Home for the Holidays

Image by TW Collins via Flickr

"There's no place like home for the holidays", "I'll be home for Christmas", "Please come home for Christmas", These are all lines or titles of songs about coming home this time of year. They happen to be about Christmas, but I don't think the thought need be Christo-centric. Going home, returning to our roots, getting back to where we started from, being where our hearts are, those are all fairly universal themes that definitely do spring to mind this time of year.

• What does it mean to you to "go home"?
  
• Is it a geographical place?
  
• Is it a group of people that you call family?
  
• Is it certain foods or traditions?
  
• Why is it important for you to "go home" every now and again?
  
• What is it that you are looking for by "going home"?
• If your family of origin's home is not the kind of place you would or could return to, have you replaced it with a new definition of home or a family of choice?

All of those are wonderful and appropriate questions to ponder, but what if going home meant something else? What if going home meant getting back to our roots and our fundamental nature in the most basic sense?

If home is truly where the heart is, let's start there. When we sit in our quietest and most honest moments, we all probably know what brings us joy, what makes our hearts sing. If we stop what we do on a day to day basis, for just a little while, we can probably conjure up some of those dreams and passions about life that maybe we have discarded. Are you able to remember where your imagination takes you to when it is allowed to run wild? What talents have you had like forever that you may or may not be using anymore? Those passions, talents and dreams are all indicators of where our heart, potentially is. They are things that have been with us since birth that call us toward fulfillment.

Life often pulls us in other directions. We have bills to pay and careers to advance. We, or circumstances, have put us on different paths than the ones we heard when we were young. The expectations of others and the challenges of "growing up" have taught us that those dreams were just that, dreams.

What if this was the year that we went "home", home to where our hearts are? Take some time to check in on your dreams and passions this year, ask them how they are holding up. Blow some of the dust off of those latent talents of yours that have been resting and see where you can integrate them into your life this year, for good. If home is where the heart is, let's check in with ourselves to see if we are living anywhere near our hearts.

Return home this December, home to your self, to your core, to your heart. If you find you have been living far from it, move a little bit closer, slowly of course, but closer. Go home.