Find true happiness and self-worth by being at home within yourself.
Do you feel lost?Do you feel helpless beyond comfort, broken beyond healing? Well, you are not alone. What you need, what we all need, is a home. Not a house, a home.
A place where we can feel safe, seen, loved. Too often, we build our homes in other people. We rely on the validation, comfort, and approval of others. This inevitably leaves us desperately holding on to love when we find it and feeling abandoned when the other person leaves. In this article, I'll teach you how to build a home within yourself. You will discover and furnish all the different rooms, each with a specific purpose and a unique set of tools and understandings to be comfortable and satisfied with who you are and what you do.
With that in mind, stand before the doorway of your home. Take a deep breath and step inside. No need to knock. After all, this is your home.
Before you can be loved by others, you need to learn to love yourself.
Picture someone you love. It could be a friend, a partner, a family member, anyone who you care for deeply. Now, imagine them coming to you with a problem. Maybe they have a bad headache or they're stressed out at work or maybe they're going through a hard breakup and need someone to talk to. What would you say to them?
Chances are, you'd do whatever you could to make them feel better. You'd sit them down and find a painkiller for their headache. You'd ask them about their day at work. You'd tell them that it's going to be alright. Of course you would, because you love them. Now imagine that it's you who's going through that suffering.
Would you be as kind and patient with yourself as you would be with your friend? If your answer is no, then you need to work on the first room in your home. Self-love. Self-love is the skill of being empathetic with yourself. It's treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you show to others. And not defining yourself by the love you get or want from others.
That would be building your home in other people. And you're here to build a home within yourself. Love is a power. A power that is inside of you. To give it to someone else should not be to empty yourself of it. Use it to strengthen yourself.
And only then will you have excess love to give out. Self-love means embracing yourself for who you are, to truly feel at home within yourself. Self-love exists in your ability to recognize and receive love around you. Sometimes when we are in pain for too long or let ourselves be too caught up in the emotions of others, we forget that there is love out there for us and that it is not selfish to let it in. Here's a simple activity you can practice to help develop your self-love. Every morning, tell yourself, today I'm going to see proof that I am worthy of love.
Keep this in mind throughout the day and collect all the affirmations of your worth. A smile, a friendly conversation, a nice text message. When you look back on these small acts of love at the end of the day, realize that you are not trying to get your worthiness of love from some external source. Rather, your ability to recognize your worth in the world around you is itself the proof that you are worthy of love. Let yourself see love and you will realize you are worthy of it. Once you've spent some time meditating on these thoughts in the self-love room, you can move on to the next room, the room of forgiveness.
Use forgiveness to free yourself from your pain.
We are all weighed down by our pain. It could be from a friend who broke our trust or the blame we pile on ourselves for a poor decision or judgment. Whether this pain comes from our own actions or from the actions of others, the only way to truly heal and feel at home within yourself is through forgiveness. This is the next room which you need to build and furnish. The first thing you need to know about forgiveness is that it is only about you.
You can't be waiting for an apology that may never come or dwelling on the actions of others which you may never understand. The thing that hurts you cannot be the thing that heals you. Only you can do that. And it's okay to have something or someone to forgive. You can't control the fact that you've been hurt, but you can decide what to do with that pain. You see, the forgiveness room isn't a secret vault to hide away your suffering.
It's an open space where you can let go of anything you're holding on to. Thoughts, feelings, resentments, anything. Because forgiveness is about release. You need to let go of the idea that you have to return to the person you were before. That person is gone. But don't worry.
Now you can pick up the broken pieces, examine them, understand them, and then put them into the new you. Unless you forgive, you will always be tied to the person who hurt you. Like a marionette with strings stretching off into the past, unable to move with true freedom and comfort. Wouldn't it be nice to cut those strings? There is a powerful tool you can use to do this, which is to reflect on the events you need to forgive using I-statements. These statements were made popular in the 1960s for conflict resolution, but they are a powerful way to take the focus from other people's actions and bring it back to you.
