TRANSCRIPT
Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Today we’re gonna be talking about mindfulness in our living spaces, and our guest today is Kim Depole, founder of Depole Design in New York.
Seamlessly blends interior design with meditation to create spaces that nurture wellbeing and authentic self-expression. Her mindful process is rooted in the belief design is a collaboration of the mind and heart. Kim guides our clients inward, knowing that one needs to go inside to create a home that fully supports how you live, work, and restore.
Please join me in welcoming Kim Depole. Is that right?
Kim: You know, I love to say when somebody asks how to pronounce my name, I say, I say there’s the [00:01:00] North Pole. There’s the South pole, but there’s only Depole of design.
Gissele: Ooh. I love that. I love that. Can you start by telling the audience a little bit about how you got started and how you decided to combine mindfulness in design?
Kim: Well actually interior design is my second career. My first was as a creative director and after I quit my corporate job and lived in Japan and was inspired to travel all, you know, solo through Southeast Asia. When I came back, it was incredibly auspicious because I was offered a job where I was the assistant to somebody that did the first diff a show house, and I literally did not know anything about interior design.
Gissele: Mm-hmm.
Kim: And they let her go and, and by the second week they put me in charge. So it was trial by fire, but I just fell, absolutely in love. And then [00:02:00] fast forward back to school and started my design studio. So that was the whole trajectory and the connection to meditation, sort of ingrained in me at that time.
Gissele: does the Japanese style incorporate mindfulness and spiritual traditions? Yes. I
Kim: mean the whole. My favorite word is to ko ro, which is space as a state of being.
And I learned so much about how you live in your home and then in terms of optimization, the beauty, the ingrainedness of nature, natural elements were part and parcel of it. So it was almost like, I felt like I was. Steeped in that. And then when I came back to New York, it was, okay, so, you know, how do I integrate this belief into all of what I produce?
So I, think you might think of Japanese as style per se, but I think of it [00:03:00] as essence. Mm.
Gissele: I love that. It’s so funny because I haven’t really heard anyone. Have that conversation because you think about design, it’s like, well, I buy this piece of furniture and I put these pictures here and I add this color paint, but not as an expression of the inner world, not, it is like connecting that piece.
So I think this is why this conversation is for me, it’s so needed and so important because I do feel like our homes are a reflection of who we are. So I think that’s fantastic. So I heard you were on Oprah twice. Yeah, that
Kim: was another like, you know, like Manna from Heaven just happened.
I was doing a lot of TV shows for, you know, lifetime tv. They would send me to someone’s home. I had exactly like. Two hours to redo the entire, you know, second floor. And one of the producers fast forward, moved to Chicago and called me [00:04:00] and obviously she was in a terrible bind and said, can you drop everything?
for a. Segment for Oprah. So, I mean, needless to say, you know, I put down the phone, danced around the studio, and then it was like, okay, where do you want me? So we wound up going to some place in New Jersey and doing the whole project, but I didn’t get to meet her or go to Chicago, but then they called me again and flew me out with my painter and my assistant.
We stayed a whole week and we did two or three design segments and on the last. Day I got to, you know, be on set with her and film and do another like, interview kind of segment. So it was just glorious. It was just
Gissele: Oh, that’s fantastic.
Kim: Amazingly, yeah, words can’t describe because and what was really very touching for me when my mother was dying of cancer, we would watch Oprah together and she’d sit there and say.
Kimmy one day you’re going to be on that show. And I was like, oh [00:05:00] yeah. Right ma. And then, you know, I hear, I think your life was
Gissele: full of synchronicities. Yeah,
Kim: exactly. It was really in incredible. Amazing.
Gissele: Your mom knew.
Kim: Oh, oh she did. She actually did.
Gissele: Yeah. So how is it that you are able to incorporate mindfulness into your design?
Kim: Well, what’s what’s ironic is I had my design studio KDDA corporation for about 25 years, and simultaneously I was going deep in my meditation practice, I would go on retreats. I continued to meditate every day.
I would never tell my clients and before they would move into their home or something I finished, I would go in there and do a special blessing meditation and be very clear on what energy and what I wanted the home to contain, especially If a child was coming into the world, that was like the most blissful thing for me to participate [00:06:00] in.
So, but I would never tell them I was like a closeted meditator. And literally, sometimes I would meditate in the closet, just close the door. So then, I closed KDD and then the pandemic happens and then, we all did a lot of inner work at that time, didn’t we?
So. I just went in deep and I thought, at this time of my life being you know, a little more long in the tooth, how can I serve? How can I bring this kind of awareness to the space I know best, which is the home? It was also because I had. So many opportunities. When I was working with developers to have access to spaces and I would see them devoid.
They were like soulless to me, or the ones that would just buy a design, and it didn’t even look like anybody lived there. It was the, you know, it was sort of like. Wow. There’s gotta be a way to [00:07:00] integrate this mindfully, carefully, and that’s what I’m seeking to do now. That’s what my mission is now.
Gissele: Yeah. And thank you for mentioning that because I think that was one of the struggles that I have seen in terms of like, for us finding the ideal location and home. We saw so many houses
all the houses look the same, and the decoration looks the same, but where’s the individuality? and I don’t see this just in design, I also see this in terms of everything. Like people wanna look the same. Like, so there’s, a lack of celebration of diversity, which is what you were talking about.
