While I had a smattering of magical moments growing up, mostly playing at my great aunt Leonie’s and with my best friend, I wouldn’t look back and consider myself a happy child. I grew up in a small town of 800 people in North-East Kansas. I wandered freely there because I knew everyone and the environment of the community offered safety not found today.
I remember hearing several sayings that puzzled me: “Home is where the heart is” and (of course, like Dorothy being from Kansas) “There’s no place like home”. In the isolation I felt and without having the reference of a larger world, these sayings didn’t mean much to me. More importantly, even though I have some fond memories from that time, what I remember most wanting was to leave.
As children do, I took my home for granted. I lived in the same house for 18 years. My mother used to tell us the story of seeing the house being built when she was 3 years old. She thought it was a church. As endearing as her story was, it was not my experience. My home was filled with too much underlying stress and that was particularly challenging for me, as I was an extremely sensitive child. I was also the scapegoat in the family so I felt in some way that I was causing the disharmony.
Ours was a fairly highly functioning low functioning family. We looked great to the public but behind the closed doors of our home it was dysfunctional with all the rules that go along with it. I could tell from going to my friends’ houses which were calm and supportive that something wasn’t right at home but, of course, the first rule I learned was to keep silent.
I had fantasies about how my life was going to be when I left home. I made up stories about it and acted them out with my friend. It was comforting to imagine having a healthy scenario for home. The more I tried to create a more harmonious place in my mind, the more difficult it became to settle for what was then my reality. By the time I was a teenager I found myself feeling agitated, irritable and angry most of the time.
I left home with lofty hopes of finally being able to live the life I wanted. It was not so easy as I had imagined. College gave me structure and an artificial form to live in but I still spent most of the time in the same turmoil I had felt growing up. I just couldn’t seem to get my feet under me.
Two patterns emerged that repeated themselves over and over throughout my life. One was to develop a relationship that would help ground me and make my life “feel” more stable. The other was to look for places to live and spend excessive amounts of energy fixing them up so that they would feel like my image of “home”.
One day in my early twenties I had a startling revelation: I realized that I had to take responsibility for myself. This might seem like an obvious thing, but it had not been in my consciousness. I wasn’t sure what it meant? All I knew was that it scared me to think about it.
In the beginning my therapist gently took me back through the dark feelings from my childhood. With guidance I began to develop and understand the skills of having feelings. It began to emerge that a major difference between being an adult and being a child when it comes to feelings is perspective. It is much easier to see what is going on with the objectivity of an adult.
As I worked on myself, the satisfaction of reclaiming my life gave me such confidence I knew I could never turn back. From that moment, I have been on my inner journey. I know that what goes on in my outer world is reflected in my inner feelings. So, if I want to change what is happening on the outside, I must work from the inside out.
It took me years working within this framework before I came to the conclusion that my inner self was trying very hard to discover what “home” meant. Childhood had given me images that were superimposing over my present and I was experiencing the distortions from the past. After working with the symbol of “home” through many different creative modalities, it began to become clear that the home I was yearning for was inside. The more work I did on myself the brighter and calmer my life became. I recognized that the people and places I had tried to find as an adult for my stability were simply impulses from my healthy inner self, yearning for safety, empowerment and support.
Now I finally understand the meaning of those sayings I heard as a child. Home is where the heart is. Tethered securely to my Self, I feel strong, secure and confident in my inner home. It is a relief to know that “home” is inside. Not looking outside for home means that I can avoid a lot of pain, disappointment and heartache. It really is true: there is no place like home!
I remember hearing several sayings that puzzled me: “Home is where the heart is” and (of course, like Dorothy being from Kansas) “There’s no place like home”. In the isolation I felt and without having the reference of a larger world, these sayings didn’t mean much to me. More importantly, even though I have some fond memories from that time, what I remember most wanting was to leave.
As children do, I took my home for granted. I lived in the same house for 18 years. My mother used to tell us the story of seeing the house being built when she was 3 years old. She thought it was a church. As endearing as her story was, it was not my experience. My home was filled with too much underlying stress and that was particularly challenging for me, as I was an extremely sensitive child. I was also the scapegoat in the family so I felt in some way that I was causing the disharmony.
Ours was a fairly highly functioning low functioning family. We looked great to the public but behind the closed doors of our home it was dysfunctional with all the rules that go along with it. I could tell from going to my friends’ houses which were calm and supportive that something wasn’t right at home but, of course, the first rule I learned was to keep silent.
I had fantasies about how my life was going to be when I left home. I made up stories about it and acted them out with my friend. It was comforting to imagine having a healthy scenario for home. The more I tried to create a more harmonious place in my mind, the more difficult it became to settle for what was then my reality. By the time I was a teenager I found myself feeling agitated, irritable and angry most of the time.
I left home with lofty hopes of finally being able to live the life I wanted. It was not so easy as I had imagined. College gave me structure and an artificial form to live in but I still spent most of the time in the same turmoil I had felt growing up. I just couldn’t seem to get my feet under me.
Two patterns emerged that repeated themselves over and over throughout my life. One was to develop a relationship that would help ground me and make my life “feel” more stable. The other was to look for places to live and spend excessive amounts of energy fixing them up so that they would feel like my image of “home”.
One day in my early twenties I had a startling revelation: I realized that I had to take responsibility for myself. This might seem like an obvious thing, but it had not been in my consciousness. I wasn’t sure what it meant? All I knew was that it scared me to think about it.
In the beginning my therapist gently took me back through the dark feelings from my childhood. With guidance I began to develop and understand the skills of having feelings. It began to emerge that a major difference between being an adult and being a child when it comes to feelings is perspective. It is much easier to see what is going on with the objectivity of an adult.
As I worked on myself, the satisfaction of reclaiming my life gave me such confidence I knew I could never turn back. From that moment, I have been on my inner journey. I know that what goes on in my outer world is reflected in my inner feelings. So, if I want to change what is happening on the outside, I must work from the inside out.
It took me years working within this framework before I came to the conclusion that my inner self was trying very hard to discover what “home” meant. Childhood had given me images that were superimposing over my present and I was experiencing the distortions from the past. After working with the symbol of “home” through many different creative modalities, it began to become clear that the home I was yearning for was inside. The more work I did on myself the brighter and calmer my life became. I recognized that the people and places I had tried to find as an adult for my stability were simply impulses from my healthy inner self, yearning for safety, empowerment and support.
Now I finally understand the meaning of those sayings I heard as a child. Home is where the heart is. Tethered securely to my Self, I feel strong, secure and confident in my inner home. It is a relief to know that “home” is inside. Not looking outside for home means that I can avoid a lot of pain, disappointment and heartache. It really is true: there is no place like home!