When trying to forgive a friend who lied to you, for example, it might feel natural to say, she lied to me, or she broke my trust. But a more productive statement might be something like this. I felt sad when she lied to me because it made me feel like I wasn't worthy of the truth. Notice those I-statements. Now your forgiveness and healing isn't about the other person. It's about you.
I-statements use a simple structure. Start with I feel, followed by what emotion you're dealing with. Then when, followed by the event that you're trying to forgive. Then because, followed by what it made you think of. So let me repeat that phrase from before. I felt sad when she lied to me because it made me feel like I wasn't worthy of the truth.
Using this formula separates your healing from the person who hurt you. Keep it in a convenient spot in the forgiveness room in your home. When you're struggling to forgive or let go of something that has pained you, enter this room and find the tools and space to begin healing. Now it's time to look toward the next room. Compassion The home you're building inside yourself is a place of safety.
Be in control of who you’re letting into your life.
A place where you're comfortable to live as your authentic self. But that does not mean it is a place of solitude. Just like any home, you can and should invite others into your heart. But that doesn't mean just anyone. Now is the time to focus on the next room.
The only one of your rooms that is meant for others. Compassion Imagine you're having a dinner party and you're preparing to let people into the intimacy of your home. Are you going to let in everybody who knocks? Of course not. You need to prepare a guest list. Let's take a look at this list.
Who's on it? What are the criteria? The first and most important guest is also the easiest to overlook. You. It's your house, your dinner party. You are the host.
You need to be able to show compassion for yourself and not be so concerned with serving the other guests that you forget your own plate. If you find this difficult, take a moment to reflect in the self-love room. So who else is on your guest list? Well you wouldn't invite total strangers who haven't earned your trust. Nor would you invite those who have hurt you or hurt someone you care about. Know that it is okay to turn away any guest who shows up uninvited.
And if you find a guest disrespecting you in your home, remember that you are under no obligation to invite them back next time. These unwanted guests can also take the form of opinions or societal pressures. Unspoken rules about how you should look, what you should wear, and how you should live are constantly reinforced by social media. Try unfollowing negative social media accounts to keep these unwelcome guests from your home. After you've decided who you don't want to let into your home, it's time to decide who you will let in. This is done by building boundaries.
These are the behaviors and opinions of others that you think are acceptable or not. You should not expect others to change to fit your boundaries. The focus should always be on you and what you find acceptable. So how do you set boundaries? First, you need to know yourself and what is important to you. Once again, the self-love room is useful here.
After that, you can start setting your boundaries by using the I-statement tool you left in the forgiveness room. These statements are personal to you and can change with different people. You'll have different boundaries for family, friends, co-workers, strangers. A boundary could be something like, I will say no when I feel uncomfortable. Or I will not put up with disrespectful behavior to protect the feelings of others. Once you have these boundaries, it's important to reinforce them and stick to them.
Think about it this way. You wouldn't change the height of a fence to accommodate how high someone else can jump. With your compassion room complete, you now have a safe method of letting people in and out of your home. Now it's time to turn the focus back to yourself in the clarity room.
Examine yourself with care and honesty.
Who are you? Chances are your answer involves a mixture of experiences, jobs, physical attributes, family members, cultural and religious expectations. Everything that culminates in the conscious experience of the person sitting here now reading this. Is this a clear picture? It's common to feel like other people don't see us for who we really are.
But can you truly say that you can see yourself? Welcome to the clarity room. Notice the mirrors hanging from wall to wall. This is a room you will come to for self-reflection. To peel away the layers and see your authentic self. Not how others see you, not how you think you should be.
Just you. Sometimes it will be difficult to see the mirrors. They will be blurred by guilt or confusion or anger. This is your body telling you that something is wrong. You can use these emotions as tools to help you understand where you need to focus. Listen to your gut and choose the appropriate mirror.
Let's have a look at some of these mirrors. The first one is the blank canvas mirror. Reflect by listing everything that defines your life now. Does that actually reflect you? If you had a choice, would that list look the same? If you could rewrite your life onto a blank canvas, what would be different?