One of the things you talk about is the authenticity, the being really you and showing that in your decor. Can you like just tell me some of the struggles you might have had in trying to incorporate some more authentic designs like if you’re dealing with a developer, for example, versus like people that want a more standardized approach to design.
Kim: Well I [00:08:00] got to be incredibly creative when I worked with developers. It was one of the first projects of toll Brothers, which is a very big developing firm. And they had this beautiful property that was right near the hospital. And they kept saying to me, well, sometimes they come, they, these doctors come in their scrubs, literally.
So I thought, you know, let me have some fun. So in the closet I had seven days of scrubs. You know, labeled. then I would have you open up the kitchen cabinet and it was filled with takeout. But then there was one little like, you know, reminder that this is not how you, what you should eat.
You know, it was almost like lessons every time they would open the door. And it was an incredibly successful project and because I did a lot of model apartments, I would always try and make the bedroom feel like a sensual and appeal to a male sensibility and a female sensibility, but not in just [00:09:00] a style way.
It’s like a layering. It’s very subtle and it’s. And it’s really all the senses because people just think, oh, it’s just what it looks like. No, it’s what it feels like. It’s the texture. It’s the scent. It’s that reminder because your nose is that entry into every memory.
Right? So it’s like the memory of home that’s sweet and that you want to recreate, and how do you do that? How do you express all of that?
Gissele: And you raise a really important point, which is I think also contributes to us being more standard in our design. And I think it’s people don’t know what to do, right?
They don’t know how to design their homes. They don’t know what their style really is. They don’t really know how to tap into that authenticity and express it in design. What would you say would be one approach that they could use to start tapping inward? To try to maybe find their style or to understand what it is [00:10:00] that they really wanna express in their space.
Kim: What I try to model is to do a meditation process where they go in and they’re very quiet. It’s not like you could just do that one time. It’s that agreement with yourself to want to express yourself. So I have a ebook I designed that was just sort of a list of questions like, in your childhood, what was the memory of a space that held a great amount of significance for you?
What makes you feel secure? and forget about? Style. it’s really the emotion, isn’t it? It’s how you physically feel in the space, and then because everybody just hits right on style. that’s the last of it. I mean, granted, that’s. Fun. That’s what I adore. But we have to go into and investigate who you are and what brings you joy.
Is it like a bouquet of gorgeous [00:11:00] sunflowers? That makes me happy. I mean, I just, pick those, put them in the vase, and that just brings me such joy. You know, or having Miss Mona behind me because it’s a reminder I always have to create masterpieces. This is a masterpiece, you know what I mean?
So, it’s like those sort of touchstones, to have the confidence to express yourself creatively and not like, look on Instagram It’s really getting close and deep to who you are and what brings you joy and the memory of it, what I like my clients to do is just keep a visual journal, like either in their phone you see something you love.
Take a picture, or maybe it’s just that color of that yellow, it’s not the flower per se, but that’s what I wanna focus on. I like that way, that color makes me feel, so for me, it’s always the feeling, it’s the emotion, it’s the security, it’s all that.
The [00:12:00] core of that, and then the next layer is, finding what that looks like for you. Right. It’s the next and then the next layer. it’s really like I don’t like to use an onion analogy. I’m Italian. I like to use a lasagna.
Gissele: Lasagnas are delicious for sure.. Yeah. And they don’t make you cry. So I just wanted to point out that sunflowers are such a powerful flower and
Apparently the spiritual significance of sunflower is like belief in God’s source universe, right? And so I thought, yeah, yeah, I’ve always loved sunflowers.
Kim (2): I down Gissele.
Gissele: Yes. Well, you know what, funny story, I was gonna tell you a different story, but I’ll tell you this one was I have three acres in my property and I envisioned sunflowers in my backyard.
And I envisioned them for months and months and months. And I actually hadn’t done anything like nothing. And I’ve lived here for like 12, 13 years. So there has been nothing come from anywhere, any seeds flown so [00:13:00] I had like this barren field and so I was dreaming all summer of sunflowers.
I have a picture of it in the fall, my husband points to like a stick that’s coming up and he goes, oh, a sunflower is coming up.
Kim (2): Just like that.
Gissele: Just, just like that. I have a picture of it. Oh. I’ve lived here for 12 years. I’m not joking. I have a picture of it. I’ve lived here for 12 years.
in that time there hasn’t been a single sunflower or anything flown. I mean, you could easily rationalize it in your mind. ’cause I live it in the country. Right. But for 12 years it was nothing. It was just me dreaming of sunflowers coming up. My husband identified, he’s like, oh, there’s a sunflower coming up.
And I was like, no way. I didn’t plant anything. I’ll send it to you after. Wow. I love that picture. That makes, so
Kim (2): some little bird went from the south of France or, or U Trek and then dropped the seed and dropped
Gissele: it in for me. Yeah. And so and so, so sunflowers have a special place in my heart. I wanted to go back to what you [00:14:00] had said about childhood, because I think you’re hitting a really important.
