I’m writing you from the little town of Quesada, Costa Rica. We’re just finishing the filming of our new series, “Secrets of the Ancient Healers”, which I’ll be sharing with you in a few months. More on that later – on to today’s piece!
It seems ironic to be writing you about “home” right now considering that I am thousands of miles away from my own, but maybe we need a little distance to truly understand the things we take for granted.
Every time I head out on long adventures into the bush I miss my wife and son to no end, and usually that bittersweet sensation runs me for a while. Last week, somewhere between Copán and Guatemala City, an all-to-familiar sense of homesickness began to creep in. But something in me felt that it was time to re-examine this emotion and work with it.
Once I reached the heart of the matter I realized that home might be something that I can bring with me from now on. Let me explain.
Home is something that many of us feel deep within. When things get rough in our lives, we yearn for a return to home. But what is it really? Is home that old house you grew up in and the warm biscuits that your mom used to bake on Sundays? Or is it something a bit more complex?
This is where the concept of duality comes in. Similar to light and dark, if the essence of home is a feeling of comfort and sanctuary then the opposite would be a feeling of fear and turmoil. And if fear can follow us around everywhere we go (including into our physical home) in the form of unresolved emotional trauma, logic would suggest that the warmth of home can do the same.
When we’re trying to work through traumatic memories, a seasoned therapist will always keep us connected to the FEELING we experienced during those painful events. Yes, the event itself is important, but when trying to work with and release the negative charge from harrowing recollections, tapping into the sensation we experienced is the fastest way to transformation.
Is it possible that this process can be reverse wired to help us cultivate an enduring inner expression of peace and sanctuary that we can take out into the world with us?
What if you could make every room you walk into your home? I have a feeling we would show up much differently to others and to ourselves.
I’m not alone in this theory. Here are some relevant words of wisdom from acclaimed author Tad Williams:
“Never make your home a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You’ll find what you need to furnish it – memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.”
Looking at some of the most celebrated figures in history, the ones who really risked it all and put themselves out there, I sometimes wonder what was going on behind those calm and collected countenances. Were they just good at swallowing their worries and stepping forward or were they actually quite comfortable in the scenarios they threw themselves into?
In one of the great Yogi Bajan’s introductory teachings he said:
“If you do not develop a meditative mind, you will always live in fear and you will have an itchy irritated nervous system.”
Nourishing a “meditative mind” could almost be seen as a method of making the entire world ones home.
The old saying declares, “Home is where the heart is”. But I’ve met many travelers who seemed right at home on my couch or in a lean-to hut on top of a remote mountaintop. Looking at their unwavering contentedness with the world, it feels like the saying could also read “Heart is where the home is”.
In our toughest moments, when the material illusion of this world falls away, many of us have seen that our souls are all that remain once the dust settles. And true to the quote above, most indigenous spiritual disciplines view the heart as the vessel for our soul. Why not make our home here?
The price is unbeatable and the foundation is guaranteed to last.
Truly yours,
Nick Polizzi
Director, The Sacred Science
33 Responses
So isn’t it the other way around – home is where the heart is?
That’s how it works for me.
Have lived in 28 places so far 🙂
But still feel at home at some others.
agree with you 100% to the extent that we have enunciated homeplanet virtual university, homeplanet peace posse etc. we are in Cozumel right now, and nearby there are a number of Temascals where you might explore some of what you are looking for in the depths of the sweat lodge where we bring together the Eagle and the Condor.
Love this quote: Nourishing a “meditative mind” could almost be seen as a method of making the entire world ones home.
I loved your thoughts! As a transplant from the west coast to northeast Idaho, I get “homesick” for the ocean, the sunshine and the diversity of the southern California people! Living in this area of Idaho I find the people mostly belong to the same religious beliefs and are cliquish in their friendships if one is not a member of their conservative “farmer”/pioneer/Mormon culture. I will take your words to heart and use your information to help me feel “at Home” no matter where I am. Thank you so much!
Nick: Thank you and thank your Wife and Son
for bringing me the Old Ancient Healing Ways.
Even though they are not there in body they
sure are with you in Spirit.
I want them to know that this 80 year old Granny
will be sending your energy, love and blessings
on this new adventure.
Wow, I was just telling a friend that the only place I feel stressed out is at home where my “chores” are. I have the opposite of homesickness….sick of home. I am going to shift my perspective not and replace “chores” with heart. Thanks so much
Thank for for these words. I will forever remember to bring “the heart of home” where ever I roam.
