Home

Since I invited to have a look in my new home in the previous text, perhaps I could open the new curtains a bit more and add the part I left away, the shadow story. Home tells who we are, so I always feel nervous to show any pictures of it and the things I have made there. For me it is stepping into vulnerability and visibility, but with age and through showing up you get more and more comfortable with it. I am an avid reader of interior magazines, mostly just look for the shapes, patterns and colors in them for inspiration. Those are for the eye to enjoy and to train the eye and sometimes to add things to my “want list”, but when reading them I have been wondering that it would be more nourishing to hear the stories behind the homes and the growth of the inhabitants there. I have been doing some creative and healing writing again, so here we become visible again in case there is something useful for someone else.

In general I think that interiors we live and work in are important for our well-being and affect our mood even though it is only about setting the scene for a functional everyday life. And it is of course a privilege not everyone has, but on the other hand it has nothing to do with the money either. Our homes can support us to be the best versions of ourselves and nourish and make us feel many positive emotions, safety, harmony, joy etc. All depending on the emotion you want each space to awake within you and your family. 

Items you gather around can tell stories of your own creativity and the creativity of other persons. How for example coffee can taste different when you drink it from a cup someone has made with their hands, since there is a human connection. Natural materials like wood and rattan bring warmth if that is the feeling you are looking for like I do, since there is a connection with the nature. Or perhaps it is the neutral colors and modern lines you feel drawn to. Perhaps you have a few design items which tell that this is the group I want to belong to - or things related to your free time and you show them on social media too, partly to tell that: “Yes, I know things and I follow things. I am interesting and I belong”. I am talking about myself. Perhaps you invest your money on latest technical innovations and gadgets - or like Fredde in the opening scene of the Swedish movie Solsidan (a comedy about the lives of Swedish upper class, a long time success as a tv-serie) uses a snow cannon he has bought in order to have snow on the yard in Christmas and tells about all the fine qualities of the cannon to his friend. And in his case it is of course not just any cannon, it is the best. There is a passion, excitement and sincerity in his actions though, which make this comedy figure lovable. And this is how we are, we seek love, meaning for life and healing for our wounds in all sorts of ways, we want to measure up. I guess there is the old American saying: “Keeping up with the Joneses” or is it nowadays “Keeping up with the Kardashians”? And even though we all know that the value beyond any measure is within each and one of us, and it is more than clear that the measure has to change from a few family names into something else for the sake of the planet. 

Perhaps you therefore have tried to think who you want to support when buying or choosing not to buy at all, to think about the environment, sustainability and buy items which are locally produced if possible. Be a minimalist or a maximalist, be guided by your heart and only buy a little of what really makes you happy. Perhaps you have inherited items from the previous generations which you cherish. Perhaps you at some point make a huge decluttering project and donate a lot for charity to release old feelings as a reconciliation with the past and where your own behavior has come from some other emotion than love – from vanity - and it wouldn’t feel right to earn any money for yourself through selling. You then hope that these things find a new good home where they are used and cherished. Perhaps you go and even take a saw and cut something you have inherited into pieces even though you had earlier cherished and restored it ;-) in order to release your anger towards the previous generations not figuring out any better way to release that feeling. Then you send it to be burned and to become new energy and apologize in your heart the person who has made the table hundred years ago to avoid any bad karma in the future when it comes to tables ;-).   

So our personalities and identities are of course intertwined with our homes and the lives we live there. And our homes can also be a part of our growth story as human beings when we travel through our lives. Marie Kondo has said that: “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past”. I’ve tried to keep that in my mind lately although I know that this home will only be a temporary home for me – so I guess I am in a hotel travelling, looking for my home, if we speak metaphorically. 

In my case there is also a story behind these homemade curtains. There has been something within me I have been working with in each home I’ve had so far. In the home before this blog over ten years ago, as a young woman, it was about living according the belief of trying to become PERFECT in each area in my own style – or the way I thought I should be. I thought that perhaps then I am finally worthy since one of my wounds was in this area of home making where I was doomed incapable and I’ve had to overcome this inner belief. And I healed that wound in that home. And my last home was about learning to make more of the interior myself archived here on the blog. How I then tackled with the inherited inner belief of fear and failure when it comes to making. How you should never buy any expensive materials in case you fail. And how I thought that everything I make should be PERFECT the first time I give it a try putting anxiety and pressure on my shoulders. It is of course the opposite, failure and daring to fail are the only way into development in any area of life – but first you need an inner security before you can allow yourself to fail. So I tackled through the uncomfortable feelings, developed some skills and for this new home, I just made the curtains. Next time I may even be so bold that I buy them or be without. It has been a journey from perfectionism into healthy striving, doing your best and not always that either. And now I am trying to find my way into the beauty of imperfection.  

I also happen to be the first academic within the larger family and there were vast generational differences how we see the role of the woman with the previous generation coming from an agrarian and blue collar background. It has left me somewhere in between trying to tackle both fields and in the middle of feelings of inadequacy. I know I may not be alone in this matter in Finland. The bar often feels so high for all of us. Sometimes I get the feeling that even our thoughts need to be perfect when I read some magazine titles. Or is it just me who has been sorting out myself for so long, gathering information so that I find what has been relevant for myself. I have therefore wondered that perhaps it is wise to find and develop my own life philosophy because of all the noise in the world, when all the information from different parts is within our reach. I wrote last summer here on the blog about inner and outer journeys (in the text Patterns of Life) when trying to find meaning for all this healing work I have been put in front of. Perhaps I would like to correct the thought in such a way that some of us make great journeys in the richness of the inner world, some of us great ones in the richness of the outside world and beyond, many of us in both. Then we can all come home and tell about these journeys of ours, journeys about the humanity and for the humanity in different fields, and learn from each other. And it is here we so often go wrong, the service part. I wonder that if I try to keep this philosophy on my mind, will life then be simple? Will these words always comfort me in difficult situations and give me the courage to use my voice? Will the words always guide me home when I get lost? Should I still simplify the thought with a few words and therefore build more power behind the words?           