Point, especially for me, I think, and I think it’ll really resonate with my listeners. So we bought this house to renovate. Part of it was the fact that we didn’t feel we had enough to have a completed house, like to have the house that we wanted. So we bought a cheaper house, which we would renovating, and we’ve been renovating it for a while and we love it.
We do love our property, we love our house. But we’ve been sort of in the process of renovating for a while, and I would always ask myself like. How come I am in this? Like, how come I’m in in alignment with this? Right? Like my husband’s family grew up with renovations all the time and so I could understand why he was sort of in this position, but I didn’t really understand why I was, because growing up, my earliest memory of my house is that my mom had, like, we didn’t have a lot of money, but my mom always decorated things to the nines.
Like it was like. Showroom home and everything was finished and everything was clean, everything was white, right? [00:15:00] And so everything was white and everything was clean. And so I was thinking, I was like, why am I a match? And I was having a conversation with my mom one day. We were at the hospital, like my dad was unwell at the time, so he was in the hospital and her and I were having lunch at Tim Horton’s.
And I was asking her that question. I’m like, I wonder why I am in this situation. And she said to me, that’s interesting because when you were born in your first few memories, like I think it was a few years I was in that house, was us. We we were living at my grandma’s house and she gave us just the house temporarily and my mom was fixing it in that process.
So my earliest years of me living in on earth was in a house in the middle of renovations.
Kim: See that I think that has a lot. It’s an imprint, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s the imprint. Of the childhood and it’s so fascinating ’cause when I work with so many different clients and, and for some reason they’ll be like, you can do anything you want, but I don’t wanna see orange.
I don’t ever wanna see a trace of orange. And then I went to the [00:16:00] client’s childhood home and her curtains in the bedroom. We’re orange, so I was like, oh my god. You know, it was
Gissele: traumatized.
Kim: A little confusing, so I thought there might, might have been some conflict with that somewhere. But no, it’s very personal.
It’s very psychological. It’s very, it’s imprinted. Absolutely. And then when I say, you know, for those that have had perhaps like a really horrible childhood or they were immigrants and they struggled Then I go right into, yeah, but there was love there wasn’t there?
what manifests that love and what makes you feel that? how do you materialize that experience in that way? I mean, that’s what artists do. That’s what musicians do. That’s what poets do, right? No reason why you can’t as well. This is your home. I don’t live there. You do. So it’s a lot of, taking [00:17:00] that.
I say responsibility, but I don’t think of it as responsibility. I think of it as just expression. Like, I give you the ticket, I give you the pass card. you can do it. Yeah. I’m here to, champion you. That you can do that.
Gissele: Yeah. And, and what I’m hearing you say in what I’ve seen in your work is really that you add like a level of additional layer of depth, right?
Like. I’m not saying that people can’t learn to be a designer, it’s that what you’re offering is just such a deep journey of inward to outward, right? Like the expressing of the environment. Also creating spaces that enable opportunities to continue that inward journey. Because I’ve seen in some of the material you were talking about is.
Creating spaces for like, for meditation, for mindfulness, for quiet. I haven’t experienced that kind of creating that conscious space to practice. Right. We actually created a meditation room, which. We don’t use, we, it’s a gym. [00:18:00]
Kim: Yeah. I mean, if you see, I, it’s a gym.
Yeah. I, I mean, I meditate in the New York City subways. Can I tell you that’s not the Mm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It’s not the best place to meditate, but it’s wherever you are. That’s why, to me, I mean, you go on YouTube or whatever and you see, oh, this is how it needs this pillow. It needs, and I really don’t believe in that, but I believe in.
Making like a corner that you just can’t wait when you come home to sit in, to have a cup of tea or a glass of wine or read a book or just, or just be, or the way you look at the way light comes through, the way the drapery is that that’s enough. you’re mindful of just that moment in time. You looking at the light.
That’s it. So all those little elements of beauty I like to call them. They’re like just little jewels of experience in your home.
Gissele: Hmm. And that gets you to appreciate your home way more. Right. Like your space.
Kim: Right. No. Absolutely. The place [00:19:00] to be. Mm-hmm.
Gissele: Yeah. And
Kim: then, I mean, for me it’s like be grateful that you have a home.
Mm-hmm. I mean, especially at this time and compassion and mindfulness and all of that. i’m not the kind of designer that wants to, advocate, all these brands and it has to look like this. there are people that appreciate that.
Mm-hmm. And that’s what they love. But I hope, and I trust that there’s some element of, of them personally in that expression and that it’s not like, when somebody wears. You know, Gucci tags, all over their body and it’s like, okay, well where are you in, you know? Mm-hmm.
Gissele: Underneath all that.
Yeah. And is that like, that authenticity and tapping into your inner self some of the things you learned while you were studying under Thich nhat hanh?.
Kim: Oh God. I learned so much from him. The power of silence. He would command a huge space and he’d come into a [00:20:00] room and just wait, and everyone’s like just sitting there quieting and he’d wait till everybody.
Was settled, so it’s having that awareness. What I have an awareness now of is I kind of have a list of moods, like negative or positive, and I literally have them posted all over and I’m very aware of like. Why am I in that state right now? And what can I do to elevate it and just be like, present moment, perfect moment is all he would say.
