​Last week I talked about how we can be homeless even with a roof over our head.  Another way of thinking about homelessness is to be rootless, ungrounded.  If we are to find our way home in body we need to be rooted in something that both nourishes and supports us when the winds of life begin to blow.  This week I encourage you to consider how to be at home in body.
 
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that all human beings must satisfy the following needs before they move on to the next.  These are, in order: Physiological Needs (food, water, warmth, rest), Safety Needs (clothing, shelter, security), Belonging (healthy personal, social, and intimate relationships), Esteem (feeling of accomplishment, competence, self-worth), and Self-Actualization (coming to know one’s self and fulfilling one’s potential).  Being at home in the body speaks to those first three sets of needs; physiological, safety, and belonging.  Until those are met, it is very difficult to move onto the “higher needs.”  The home is the “where and how” of meeting these needs.
 
There are countless stories about women and men who have left their home behind and moved to a new place where they were truly alone.  They struggled to find their footing and plant their roots in their new home.  These iconic stories reflect our experiences and speak to our deepest selves when we have lost our footing and feel isolated and alone.  The sad part is that this happens even when we seem to have everything we need.  We may have a good house and a spouse and 2.5 children with 3 meals a day.  We may have a good job and people we see regularly that we count as friends.  But…
 
Those three dots tell the rest of the story.  There may be an emptiness about all that “having.”  The “firm-footing” that we expect during the times of “storms” eludes us.  The “itch” for really belonging is not “scratched” by those around us.  We have a home but we are not at home.  We have “left the building.”  The lives we have acquired and that we expect to nourish and support us seem strangely unhelpful  This is real homelessness.
 
How do we usually endure such an empty life?  We engage in an empty activity.  In gym class the coach called it “Running in Place.”  I was always confused about this exercise.  It was good for the heart but boy did it starve the soul.  In fact, other than a few physical benefits, it was pointless.  This is why I am selling our treadmill.  If I am going to walk I would rather do it somewhere that nourishes me, like a hiking trail or a park filled with people.  When we are homeless, we go through the motions and walk or run in place.  We think we are feeding our lives but, in fact, we are fooling ourselves.  It is pretend-living that helps us get through the days, weeks, months, and years but….
 
What can we do about it?  Rather than running, let us “Belong in Place.”  Let where we are become a deeper reflection of who we are.  Let the walls that surround us grow out of the person who seeks shelter within them.  Let the ground upon which we walk reflect the one who is doing the walking.  Let the people who surround us reflect back to us who we are and who we can become.  Belonging in place takes a commitment to being who we want to become, not simply doing what we have to make others happy or chase away the demons that visit us in our dreams or nip at our heels while we run in place. 
 
To belong-in-place means that we are deeply rooted in the situations and people around us.  It means that they feed and nourish us when we hunger.  They support us when the winds of shame, guilt, disappointment, or despair blow into our lives.  They involve us in a community through which we receive and share who we are.  To be at home in body is to know who we are by looking around and seeing the best of ourselves reflected in our surroundings and in our companions.

​If you find yourself homeless in body, I invite you to consider nesting.  This comes from the behavior of pregnant women as they approach their due date.  Many report that they feel the need to clean and organize their lives and their home for the arrival of their child.  It is a form of anticipatory socialization that assists the mother-to-be as she transitions into becoming a Mom.
 
In my use of the term, I am talking about doing things that will help you achieve the same purpose.  You will make a place for the person who is coming to be within yourself and allowing you time to transition from homelessness to being at home.  There are several things you can do.
 
Gathering In – The first step in belonging in place is to take an assessment of what you need and then gathering it together.  Unfortunately, this can be a complicated process.  If you feel the need for a close friend you may have to step out beyond yourself and join clubs or be more open to folks.  Finding a different place to live can also be very involved.  If you need to get out of a difficult financial or employment situation this may take some time and require hard choices.  But, regardless of how long it takes, every step you take toward gathering what you need for your nest will be time well spent.
 
Getting to Know – After gathering what you need, spend some time simply being with your home and the people and things you have gathered.  Often people do not turn out to be the way we thought.  We are surprised for good and ill more often than not.  The same applies to the situations and places that you have gathered.  Give them some time to show you who they are.  You are building a life, not a model airplane.  Get to know them and see if they fit in with your home.
 
