.png){kind=logo}
We’ve all heard it said that home is where the heart is and I have found that sentiment to be true.
I believe that my home is meant to be my refuge—a place for me to return to after interacting with the outside world. Home is somewhere I can process and integrate the things I’ve experienced, heal from hardships, and be rejuvenated and made ready to do it all again.
I don’t feel like the importance of having a home such as this is stressed enough.
Like so many things in life, we often settle into a place to live almost by default.
In the almost 30 years since graduating high school I’ve moved over 20 times. Some of them were beyond my control and came with the territory of military service and more than a few of them I made sight unseen.
I learned a lot about moving and the impact your home has on your ability to fuel the life you want or to hinder it.
The 2 biggest lessons I’ve learned have come from learning to wait and resisting the mental tendency to focus on the potential of a singular aspect of a spot to call home—removed from big picture context.
Firstly, and after having forced many of the moves I’ve made, I can tell you that it’s rarely worked out the way I had hoped. When our current home came to us without us having to look for it, I was once again reminded of how easy things can be if only I learn to wait.
Secondly, it’s so incredibly easy for me to get excited about a place to call home that I get caught up in that excitement and ignore the other signals of distress that my body is sending me.
Responding to individual pieces of the puzzle rather than waiting to form a consensus on the big picture.
This has caused me a lot of avoidable suffering.
And that is the reason for this week’s blog.
Let’s break down the big picture of where to live into its component parts.
If you’re curious as to how your current living situation is or isn’t serving you or if you’re contemplating a move, this investigation could provide you with valuable insights. I hope you find them useful. I hope I remember to revisit them when we next move.
Your Human Design, a sort of user’s manual for how to live authentically and make great decisions, offers much insight. If you haven’t yet looked into your design and feel like now could be the time, you can get your chart at www.jovianarchive.com. It can be a little overwhelming to see if for the first time, so reach out if you would like to be guided through the details. Or visit the Human Design playlist for the School of Active Deconditioning.
Above all, following your strategy and authority will never lead you astray—even if it doesn't always lead you where you thought you wanted to go. Learning to wait, be it to respond, to be invited, or to be internally moved into action, will ensure that your life unfolds in the most authentic of ways. Listening to your authority when it comes to deciding where to reside, ensures that where you live will fuel the life you want.
If you learn nothing more about your Human Design than your Strategy and Authority, I promise, it will be a game changer.
Sometimes, however, our minds need more convincing before they will concede to what can often look like irrational guidance from the body.
Sometimes, we follow our strategy and authority, but instead of focusing on the whole, we end up zooming in on a component part.
So, when it comes to choosing a place to live, what are the component parts?
We’ll find a couple of them tucked under the hierarchy of your Human design. The rest have to do with physical and relational attributes of the home in question.
Let’s begin with environment and cognition.
We each have a particular environment that, according to Human Design, we are most likely to thrive in. This becomes more relevant after age 30.
Even though Matt and I both have artificial shores as our environment (meaning we are made to thrive on the outskirts of town where country life meets the city, even better if there’s a lake or a river nearby), we tried to live in a high rise apartment when we first moved to Ecuador. It didn’t work well and we both felt overwhelmed by the environment.
We looked at a house on the outskirts of Cuenca that was positioned right where the Tomebamba river came out of the ground and started flowing. It was most definitely an artificial shore environment. But, and that’s a big but, it was located on a shared property that you had to access via a footbridge across the river. Circumstances like that initiate a lot of mental stories that drown out strategy and authority. I often wonder what life would have looked like there had we decided to rent it.
Our current home, on the outskirts of town, has a cement block wall all the way around it. Where the top of the wall meets the mountain view and creates the artificial shores horizon line is absolutely perfect for us. We had no idea how much we would love a wall. Now we know!
Those of you with natural shores environment probably live near the ocean, close by, or dream about future possibilities. Mountains and valleys are pretty straight forward and those of you with kitchens or markets environments are better suited to the high-rise kind of lifestyle where you are in the middle of everything.
There is a reason you feel these environments calling to you. You know you will feel supported by them. If you don’t already live there, consider how your life would change if you did.
Cognition according to your Design is your super-sence. And when you tune-in to your super sense, you enter into a zen like state of oneness with your strategy and authority. It clears the muddied water and brings you into a state of clarity.
My cognition is outer vision. The things I look at day in and day out matter. They impact my ability to live authentically. Because of this and in the past, I’ve focused on that to rationalize my ability to decide on a home based on pictures alone, convincing myself that I do not actually need to be there. Pictures can only convey so much and I’ve found myself led astray by this tactic. No more of that.
Because I took the last home based on my isolated response to the pictures of it while ignoring other intuitive red flags (which, by the way, is the birthplace of resentment) I was significantly impacted in a negative way by flaws in the space. Things that other people would be completely capable of ignoring, held me captive. And it was an expensive captivation, robbing me of valuable life-force energy that I could have been using to create the life I want rather than fuel the formed resentment that I moved too quickly and ignored the red flags.