And that’s the reminder. And how to be reminded of that is the breath, isn’t it? It’s just that. I’ve had so many teachers, but for him, he, to me, he’s foundational. Just absolutely foundational and to be so blessed to be in his presence quite a few times, like to be in the same room with maybe 20 people [00:21:00] in it.
That was just a blessing.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sounds amazing. I was wondering if we could switch gears a little bit and talk about decluttering.
Kim: Oh, goodness. Yes. My favorite subject. Decluttering is never done. Everybody thinks one and done. No, no, no. I keep trying to think of another way to refer to decluttering
just to make it more engaging or inviting I like to say recalibrating. And recalibrate rather than declutter. Because what you’re doing is you’re calibrating your mind because when you are surrounded with clutter, I didn’t know this, your cortisol levels rise, your stress hormones, you have more brain fog because you can’t find what you’re looking for.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. So
Kim: it, it really is [00:22:00] recalibration. And I have to say I struggle with that myself because I love objects and collecting, and I, no, Kim put half of them away. We curate is another word too. So you’re curating, you’re not decluttering, you’re curating what needs to be around you, so you’re efficient.
Right? I have a little feed on Substack and I’m looking for some new subjects. Thank you, Gissele. That’s a perfect one. So
Gissele: yeah,
Kim: I’m gonna go deep into that. Yeah, I mean, I copy every tip. If there’s a tip about, decluttering, it’s in my Trello, board, but mm-hmm.
you have to find your way there’s, there’s a lot of simple techniques. There’s the list of like three, what I’m going to. Keep when I’m gonna toss, when I’m gonna donate and just keep it on that level. And so I think I’m gonna work on creating like a methodology for that and [00:23:00] also make it more fun.
I love to like, give myself a gift afterwards. Like I get to go for a walk. I get to watch a movie or something and I award. Myself, it’s like atomic habits stacking. It’s that same application of stacking what you’re doing when you are, when you’re recurating, so to speak.
Mm. That’s,
Gissele: yeah. I love the rephrase. Do I write this
Kim: one down? This is
Gissele: good. Yes, of course. Yeah. And so what you do that, I’m gonna share a story. So I a number of years ago, I did a, it was a 28 day challenge. I think it was for 28 days, you throw away 21 things like you get rid of. Oh,
Kim: I love that.
See, I did, lemme write that one down. Yeah.
Gissele: So listen to this. so 28 days, you throw away 21 things. Okay? And obviously you get to keep the things that really speak to your heart, right? And in the beginning and day one, super easy. Super easy ’cause you’re, you’re just tossing, you’re like, [00:24:00] it’s a great opportunity to clean those drawers you hadn’t cleaned all year, right?
Like, so you toss makeup, you toss it by the 28th, day number one, I felt so much lighter. I. So much lighter. It’s just, it was so incredible and it really got me down to the nitty gritty. It got me down to what do I really love and what am I holding onto? One of the things I realized that I was holding onto is I would buy new stuff, like likes new stuff, and then put it away for later well, I’m gonna use this on a special occasion.
What I realized was I had kind of that lack thinking that, ah, I can’t use this now. I’m going to use it for when I need a special occasion. And so I started using all the stuff that I had saved for that special occasion now, right? So I’m like, why am I doing this? So, so the learning was amazing, right? The learning was amazing.
It was tough by the 28th day, ’cause you’re like, okay, I gotta figure stuff to get rid of. But I had already felt so gifted. [00:25:00] By that experience in terms of me learning about myself, but why am I hoarding all this stuff? Is that, is the belief underneath there that I don’t think I’m gonna get anymore? Right?
And therefore I need to save this. Anyway, so I learned so much about myself, but here’s what happened. Kim. People started giving me stuff. So I had gotten rid of, like, I had gotten rid of so many books in my bookshelf, like so many. Right? And I love reading. I love purchasing books. It’s my thing. It’s always been my jam.
Kim (2): That’s my thing. I go to this,
Gissele: I go to this retreat place and ’cause they had so many free books on meditation and mindfulness written by the monks. I leave with more books than I had thrown out. I throw away shoes. People start giving me brand new shoes that they hadn’t worn my size. So it’s like, it’s so, it reminded me of like, the universe doesn’t like a vacuum.
It rushes to fill this place in a
Kim: Oh, that’s, that’s wonderful. Mm-hmm. But let me ask you this, Gissele. [00:26:00] What were the three objects? There was no way you were gonna part with them. They are front and center.
Gissele: So my kids stuff, like some memory things of my kids when they were young, like hair and teeth and stuff like that.
So that’s one. Some some signature pieces that I still wear that are good quality. ’cause I also find with fast fashion, Some of them just kind of breaks apart. Yeah. They
Kim: stuff destruct. Yeah.
Gissele: Yeah. So I have some signature pieces that I have bought that I’ve invested in and my Korean skincare.
I love Korean skincare, but I’ll not get rid of, well,
Kim: I think it shows,
Gissele: but it also showed me, so thank you for asking this question. Great question. It also showed me that there was, there was nothing that I needed to attach to. Mm. It showed me that I didn’t really need to hold onto these things I was holding onto a dear life for, and it actually.[00:27:00]
I’m really interested in your thoughts. It made me realize about the issue with hoarding. Hmm. Maybe reflect on hoarding as a protection, as a way to incorporate things to protect yourself from hurt or whatever. Yeah. I’m just wondering what your thoughts are on hoarding.