I can also clearly see what or rather who especially I have been releasing inside for several years and finding my own strength, my inner parent, perhaps 5-6 years ago or longer when I published the crocheted story about Lenni and Laila here. The dream catchers protecting our dreams from nightmares. And at the same time I had grabbed in my arms that little girl sitting in her room alone listening to the scary things going on outside, the alcohol and the arguments. I started to carry her safe, outside that house and back home (you can do this kind of mental practices, it can be healing). It is a long and individual journey, you can only start it when you have the muscles to make that carrying, that comforting, that encouraging, that parenting and you may have to rest every now and then. We can’t demand ourselves to start that journey before we are ready, only do as much as we can to heal and keep on living, but I find it to be so that we have to respect our own natural pace when it comes to any kind of healing or growth. That little person needs to be respected, it calls us to listen to the voice inside and not the ones from outside. As the saying goes: “The truth comes from the children’s mouth”. I also like to think that it is that little girl, inner child, who guides me right. I’ll do the carrying, protecting and nurturing part, I’ve learned and I am learning to trust her wisdom more and more and I’ve grown to love her. I hope to deepen that love throughout the rest of my life, love her beyond any measure. Then it is as I think it should be inside each and one of us, our inner parenthood. And of course the adult in her stubbornness doesn’t always remember to listen to that girl and then it goes wrong. Or that is just my own experience, my way of thinking, finding healing through metaphors and stories. We are forever deepening into the persons we are meant to be and I have the feeling that it is towards the word childlike if you have creative aspirations. So the little girl needs enough play time in the middle of the adult life and gets to tell her stories and heal the parts in the early childhood she has no words for if she needs that. It is the beauty of imperfection (and here is my word/concept for the year 2018, the beauty of imperfection).

If you know someone who is making a journey like this. Perhaps some would say that is struggling or grieving - and I would rather say that is releasing, growing, going through a transformation and becoming - and you wonder how to support or if not to do anything it is tricky of course. We are all different, our stories are different. I guess this goes for all of us, healing or not, we all want to be met in the following way, we all struggle with something. Some of us may want to talk about everything else, except what we are going through, the normal everyday life. Some of us need time alone, we don’t always have energy for everything and everyone and we don’t answer to your messages. We forget, or it can take a lot of time (my apologies). It is not rudeness, we all may have a lot in our hands, sometimes also hundreds of adult students and their needs. Sometimes we just prefer e-mail. Sometimes we grow apart and are not even supposed to journey together throughout our lives. Or perhaps we later find each other again. And perhaps when we are going through something, in need of silence and in rest, or in the middle of a creative project, when we are diving deep within and only come to the surface to breathe, rest, and to show the treasures we have found from the deep waters in case there is a treasure for someone else among our finds. During those times of deep diving and healing we may want to follow the famous quote of the Finnish Formula 1-driver Kimi Räikkönen: “Leave me alone – I know what I am doing”. ;-) And if there is a treasure for you among our finds, it can be more than rewarding if you tell it because the work is so hard even though you get the treasure for yourself for the rest of your life. We all need a bit of recognition for our efforts, acceptance. 

What none of us ever needs is anyone else’s difficult emotions, grief, judgement, blame or shame to carry on top of everything else in any circumstances. Perhaps it is also because of this kind of experiences that it can take courage to open up at all for so many of us and we keep people at an arm length. I wish so hard that there would be more REFLECTION and RESPECT in this world instead of REACTION. Both in real life and in social media in order to learn when it is wise to speak and when not. And if we speak we need to know how. That we take the time to look inside before we answer or shout out our messages. We look at our own experiences, we look at our own struggle. It is uncomfortable, but there is a lot of good stuff to be found in our own darkness. Only then can we answer with EMPATHY, only then can we find a real CONNECTION. This was my word for the last year (it sucked in many ways, but I think it was about releasing the past, it will be good). And I also think that when we manage to turn the darkness into laughter, or find some funny aspects in our struggles (our own, not anyone else’s) then we have come far. I also have the feeling that there are a lot of good things happening in this front in the world. By the way, there is a lovely short animated video where Brené Brown explains the concept of empathy very well over here. 

And if I let you in my home, this is the way I want to you to behave there, I set the bar that high for myself as well. All our homes are fragile and this is the privilege for all of us, to decide what is acceptable. Nowadays I only let in people I know won’t break anything and who will respect my point of view, what I have been making for so long. People who respect the self-made items and the self-taught pleasures. I know the things I’ve built last time and I keep on building. I’ve found the diamonds through struggle. And I hope to find people I can keep on building together with mutual respect. Home=boundaries.  

I have had another story linked to this I am writing and finding understanding and healing through a metaphor. I don’t know if it is common to do so in therapeutic writing, I have to ask. Perhaps I have found out my own way of doing some sort of scheme therapy through metaphors? Individual metaphors grouped into larger metaphor families, making them visible and therefore accessible for me to heal and release some schemes, life traps, and finding better ones instead. Communication shapes the way we think and act following the cognitive metaphor theory I know from the language sciences and it is what I have intuitively used. Metaphor also gives a gentle way to look at something difficult and helps to get some empowerment behind. Anyway, that writing process will take its time although a lot of the story is written already. There is so much darkness in that story that it perhaps will take some time to find the light and enough lightness, seek the understanding, likeness between the story and a comforting, understanding and empowering metaphor. And there needs to be some crochet in between :-).  

Pirjo