“30 Days to a More Optimistic You” Positivity Challenge – Day 29. Heart and Home

As the old saying goes, home is where the heart is. Every day is surely a time to be grateful for your home, the resting spot for your body and the place to renew your spirit. There are many who do not have a home. They may be living on the streets, in a shelter, or taking advantage of their friends’ couches for a while.

Home means different things to different people. Some folks prefer that their home be placed in a crowded, bustling city. Others call the quiet countryside home. And lots more others make their home in a place that’s somewhere in between.

Do you love to be home? Not everyone does. “Homebody” doesn’t fit all people and personalities. For some, home is a merely a form of shelter and a crash pad to drop by every now and again. Home is what you make it.

The word “home” can conjure up painful memories to some. A household that’s rife with conflict and dysfunction certainly doesn’t feel like a safe place to rest your heart. A house where deprivation is a fact of life may not feel like home, either.

You may have grown up in a house with lots of neighbours near by, or in the country where your closest neighbour was a mile away. Or you might have lived in an apartment. Wherever it was, if you grew up in a home full of love and comforts, then be glad for this! It’s something that we tend to take for granted.

Exercise 29: What does home mean to you?

Think about your childhood home. What did you love about it? What aspects of your home life could you have done without? I loved my bedroom in our house in Toronto. I had a cool closet that was child size. We had a 1 1/2 story house, so the roof was quite slanted.

Did you have certain attachments related to your home growing up that now color your adult life? Rituals that your family always participated in, comfort foods, things that you always did with family? Over the years we had many rituals around holidays – Sunday dinners with grandmothers, family get togethers at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Did others see your home as a welcoming place? When someone came to visit you at your home, did you feel proud of your family and at ease to have them in your territory?

What did the house where you grew up look like? What about the yard? The street you lived on? What did the inside of your home look like? Was it happily disheveled, or tidy and free of clutter?

And the place that you call home in your adult life… is it modeled after your childhood home? Or did you happily cast aside aspects of your former home, in favor of creating a home space for yourself that’s more in line with your needs?

Share some things you have discovered as you look back.

Journal It.

Think about how wonderful it is to have a home. Write about what makes your home feel comfortable and special to you.

Write about what changes you’d make to your home if you could. The changes can be physical, but they can also be about mental health.

Is your home a happy and balanced, nurturing environment?

Whatever and wherever it may be, give thanks for Home, Sweet Home!

To being grateful for your home

Fran Watson