I grew up believing that the phrase, ‘Home is where the heart is’, means that no matter where you are in the world or who you’re with, your home and family will always have your deepest affection and greatest pull in life. When we have a place to call ‘home’, it helps us feel that we belong, we’re accepted, and we matter.
‘Love begins at home.’
Mother Theresa
The word ‘home’ implies somewhere where we feel it’s safe enough to be ourselves, comfortable enough to let our guard down, peaceful enough to relax, and trusting enough to open up to life. While this is true for most people, where their childhood home was a safe, nurturing, loving environment creating a secure foundation from which they draw their strength, the warm and happy memories support them in living an independent and fulfilling life. Others experienced their childhood home as a place where their caregivers met their basic needs. Shelter, food and clothing were provided, but without the nurturing care needed to promote a healthy approach to life. And unfortunately, for others, their childhood home was a place of great distress, abuse and neglect.
‘Where thou art, that is home.’
Emily Dickinson
‘Home is where the heart is’ has another meaning, and that is that ‘home’ is not a place but is in fact a feeling. It isn’t just the house, the town, the city or even the family we’re born into but is in fact where the heart feels loved and nurtured. Home is wherever you find love or nurturing support, that’s where the heart is; that’s where the heart opens up to life and living, drawing you in through the nurturing pull of love, opening you up to trusting in the flow of life. It’s through the heart that we feel emotional strength. It’s through the heart that we feel hope. It’s through the heart that we feel loved and accepted.
‘Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.’
Hermann Hesse
Home has another meaning. It’s in our heart that we can find a safe place within where we feel comfortable in our body, where we feel safe enough to be ourselves, where we believe we are enough to turn up in life and be who we’re meant to be, where we can shine our light and fully embrace all that life has to offer us, ‘where we can go as we are and not be questioned’.
‘Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.’
Herman Hesse
Home is where the heart links us to our deepest and purest level of self-love, self-acceptance, and self-worth, building our resilience so that we may face life’s challenges knowing that we’re safe, loved and totally accepted from deep within. This is the strongest, most secure foundation we can ever have in life, as it’s not dependent upon something or someone outside of ourselves. It comes from deep within, from our innate intelligence. The pulse of our creation is in our heartbeat. Our heart knows who we are at our deepest level, and it works in our favour. Feeling at home in our skin, feeling at home in our body, gives us the confidence and deep inner knowing needed to go with the flow in life.
‘Home is literally where the heart is.’
Unknown
Energetically speaking, home is literally where the heart is. And it’s up to each and every one of us what kind of home we get to have; we get to choose. It helps if we can create a warm, self-caring, self-loving, self-accepting, nurturing, supportive home. When we connect to our heart and find our ‘home’ within, we will always connect with that deep inner feeling of belonging and total acceptance. No one can take that away from us, regardless of whether they remain in our life or not.
‘A house is made with walls and beams. A home is made with love and dreams.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Whatever we’re feeling in the heart will determine our thoughts. If we feel nurtured and loved, then our thoughts will be nurturing and loving. If we believe we’re nurtured and loved, this is the signal we send to the cosmos, and the cosmos will match this energy, like for like, no questions asked. Then life will provide us with many reasons to feel ‘at home’ and accepted.
Create the home of your dreams, love yourself, love life and dream big!