Arranging – Once you have an idea of who and what these pieces are, spend time arranging them around you.  Not every friend needs to be seen every week and not every house needs a huge couch.  Arrange them until they feel “at home” to you.
 
Basking – And once you discover that a home has enfolded you, sit back and enjoy them and it.  Spend time.  Let them nourish and support you as you nurture and care for them and it.
 
Welcome home!
 
Bob Dees

Hierarchy of Needs
 
Feeling at Home
 
Building Friendships
​

​For the next few weeks we will be exploring Self-Care through finding our way home. Homelessness, in reality and in our souls, is a life-shaping reality for many people.  It can lead to feeling lost, ungrounded, a wanderer with without place or purpose.  People can be homeless in a house they have lived in for a good part of their lives.  They can feel homeless among relatives who have known them since birth.  Homelessness can occur whether we have a comfortable bank account or are penniless.  Experiencing homelessness can only be resolved by finding our way home.  This home may be a place, a community of people, or some combination of both.  But without home, we struggle with our daily living in body-mind-soul.
 
Home is a place that has deep meaning for us.  It may be a place where a significant part of our personal story has occurred.  It may be a place that surrounds us with physical reminders of where we have been, who we are, and who we want to become.  It could be the place where the people who are significant to us live and thrive.  It may be a place that reminds us that we are part of something greater than ourselves.  Home can be a place that offers us what we need to find the good in life.
 
Home can also be a special type of community that provides safety, a sense of belonging (family), refuge, and the resources we need to recover so that we can move forward.  This community may be genetically related or knit together by common history, interests, or companionship.  This human home wraps us in supportive and nurturing relationships that offer us what we need to venture forth and live in the world beyond. 
 
For most people, home needs more than location, it needs the community to make it real whether they are physically present in the moment or not.  Home can be people who have left us in death or through a change in life circumstances.  They exist within our hearts and minds and speak to us over the years or decades that may separate us from their physical presence.  They exist whenever we feel them touching our lives in ways that offer us a sense of being home.
 
Unfortunately, many of us, from time to time, feel homeless.  We feel isolated and unsheltered from the winds of life.  We feel exposed and lacking in the means to find our way.  Such homelessness can paralyze our will, confuse our mind, and cause our body to feel weak and weary.  Over the next few weeks these notes will offer information about how we can deal with this homelessness so that we can find our way home.
 
Blessings,
Bob

​Where are those places that remind you of the best parts of yourself?
 
Where is the place and who are the people with whom you are able let go of your facade and be the beautiful, blemished creature that you are?
 
Who are the people who surround you with words of encouragement and help you stay in touch with who you are?  They may be living or dead, present or far away in time or distance.
 
When the silence comes and you are alone, how “at home” do you feel?

Why is Home Important to us?
 
The Psychology of Home
 
When Home Isn’t Safe
​

​Getting stuck is one of those inconvenient truths about life.  We all “end up in the ditch” from time to time.  Sometimes we do not plan well enough and sometimes we are blindsided.  Sometimes we zig when we should have zagged and sometimes, no matter what we do, we just get stuck.
 
Marlene and I have done a lot of beach driving in search of those little brown and gray birds that scurry along the surf.  I usually do the driving so that she can keep an eye out for our critters.  We have driven the beach along a good part of the upper Texas Coast, and yes, we have gotten stuck!  Despite being a very cautious driver, I have miscalculated my way into soft sand.  When I had a 4-wheel drive jeep I was not as concerned, but I learned that any vehicle with tires can get stuck. 
 
Beach driving has taught me that getting stuck and getting unstuck are two very different things.  It is very easy to blame our getting stuck on someone else.  But, such blaming is ultimately self-defeating.  We do not have much control over “someone else” and so in blaming them we are giving them the power to hold us captive in our stuckness.  And we may then blame them not only for getting stuck but for being stuck.  “They caused it.  They have to fix it!”  I learned this while sitting with my truck wheels sunk up to the axles in soft beach sand.  The facts were, I was stuck and I was not going anywhere.  The only real question was do I want to stay stuck or do I want to get unstuck?  Blaming had nothing to do with resolving this question.
 
