What or Who Do You Call Home and Is It Your Happy Place?

Image by TheUjulala from Pixabay

We are now twelve thousand miles from the place I usually live, which has caused me to muse on the meaning of the word home. Technically I have returned to what could also be called home, which is the country I was born and brought up in, and lived for the first few decades of my life.

As we flew here I became acutely aware, as the journey progressed, of this planet we call home. In the years of COVID19 restrictions I was feeling decidedly cut off from other people and places, so it was a joy to traverse much of the planet from the air and - with the aid of the now readily available satellite communications – give regular updates to my loved ones about where on the planet we now were.

Starting in the Antipodes, we made our way over Indonesia, south eastern Asia, and India, where I have spent some time. Then we moved on into the Middle East before landing in the United Arab Emirates. The temperature at 5.30 in the morning was 33 degrees and, as the sun came up, I could only see the golden top of the Gevora Hotel; the Burj Khalifa was hidden in the fog.

I find it fascinating watching the maps on the plane that show which parts of the world the sun is illuminating at any point in time, and it gives me the sense that life on our planet is always in motion. As we headed over southern and eastern Europe and on into western Europe I could feel a sense of growing familiarity with the lands and places of my earlier years.

But is this physical perspective actually what I consider to be home? Part of it perhaps.

When overwhelmed, from the time she was able to talk, my eldest child has often said “I want to go home”.  This may sound sensible enough, but when she said it - more often than not – she already was at home in the sense of meaning “the house in which we live”.

As a parent, like any other, I learned to discern what my kids meant through non verbal means from their earliest days as babies. What I quickly ascertained was that she was referring to the much broader place from whence she came, pre physical existence, where human trials and tribulations are seen from a much lighter and broader perspective.

Regardless of beliefs on that topic, I think the more distance we have from anything, the more perspective we can gain without getting lost in the intensity of the moment. It truly is a case of seeing the wood from the trees. So is this more spiritual definition my true north when it comes to defining home?

Certainly there are times I too feel life would be easier if I could just let go of its cumbersome impossibility. Of course, I recognise that now as very apt. If I’m seeing something as impossible, it is. Letting go of unwieldy concerns for me is a process of gaining perspective upon them. I have to give myself permission to really sit down with my worst fears and hear them out before I can have space to entertain any other perspectives.

This, though, is a psychological struggle. Teal Swan says “For many of us the home (that we grew up in) was a mix of good feelings and bad feelings, but it’s the painful associations that we have with home that cause the problems in our love relationships.” That sense of home is driven by our biochemical and neurological wiring, which is where my worst fear often stem from, the outdated inner voices of a childhood long gone.

Psychologically and emotionally, after a deliberate personal growth journey, many of those earlier unhelpful inner voices that had continued to drive my subconscious narrative for far too long are now more at peace. This means that the people I attract and am attracted to, are not simply replays of old dynamics any longer. I am no longer subconsciously seeking a “do over” to try and evoke different outcomes to assuage any feelings of lack of worth, differences or belonging.

In essence, for the most part, I am no longer seeking permission to be me.

And that means that - in terms of those people, creatures and places that take up the majority of my time and attention on a daily basis – there is a far closer alignment to what I would call my starting point, my spiritual perspective. 

This is when I am truly at home and at peace, when my outer and inner worlds are all in harmony and alignment. As per the sign in my lounge, at last “Home is my haven, a happy place where I am supported and encouraged, a place where I am loved and can love”. I feel truly blessed now for the people and circumstances of my life.

What about you, what is your definition of home? And is it a happy one which provides you with a sense of being supported and encouraged? Where you can love and be loved for exactly who you truly are?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy How to Make Home a Happy Place Where You Are Loved, Supported and Encouraged, Where Talent Meets Passion: Cherish Your Life as a Career? and Give Yourself the Gift of Presence to Relieve the Torture of Stress.  To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.