“You love Cleveland?” said the guy waiting for his coffee. “Yes,” I said. “It’s scrappy and evolving and hasn’t quite made it, there’s an energy of evolution and inspiration. The music is fab, the museums are awesome, the food is delicious, the schools are varied and brilliant and my kids are happy. The metroparks are gorgeous and the quality of life here is phenomenal,” I evangelized.
“What are you smoking?” he said. “I’m off to Florida for the winter, this place sucks at this time of year.”
It’s a good thing I meditate every day and didn’t react to that irritating interaction – it’s a practice that helps keep me focused, calm and present, engage in the world from a place of honesty and truth and it also boosts my immune function, improves my memory & makes me more compassionate.
Sometimes though, like this morning, I just get really cool ideas when I meditate. And then, my work is to store that thought for later exploration and get on with the business of meditating – letting the thoughts go and coming back to the breath.
“You can’t make homes out of human beings.”
I have a diverse and varied group of friends. There’s one group, who we have a name for and we group text about our lives, our experiences, our work, our dates, and troubles and we love and support each other. I was texting about dating and two of them started sharing poems with me.
“You can’t make homes out of human beings.”
This line, killed me, because it so perfectly encapsulated what I had always felt that a deeply loving relationship should be. But then, when relationships fail, you realize that you have to be home in your self. Home in your own mind, home in your own body, otherwise you deeply suffer, because you’ve defined yourself in reference to other.
So this might seem tangential, but I recently read that if you have an entrepreneurial personality type, you see connections between things. So, stick with me here.
I realized that what I think was going on with that guy in the coffee shop was that he was not happy in himself, he was not home in himself, so was looking for homes in other parts of the world and perhaps with other people. He was looking for homes in different places and was defending his choices by insulting me! I had a relationship with someone who was so kind and loving to me, but struggled to turn that towards himself. In hindsight I think he was trying to make me his home, which, on some levels, was wonderful, in that he made me feel grounded, connected, contained, but on other levels was hard because I felt the weight of being his home.
So, this is it – where’s your home? Can you find it in yourself? Here are my tips to help you become your own home:
1) Know, stimulate & love your mind: Meditate daily, read/listen to engaging stories, have interesting conversations, volunteer
2) Know, stimulate and love your body: Exercise daily & challenge yourself, eat & sleep well, practice Abhyanga (warm sesame oil and rub it into your body)
One of the reasons I have always loved Ayurveda – the Science of Life – is that health is described as Svastha – being seated in the self. That to me, feels like home, when my mind and body are deeply connected, nourished and loved.
Copyright Tamsin Astor, Yoga Brained LLC, 2016.