This is where we need to take responsibility for our stuckness.  Not necessarily for getting stuck.  Stuckness happens.  But we need to accept responsibility for our remaining stuck.  Responsibility means we have the ability to respond.  If we can change the situation then we are responsible for doing so.  This may involve digging yourself out or getting help.  If you are remaining stuck in your life; if you just cannot seem to get ahead; if you are not happy and feel frozen in place; it is time to accept your remaining stuck and begin doing what is necessary to get yourself free from being stuck.
 
Simply to reiterate, getting stuck happens.  Staying stuck is a choice.  Choose well!

Career Stuckness
 
Getting the Energy to get Unstuck
 
Beyond Stuckness

​Being soul stuck is, by far, more debilitating than being stuck in body or mind.   Soul stuckness can be as brief as a few moments or as long as a lifetime.  It can be a sadness that makes daily life difficult or it can completely paralyze our will to live.  It can steal away our joy or destroy our lives.  The soul become stuck when it stands in the way of our will to act.  In its most severe form it renders life a mere shadow by destroying our capacity for love and trust, joy and hope.  It erodes our faith and renders our relationships meaningless.
 
The soul and the emotions that bubble within it give us the energy to act.  Some emotions will empower us to act.  Others can absorb all the energy we need just to carry our emotional baggage.  We rely on this energy to engage our will and live our lives.  This energy can be  redirected against ourselves.  It can also be used up in fighting battles within our mind.  In either case,  it is unable to lead us beyond ourselves and into the world.  We become stuck.
 
This emotional baggage gets in the way of meaningful relationships, purposeful goals, life-giving hopes, and life-inspiring dreams.  In their place we experience a magnification of insecurities, fears, and uncertainties.  In time we may cease to feel anything at all.  We may feel nothing,  numb to our lives.
 
As a Hospice Chaplain I had the opportunity to walk with quite a few couples as they prepared for the death of a spouse.   With a few of the couples, when the death of the spouse occurred I could see the light go out in the eyes of the survivor.  I, along with the team, could predict that the remaining spouse would be gone within 6 months or a year.  I believe these people died of a broken heart.  This is the ultimate expression of soul stuckness.  Someone who had survived 80 or more years of changes succumbed when they became lost in their grief.
 
Because soul stuckness inevitably involved the paralysis of the will, it can be very difficult to overcome.  When it takes away the very will to live there is generally only one outcome.  Therefore it is imperative that we learn to cope with our soul stuckness before it occurs in such a lethal circumstance.
 
The following tip will help you deal with the lesser forms of soul stuckness and continue moving forward when your fears, failures, despairs, or emptiness threatens to freeze you in your tracks.  Learn to step back and listen.

​I always found it confusing that nearly every person I have ever accompanied through a difficult time knew what they needed to do.  It was seldom a lack of knowledge or skill.  They needed courage and/or permission to take care of themselves. 
 
As a young Pastor, I would address this by telling tell them what they needed to do.  I soon discovered that as long as it was my idea they could play “Yes but…” and avoid doing anything.  “You should see your doctor!”  “Yes, but it will take weeks to get an appointment.”  “You should talk to your friend!”  “Yes, but they do not answer my calls.”  “You should…”  “Yes, but …”  In time I learned that I needed to help them discover what they already knew and provide encouragement to follow through.
 
I would generally help them make this discovery by leading them to step back and listen to themselves.  I may suggest they pretend they have a friend who is feeling stuck and ask them to talk through what they might say to their friend.  Or, I may ask them to find some quiet time and just start writing everything they are feeling and doing about the situation.  I have also encouraged them to set it all aside for a week and then come back to it when the events that caused the stuckness are not so fresh in their minds.  Then I would engage them in listening to themselves.  Often, as long as they had enough energy to listen through the “fog in their souls” they would be able to not only see their options but pull forth enough energy to give them a try.  This is the essence of “Step Back and Listen.”
 
Step away from the emotions and engage your mind.  Then listen to what it has to say.  If this does not help you find enough energy to move forward, then I suggest you seek out a trusted companion or a professional to help you break out of your funk.
 
Soul stuckness can be quite serious.  Do not allow it to advance until you have been paralyzed.  Step back and find the strength you need to step out of yourself and into the world.

Getting Unstuck
 
Paralyzed by Uncertainty
 
Breaking Free