When I knew I had to tell my ex to move out and leave me and our girls it was a very painful time. I spent 2 days sobbing and letting out deep strange sounds of pain that had been held in for way too long and at one point I remember crying and saying out loud that I wanted to go home but not to the place I grew up at all, someplace different. Three years later and after much healing I am happier than I’;ve ever been. Not because I am remarried or even that my girls are now stabalized and doing well (which I am extremely grateful for) but because I am home. What I mean by that is that I am home within myself. How this happened exactly I do not know but I did meditate all the time the year before I got the courage to make him leave and continued to meditate as well as explore other things to help me heal including drumming, chanting, sweat lodges, and lots and lots of being outdoors which has always been my favorite thing ans going to the river by me all the time to think and pray and talk to me favorite tree and the herons and kingfishers. But one night I was feeling quite sad and I remember lettting it go and trusting as I do and when I went outside to get in the car to pick up my daughter I saw the moon, full and orange and low, and I was overwhelmed with emotion and tears were pouring out of my eyes and then the moon spoke to me (I know this sounds odd) and it said that I am not alone aqnd ithat it is my sister and that the people who hurt me are my teachers to teach me compasssion. It s mystical reality for me that since then I have never felt alone again and have even felt more and more supported by the universe every day in so many ways from knowing the veggies I now juice are spirits wiht the purpose to nurture me, to the incredible people who now come into my life but at the center and in my heart I AM HOME in my body mind, and spirit. I am aware and living life life awake now an dits just the beginning. Looking forward to your film. Love and Sunshine to the Sacred Science Team!
What a wonderful reminder. A sacred space I embraced as a teen! Back when I was fearless as well! Here’s to our re-awakening to that which abides within!
~Namaste’
~Love Always <3 Love Deeply~
~Amy
Thanks for putting this into words . I am happy I can be “home” when travelling. Love granny
Love your sacred work!
Very Warm….and Very Cool!!!
After losing both my mother and my husband, having to settle both estates, Sacred Science has
been a comfort and an inspiration to me, My heart is not my home but where my loved ones
remain with me.
Learning to make our hearts our home is the first step in functioning from our “heart space”. It is from this place that we heal ourselves, our loved ones and the world.
So glad you wrote on this…in recent months I have kept getting flashes of a feeling of home, something I have not felt in some time. For myself it feels as though the universe is whispering about that which you speak, that home is a feeling you can cultivate within yourself at any time, any where…and oh gosh, not much feels better than that. It feels like that is where the magic of life lies!
I also love the quote : ‘Nourishing a “meditative mind” could almost be seen as a method of making the entire world ones home.’
If home is where the heart is and one’s heart is grounded in the Earth than no matter where you go you are home. I feel if more people treated the Earth as home than we’d start taking better care of our home. 🙂
I shared this with my friend today who was feeling exactly liike you describe . I.m sure it will hwelp her.
Thank you
Love this, it’s very profound,. I will practice this!
I’m reading this in Australia, far away from my own family in England and missing them too., so I can connect with the feeling of being separated from loved ones. I agree though that we are able to find our internal home by by meditating on love and light, and carrying that inside as my source of eternal love. Bless you and all the work you and your team do which helps so many of us to understand there is more to life than the outer view of the world. Blessings
Thank you Nick,
As always messages come to remind me to use my meditative mind to know and feel my heart as home for my soul and our blessed connectedness with all life.
Love and blessings,
Christine
Thank you Nick for sharing your inspirational and profound thinking.
Sabeman
This is an awesome post Nick and really spoke to me. Thank you for posting it!!
Thank you!
For that change in perspective. There are many places I call home, but the idea of creating my home within me frees me up from the thoughts that I ‘should’ settle and start my own home. Thank you for that and for creating this inspirational website. It is a beautiful contribution to my life!
Lots of love, from my heart/ my home;)
Thank you Nick for these words. Surely home is Here and Now – as far as I have understood in my life. That’s the way…:-)
I believe home is where we feel love, comfort and safety. It can be in family relationship, in nature, with our animal companions, or with people. The feeling is about what touches he soul in a consistent way. For me it is nature; wherever I go, there she is!
I LOVE yogi Bajans quote 🙂
Hi Nick,
the home of the soul is not in the body, we meditate to find our home and to make sure that after living the body we will go Home, and not to have to come back be incarnatet again.
Armin
Thank you Nick for the clarity and profundity you explore on a subject like this. I totally agree that home is where our heart is and heart is where our home is. Wonderful words game, that helps expand our consciousness a little more!
thank you and blessings!
To a Mighty Companion.thank you for sending this message .it came in the late evening when i am most open to peace and distance from the: worlldly distractions! I send you my heartfelt gratitude!
This is so true. They say “Listen to your heart ” I say “Listen to your heartbeat first ” and see what happens
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Thank you for all you’re doing! As yogi Bhajan said, The Mind is beyond time and space. It is given to us as a an instrument to serve us. What happened? It became our master and we became servant. The mind becomes a monster when it becomes our master. The mind is an angel when it becomes our servant. it is all in our mind. The meditative mind is a purely beautiful state of living.
Thanks so much for the post.Really thank you! Great.