Kim: Well, it’s interesting. I’ve, I’ve done a lot of reading about hoarding because I’ve worked with a number of people that, that really had that,
Deeply, and it’s really a fear of death. It’s a fear of your own mortality. And one that was really touching for me was I worked with somebody who saved every card. And so you know what we did? We collected them all and we made a bonfire and Wow. And they were open. Yeah, she, it took a little doing and then it was like, you know.
Why are you holding onto this? Oh, this was my dearest auntie that [00:28:00] died. Well, she’s still with you, oh, because sometimes I like to open it and read it and just, and I said, well, but all you have to do is sit and think of some like wonderful memory, and that’s even more beautiful than you opening up just card, right?
Mm-hmm. so we did, we did a bonfire. And it, it was, it was quite a bonfire. The other thing I like to encourage, especially with saving cards, ’cause I, full disclosure, I do the same. But I do it more like as an artist in a way because again, my magnificent mother, I. Was a nurse, and you know what she would have us do?
We had to take our cards and cut them up and we would make place mats for the children in the children’s hospital for Christmas morning or Easter morning. Isn’t that gorgeous? You would just do a, that’s
Gissele: amazing.
Kim: a doily And then you would take the cards and they’re in the hospital, so it was always like planting the seed of [00:29:00] compassion.
Mm-hmm. You know, my mother was the first farmer, of just like, understand the seed of compassion and how you can plant that seed. Yeah. And I never forget, Thich Nhat Hahn had this board and He did like a drawing of the earth with a circle and all the seeds that are planted. He goes, oh, this one is jealousy.
This one is compassion. This one is fear. Oh, but wait, wait, let’s water the compassion one. Oh, look it, see, it’s growing. And look at how big it is. And beautiful. And see these other seeds, you don’t have to water them. You know they’re there, but you don’t have to water them. So yeah. So how, how primorial, I’m talking about fire and water, but it was really, yeah.
Yeah. Incredible.
Gissele: That’s absolutely incredible. How can we incorporate greater compassion into our living spaces?
Kim: Mm. You’re asking me a hard one. I think one [00:30:00] is to always have a section in your home to honor your history, your family. Mm. I love that. Yeah. It actually, that first Oprah show I did, I did just that.
This woman was Italian and what we did is we took all her her photographs and we made them made in sepia so they all look like they were antique. So I love doing that. I’ve been doing that for decades now. But I think it’s to have a section in your home that’s devotionals, whether it’s to. For your family or who you, pay homage to in your home is very important to have that.
And then also I think to have something that represents beauty to you, like a symbol of beauty to you. And I think the simplest is a bouquet of flowers, because I
Gissele: love flowers.
Kim: it’s temporary. They don’t last forever. It’s like a reminder, isn’t it?
Gissele: Mm-hmm.
Kim: [00:31:00] Yeah. The famous yogi that just, when he gave his lecture, his lecture was just holding a flower.
He didn’t speak, so that’s enough right there. Having. So I think I
Gissele: love that, you know,
Kim: honoring your family, having some devotional space, a space to be mindful and meditate and some representation of nature. Always that’s all you need to just start to go a little deeper. If you feel like you’re not expressive
So many people will say, oh, I’m not creative. the difference between left brain, right brain, it’s, you know, that’s the part that’s so rewarding is working with a client that never used to go to galleries, like, didn’t have that experience. Ooh, are you kidding?
You’re on 57th Street and you’ve never been, blah, blah, blah, blah. Wow. But now she’s telling me where to go. Oh Kim, did you catch this? Mm-hmm. I’m like, how did I not know about that? So it’s, kind of like that. It’s just immerse yourself. ’cause [00:32:00] there’s nothing more wonderful than, you know, being surrounded by Mona Lisa.
Gissele: Hmm. Yeah. And going back to what you had said before about fire and water, how important is it to include the elements into design? I.
Kim: Well, first it starts with the intention of what you’re creating, right? Then the sensory, the harmony of what those choices are.
and the personalization of what those choices are, not like just something because somebody else did. It’s because you, you. Sought it out or whatever. And then I don’t ever wanna forget functionality in the mix too, because mm-hmm.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You
Kim: know,
That space better be efficient and workable and mm-hmm. And if it needs to change, you better be able to optimize it like that. And you need to think about that. That’s why in intentions first. And then also just sustainable. I mean, I’m just learning so much about the [00:33:00] effect of plastic in our environment, right?
Like the depth of the effect from your clothing to like what you’re consuming. Well, isn’t it the same in your home? Of course. Is there a spray on the carpet? Is there is the fabric? Have some kind of sizing. I mean, there’s all of that. So, and is the paint low? VOC? So, you know, it does an off gas, not just for the nursery, but for your bedroom.
So there’s all of that. I mean, there’s so many parts of that that all need to, you know, come together.
Gissele: Mm. Thank you for that. And as you were talking, that triggered a question in my head. Is there room for technology in mindful design?
Kim: Of course there is, but not in the bedroom.
