Have you ever looked around your bedroom and seen piles of laundry and papers scattered all over your floor? I bet you know the days where you can’t find anything you’ve been searching for. You have this sense of chaos and disorder in your physical surroundings, as well as in your mind. Have you ever noticed the interwoven connection between outer and inner states? That your home environment is reflected in the home that lies within your heart? When we lack commitment to our true selves, we lack the sensations and experiences that we might want to associate with home – a four letter word.
Safety, security, comfort, joy, love, tranquility, warmth and sanctity are all present within the soft and malleable walls of our own inner homes (hearts).
When my home is hard to find, and I have trouble committing to where I physically am, I remind myself that “home is where the heart is, and this is my heart’s home-base.” This phrase has provided me with assurance when I felt unsteady or insecure in my external expression of home. It reminded me that wherever I was was exactly where I needed to be in that moment, and that my self-love and commitment could carry me through. I like to relate this saying to the identity of a traveller; someone who always seems to be wandering but has a steady, strong-willed heartbeat. A traveller who feels absolutely at home within themselves, using each place they reach as their next landing point, their next home-base.
However, one doesn’t necessarily have to fly across the world, country-to-country to find their heart. The feeling of being ungrounded or somehow out of place happens more often than not in the places that we might actually be most familiar with. On your way to work, school, or to a meet up with friends, you might feel like your feet are about to slip from under you and you are unable to think straight. That’s definitely how I was feeling one morning en route to a desperately needed yoga class when I came up with another little ditty to help me get through the ride.
Again, I was feeling out of sorts and this happened to be another reminder of where my home truly lies.
Get yourself to a yoga class. Find yourself baby, on the mat. When you feel like you’re all alone, remind yourself that your heart’s your home.
Things had been running a little off-course, and singing this was a catchy and silly way to put things into perspective and get me back into my center, feet firmly on the ground.
Being ‘at home’ means curating and creating your exterior environment, but it also requires realizing that your inner home needs tending, mending and commitment too. I find when I shift my focus back in towards my own heart and allow myself to feel at home, the outside parts get taken care of. What I desire to create manifests faster and more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
We’ve all had negative experiences of home…
Home is where the dishes pile up in the sink, there is laundry to do, dinner has to be on the table in twenty, and the dog has to be taken for a walk. Your husband has an appointment and you have to take the kids to practice.
Or, home is a place that you go to where you are alone to sit and eat by yourself night after night. You lay in an empty bed watching Netflix until your eyes hurt. You have to go to work tomorrow to a job you hate, take care of your mother and then come back home to a place filled with chaos and disorder that’s too small and too expensive and takes you forever to get to and from work each night, all alone.
Or, home seems perfectly fine and you have everything you need except for that there is an underlying sense of violence between the people who inhabit it. Something doesn’t feel right and you don’t feel like you belong. Whatever the external expression and situations, this definitely is not what you would like to call a home. This is not the life or the home you envisioned for yourself.
So, what if when you thought of home, instead you imagined a place that encompasses everything you truly desire?
What if your home was where you can be your truest and best self? A place where you were free to create and design anything your heart called for without entertaining internal or external judgments? What if home was a place where you make the most delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners to share with family, friends and lovers? Or your home office was the space where you came up with your most innovative inventions and developments for your own life-changing and conscious business. What if your bedroom was a place to retreat, where you could unravel yourself in the arms of your lover to experience the most romantic and ecstatic love-making you’ve ever dreamed of!?
What if inside yourself you were truly and fully committed to actualizing all of these desires, within your home and within your own heart?
I’ll tell you that if you were, then your desires would begin to grow like wildflowers and reflect in your physical reality. They would start to make you sing and breathe a breath of fresh air. The feelings of love, security, and safety would feel like they’ve been there with you all along, only now they seem even brighter than ever and fully grounded within you.
Here is how you can start to create your ideal sense of home, inside and out, by using the word commitment (which is not as scary as it’s made out to be).
- Commit to yourself by choosing to settle and be present in one place. No more shuffling back and forth because of your “fear of commitment.” Commitment isn’t meant to cut you off, shut you down, or hold you back. It’s absolutely the opposite. The moment you commit to something, especially something aligned to your values and desires, then you set yourself free by leaps and bounds. You become free to actually experience something different than what you are currently experiencing. Your life immediately changes and starts to honour your new commitment. Treat it with love, respect and care and see how it flourishes for the better.
- Commit to yourself by claiming that space as your own and embracing the gifts that come with responsibility. Yes, it’s challenging to make rent every month and pay for your groceries every week. But, let yourself feel wonderful and grateful that you have these kinds of responsibilities. Yes, paying bills is a tedious task but paying bills means you are also able to buy things. Be grateful enough that you can afford to pay those bills! With them, you gain your own sense of freedom and the self-empowerment to live and create the kind of lifestyle you crave. Every-time you are about to say “I have to,” say “I can” instead, and your perspective will shift wildly.
- Commit to yourself by settling into and creating the vibration that you wish for your physical and spiritual home bodies. Envision what home should feel like; rest, tranquility, productivity, sensuality, spirituality, luxury, comfort, creativity, development, community. Find ways to manifest this energy, even in small doses. Place a dozen roses (or your favourite flower) in your master bedroom and feel how that changes the room, enhancing it with love, sensuality and romance. Imagine that the big conch seashell that rests in your living room fills the space with the sound of the ocean, wind, and waves. Allow it to help you feel at ease, as if you were on a vacation in your own home. Cook warm, special meals and share them with your loved ones to let feelings of warmth, care and interaction fill your kitchen and expand into your heart.
- Commit to yourself by making sure all your basic needs are met. Do the dishes while listening to your favourite tunes. Read poetry while waiting for your laundry to dry. Do your taxes and then go for a heart-thrilling run, and go for a massage afterwards. Make a budget and create it with the knowledge that you are actually helping yourself. You are saving time, money and energy in the long run by getting things organized and clear for yourself. This will allow you to expand and grow. Take care of yourself in all aspects of your life, especially the daily responsibilities so that you can seriously start living at the pace and depth that your heart desires.
Committing to ourselves means we feel at home within our own bodies, wherever we are and wherever we go. So when you feel lost, place your right hand on your heart and your left hand on your belly. Let your eyelids close. Take a few deep breaths and just witness how your body knows exactly what to do. It has a heart that beats, feeling vast and varying degrees of emotions, at the simplest regulation of your breath. An inhale, and an exhale. You are already whole, and already complete. Trust that in strength and allow yourself to feel fully embodied. Find your home just by grounding into the place that emulates the simplest, sweetest, and commonly heard saying, “home is where the heart is.” Make that your commitment.
