The Return Home

Returning home after a retreat or spending time in the sacred has always been an

interesting challenge for me. 

After being deeply immersed in the sacred and experiencing an array of mystical

encounters, I end up returning home to face an un-stocked fridge, overgrown grass in the yard, a stack of bills & emails and a demanding to-do list staring at me. My spiritual bliss comes crashing down amidst the harsh realities of daily life.

Trying to reconcile these differences within me sometimes left me feeling 

out of place....disenchanted...flat.

Ultimately, this has inspired a lifelong mission/purpose, dharma for me - travelling between worlds, and finding ways to build bridges connecting them.

This time, after another incredible journey into Mother India, returning home feels different…I connected with something deep within my being, something that has always been there - waiting to emerge, and I felt the separation between the sacred & this world start to dissolve within me. I reflected upon what it was that I did differently and jotted down a couple of points that stood out for me:

Reintegrating back into Daily Life

1. Redefining My True Home

The sense of ‘home’ we all know tends to be a place of shelter, nourishment, safety and

warmth. It is where we find a deep sense of familiarity. However, in this 'comfort zone' we can easily fall back into routine & habitual behaviour. It's important to understand that we are not our habits (although our habits make up our experience of life)

Our True home is not necessarily tied to a particular place, but a way of being. We tend to

feel 'at home' in environments and physical spaces where we can feel most like our real or true selves. I feel deeply at home, for instance, at particular places like Wollumbin or

Arunachala, for reasons I cannot rationally explain.  So, reflect for a moment, where you feel most like your true self…what are you doing? How are you being?

What new habits do you want to establish that are more aligned with your true self?

Ultimately, your return home is an opportunity for you to return to your Self!

2. Remembering

You've just had an unexplainable, mystical and synchronistic encounter on your journey

where you remembered who you really are and what you were born for. This is an incredibly powerful moment. One that you would remember for life, right? 

Unfortunately, these memories tend to fade into the background as the demands of daily life take over.

So, we need to find a way of constantly remembering who we really are. This is where a

daily practise of meditation or walking in nature may help… There is a technique in NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) called Anchoring which grounds an experience, a memory, into the body. It simply involves holding a part of your body in a particular way while reliving the moment. To access this memory at a later date you hold that posture again.

Indigenous Australians use a similar method by storing memory & story into the landscape to remember, while in India, yogis use a series of mudras to unlock certain states of being. Ultimately, there are a number of ways to store & retrieve these special memories. They might involve sound, smell, or taste. My suggestion is to choose one method and do it regularly. Make it a daily practice of remembering.

Sharing the Elixir

The return home is an opportunity to consolidate the connection with our true self, to bring forth the elixir of our unique gift, and offer it unconditionally to the world. 

So, today, I am calling out to each of us who have recently been on an important journey,

one that has taken us far from all that is familiar to us…

It is time to return home! To return to our true selves, more aligned with our inner life.

It is time for us to rest into our newly surrendered self, becoming more sensitized to and

more grounded in our being.  It’s time to settle into an embodiment of what is truly ours and ours alone to live, feeling into the excitement and the vulnerability of renewed life force energy coming alive within us.

Your family & community are waiting for you…

to come home!