Okay. so people hate me, but I’m like, get the TV outta the bedroom. Get the television out of mm-hmm. The bedroom. You’ll sleep better. You’ll have more connection, you’ll have [00:34:00] more intimacy. it’s not good. So it’s always for me, that’s it. And then technology with smart homes.
Oh my God, You could time the temperature, the lighting, all of that kind of aspect as far as Siri and all that. You know, that’s idiosyncratic if you have that preference. I do not. I like to be like, okay, I need to see what time it is or what the weather is or whatever. Mm-hmm. But it’s just to have that separation.
That’s why, to me. When I start, I start in the bedroom with clients because that’s where you dream. That’s your place of unconsciousness and consciousness combined. So. That’s where you start. Like even if you just go sit in your bed and meditate and begin that process of finding what brings you that kind of peace, because that’s the place it’ll enter in your dream state.
And I also encourage when before you go to sleep, is to [00:35:00] just kind of do a walk through your house.
Kim (2): Before you’re
Kim: sleeping, just kind of walk through your house and just ask, well, if there’s anything else that could be revealed to me in what I need or what I need to release. And, and, ’cause I’m a true believer that in the morning those answers come to you when you meditate in the morning.
Gissele: Yeah.
Kim: You get a lot of answers. You know, all you gotta do is ask.
Gissele: Hmm. I really love that. Yeah, I love that. As you were talking I was also thinking about like my goal for my house is really to create the most loving and warm, welcoming environment for my guests. Okay. So that’s, that’s my big goal. that’s my heart goal, I would say.
And then I have sort of like an ego goal, which is more like always stressing about my house being clean before people come over.
Kim: Yeah, everybody
Gissele: has that. [00:36:00] Unwelcoming I was making. ’cause there’s an element of me that like if there’s too many people that I, that stresses me out, so then I, maybe I’d rather not entertain or have people over.
It’s very strange. I wasn’t aware of how much I was sabotaging my own desire to have people over and to, be that welcoming space. Right. But my own fear of it being like. It has to be clean and stressing myself and stressing my family before people come over. Yeah. Sort of negate that same welcoming thought.
What are your thoughts?
Kim: Well, I think you have to release perfection. You have an idea of perfection. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think you just have to release that. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it’s that same neurosis of cleaning before even the cleaning lady comes to clean your house. I mean, what is that about? That’s insane, right, isn’t it?
Gissele: Yeah, exactly. If she’s judging you, then she’s not the right cleaner. Yeah,
Kim: exactly. What kind of cleaner is that? And I should clean my house anyway. I shouldn’t have to hire someone to clean it. Right. So, yeah, fair enough. It’s all [00:37:00] complicated and convoluted. I think you just need to focus on what the intention is to just have a beautiful experience with everybody in your house.
And trust me, I mean, Martha Stewart, She’s got staff. You know what I’m saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, so I think just be, be kinder to yourself. Mm-hmm. And just think of what your intention is. What I wanna have a beautiful gathering. And then, you know, what are they gonna do?
They’re like, oh my God. Gissele, what were you thinking with that, Dr. Oh, Gissele, that cushion. Are you kidding me? It’s like, please.
Gissele: It’s so funny how it’s so innocuous though. Like in other areas of my life, I’m very much aware, right? But in this one, I think because I’ve been programmed in terms of like the messaging that I received from my mother in particular, because she got perfection.
Your mother
Kim: had that. Standard. Oh yes. Because
Gissele: it was always showroom home and we don’t even make our beds.
Kim: So wait, I gotta ask you a [00:38:00] big question. Sure. Yeah. With a growing up in homes like that, did you feel like you could go in and just be comfortable or was there always like a certain kind of contraction of, oh my God, it has to stay perfect.
Gissele: I think you just shifted something, Kim. People are watching this in real life. I think that’s it. I was so anxious in those kind of perfect environments that everything had to be showroom. That it just, it, it’s stresses me out, I think. Yeah. Let it go is why. Let it go. Yeah, let it go. I think it’s time to let go of that story.
Oh, I love that.
Kim: Shifted when you said, when you said all white. ’cause at one time I had my living room all white. Yeah, yeah. Then, then I got a dog. And guess what, you can’t have all white if you have a dog.
Gissele: No, I had, a Doberman [00:39:00] Shepherd.
Kim: Exactly. So, and then that’s why I am saying it changes all the time. This is never one and done.
It’s an evolution. it’s like the evolution of, your life, right? Your life’s not the same every day. So that’s why your home has to work for you. It’s gotta do heavy lifting. It can’t just be like a pretty place. You know? No.
Gissele: No.
Kim: Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, it’s just, and you can feel that when you go in someone’s home, can’t you?
Like when you go in someone’s home, that’s like show home and then you’re afraid to sit on the chair, or you don’t wanna Yeah.
Gissele: But I also found the other extreme is uncomfortable too. Like if it’s too messy or dirty, I find that overwhelming too.
No, I won’t dirty. You find that overwhelming
Kim: as
Gissele: well,
Kim: No, no, no. See, that’s the thing. people will say, oh, well I don’t have the money to do that. No, no, no, no. It’s about cleanliness. And that’s, that’s why it’s like, if it’s clean, it, it doesn’t matter.
