Before we begin, I’d like to tell you a story…
I’ve been thinking about making a coming home blog for quite some time. A place to reflect on, gather, and make a bit more tangible, insights and discoveries about our amazing brains and bodies and how we can get to know them all the better. On what we learn and do to inhabit them a little more fully, so we are that much more whole. So that our selves (physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual) can be the most supportive and nurturing homes for us possible, as we navigate this wild, beautiful life and crazy, ever-shifting world.
And this image, more so a memory, kept coming to mind as I thought about what I wanted this project to be:
The memory is from my childhood.
I’d say I was an odd child by most points of comparison. Some might say difficult. Others might call my tendencies ‘quirky’ or ‘out-of-the-box.’ These are, of course, nice descriptors to use if we are trying to be kind about someone’s differences.
This memory contains the essence of what I feel coming home to oneself is and can be; of being mind in body, at home, with a clear sense of peace and possibility.
This memory is of a makeshift hideout I used to construct, out of an eventually broken two-seater, vinyl-covered bike carriage. Often with my younger brother. Usually on our front lawn. And almost always when it rained.
Let me paint a clearer picture for you, of this bike-carriage hideout - the place that was the sincerest of my strange joys and the stronghold for some of my most meaningful adventures in solitude and beyond. I haven’t seen a bike carriage around in a while so if you don’t know what I’m talking about, or can’t picture it, that’s highly forgivable. But in the 90’s, some of the more adventurous parents, had these carriage-type contraptions, basically a covered basket for children on wheels, that they’d fasten to the backs of their bicycles, and then voila - you had an amazing mini bike-basket-trailer -thing and the world was yours to discover (along the streets of your parent’s errands and times about town at least).
I decided our bike carriage was really best used as a makeshift tent/fort, that became the hideout place. To make it, I’d cart the bike carriage off the front porch, put it on the front lawn (for some reason this felt most appealing to do when it rained) and prop some umbrellas up on top of it (it wasn’t exactly waterproof, at least not after what I put it through) to secure my domain. Then I’d gather pillows and blankets from the house and fill the bike carriage with them. After this, I’d bring books and snacks and sometimes my brother (he was sort of taken by the concept, but not quite as much as I was) and nestle myself (or us) in there for hours.
There were little plastic windows on the sides of this bike carriage turned front lawn shack, so I could see people walking by, but they couldn’t really see me. And I’d listen to the rain. And I remember relishing in this feeling of cozy, un-intrudable me-ness. Like I’d made this. And no one else could fit in here. Even if they wanted to (which I don’t think they did, but I suspect this was part of the appeal). In the hideout, I was out in the world, but also protected from it. I’d play games and make up stories and read. And I’d feel all the more connected to the adventures on the pages or in my head because I felt like I too was having, albeit a very still, adventure of my own making.
And this is it.
This feeling, of being ours, our own, of having something that is uniquely and strangely us, by force of originality or difference or newness - the feeling that I had in my ramshackle, out of place, bike carriage hideout - and more importantly of being protected in all of this and able to unabashedly soak it up with joy and meaning, that’s being home with ourselves.
This feeling of being home matters. It matters a lot.
I’m comfortable asserting that it may in fact be the one of the feelings that matters the most. Homecoming is self-possession. It is self-discovery and effortless acceptance. It’s Love. Belief. Courage. Grace and Equanimity. Most importantly, it is the deeply known and felt truth that you are and have everything you’ve ever needed and will ever need within you.
Being home with ourselves is to know we were always going to arrive where-ever we are now. Even if we’ve slogged through fires and hail storms to get there. And it’s to see that we were always going to be whole once we arrived, once we really got to know ourselves. It’s to understand that we’ve always been safe with us. We’ve always been able to have our backs and hold our hearts - it just sometimes takes scrapping together our truth with found bits and unexpected fortifications until we are secure enough to recognize and live from there.
Homecoming is a complete state in itself. But if you were to still yearn for more possibilities, more wanderings and discoveries from there, based on everything we know about the brain and self development, then you could be confident that there is nothing you couldn’t do once you’d come home. The schools of psychology I work from call what I’m calling homecoming, secure self-attachment. This is where we grow from. This is where we heal from. This is where we vision from.
Of course, a cup of tea, a walk through a forest, and knowing friend make the journey sweeter and decorate our homes more fully. Secure self-attachment doesn’t mean doing it alone. And you won’t do it alone, we aren’t made to. It’s merely the call to, in whatever you do, do it with as much of your selfhood present and intact as possible. Because when you do this, home, your love, your possibilities, will come with you wherever you go.
The Mind in Body Project, is my invitation to you, to ponder and get clarity on what your home coming will be. And what it already has been. What it already is. ‘Cause I know if you’re here and ready to read this, you’re already travelling homeward.
So, what is the essence of your unique, true and secure self? Where, when and how do you feel most at home? What do you yearn for and what nooks and crannies does the core of you like to snuggle into?
I encourage you to ask and listen to these sorts of questions often. Because they are your salve and they are your power.
And they’re what’s going to help you realize that the life you’ve always wanted is actually your own.
There’s also some tried and true practices, science and recent life wisdom on what makes coming home to yourself all the more possible. I’d like to make available to you, through this project, information, ideas, practices and tools that can help us come home, if we are lost, if we are yearning for more wholeness, or if we just want to nest a bit more deeply into our self.
If you’d like to come with me as I explore some amazing discoveries and understandings about the mind and body, that I and/or other psychologists have figured out in our own searches for home, I invite you to read on, venture back or simply carry anything that’s spoken to you out into your days.
I’m excited for us and for you if you’ve taken the time to read this. There’s so much we’re going to be. There’s so much we’re going to heal. There’s so much we’re going to create and that’s waiting for us to be whole enough to know it’s there.
In unwavering gratitude,
Carly <3
