By Christina Raccuia
What do we need to be happy? Although specific requirements for happiness are based on the individual, there are certain primal needs we all have as humans.
Having a home gives us a sense of stability and safety—a primal and important need in order to be happy. It is a place to recharge and a place which serves as a temple and a sanctuary for our souls. No matter what place you call home, the very word strikes a chord deep inside each of us. Home means ‘sanctuary’, the place we can rest, relax, enjoy time with friends, learn, grow…and just be. Our homes say a lot about who we are and what we think is important in life.
Home is where the heart is but it goes deeper than that. Our connections to home are basic threads in our lives that pop up automatically in casual conversation. We use the word ‘home’ to identify where we’re from (‘hometown’), describe a level of comfort (‘at home’), relate to our national identity (‘homeland’), and at the end of a vacation, name it as our favorite next destination (“There’s no place like home.”).
Think about your home: How would you describe it? Peaceful and calm? Orderly? Disorganized and chaotic? Messy? Open and welcoming? How would you compare the way you describe your home to the life you lead? Our environments are often a reflection of our interior life and mental state.
Trusting Our Senses:
Our Guides to What We Can’t See
Think back to the last time you went apartment or house hunting. (Note how we refer to it as a ‘house’ at first. We don’t transition to calling it ‘home’ until we begin to think of it as ours.) How did you know whether you liked a space when you first walked through the door? Did you smile? Sigh? Check to see where the closest exit was? What was your first tip-off that the space was a hit or a miss?
Chances are your body told you pretty quickly what your internal reaction was. We all have a set of intuitive monitors that help us know quickly whether we want to stay in a place or not. They’re called our senses. They are an inborn part of our wiring and, with just a little imagination, we can call them forth and use them in some creative ways.
When you do go house hunting, trust your intuition and senses, as they will tell you if it’s a place where you can thrive and eventually call home.
I will continue to explore happiness and invite you to write me at cwr226@icloud.com to share what brings you happiness in life.
Have a happy day.