When I’m in the correct aesthetic environment, I just feel good. Life is easier for me to navigate. I can see clearly. I will never ignore or downplay the importance of seeing things with my own eyes again. I hope.
Matt’s cognition is taste. He needs to be in a space to get a taste for it. While we are conditioned to breathe in out through our noses, those with taste cognition will have far more insight into their super sense, if they breathe through their mouth and taste the air.
Other possibilities for cognition include smell, inner vision, feeling, and touch. You have to be in a space to know what it smells like and if that smell is setting you up for the experience you want. Those with inner vision are likely less impacted by their environment than the rest of this as, to turn into their super sense, all they have to do is close their eyes and look within. If you have feeling cognition, you navigate a world of vibes and would benefit from experiencing the energetics of the space. And for those of you with touch cognition, you would most benefit from touching aspects of the home to make the best decision regarding it.
So, what else is there to consider?
Housing is a multifaceted adventure, for sure. Besides strategy and authority, cognition, environments, and the house itself, there’s a lot to give your awareness to.
If you skip over these, you’re ignoring the high probability that they will have a negative impact on your experience and the life you are trying to create.
A great house in a neighborhood you don’t love or positively respond to will ruin your experience. Our last house was in a gated gringo community and lacked any kind of privacy from the multitudes of gardeners and construction workers that were coming in and out on a daily basis. As we are very private people, this did not bode well for us.
Other people involved, be they your neighbors, landlord, or property manager will impact your life in that house. We have friends that just moved to Cumbaya, a high end suburb of Quito, where they pay high end rents and have neighbors that throw enough raging parties that my friends are fed up with South American culture altogether and are heading elsewhere (though that decision too is multifactorial). We’ve had similar experiences because we did not inquire as to these things that underscore the benefits of being in the neighborhood you are considering, talking with the neighbors, and seeing how you respond.
I imagine it goes without saying that who you live with will also impact your experience. Your spouse or your roommates need to pass strategy and authority before you even consider the house itself. Having your own space versus sharing space with others will create vastly different experiences. Be honest with yourself about how much space you need and don’t ignore apprehension when it rises. That is your body’s way of saying, “Yes this is a great house, but not if you have to share it with them.”
Maybe you live in a house that you inherited, or is filled with stuff that isn’t yours but you keep because it belonged to someone who died, or is packed with memories that are less than great. Do not belittle the significance of these things. They may seem small or inconsequential, but the impact they are having is huge. Can you overcome the things that have happened there or would it serve you more to move? Things and memories have an energetic pull. Make sure they aren’t putting you under a spell and keeping you from fully enjoying your life.
The land itself and the history that unfolded there offer more to consider. Is it located on an Indian burial ground? Is it prone to flood? Was it sold because of familial hardship or bad blood? Are people upset about it? How do you feel when you stand on the land? You will feel all of these things you cannot see, even if only on a subconscious level. Is the land fueling the life you want, or will it detract from it?
Lastly, you may find it helpful to get very clear about the kind of lifestyle you want to live. Be honest with yourself and then see if the house, the location of it, and the people you are surrounded by will support that lifestyle.
This is our 6th home in Ecuador and the one I feel the highest amount of resonance with. It’s not perfect, but it is correct. I’m more productive since moving here and more aligned with the goals I’ve set. I’m sleeping better. Without any changes to my diet, I’m having the best morning movements since moving to this country. I’m drinking loads of tea (hot thirst being my primary health system) and the remaining excess weight I’ve been holding onto is dropping without effort.
I feel held and supported by this house and I am deeply grateful.
And all of this happened because I responded to bowls in a buy/sell Facebook group that I didn’t even need. The sellers of the bowls moved back to the U.S. the week after I bought them, and we moved in one week after that.
No pushing. No forcing. Only allowing the universe to bring me exactly what I’ve been looking for.
How did you come to live in your home? Does it support the life you want to create? Have you been thinking about moving? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
If you enjoyed this blog, please give it a heart, leave a comment, and share it on Facebook with your friends!
If you’d like to personally support me and the work I share in the world, please do! You can find me on Venmo @Kate-Flynn-17
Would you like a little one-on-one guidance to move through a physical challenge, to navigate a life transition, or to lean into the human experience and learn to love yourself?
If so, schedule today!
I empower clients to heal themselves through the detoxification of traumatic events and other people's opinions.
Use Promo Code 30%OFF of your Start session, good through mid-August.
Or, book a completely FREE Discovery call to see if we are a good fit!
Or, if you’d prefer to do-it-yourself, I invite you to enroll in The School for Active Deconditioning. It’s free and available to all!
Because life is too long to suffer through and too short not to enjoy.
See you next Sunday!
Comments