I went to visit my brother in the closest thing I have to a hometown. I relived so many memories and that brought up so many feelings. It was hard, but I also began to meditate on what home really means and how people experience it.

What is Home? As a nomad child, everywhere was home, and nowhere was; that’s a feeling that lingers. Add a cup full of poverty and a dash of personality peculiarity and you have a recipe for non-belonging. I still don’t feel like I really belong anywhere (except with my kids). But if home was a place this town used to be the closest thing I’ve ever had. Until recently.

For me, home in it’s purest sense is a safe place where you feel most like yourself. It is a place of rest, a place to grow, somewhere you can be vulnerable, somewhere you can breathe. By that definition I sometimes wonder if anyone feels like they truly have a home. Many times we struggle to feel at home even within our own bodies and I think this is a cause of deep sadness. At least it is for me. At the very bare bones, you should feel at home in yourself.

But do you? Do you feel at home in yourself? Do you feel at home in your body?

I was gifted an incredible book called Welcome Home by Najwa Zebain. The premise of the book is that when we make our home in places other than ourselves, we are giving others the power to make us homeless. Buildings get old and fall down and relationships crumble; if this is where you set up home, one day you will be homeless. But if you build your home within yourself, making your own body and soul your sanctuary, that can never be taken from you. To do this requires self-love, grace, patience, and a fuck ton of self-awareness.

I’m only now learning to connect with this flesh shell my soul is encased in. We’ve been so culturally conditioned to dominate nature and view matter as if it needs to be subjugated by the realm of ideas, an ideology that is so ancient Plato talks about it (this is why the study and understanding of mythology and the evolution of belief is so important, but that’s a conversation for another day). This manifests in our attitude toward our bodies (our bodies are matter, the ground our spirit stands on), and even many who claim to be living a healthy lifestyle are more focused on “getting in shape”, characterized by rigid diets and excessive exercise. Yes, our bodies need healthy exercise and food, but too often what our bodies actually need is the last thing on our minds and many of us wouldn’t begin to know how to listen to what they have to say. Our body communicates the same way a plant does, slowly, with feeling, and over time which is directly in opposition with the hustle culture we in the west currently live under.

“to be at war with your own flesh is to be homeless”

My point is, home begins in the body. That is step one for me. If you don’t feel at home in your body, no outside home will ever give you that sense of true safety and comfort because to be at war with your own flesh is to be homeless. If we don’t feel safety in our own bodies, how can we expect to feel safe anywhere else?

I remember vividly the day I realized how alone I am in here, in my body. There is no one else in here with me. It’s more than growing to like your own company (which is an important step as well); feeling safe in your body means actively dismantling the strongholds of trauma and cultural conditioning and when I say we need to do this, I’m not being flippant or trivializing it. It’s fucking hard work and feels like an uphill battle at times. Healing isn’t linear, it’s cyclical. One day you will feel light years ahead of where you’ve been, only to be plunged back into it the dregs of it the next day. But you are growing. You are healing. Trust your process and keep going.

I certainly don’t claim that I’ve mastered this. Healing is humbling work, but as I move closer to building a home in myself, I start to see safety and rest in my surroundings. More often, I notice beauty in unexpected places. I begin to see my insides manifest on the outside. And if that outside manifestation starts to crumble it’s ok, because it’s still here, inside of me.

The more you connect with the home in yourself, the more able you are to create that home on the outside too. You know what you like, but more importantly you know who you are (if you’re anything like me this is an important distinction. I like alot of things, but not all of those things reflect who I am). I imagine myself most often as an aesthetic and I personally find this a really powerful tool in self-reflection. It helps me visualize what my inner landscape looks like, and reminds me of what feels most like home.

I thought I was going up North to see my brother and work on my personal project. And I guess that was my original intent, but now I realize that the purpose of the trip was more of a Selah moment – a sacred pause, negative space to feel the feelings and sit in quiet so that I could hear my body and my soul speak. We need these, and I hope you allow yourself these moments as well; on your journey to your inner homeland. There really is no place like home.