I Am My Own Home, That’s Why I Listen To Myself, Take Care Of Myself And Renew Myself

I am my own home, that is why I open the windows to renew the air, so that the stale and toxic wind goes away and among the breeze  that smells of hope, of perfumed illusions. I am my own home, I am my precious refuge, that is why sometimes I am not for anyone because I seek the shelter of my privacy: my private corners to listen to me, to care for me, to heal myself …

If our interior were really a house, many of us would have it sadly neglected. Furthermore, there would be those who would have a well-decorated façade, with ornate colored roofs, striking fireplaces, sophisticated railings, and large windows with elegant draperies.

However, if we wanted to enter the interior of these imposing mansions, we would discover in many of them rickety walls, weak pillars, lonely halls, empty rooms that smell of sadness and many dark corners, where the sunlight has never entered. Indeed, if each of us were really a house, we would be in the prevailing obligation to tend it, to turn our home into a rich, comfortable space, free of shadows, closed rooms and long neglected cracks.

We are our own home, let’s face it,  we are our own refuge and that exceptional structure that is always in constant growth. .

The refuge you seek outside is inside you

George Bernard Shaw used to say that life is not about finding ourselves, it is actually about knowing how to create ourselves. Thus, whoever chooses to undertake a journey of search in order to find a purpose, to recognize his limits and to find the essence of his own personality, will err in focus. Because everything you want to know is not on the outside, but on that internal scene that produces wonderful fruits when we take care of it.

In turn, there is an undeniable fact that many of us will have perceived at some time, especially in that stage of our adolescence where we live from the outside, aware of what life brings us, of what happens abroad with its hubbub, with its flavors, sounds and waves. By living disconnected from our heart, from that internal beacon where values ​​and our own identity shine, we always have the feeling that “something is missing”. That what is in the home itself is an insufferable emptiness and that it must be filled with almost anything.

Thus, almost without realizing it, we let the first one who comes into the home of our own being, we give them the keys to the front door, we offer them the sofa in the living room and even the private key to our closets and attic. We do it with naive innocence, without knowing that there are thieves who keep everything, merciless marauders who destroy everything: self-esteem, strengths, virtues, dreams and illusions …

Serving you, listening to you, building you is not an act of selfishness

Having a home with spacious rooms full of books where infinite knowledge is contained is not an act of selfishness. Having a home where there are no closed doors, no cracks, or corners inhabited by shadows and darkness is not an act of vanity. Enjoying a garden where incredible flowers, beautiful bushes and trees with strong roots are spread is not something superficial. Because achieving each of these things takes time, will, and delicate self-care.

We live in a society that conditions us to believe that self-love is an act of selfishness. However, afterwards we are almost forced to read self-help books to discover that this premise is not true, that closing the doors of our home to what we do not like or do not feel like is not being a narcissist. It is to be brave, it is to combine self-love and honesty, it is to strengthen a commitment to ourselves to guarantee our self-esteem and well-being in a world used to shaping frustrated people, people who do not know how to be happy.

As Albert Ellis said at the time, our society often teaches us to harm ourselves. Therefore, we must put aside everything that we have been led to believe so far to learn to think and feel differently, to remember that there is a fragile and helpless being that needs attention, care and recognition: oneself.

Let us therefore make that return trip to our own home to sweep out our limiting beliefs, to expand the rooms of hope, to draw back the curtains of internal conflicts, to heal the pipes of our emotional wounds. Let’s sow our gardens with seeds of illusions and keep the keys to our home in our own pockets, because they and only they are the ones that will open all the doors to our happiness after all …

Images courtesy of Victor Nizovtsev