How to Fall (Back) in Love with Your Home

Close your eyes and picture the place you call “home”. Now, imagine your favorite corner there, the place that feels the most homie. Sit down in your most comfortable chair, hold your favorite coffee mug, admire your favorite piece of art, and wrap yourself into your favorite blanket—why does this place, and why do these things, feel like home? The answer says a lot about who you are and what you care about!

Minimalist, maximalist, classic, modern, rustic, nostalgic, all purple, or full of plants, how we decorate our homes is personal and unique to each of us! But why is that we’re so drawn to creating our own spaces? What is it about the chairs, silverware, couches, blankets, and knick-knacks that seems to make us so comfortable?

Whether your house is covered in strawberry figurines, has only the essentials, is full of antiques, or photos of loved ones, those items have an important purpose that goes beyond the material. And, once you realize why homes are so important, you’ll surely discover something wonderful sitting right there in your own surroundings.

“There’s no place like home”

— Dorothy, in Oz (not Kansas)

Why is “home” so important to us? And why is there no other place like it? We’ve gone from painted cave walls and mammoth bone huts to colossal mansions and Earthships, designing our spaces to the times and filling them with all of the knick-knacks, hand-me-downs, and personally selected pieces that have captured our attention. Obviously, our homes have turned into more than just a shelter to protect us from the elements. But what is it that has driven us to make it so?

We turn to the wisdom of The School of Life to better understand why we decorate our homes in certain ways, and for some reason—regardless of how awesome our vacation is—we always crave returning to them!

If you’d like to take a closer look at the lives we lead, check out more great work from The School of Life! With countless videos and resources, they’ve really helped me find explanations as to why my life is what it is, and the tools to turn it into (or get closer to) exactly what I’d like. In fact, this is one of my favorite pieces from them:

Home is way more than four walls.

Where else are we surrounded by all that we love?! Everything inside the walls of our home appealed to a certain side of us at some point in our lives, they tell a story. Of course, these material items are constantly evolving, just like us—I find myself getting rid of things that I absolutely loved a few years back. But it’s to make room for who I am now.

The objects in our lives are great mirrors to the timeline of who we are; acting as constant reminders of what our values are, what brings us joy, and who we love. As The School of Life so beautifully noted  in the video:

“After too many nights in hotel rooms or on the beds of friends, we often feel a powerful ache to return to our own furnishings; an ache that has little to do with material comfort, per se. We need to get home to remember who we are. Our homes have a memorializing function, and what they’re helping us remember is, strangely enough, ourselves. “

And as my mother told me once: “I just keep bringing home what I like, and somehow it all seems to go together.”

So, the next time you’re sitting in your favorite chair, looking over your very own space, take note of how whatever you’re seeing makes you feel. What do you think those books on the shelf, that blanket, that picture you love are telling you about yourself? Even more, the next time you’re out and about, notice how quickly you wish to be back surrounded by your own things. Because maybe, that’s exactly where the heart is.

Stay open to new possibilities! You never know the power that a cute teapot can have.

• Sam

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” —Albert Einstein

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