I am sleeping deeply during the night. I have been traveling for weeks, changing accommodation every 3 to 4 days. I come back from a deep sleep and get half awake, lying in a bed. I look around, and I have no idea where I am. Am I back home? Is that my own bedroom? Where’s the window? No, I probably still am in Placencia, Belize… or am I lying in my guest bedroom? WHERE AM I? I recognize nothing around me, but still everything looks familiar. I am lost and confuse. And a little bit scared. Am I dreaming?
Did it ever happen to you? Not knowing at all where you are? After traveling for a while, I often get lost in my mind. Only during the night, though, don’t worry, it doesn’t happen to me all the time!
Feeling out of place is a common feeling for nomads or avid travelers. It’s a fun feeling if you want to get away from it all, but not so much if the feeling comes back again and again. That feeling of disconnection, out of time and out of place.
When that feeling happens, it’s good to remember a fixed point in our life. And we don’t have to go back home for that. Home is where the heart is.
A fixed point in our life is something that remains constant, like some memories or the notion of home. That sense of place that calls to us and that we call our own. When we need an anchor, when we need reassurance, we tend to look back to the past. Somehow, the past is always present, shaping us and leading us forward.
You can be anywhere in the world, far away places, and you will always have a constant with you: your memories.
Moreover, connections can be made anywhere, by anyone. We only have to pay attention at our surroundings. Sit in a park for a while, look at the leaves dancing in the wind. See the flowers in a garden? At the city park? Nature, wherever we are, is a constant that connects us back to our roots. That brings us back to now and there.
The people may be different from back home, the food, the culture. Everything can be different. But nature, even if it’s different, it’s acting the same everywhere. Nature is a fixed point in our life, a constant that makes us feel like home.
We can be visiting a new place, traveling everywhere around the world, but noticing only the obvious. And then we feel out of place.
Open your heart and your mind, take some time, stand still for a while and connect with your surroundings. Pay attention. Look closely. Feel the connection to this place. Your heart will then feel grounded, connected, just like back home. Because home is where your heart is.
