Building in Privacy

If you were at all happy in your old home you had privacy when you wanted it. To be happy in your new home your need to make sure that you do.

Privacy is having control over what you see and hear and who can see and hear you. It’s entirely different from being distraction free as being distraction free simply means that at any particular moment nothing is preventing you from effectively processing information flowing into your head and bubbling around inside it—in situations without privacy that can change at any time.

You don’t need walls and a door for privacy, but it certainly makes things easier. Some people find their only privacy in bathrooms, which have both, but if your only private times are in bathrooms life can seem dismal.

For privacy you may need to travel to the furthest end of your garden or to sit in one particular chair in your living room at a particular time of day when your kids are at school. Maybe for privacy you need to go to the roof or the basement or you are lucky enough to have a Wendy house that you still fit into (or maybe its your kids’ but they’ve abandoned it. Privacy is not a seat in a balcony unless no one ever visits that theatre.

All the effort to find a private space and visit it whenever you feel you should is worth it because privacy, when we want it is crucial for our mental health and wellbeing. When we are in private, we can review whatever has happened in our lives recently and make sense of those events, integrating them into our understanding of our world, all while boosting our self-esteem.

Couples, families, work teams, they all need privacy from time to time also, so they can also move forward in positive, productive ways.