Reflect on what is keeping you from the life you choose. Next is the purpose mirror. Look at your actions and ask if they align with your goals in life. If not, what needs to change? If you're unsure about what your goals are, look in the intention mirror. Ask yourself what is the true reason for what I am doing.
For example, why am I trying to get this new job? Or why am I posting this on social media? It doesn't matter what your intention is, but it is useful to be aware. Do you ever feel like you're avoiding some thought or emotion? Take a look in the escape mirror and ask yourself, what am I escaping? Once you have an answer, you can allow that feeling to leave your home.
Then there's the real story mirror, where you can reflect on the stories you're telling yourself and examine whether they are true and also whether they are helpful to believe. Take a story like, he doesn't think I'm good enough. Is this true? It's likely that you don't know for sure. Is it useful to believe? Definitely not.
You can place many types of mirrors in the clarity room. Think of them as tools for whatever honest self-reflection you need. With this knowledge of your authentic self, you're now ready to explore the final room. Surrender.
Surrender to yourself.
You’re nearly done exploring the home you’re building in your soul. It feels good, doesn’t it? You feel safe and self-aware in ways you never have before. Suddenly, you hear a knock on the door. You’re not expecting guests – who could it be?
You peek through the keyhole, and there it is: The negative emotion you’ve been avoiding. The pain you don’t want to deal with. The thought you don’t want to explore. You could try waiting it out in another room, but you know the knocking is just going to get louder. This house isn’t a place for you to hide; it’s a place for you to live.
Luckily, you have a room specifically for dealing with these unwanted but unavoidable guests – the Surrender room. This is the room you enter to experience your true emotions, and it’s where you become aware of the habits and patterns you might be using to avoid these emotions. Let’s step inside.
First, you need to understand the relationship between emotions and feelings. A feeling comes from the meaning you attach to the emotion you’re having. Take the emotion of disappointment. This is experienced through the feeling that something you wanted to happen didn’t happen. You’re always aware of your feelings; emotions, on the other hand, can happen unconsciously.
Have you ever experienced an emotion – for instance, anxiety, anger, or sadness – and not been able to say why? This is because you weren't letting yourself feel the emotion. It’s these unconscious emotions that knock on your door the loudest.
So let them in. Have tea with them. Give yourself the time to stop resisting. Truly understand what emotion you are experiencing – and why. This will empower you to accept and release the emotion as you see fit.
And it’s not just the negative emotions you need to meet. It’s easy to forget that positive emotions need to be acknowledged and validated too. Whatever emotion is knocking, give it the time it needs in the Surrender room.
Surrendering is about facing reality. Just because something is familiar doesn’t mean it’s the way it has to be. Survive in a bad situation long enough, and it becomes living in a bad situation, which then becomes thriving in a bad situation.
One day, the idea of changing that situation becomes unfamiliar and scary. The pain of dealing with a bad relationship becomes more bearable than the pain of breaking up and dealing with the unfamiliar. Only by surrendering to the reality of the unfamiliar can you actually begin to change your life for the better.
You can become more comfortable with the unfamiliar by shifting your focus to what you want to be familiar. First, write down what thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships tend to come easily and naturally to you. This is your familiar – your normal.
Next, write down what you want to be thinking, doing, or feeling instead. By acknowledging these things as simply new rather than scary, you can start on the path to redefining what’s familiar to you.
Now it’s time to turn your attention back to that unwanted guest who’s knocking at the door of your new home. How long have they been there, knocking louder and louder? Maybe it’s time you opened that door.
Here you’ve learned how important it is to listen to your authentic self. If you’d like to immerse yourself in this idea, find a quiet place, sit by yourself, and try to listen to what your inner voice is telling you.
Chances are, the voice you hear is not your own. It may be a sense of self that you’re convinced is real because of your life experiences or what others have told you about yourself. Push past this inner voice. It’s not you. Your authentic self is the one listening to this inner voice. It’s not defined by yourself or others. It doesn’t come from anything external.
You can’t get your sense of worth from someone else. All of your love, forgiveness, and compassion is inside of you. This is your power, and it exists apart from the outside world. When you’re aware of who you truly are – and fully accept this being – you can be at home within yourself.
