How do we get to the Place we want to Be?
As a designer and a student of Life, I find it interesting that we use the word “place” to describe the feeling of belonging. We all know what it is when we feel “at home”. There really is nothing else like it.
Think of all the times you have walked through your door at the end of a busy day and exhaled saying, “Ahh, it feels good to be home”. It’s as if we take off the cloak that shields us in the outer world and our individual consciousness is able to expand into our true nature. This larger self, moving beyond the body into the place of living matter where we dwell, becomes the extension of ourselves into the physical vessel of our sanctuary.
So, what is it that makes us feel that sense of connection to a space that allows us to drop all of our boundaries and melt into the comfort of a home? It’s the feeling of belonging, a deep knowing that this is ours, our space, our home, our place.
To define belonging, I think of being ‘long’ somewhere, as in a long time. But time is fleeting in the grand scheme of things. Let us move instead to thinking of place as where we want to be. To just be, as being is enough and being in the moment can be seen as outside of time. I also think of longing, the deep yearning of the heart, the magnetic pull to bring to ourselves what we desire.
Place, whether it is a home we live in or some level in life we have achieved, is a temporary state. Yet, our internal flame of being connects to the eternal flame of the divine, to a state that is both absolute and infinite. These profound messages that are shared throughout the mystical teachings of many traditions show us that the longing to belong is the search that leads us home.
Finding the heart within yourself will reveal the heart of the home around you. By opening the door to the love in your own heart, the door to the love of the world suddenly appears. This vibrational match is the paradox of longing; what we long for also longs for us. When we arrive at the breathtaking beauty of this understanding, we know we are exactly in the right place.
