Coming Home

I am surrounded by stacking boxes and  open cabinets, once overflowing, now sitting empty ready to be filled by the next owner.  As I prepare to leave our home for the last 34 years, I am struck by what the word home means.

Obviously, it is an architectural structure – the many walls surrounding me, sheltering me, rooms filled with furniture, holding people, sounds, scents, and memories.  Holding…. holding…. so much more.

I have been in houses that aren’t homes.  You know what I mean.  You walk in and there is nothing there that makes you feel at home. 

The decorating may be out of Architectural Digest or House Beautiful.  The furnishings of the highest quality and fit right in.  Yet, something is missing.

What makes a home?

Is it the people in it?  The intention in creating it?  The energy within it?

We just closed on our brand new townhome.  I walk in and feel the open spaciousness – pregnant with possibility.  Just waiting for us.

It’s a clean slate – a blank page.  This ignites my creativity as I’m bombarded with options.  Mind full and activated  — just like my internet shopping search history – seeking what do I want to create in this space.  It’s not just about the style — the type of furniture we should get or where it should be placed – it’s about cultivating the environment that will serve us now and bring us into our future.

I’ve been working on my letting go muscles and strengthening them for the past several years.  Letting go for my now adult children, my very successful career in PR and Marketing, and now the house I raised my family in for decades.  My letting go muscles are strong.  I’m ready to use them to question how much “stuff”  I actually need and want to bring into this new space.  To let go and be open to what is next without knowing exactly what it looks like.

Stepping into the void.  On purpose.

Now that sounds like what John Wellwood refers to as stepping to “the razor’s edge”.  The place where growth occurs.

Hmmmm….. stepping into … our new Space. 

While it isn’t exactly The Final Frontier ….. I do like the sound of that. I like the lightness of it. The breadth of it.  It gives me breathing room.  It feels sooooo good.  

I will sit in the energy of possibility our new home represents.  I don’t want to just automatically fill it because the space is there.  Because I can.

Don’t we all abhor any kind of space?  We fill the silence with meaningless words.  We fill in the blanks when we are uncomfortable with the unknowingness of life.  We cling to certainty when there is no such thing.

I will challenge myself to model what I often ask my clients to do.

To be with the unknowing – waiting for the moment when I do know.

For our new home, that means I will curate the right things for the right places – and that will take time.

This is not unlike what I support my b.u. coaching clients to do.  Together we curate a life – their life.  Together we navigate the uncomfortable unknowing spaces. Together we sit and wait.

We can struggle with this, often because it’s easy to get caught up in our heads – we try to think our way out of situations that make us uncomfortable.  When this happens, I suggest we take moment to connect to what is inside the body — to take a moment and feel.  When we feel our bodies it’s easier to connect to our emotions .. to connect inside ourselves.

This is what I call – coming home to ourselves. 

Once there, we set anchor.   We put a marker where that inner knowing is located so that later when we most need that solid footing –we can call upon the strength and certainty of that place.  It is then we ask the questions and find the answers that lead us  to living a more authentic life.

THIS is coming home.

This is our home base that helps us experience a sense of peace and even freedom, no matter how confining the outer circumstances – the solid or crumbling structures of our life.

Coming home to ourselves feels like belonging; it is a state that holds us and enables us to hold others. It’s the sweetest of sensations. Trust me.

When we bring our mind back to our body, we come home. We could consider this emotional state as our true home. This home inside of us is a home no one can take away from us, and it cannot be damaged or destroyed. No matter what happens around us, if we can find this home inside of us, we are always safe.  We can be true to ourselves from this place.

The tragic truth is that most of us are conditioned to live our whole lives estranged from this home within ourselves.

Perhaps it is this sense of belonging that is what may be missing from those houses that don’t quite feel like a home.  Maybe when we walk in – we can sense there is no foundation of belonging there.

Maybe this is why we are so divided in our culture, our country.  So many of us don’t feel like we belong.  We don’t offer that open sense of belonging to each other very easily.  Our judgments – both of ourselves and each other are barriers to belonging.

Home is belonging.

As I write this, I am gaining clarity that our new home is where we next belong. 

It won’t matter what I fill it with as long as I feel it’s where I am meant to be.  As long as I know it’s where I belong.