By Rosie Battista
You may have a “Home is Where the Heart Is” sign hanging somewhere in your house. You have almost certainly seen it if you walk through Home Goods or a Target store. It’s a very popular, lovely phrase. The question is do we really know what it means?
It came even clearer to me a few months ago while at a business retreat in Sedona, Arizona, at a beautiful Airbnb, overlooking the red rocks, that I understood that at a deeper level.
I felt really at home here, with a bunch of women I barely knew and a few I had met for the very first time, hours earlier-cozy, comfy, safe, where I could be myself.
We had an exercise where the facilitator asked, “What does “home” mean to you?”
People said various things like a place to rest my head, a safe space, a beautiful haven, and almost everyone mentioned something about love. One woman even described herself as a “nomad”. Another had moved around the world every 5 years to different locations and hadn’t been back to her original house in 28 years.
And that’s the thing…
It’s more than making your house warm and cozy. It’s more than having your favorite things around you. It’s more than sipping tea by your favorite window with the sunlight streaming in, or the fireplace mantle you hang your Christmas stockings.
All of this is wonderful and adds to the feeling of contentment and happiness.
But let’s dig in and go a little deeper. What if all that you love about your physical home was taken away from you? What if you decided one day to fill your backpack and leave it all?
What if you had no option but to move out of a physical home you loved your whole life?
Would you leave your heart in the house? Or would your home come with you in your heart?
It’s fun to contemplate these ideas. As the world changes around us, we see that we don’t have control over what happens. We DO have control over how we respond to it and
to the choices we make.
Most importantly we are the creators of our own life, created with our thoughts. Everything starts inside ourselves. Any change we want to make, and any miracles we pray to experience, all originate from within.
Home is inside you. It is your center. It’s that inner peace and connection to a power greater than yourself, wrapped with love and the knowing that you are safe exactly where you are, exactly as you are, no matter where you are.
Setting yourself up for your heart center to be the place you go to for comfort and peace gives you the freedom to know that you have access to that, no matter where you physically live or what happens in the world around you.
It’s that simple and that profound. So go ahead, keep decorating, and keep that cozy fire going, but know that all you need is within you now and home is right there.
Rosie Battista is a Life Entrepreneur, helping women over 50 become the woman God intended them to be, uncover their long-suppressed gifts, and get them out into the world. Visit her website to learn more: rosiebattista.com