott Reid from Lessons in Awareness, where she illuminates the spiritual perspective of design and it’s power to bring wellness and heal our inner space. Enjoy!

An Interior Designer from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Jennifer Scott Reid has complimented her diploma in interior design with Energy Medicine, Feng Shui, Vastu, Space Clearing, Yoga and meditation. With over 20 years of experience in retail home furnishings, Jennifer’s work has been published and televised nationally. She currently works as a Visual Merchandising and Activites Manager at a well known home furnishing retailer and is a faculty member of the Training in Power Academy.

What is your philosophy on Interior Design?

Design is the study of human nature and how we relate and interact with our external world. The final result of how something looks is really the tip of the iceberg. I personally believe that it is the job of the designer to study human behaviours, habits and dreams and then create space for those things to come into alignment. When design is done well, it provides simple, elegant solutions that create a type of natural response. This can transform someone, it awakens and inspires their spirit.

I believe that design is meant to improve our lives. And this is not just the lives of the wealthy and the healthy, but for all people. Space is the container and how we fill our spaces shows us the path to our sacredness, divinity and destiny.

Interior Design goes beyond physical comfort and beauty. It can be used to create space to inspire well-being and express our deepest needs and desires. A well designed space can even allow us the comfort and security to face our fears and heal our oldest, deepest wounds.

What is your background and how did your passion for Design emerge?

I grew up in a middle-class hamlet and I always loved how different spaces made me feel. As a child whenever I was feeling down I would clean my room, and that meant rearranging it, creating a new flow and introducing new perspectives. I found by creating differences in my environment I saw myself differently too and choices would reveal themselves. I loved to play with my space and still do.

I have have a long held love of humanity and psychology. Understanding my natural sensitivity led me to study interior design, from a vibrational psychology perspective.

Sacred spaces were particularly fascinating to me. The spaces that are designed to bring us closer to spirit inspired me to discover the elements that naturally unite us.

I went into Interior Design because I am a healer and I know that our spaces contain the keys to our health and well-being. I wanted to help others discover themselves through the study of their spaces.

What has been your greatest lesson in working with the Power of Design?

One of my greatest lessons in working with the Power of Design, was discovered while travelling. I spent 6 months living in a tiny hotel room in Paris. Arriving with nothing but a couple of suitcases, I learned how little I needed in order to be content.

I discovered Essentialism, which taught me to really look at my needs carefully, thoughtfully and ruthlessly. It was a powerful process, I started living with more of my senses turned on, which made me face my own constructed obstacles and blocks around what I thought I needed to be comfortable. Through this process, I developed a newfound clarity around my addiction to “stuff”. Instead, I learned to choose experiences rather than things. I developed a new relationship to the beauty of life.

What do you see as the progressive role for Interior Design in the future?

The future of Interior Design will be to go deeper into how spaces make us feel. The often shallow “pretty” is no longer enough. As a healing modality, Interior Design will assist people in bringing awareness to how they are living their lives and how to make room for experiences and feelings they long for.

This is a meditation on the many functions happening in one room, where the space between personal and private becoming less divided. I envision interior spaces will need to be flexible enough to allow for organic collaborations, while still giving us our need for privacy and individuality. We still have a deep seated collective nature, we need to be with each other in order to feel alive, but it needs to be balanced with time alone for self to emerge.

With technology taking us further from our senses, we will need spaces to ground back into our bodies and connected to our feelings. Interior Design will be more about awakening awareness, constructing spaces that grow as we grow and get smaller as we transition. Life is not stagnant and as someone who constructs spaces, I see the need for spaces to transition as we do. Spaces of the future need to be flexible because the future as is time, is fluid.