Where Do You Want to Live?
Not the address, not a physical place where you eat and sleep,
but the place within you that knows your heart’s longings,
the place inside that you call home.
I have a recurring dream that has always baffled me. It baffles me because, by content alone, the dream should upset, unsettle, and scare me. But it doesn’t. It actually enlivens me and causes me to want to dream more. You might say, my dream wakes me up to my life.
Let me explain. In my dream, I am always looking for where I want to live, for where I belong. In my dream, I’m always looking for a home.
See how this dream could be unsettling.
I have always interpreted that this dream represented my nomadic childhood. I was a Navy brat and we actually did move around from base to base, from one house to another.To this day I still hesitate when someone asks me “Where are you from?”
Every night in my ever-familiar script of looking for a place to live, I am constantly asking myself, “Does this feel like home to me? Will this make me happy? Is this what I love? Is this where I want to live?”
Just last night, I again dreamed of finding the perfect house. It was a cottage-like beach house that sat just behind the dunes off a glistening beach. Gorgeous.
Then, in my dream, someone offered to give it to me. I was shocked when I turned it down. I mean, really? After all this searching, night after night, for the perfect home, why would I walk away? Was I doomed to a lifetime of frustration – never getting the dream house that I wanted?
In that one REM instant, I deeply, thoroughly, and profoundly, got it.
In that divine moment, I realized it isn’t the physical house I’m looking for.
My wondering and wandering around in my dreams at night is not about the lack of a home with a permanent address, it’s about my ongoing search to fulfill my deepest desires. I am looking for a home for my heart.
The house by the sea simply represented all the things I long for in my life; the things I really want: things like simplicity, tranquility, solitude, serenity, peace and quiet. This is actually what I am seeking and they are things that live only in the heart.
So the question isn’t where do you want to live, it’s how do you want to live?
If my heart’s calling is for peace and tranquility, I now know that I don’t have to have a house behind the sand dunes on the beach to have that. I can work on cultivating a sense of peace and tranquility wherever I am.
I love my recurring house-hunting dream. It serves me well. My dream helps me to remember what I am really looking for. My dream keeps calling me back to myself and to how I long to live my life. And every night, if I pay attention, I can hear my own heart tell me where it wants to live.
“We’re all trying to find home, searching for that place
that is the truest and deepest expression of who we really are.”
Powerful Questions:
Tell me
about your recurring dreams.
What might your heart
be searching for?
Tags: recurring dreams
6 Responses to “Where Do You Want to Live?”
I was an “Air Force Brat” and we moved a lot too. In fact, my brother counted, we went to 13 different schools. When someone would ask me where I was from, I’d say “My dad was in the military; we lived all over.” Well, it was just yesterday that someone asked me and for the first time I replied, “My family was from the mid west, I was born in New York but lived in North Carolina for the past 20 years.” I felt like I was laying claim to who I was!
Absolutely! It’s like saying “I know where I come from”….and again, it’s not actually literal. Like you said, it feels like being clear and claiming who you are. Then this power transfers over to all the questions of your life….answer the questions, be clear, and claim who you are.
WOW and WOW-ZER! Kathy always smacks the nail on the head!
I agree, yet since I was eight, I wanted to build my own home! Yes, I can hear you, yet I REALLY want to live in a space that I design. I have lived all my life in spaces dreamed by others. For the past decade, I renovated yet another home, only to find myself yearning for the REAL deal. Comfortable, yet NOT what my heart continues to tell me.
So very quietly, I asked the universe to deliver a small parcel of land where I can build. IT manifested quickly…a one acre parcel, five miles from here, with a view that resembles eternity. At a rock bottom price too, in this economy.
I chose a builder quickly who appears to be a kindred spirit, who LOVES my dream house design and covets my single lifestyle, just a bit. Simple, contemporary, Eco-friendly, open floor-plan, and affordable. Just the envelope to take me to my end-of-days and nurture my creative spirit.
I am not rushing blindly ahead. My practical side drives me to begin the tedious budget/cost process, yet I can see/feel this and I am calm. If it blows up in my face, I will accept the result and continue to dream. Yet, 2012 promised to be the year of positive change, and the universe appears to be providing.
Kathy, my dear what are your thoughts? OOXX
I think I want to come visit when it’s done. I love the energy in this for you. It also sounds like it is meant to be….the universe has filled your order…..I love how you are dreaming freely and fully yet not getting too attached to the results. Again, I want to come visit when it is fully manifested? Will you invite me please?
You will be my first house guest!
Is that your watercolor? Splendid!
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