Episode Description: Home is an essential part of our existence, be it the one we grew up in or the one we live in now. Home is also a mindset. I talk about this today. Welcome home.

TRANSCRIPT

Howdy. Welcome back. 

So today it is a rainy Austin morning—overcast, dark, gray. It reminds me of when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, and to many people, that sounds dreary and horrible, but to me, it's super fulfilling and comforting. 

I loved my eight years in Seattle and traveling about the Pacific Northwest between Portland, where my best friend lives, and Seattle.

Just a beautiful part of the country—always green, my favorite color. Always flowering. It’s got beautiful foliage all year round. Of course, part of that is because it gets fed and nourished with a lot of rain and the occasional sunburst, but there's something really beautiful about that area of the world. 

So this morning, on my walk, I noticed all the Christmas decorations. The holiday is in full force here in Austin. 

I am really getting excited about and missing my home in Kansas City (well, Independence). So I'm very much looking forward to seeing my family, my parents next week, and, you know, doing the traditional Christmas vacation. It sounds like everything’s—speaking of full force—post covid, we are engaging in all the traditional holiday festivities, so stay tuned!

Anticipating that trip makes me think a lot about home and nesting and about having a ‘place,’ right? A place we call home. And I very much consider the house that I grew up in ‘my home’ because, one, it's never changed. My parents have lived in that house since the actual day that my mom's water broke with me.

They were actually playing craps on the floor. My dad was teaching Mom how to play craps on the hardwood floor in what is now, and has always been, our dining room, and she ended up having to go to the hospital to have me. So I've always felt like I christened the house—both literally and figuratively.

So there's no really other home for me, versus I have friends who've moved either multiple times or their family home is no longer their parents' family home, and I personally would hate that. I love being able to go to the place that holds every single childhood memory in one little package. . And so when I'm sick or when I'm homesick or at the holidays, whether I'm with them or not, home is where my mind goes.

And I wish in those moments that I wasn't home, or that I'm not home, that I was home in my parents' house. And, of course, with them, and as they grow older, I'm conscious of time and spending time with them. So I've been spending a lot, a good amount of time going back and forth to Kansas City for various reasons, but so very grateful to be home with my parents and my siblings and my big Irish clan in those moments.

The thing I'm landing on today is nesting and making a home, and wrapping our minds around what home is. Not just my childhood home, but I've also created satellite homes wherever I've lived. And the thing that's really been beautiful about recreating and making my own individual home has been that it's always represented an extension of that warm, comfortable, safe, loved feeling I had in my own home growing up.

So I've spent time and effort, and resources to make sure that every home I've had, be it when I was renting or now that I own a home, everything was exactly those things, safe, comfortable, and loving. So I've done a really good job of that, I think. People that come to my homes or have come to my homes over time find them good spaces, and I attribute that to several things.

One, I'm a minimalist, so it's not like I have a ton of clutter around. Everything's very neat and very gallery-like. The old adage of, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” 

And I also nod to Feng Shui practices. So I think those principles from the ancient perspective of how energy moves and the Chi and all the Chinese masters, how they knew something about the flow of energy.

That also factors in; it just feels good in homes when things are situated or positioned or appointed in a way that makes. 

So on my walk this morning, I walked really early, and I do this occasionally. I'll drive around—I’m very much like my mom this way—I’ll drive around, or I'll walk around in the early morning or really late at night and be able to see in people's homes because I love the feeling that brings…

My mom loves Thomas Kincaid paintings, right? And the thing I think people are attracted to about those paintings is the quaint charm of those little cottages in the mountains or the little cabins that have the candles lit or the fireplace going. There's just something sweet about viewing those, whether you'd hang them in your house or not.

I feel the same way when I walk around, be it my neighborhood or other neighborhoods, and I can see in people's homes because you can see their lifestyle a bit if you will. They're either laughing together, or they're all at dinner or they're watching a movie on the sofa, or you don't see anything except empty rooms, but they're lit enough to where you can see, “Ah, that's beautiful.”

You get to peer into the lives and homes of your neighbors and people you wouldn't otherwise see. 

So this morning, as I was peering into other people's homes and watching people sip their coffee or walk from one room to another or… 

Oh, that reminds me; one time in West Seattle I was on a run and I saw a guy buck-naked making his coffee, and I was like, “Dude, shut your blinds!”

So it's not always the warm and fuzzy things you're seeing. Anyway. 

Our home, our place, is a place of safety and comfort and a place where we can land, and how critical I think that is to our mental health, our spiritual growth, our emotional health, and even our physical health. And so I really feel for people, especially as I'm walking in the rain this morning; I was feeling for people that live on the streets or in tents under bridges and things like that.

And I know that for some of those people, it's a choice, but I also know there are people that don't have a home, and it's not a choice. So I really feel for them because I can't imagine not having a place to land. But I also know home is a mindset. There are sayings like, of course, home is where the heart is, or wherever you go, there you are.

Which, you know, those are true statements if you deconstruct them in the way they were intended. Home is where you think it is, right? It's another indicator that our life experiences are shaped by thought. Now for me, it's, or it's important to own. And I don't mean own as in a mortgage versus rent. I mean to own a place that's mine: a place where I can land and call my own. And I think for many people that's important. You can go there and take refuge. You can go there and feel those things. I mentioned for comfort, uh, what did I say? Comfort, safety, and love. 

You can go there and get out of the elements.

You can go there and feel connection, be it by yourself or with others. 

Well, that place, too, is our mind; is inside our own minds and inside our own thoughts. 

So as much as I love home, the one I grew up in or the one I make here in Texas, I know home is wherever we focus our thoughts. And there's something as very special about this, especially at the holidays when all of us, many of us, will be dispersing to go to different places than the ones we live every.

So today I want to remind everyone to cherish their place, cherish your home, wherever, whatever that may be. Be it the apartment you rent, or the Airbnb you're staying in on your vacation, or your family home. Or your home where you have a hefty mortgage and the home right in your. Life experience, your own consciousness, your own thoughts inside your head, because ultimately, that's home.

Home is wherever we are. 

I hope you land this holiday or whenever in a home of your choosing and that it is comfortable, safe, and loving. 

Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.

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The podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jenée Arthur.
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