Home means different things to different people. To ourselves, home may represent a refuge, a headache, work to be done. or a place to relax at the end of the day. My thought for you today is to think of your home as basecamp.

As I’ve stated, I spent a lot of time trying to get away from my home, trying to escape the memories of June 9, 2017. I’d scour the real estate apps looking for the perfect “new” place, hoping to find something that spoke to me. What was I doing? I was buffering my pain in an attempt to run away from the traumatic experience that happened in my home.

Buffering is what happens when we use external things in an attempt to change our emotional state. They are false pleasures that prevent us from feeling the important feelings.

The list of things we use to buffer our grief is almost endless: Netflix, shopping, sleeping, eating, drinking, sewing, playing an instrument, and so on. My favorite form of buffering was looking for the new home. While none of these is bad in and of themselves, the become problematic when they stop you from processing your pain and dealing with the source of your grief.

I was so wrapped up in leaving the scene of the greatest loss in my life that I forgot how much I loved where I lived. That changed one day when my daughter came home from college, and I brought up places I was considering moving. When I glanced at her, there were tears in her eyes. For her, home had become her basecamp, and I was able to look at my beautiful farm with fresh eyes.

Think of your home as your basecamp. Allow it to be a place to stop and reorient, a place to remember who you are, where you started, and where you are going. We all need a place to rest and recharge, and that place is home.

Julie Martella

I finally stopped buffering with dreams of moving, and processed that pain. Thinking of my home as a place to remember my roots, a place to reorient in between adventures changed my feelings. It dramatically changed how I felt about my home. I had to change the thoughts in order to change the feelings.

If you struggle with keeping your home or maintaining, organizing, or enjoying it, go thought shopping. Try on some new thoughts and see if any of them change how you feel…for the better!

You’ve got this and I’m here to help.

Julie Margaret