A place where we can feel safe, seen, loved. Too often, we build our homes in other people. We rely on the validation, comfort, and approval of others. This inevitably leaves us desperately holding on to love when we find it and feeling abandoned when the other person leaves. In this article, I'll teach you how to build a home within yourself. You will discover and furnish all the different rooms, each with a specific purpose and a unique set of tools and understandings to be comfortable and satisfied with who you are and what you do.
With that in mind, stand before the doorway of your home. Take a deep breath and step inside. No need to knock. After all, this is your home.
Before you can be loved by others, you need to learn to love yourself.
Picture someone you love. It could be a friend, a partner, a family member, anyone who you care for deeply. Now, imagine them coming to you with a problem. Maybe they have a bad headache or they're stressed out at work or maybe they're going through a hard breakup and need someone to talk to. What would you say to them?
Chances are, you'd do whatever you could to make them feel better. You'd sit them down and find a painkiller for their headache. You'd ask them about their day at work. You'd tell them that it's going to be alright. Of course you would, because you love them. Now imagine that it's you who's going through that suffering.
Would you be as kind and patient with yourself as you would be with your friend? If your answer is no, then you need to work on the first room in your home. Self-love. Self-love is the skill of being empathetic with yourself. It's treating yourself with the same kindness and understanding that you show to others. And not defining yourself by the love you get or want from others.
That would be building your home in other people. And you're here to build a home within yourself. Love is a power. A power that is inside of you. To give it to someone else should not be to empty yourself of it. Use it to strengthen yourself.
And only then will you have excess love to give out. Self-love means embracing yourself for who you are, to truly feel at home within yourself. Self-love exists in your ability to recognize and receive love around you. Sometimes when we are in pain for too long or let ourselves be too caught up in the emotions of others, we forget that there is love out there for us and that it is not selfish to let it in. Here's a simple activity you can practice to help develop your self-love. Every morning, tell yourself, today I'm going to see proof that I am worthy of love.
Keep this in mind throughout the day and collect all the affirmations of your worth. A smile, a friendly conversation, a nice text message. When you look back on these small acts of love at the end of the day, realize that you are not trying to get your worthiness of love from some external source. Rather, your ability to recognize your worth in the world around you is itself the proof that you are worthy of love. Let yourself see love and you will realize you are worthy of it. Once you've spent some time meditating on these thoughts in the self-love room, you can move on to the next room, the room of forgiveness.
Use forgiveness to free yourself from your pain.
We are all weighed down by our pain. It could be from a friend who broke our trust or the blame we pile on ourselves for a poor decision or judgment. Whether this pain comes from our own actions or from the actions of others, the only way to truly heal and feel at home within yourself is through forgiveness. This is the next room which you need to build and furnish. The first thing you need to know about forgiveness is that it is only about you.
You can't be waiting for an apology that may never come or dwelling on the actions of others which you may never understand. The thing that hurts you cannot be the thing that heals you. Only you can do that. And it's okay to have something or someone to forgive. You can't control the fact that you've been hurt, but you can decide what to do with that pain. You see, the forgiveness room isn't a secret vault to hide away your suffering.
It's an open space where you can let go of anything you're holding on to. Thoughts, feelings, resentments, anything. Because forgiveness is about release. You need to let go of the idea that you have to return to the person you were before. That person is gone. But don't worry.
Now you can pick up the broken pieces, examine them, understand them, and then put them into the new you. Unless you forgive, you will always be tied to the person who hurt you. Like a marionette with strings stretching off into the past, unable to move with true freedom and comfort. Wouldn't it be nice to cut those strings? There is a powerful tool you can use to do this, which is to reflect on the events you need to forgive using I-statements. These statements were made popular in the 1960s for conflict resolution, but they are a powerful way to take the focus from other people's actions and bring it back to you.
When trying to forgive a friend who lied to you, for example, it might feel natural to say, she lied to me, or she broke my trust. But a more productive statement might be something like this. I felt sad when she lied to me because it made me feel like I wasn't worthy of the truth. Notice those I-statements. Now your forgiveness and healing isn't about the other person. It's about you.
