Finding “Home” in a Mobile World

The holidays are a powerful time to reflect on the idea of home, family and connection. Where in the world do we feel like we belong? Who are the people that we keep coming back to for support and understanding? In our increasingly mobile world, many of us do not have the time and space in our busy schedules to go “home”. Traditionally, this means back to where we grew up or to wherever our family may be residing. For many of us today, the idea of home has become mobile, mutable, and constantly changing.

Surrounding yourself with people who feel like home

As a result of our mobile lives, we have the privilege of re-defining home for ourselves. This can sometimes be a challenge. In our transient world, home is often not a physical location, but the people in our lives who feel like our family.

In The Yoga Lifestyle, Doron discusses an experience in Italy where he would join in for cigarette and espresso breaks simply because it was the cultural norm. These activities weren’t aligned with the healthy lifestyle practices he’d defined for himself. Still, he decided to partake because social protocol dictated it. 

“I learned later to surround myself with people whose norms and standards I actually appreciate, so that they inspire me to do better.”

Whether or not you connect with home as a physical location, most of us have people who help to provide us with a sense of belonging and stable existence. Often, these people are the true definition of home.

Refreshing the important relationships in our lives

This experience exemplifies the toxic patterns that some of us fall into when revisiting the people or norms that have been in our life for a long time. When a toxic relationship or behavioral pattern is ingrained into our experience, it’s easy to stop questioning it or trying to improve it for the future.

If going “home” isn’t an option for you this holiday season, consider taking some time to reflect on the ways in which you’ve decided to define home for yourself in your current environment. Have you surrounded yourself with people who inspire or uplift you? Or have you allowed the relationships in your life to become stale or harmful to your personal growth and wellbeing?

Ask yourself how you can you start to break these patterns and replace them ones that feel restorative and centered on love. Rather than relying on reflexive hostility or perpetuation of conflict, decide to start a new chapter. Approach your loved ones with refreshed perspective and awareness.

“I place my feet on the earth; a vision of roots growing deep and wide in the earth. The deeper and stronger the roots the more I feel free to fly.”

A Nest by Doron Hanoch, 2009

Why is Defining Home Important?

Making Time for connection in a busy world

In the yoga world, we try to put more emphasis on “practice” than “improvement”, but it’s still common to push oneself so far that we are harming our bodies rather than helping them. By becoming fixated on these goals, we lose track of what is truly beneficial for our practice.

This idea can be easily translated to personal goals in other aspects of our lives. In our busy society, it’s easy to lose oneself in to the pursuit of self-improvement.  Many personal goals necessitate more time spent focused on the self. Whether you decide that you’d like to read a book a week, or make a million dollars in 2019, these commitments take time. This means less time spent in the restorative act of connecting with friends, family, and community at large.

For many ambitious or busy people, taking time to socialize can feel like a waste of precious time. Devoting the necessary time and energy to nurture these relationships is difficult. This is because it feels as though these resources could instead be delegated towards “productivity”.  This is very far from the truth. Relationships, just like hobbies and goals, take time and commitment to nurture and grow. We must keep practicing at our relationships to keep them strong. This is just like how we must keep up with our yoga practice if we want to stay flexible.

“Home” as an energetic idea

Energetically, the idea of home is believed to be associated with the first chakra. This is the Muladhara chakra. Sitting at the base of the spine, this chakra represents the foundation of all of our other energy centers. It is related all of our basic needs. In order to feel grounded and stable in our environment, feeling part of a family or tribe is an essential condition. Our need for food and shelter also relates to this chakra. Feeling part of a community is given equal importance.

As Doron poetically describes in the quote above, the more you feel grounded or rooted in your environment, the more freedom you have to explore, to grow, and to expand. By building a community on which you can rely, you are creating a firm base for yourself. This will allow you to feel more confident moving out of your comfort zone. While being supported in both your successes and your failures, you can accomplish more.

This holiday season, consider setting a time to truly examine your idea of home. Who are the people that help define that for you? See if you can bring renewed love and light into relationships that may have been neglected or fallen into negative patterns. Commit to taking time not only for your own improvement, but for the strengthening of your whole network and community. Remember that prioritizing time with your friends and family can be essential not only for self-improvement, but also for self care.