It’s not, not about money. See, that’s the thing too, [00:40:00] is, is you know, it’s not status, it’s not money. It’s not like, oh, that sofa, that Kagan sofa cost me 20,000. Who cares. I mean, nicely if you could afford that. But yeah, if you want something like that, there’s other options. It never has to be just that, you know, whatever.
So that’s why, and I think people are like that. Why? Because they’re really insecure with who they are. They need that validation. And you don’t seem, you are not the kind of person that needs that validation. When they come into the house and, you know, look and say, oh, Gissele, I, you know, I’m not sure about that drapery,
Gissele: you
Kim (2): know?
Gissele: No, no, not at all. so I took your quiz online and it said, like, it, it talked about the no drapes. We don’t have drapes, but we live in the country though. Did you get, did
Kim: from the design style quiz, did you get your answer?
What did it say? Did it say you’re artistic? It was
Gissele: urban style? Yeah, but I don’t know if I’m urban. Or like a mix. I think I’m kind of [00:41:00] a little bit more eclectic. So I lec I love the, I love, I love the wooden furniture. I love the classic style, like clean cuts, like leather sofa, we have all wood floors, but I live in a country home, like, it’s like the, it was like a hundred years old.
And so I like blues and, and baseboard and. Yeah, no, that sounds, to be honest, I think I’m trying, I’m still trying to find my style. Yeah. No, and I think this is where, yeah, go ahead.
Kim: It’s never one, that’s why I think eclectic is, you know, it, it’s a place where a lot of people live. It’s, and it’s fine.
It’s just, it’s, it just helps you navigate your choices. That’s all.
Gissele: Yeah.
Kim: Yeah. And you know, also for people that don’t, that say, oh, I’m not visual, I’m not artistic. You know, I look and see how you’re dress. Okay, let’s go in the closet. What kind, how do you dress? What do you, mm-hmm. What’s your favorite color?
You know, it’s like you’re expressing yourself with those choices. All the time, but you just, you know, I think there’s so many, [00:42:00] like design style bullies, I like to call them.
Gissele: Mm-hmm. That, you know,
Kim: kind of pontificate, you know, this has to be, or you know, and just the way everything for what the last two, three years, all the walls are gray, every room is gray, you know?
Mm-hmm. It’s, and that’s the, a very low vibrational color. You don’t feel
Gissele: happy
Kim: in gray. Mm-hmm. I
Gissele: mean,
Kim: in green gray, you feel a little happier, you know, or blue gray. But yeah, and it’s just everything is just the same. And interestingly enough, I always go to retailers to just kind of see, okay, what’s everybody else doing?
It’s so interesting. All the white and cream now is all green. Olive green or brown, or with a little bit of ethnic pattern in, so it was sort of like reassuring on some level. Like, okay, there’s some like ethnic cultural expression here. Mm-hmm. So, but it was beautiful and it, it was very, and everything has curves [00:43:00] now.
Interesting. Everything is very, it’s all centered around nature and sustainability, thank God. Mm. Yeah. But I think now with the situation with furniture, I am a great believer in vintage and I’d sooner go to an antique or an auction or something to buy a beautiful piece of furniture. Then I’m gonna go to a, mass produced retailer.
And buy something. I mean, I advise my clients that, and I love upholstery, I love reupholstery and all of that. So you know, I think there’s gonna be a nice new movement in that regard. And I’m trying to like, get ahead of the wave a bit and find resources and clever ways to, you know, address all of that, you know, because that’s, I think what
Gissele: you’re saying is spot on.
I am seeing. Especially on TikTok, the trend around like, you know, recycling and moving away from that fast fashion, fast production, Because like, [00:44:00] I’m sure you, you’ve experienced this too, like a fridge that I would buy in the 1950s would last me like 20, 25 years where now.
Buy a new fridge. I’m not gonna name a brand. And it’s like within two, three years, there’s things that are cracking and breaking and they’re offering me a new thing or like, I’m like, yeah, why don’t you just make the fridge, fridge to last? I don’t, it’s not a disposable fridge. Like I don’t, I don’t understand.
And then it
Kim: goes at a land fill and it doesn’t decompose and there’s really that one little thing I’d love to share. It’s like one of my favorite things to do is when I go vintage shopping for like. Interesting fabric in the category of dresses. So I’ll go to the area where big, well, there weren’t so many, like big, like size 20, size 22, and look for incredible fabrics from the.
Forties and then I have enough to cover a chair. I have enough to make a [00:45:00] pillow after I clean it or put it on the back of a chair, do some pattern mix. The other thing I always encourage everyone to do is go to museums. I was just at the Cooper UIT Museum and there was the most extraordinary mix of.
African fabrics. I was like, oh my goodness, I’m gonna have to like up my game and resources, because it was so fascinating to see you take a French period piece and put a primitive, you know, African pattern on it mixed with something from Ethiopia. I think it’s just, it’s so exciting now because it’s like there’s so many influences and.
And enough for the white, everything. You know, who we’re Yeah,
Gissele: fair enough. Yeah. My husband used to always say that. He goes, that’s so what did he call it? Sterile hospital. Sterile, yeah. Kind of colors. What would you recommend if you were looking to create like a [00:46:00] sexy bedroom? Like what would be some colors that you might be, or is it not like that?