I-statements use a simple structure. Start with I feel, followed by what emotion you're dealing with. Then when, followed by the event that you're trying to forgive. Then because, followed by what it made you think of. So let me repeat that phrase from before. I felt sad when she lied to me because it made me feel like I wasn't worthy of the truth.
Using this formula separates your healing from the person who hurt you. Keep it in a convenient spot in the forgiveness room in your home. When you're struggling to forgive or let go of something that has pained you, enter this room and find the tools and space to begin healing. Now it's time to look toward the next room. Compassion The home you're building inside yourself is a place of safety.
Be in control of who you’re letting into your life.
A place where you're comfortable to live as your authentic self. But that does not mean it is a place of solitude. Just like any home, you can and should invite others into your heart. But that doesn't mean just anyone. Now is the time to focus on the next room.
The only one of your rooms that is meant for others. Compassion Imagine you're having a dinner party and you're preparing to let people into the intimacy of your home. Are you going to let in everybody who knocks? Of course not. You need to prepare a guest list. Let's take a look at this list.
Who's on it? What are the criteria? The first and most important guest is also the easiest to overlook. You. It's your house, your dinner party. You are the host.
You need to be able to show compassion for yourself and not be so concerned with serving the other guests that you forget your own plate. If you find this difficult, take a moment to reflect in the self-love room. So who else is on your guest list? Well you wouldn't invite total strangers who haven't earned your trust. Nor would you invite those who have hurt you or hurt someone you care about. Know that it is okay to turn away any guest who shows up uninvited.
And if you find a guest disrespecting you in your home, remember that you are under no obligation to invite them back next time. These unwanted guests can also take the form of opinions or societal pressures. Unspoken rules about how you should look, what you should wear, and how you should live are constantly reinforced by social media. Try unfollowing negative social media accounts to keep these unwelcome guests from your home. After you've decided who you don't want to let into your home, it's time to decide who you will let in. This is done by building boundaries.
These are the behaviors and opinions of others that you think are acceptable or not. You should not expect others to change to fit your boundaries. The focus should always be on you and what you find acceptable. So how do you set boundaries? First, you need to know yourself and what is important to you. Once again, the self-love room is useful here.
After that, you can start setting your boundaries by using the I-statement tool you left in the forgiveness room. These statements are personal to you and can change with different people. You'll have different boundaries for family, friends, co-workers, strangers. A boundary could be something like, I will say no when I feel uncomfortable. Or I will not put up with disrespectful behavior to protect the feelings of others. Once you have these boundaries, it's important to reinforce them and stick to them.
Think about it this way. You wouldn't change the height of a fence to accommodate how high someone else can jump. With your compassion room complete, you now have a safe method of letting people in and out of your home. Now it's time to turn the focus back to yourself in the clarity room.
Examine yourself with care and honesty.
Who are you? Chances are your answer involves a mixture of experiences, jobs, physical attributes, family members, cultural and religious expectations. Everything that culminates in the conscious experience of the person sitting here now reading this. Is this a clear picture? It's common to feel like other people don't see us for who we really are.
But can you truly say that you can see yourself? Welcome to the clarity room. Notice the mirrors hanging from wall to wall. This is a room you will come to for self-reflection. To peel away the layers and see your authentic self. Not how others see you, not how you think you should be.
Just you. Sometimes it will be difficult to see the mirrors. They will be blurred by guilt or confusion or anger. This is your body telling you that something is wrong. You can use these emotions as tools to help you understand where you need to focus. Listen to your gut and choose the appropriate mirror.
Let's have a look at some of these mirrors. The first one is the blank canvas mirror. Reflect by listing everything that defines your life now. Does that actually reflect you? If you had a choice, would that list look the same? If you could rewrite your life onto a blank canvas, what would be different?
Reflect on what is keeping you from the life you choose. Next is the purpose mirror. Look at your actions and ask if they align with your goals in life. If not, what needs to change? If you're unsure about what your goals are, look in the intention mirror. Ask yourself what is the true reason for what I am doing.
