Lessons of the Home
Updated: Apr 26, 2021
I have been sitting in this backyard for 18 years now. For 18 years looking at this same cactus. I have wanted to move countless times, and have gotten very close on a couple occasions. I’m not naturally a person that wants to stay in one place, I’ve always said I am a gypsy in my heart. By the time I got married I must have moved nearly 30 times as an adult and lived in 5 different states. Settling down in one place for nearly 20 years was never part of the plan.
I have come to realize that our soul has plans for our life that we may simply not be aware of and as I sit in this backyard looking at this beautiful saguaro that has been standing through the birth of all of my children, birthday parties of all kind, countless hours of pool and play time, different animals and failed gardens I am struck by the perfection of it all. The lessons that I have learned in this home seem as though they could have never been learned anywhere else and as I sit here the reasons that I have wanted to leave this home ring of a shallowness that feels almost ridiculous now. It’s not big enough, nice enough, doesn’t have enough bathrooms. It was simply never enough. I say that with an intense love for the young woman that simply didn’t know better. The attachment to “more” was so heavy for me when I was younger that it almost stole away the beauty of what I actually did have rather than what I didn’t have. Almost.
God had a more beautiful plan that fortunately didn’t include moving into the big house in the best neighborhood. It didn’t include everything working out as I had planned and intended. In looking back, for me, it was what I didn’t get that taught me more than I could have ever learned from what I did get.
A deep, abiding appreciation for the simple things, the things that in this culture of “more” seem to get disregarded and ignored. I realize for some in this world they would look at my life and find it appalling that it wasn’t enough for me for so long and people would dream of living in the home that I have lived in. We all are where we are though, we all have been given the circumstances that we have to learn the lessons in our own lives. Our realities look different but in so many ways we are walking similar paths with a different view. Whether you are in the poorest neighborhood or the wealthiest, the mind has the power to trap you. The outside may look different but within it can look strikingly similar. It is also the power of the mind and your ability to train it to “look for the good” that can give you complete joy and freedom in the most desperate of situations. It is through the power of the mind that you can be in the same place, yet have such a drastically different view. The countertops have not changed and I have not gotten that all important extra bathroom; I have however gained the realization that these things have virtually no effect on the success of a life. I used to see success through a very different lens, I now look to the closeness of my family, the health and well-being of my children and my marriage and the feeling of gratitude that wells up within me as I sit in this backyard. Any other measure of success has become insignificant to me.
As I have sat in this backyard for the past 18 years I have grown into a woman of deep faith, a woman that appreciates the smallest of things on any given day to bring me a sense of calm and peace, a woman that can honestly say if I am to live out all of my days in this backyard I will have been one very lucky and blessed person. This different viewpoint of life has come with work and determination to grow. I have continued to say yes to my own spiritual journey and the continued work of becoming the master over my own mind rather than my mind being the master over me. And quite frankly the gifts and graces that I have been blessed with internally are far beyond anything this world could offer me externally.
My prayer for all is that more and more people can remember this truth, tap into the peace and love that resides within and shine that light out for more people to see and remember within their own hearts.
Breathe, surrender, trust
Namaste my friends!