Where do you feel at home? Is that in the house where you grew up in? Is that in a different city or even another country? What does feeling at home mean for you?
I asked myself this question again when I was in the Netherlands for a few days this week to do a practical exam for a 4-year Core Energetics training I started in 2018. Which I gloriously passed, by the way! :-)
Five years ago, I chose to expand my skills by following the 4-year Core Energetics professional training. Core Energetics is a form of active, body-oriented therapy, and this would be a great addition to all modalities I was working with. I knew this would help me to bring people home. Home in their bodies and themselves.
What is home?
I never really felt at home anywhere in my adult life. I left my father's house when I was 19, and the day I moved, my room was converted into someone else's bedroom. I have moved around since. I enjoyed the places I lived, but somehow I always felt unsettled. When I bought my house in Alkmaar in 2001, I came close to feeling at home somewhere, but I also knew that that wouldn't be the house I would spend the rest of my life in.
Throughout my life, I traveled the many parts of the world and experienced a lot of different cultures. Shorter and sometimes more prolonged traveling periods made me respect what I had 'back home.' But I always wondered if I went 'back home' if I returned from traveling.
I moved to the UK in 2019, nine months before the pandemic started. I tried to feel at home here but found it hard when the cultural differences were apparent, and my temporary place didn't feel like a place I wanted to make my home. Initially, living in the UK also gave me the feeling I had one foot in the Netherlands and one foot in the UK, which made it harder even to ground.
I just never found the home some people talked about.
So this week, when I arrived in the Netherlands, the country I was born and raised in, I reflected on how I felt being there. Do I feel at home here? Do I belong in the Netherlands?
I can feel that I am Dutch, and I love the Netherlands. I can connect to the pride and the shame of my ancestry. I feel connected with the history of my country of origin and the familiarity of being there. I love the flatness of the countryside, the structure and the organization of everything, and the directness of the people. But I still don't feel at home when I am there.
Home is not a place
So what does it mean to me to feel at home?
A few years ago, I was on a medicine journey, and the medicine showed me what being at home meant. It was in me; my body was my home. It might sound a bit cliché, but that's how it felt. I connected fully to my body and my essence, and I settled. There was nowhere else I wanted to be at that moment.
I believe that is 'feeling at home.' Feeling settled and peaceful while not wanting to be somewhere else.
I started to accept that my home is me, and the more I can own that, the more I can feel at home anywhere I am. It helps me to be in the moment and to be present anywhere I am. To enjoy the things life brings me right there, right then.
I wish everybody to feel at home.
This is also why I decided to add Core Energetics to the modalities I work with. Working with the body, bringing people in connection to their bodies is bringing people home. I love the image that everybody can feel at home in their bodies, to feel safe to connect to themselves and to be present with everything present there, and to be able to take their home everywhere they go.
In addition to the goals the clients set for their therapy, this is always a goal for me when I work with someone because the value of feeling at home in your body is priceless.
If you want a taste of feeling at home in your body or are interested in the benefits of body-oriented therapy, read some more on my site. You can always contact me for more information or a 20-minute complimentary consult.