For example, why am I trying to get this new job? Or why am I posting this on social media? It doesn't matter what your intention is, but it is useful to be aware. Do you ever feel like you're avoiding some thought or emotion? Take a look in the escape mirror and ask yourself, what am I escaping? Once you have an answer, you can allow that feeling to leave your home.
Then there's the real story mirror, where you can reflect on the stories you're telling yourself and examine whether they are true and also whether they are helpful to believe. Take a story like, he doesn't think I'm good enough. Is this true? It's likely that you don't know for sure. Is it useful to believe? Definitely not.
You can place many types of mirrors in the clarity room. Think of them as tools for whatever honest self-reflection you need. With this knowledge of your authentic self, you're now ready to explore the final room. Surrender.
Surrender to yourself.
You’re nearly done exploring the home you’re building in your soul. It feels good, doesn’t it? You feel safe and self-aware in ways you never have before. Suddenly, you hear a knock on the door. You’re not expecting guests – who could it be?
You peek through the keyhole, and there it is: The negative emotion you’ve been avoiding. The pain you don’t want to deal with. The thought you don’t want to explore. You could try waiting it out in another room, but you know the knocking is just going to get louder. This house isn’t a place for you to hide; it’s a place for you to live.
Luckily, you have a room specifically for dealing with these unwanted but unavoidable guests – the Surrender room. This is the room you enter to experience your true emotions, and it’s where you become aware of the habits and patterns you might be using to avoid these emotions. Let’s step inside.
First, you need to understand the relationship between emotions and feelings. A feeling comes from the meaning you attach to the emotion you’re having. Take the emotion of disappointment. This is experienced through the feeling that something you wanted to happen didn’t happen. You’re always aware of your feelings; emotions, on the other hand, can happen unconsciously.
Have you ever experienced an emotion – for instance, anxiety, anger, or sadness – and not been able to say why? This is because you weren't letting yourself feel the emotion. It’s these unconscious emotions that knock on your door the loudest.
So let them in. Have tea with them. Give yourself the time to stop resisting. Truly understand what emotion you are experiencing – and why. This will empower you to accept and release the emotion as you see fit.
And it’s not just the negative emotions you need to meet. It’s easy to forget that positive emotions need to be acknowledged and validated too. Whatever emotion is knocking, give it the time it needs in the Surrender room.
Surrendering is about facing reality. Just because something is familiar doesn’t mean it’s the way it has to be. Survive in a bad situation long enough, and it becomes living in a bad situation, which then becomes thriving in a bad situation.
One day, the idea of changing that situation becomes unfamiliar and scary. The pain of dealing with a bad relationship becomes more bearable than the pain of breaking up and dealing with the unfamiliar. Only by surrendering to the reality of the unfamiliar can you actually begin to change your life for the better.
You can become more comfortable with the unfamiliar by shifting your focus to what you want to be familiar. First, write down what thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and relationships tend to come easily and naturally to you. This is your familiar – your normal.
Next, write down what you want to be thinking, doing, or feeling instead. By acknowledging these things as simply new rather than scary, you can start on the path to redefining what’s familiar to you.
Now it’s time to turn your attention back to that unwanted guest who’s knocking at the door of your new home. How long have they been there, knocking louder and louder? Maybe it’s time you opened that door.
Here you’ve learned how important it is to listen to your authentic self. If you’d like to immerse yourself in this idea, find a quiet place, sit by yourself, and try to listen to what your inner voice is telling you.
Chances are, the voice you hear is not your own. It may be a sense of self that you’re convinced is real because of your life experiences or what others have told you about yourself. Push past this inner voice. It’s not you. Your authentic self is the one listening to this inner voice. It’s not defined by yourself or others. It doesn’t come from anything external.
You can’t get your sense of worth from someone else. All of your love, forgiveness, and compassion is inside of you. This is your power, and it exists apart from the outside world. When you’re aware of who you truly are – and fully accept this being – you can be at home within yourself.
- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
Comments
Post a Comment