Is it like, it’s things that you should, like meditate on, for example?
Kim: Well, I think you, you really have to meditate on it, but the colors that relate, well, if you want, you wanna spice up the bedroom right away. A feng shui cure is red sheets red. Oh, wow. That’s bold though, right? No, no, no. So the sheets could be red, the covering could be be something else.
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Right. So it’s a little, it’s a surprise when you get, it’s a
Gissele: surprise when you walk in there.
Kim: Yeah,
Gissele: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kim: But, but I love, like, you know, the idea in bedrooms to do it like, a beautiful, you know, cool, restful, cool with the blue green tones. I did a project just a, a couple of years ago where we did all like exquisite tones of green with white in them.
So it did, was so restful in that bedroom. It just was like sublimely beautiful, you know, with, with white, but the whites were, were warm whites. [00:47:00] Not like white, white, like stark whites. And then the big thing in the bedroom is the lighting to do a dimmable light. And the other thing I always like to do, I’ve, I do this all the time, is I love like a big tree, like a either fiddle firm or a ficus.
And then you put a light at the bottom of the base so that at night when you’re sleeping, you have the shadows of trees. Reflected. I love any kind of Moroccan light that is the metal, pierced metal, so it gives off like a spray of light. So anything that creates like a beautiful atmosphere. And then also, I mean, I think flowers are beautiful.
I spent a month in Bali, and Bali was like a lesson in. The expression of flowers. And just recently in India, in Oroville as you walk to the matri mandir to meditate, they made these incredible. With just one [00:48:00] flower leaf. There were like a hundred different patterns of the flowers laid out. You weren’t supposed to take pictures, but I did because I had to like, I, I, yeah.
It was so
Gissele: spectacular. Yeah. Yeah.
Kim: I couldn’t draw fast enough to be like, oh my God, look at this pattern. It was like the most sublimely beautiful thing. So again, so for the bedroom, that little red sheet surprise, and then you could cover it with whatever other. Color you have. And then how does it feel? I mean, who doesn’t love, 500 count Egyptian sheets or, or like a beautiful mohair you know, like the layering of a bed.
I mean, there’s something so sumptuous about, layering of the bed or just your memory of like, oh, I love that hotel. What was there something about the way the bed was in the hotel? And then don’t underestimate your nose because to have an atomizer with lavender and then also [00:49:00] rosemary puts you, no, actually Rosemary stimulates you.
Excuse me.
Gissele: Yeah. I love rosemary.
Kim: Lavender is better. Sage, sage puts you to sleep. So you can have that like. the senses, right? it’s the temperature. It should always be cool. It should not be warm. It should be cool because then you’ll have a better night’s sleep. and then the window, I mean, it’s so interesting.
And French culture they cover all the windows. Like everybody closes themselves in the bedroom, so there’s no light, there’s shutters like. No light. Like I, I didn’t even know that until I had a French client and in a New York apartment, I had to make these sidelines to, you know, drapes like this.
Yeah. So no light would come in. I felt like it was King Tut’s tomb, you know what I mean? I had to like seal it tight.
Gissele: Yeah. That’s funny.
Kim: It’s very idiosyncratic for like, whatever your preferences are, but yeah. But I could go on and on with that, so just Oh [00:50:00] yeah.
Gissele: No, this was so fabulous. I love it. Couple more questions. I do. Does design start outside of the home?
is the process that of design that you help with. Oh. Is it all just inside or is there any outside components to it?
Kim: There’s, oh, there’s, for me, there’s tons of outside. It’s all about gathering. it’s hunting gathering all the time for me. Quite often, I’ll say, oh, you like to travel. Well, send me all the photos, and then I will take a couple and I’ll design the whole room around a photo, or we’ll design the room together around a photo.
I’ve done that quite a few times. Mm-hmm.
Gissele: And
Kim: to the point where other clients will say, oh, could you buy that for me? And I was like, well, I have to ask. You have to ask her, because that’s her picture. You know what I mean?
Gissele: Mm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So last question. Where can people find you? Where can people work with you?
Where can they come take the quiz?
Kim: Well, the quiz is on my website. It’s [00:51:00] absolutely free, and you get an answer pretty quickly. And then if you wanna go deeper and go on the website, we can have a discovery call. There’s also a platform, so my website and then also on my website. It’s something called Buy Me a Coffee, which is a platform where I’m gonna be uploading all of my eBooks and they’re very well priced and all different subjects.
I’m getting very prolific in that. And we can also book a session that I invented called Room Scan, and it’s very reasonable. It’s just a one hour session and we, I, I model a little bit of meditation and then. I send you a very detailed report with resources and then you take it from there. So and then I’m also available in the New York City area if you’re in, in the tri-state area.
That’s https://www.depoledesign.com. [00:52:00]
Gissele: Okay. Awesome.
Kim: North Pole, south Pole De-pole Depole.
Gissele: Thank you so much, Kim, for being on the show. This was just delightful. I learned so much, including you blowing my mind on this, which was amazing. Go finish
Kim: that house.
Gissele: Yes. Absolutely.
Kim: Go have a party, please. Thank
Gissele: you so, so much for being on the show. You were such a delight. You’re welcome back anytime. And please join us again on another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. See you soon.