Uplift

Spotlight on Home

Posted on by Shari Swanson

homeswithinSomething there is in each of us that yearns for home.  Sometimes we confuse that yearning with a physical place. We travel back to that place and wonder why it feels different. What has changed? Why doesn’t it still feel like home? Sometimes we confuse that yearning with a particular time, a past perhaps that wasn’t complicated with today’s troubles, and lose ourselves in nostalgia. Sometimes we confuse that yearning with a particular person and, if we lose that person, wonder if we will ever feel at home again.

But what if home is not a particular place in time but a feeling we can take steps to cultivate? Here are some suggestions that might bring that feeling of home into your life:

Embrace the Now

Think about those times when you felt a deep sense of belonging and contentedness. Chances are, it was when you were lost in some sort of activity, maybe with people you love, and you lost all sense of time. No checklists, no to-dos, no schedule. Just falling into the moment and letting it lift you out of the day into something bigger.

Welcome Others

Remember that old TV show, Cheers, when everyone shouted “Norm” when he came in? A place where “everyone knows your name?” That sense of welcome is something we can offer others. Greeting them, smiling, welcoming them into the conversation or community. That is a profound thing we can do, and that sense of home that we give to them will undoubtedly rebound to us and make that place in time feel more homey for everybody.

Lay Down Your Weapons

It is hard to enjoy someone else’s company when you’re disagreeing with them. Sure, some conflict is necessary and even healthy to life together, but set aside time to come together in harmony with people. Search for the common elements you agree on. Abandon the judgment and criticism. Enjoy a game or activity that deemphasizes competition. Savor the time together.

Use Your Own Definitions

It’s easy in a social media culture to look at other people’s homey pictures and events and think you need to duplicate those exact things if you want to feel the sense of home they’re experiencing. In fact, that’s one of the strategies behind advertising: “Look at these happy people. Don’t you want to be just like them? If you buy our product, you will be!’ But that comparative decision-making is a set up for disappointment. Instead, look at your people and experiences and find ways to enjoy them that are uniquely your own. And then maybe consider holding those moments a bit sacred, away from the instinct to share. Savoring your home life beats bragging about it every day.

Realize Life is Difficult

For many people, that feeling of home doesn’t include suffering or loss or heartbreak, but is this the way it should be? Isn’t that comforting of each other through the ups and downs of life exactly what home should feel like? We don’t need to run from the hardships in life, we just need to be there with each other through them. Everyone’s life has bumps and bruises. We are all vulnerable.  Pretending we aren’t and that we have the perfect home life is just a set-up for disappointment. For those of us who have weathered storms, having a friend or family member down in the trenches with us has made all the difference and made even the horrible experience feel like home.

Make Time for Your People

Who are the people you love and make you feel at home? Are you finding time to spend with them? Sometimes, even when we love people and hold them close to our hearts, we need to schedule time to spend together. It’s a fast-paced world, finding an opportunity to slow it down to spend time with your loved ones is important, even if you have to pencil it in on your schedule.

Your Roots are Global

The connections between you and anyone else in this world exist, no matter how far removed. For an eye-opening experiment into just this theory exactly, take a look at this DNA experiment.  That knowledge of connection to others, even those seemingly nothing like you or even those you hate, can ground you to see others as yourself, to greet others, to befriend others, to join into a global community where you can feel at home wherever you go.

Today, come home.

Happiness around the world.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

happy

Don’t worry. Be happy. There is so much good still left in the world to be grateful for. For a delightful around-the-world look at the secrets to what makes people happy, check out this wonderful compilation put together by Hometogo.com.

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From listening to birds sing in the morning to a shared meal and conversation with friends, these secrets to happiness are shared the world over.

What makes you happy?

Pause.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

awhile

The world these days moves at a breakneck speed. Twitter and social media speed it up even further.

We are tempted to respond to everything and everyone immediately with whatever thought first passes through our minds. But is that always our best thought? Once said, can it be retrieved?

Often, it is far better to pause, to breathe, to contemplate before deciding whether what we have to say can meaningfully add to the conversation or will just contribute to the din.

Give light.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

givelight

Stumbling around in the dark can be painful, dangerous, and frustrating. We bump into stuff; we get lost; we despair. We lose our bearings and do not know how to get where we are trying to be.

But we each can help by lighting the way–with our words and actions. Consider kindness, for example, and how it can shine light on a very dark situation. In a story now going viral, a woman shared about how she was young in an elevator with her mother, who was berating her. As they left, a stranger whispered to her, “It’s not you; It’s her.” Just those five words of encouragement helped her to see beyond the horrid situation she found herself in and to buttress herself against the abuse rather than assuming, as all children do, that her mother was correct in the condemnation. She found hope:

“When life gets really dark, when she hears her (inner) mother’s voice telling that she’s sh*t, she can’t do it, or to just plain give up,” Solomon writes, “she then sees that stranger’s face as the door closes in front of her.” In fact, sometimes, Solomon says, “it’s the only thing that keeps her going.”

Think of the power you have just with your ability to be kind to someone who desperately needs it! What a gift it is to have eyes that can see suffering and to be able to help. That ripple of kindness never stops.

 

Who aren’t you seeing?

Posted on by Shari Swanson

invisible

Who don’t you see? So much of our reality is defined by our perception, the things we see and focus on, the things we dismiss as background. But some of that background we can walk right by is human–people who serve us dinner, wash our cars, stock our grocery stores, people begging on the street, people next to us on the bus, people in crowds. Sometimes it’s not just that we don’t notice, we avert our eyes.

Imagine what it would be like to someone who people overlook, whose voice is unheard, who is there but unnoticed. After a while, you might question your own reality. Are you…invisible? Do you matter?

There is so much good we can do by simply noticing each other. Smiling in greeting. Looking people in the eye. Acknowledging that we are all on this shared journey of life together, for this moment on the same page of the story.

We can see each other.

 

Confidence boosters.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

confidence

Maybe everything has always been easy for you, and that has given you confidence in itself. (This post may not be for you.) But for those of us who struggle, often we felt confidence bloom in us with the kind and encouraging word of a teacher, or a mentor who saw our potential even as we stumbled, or a friend willing to sit with us through the ugly lows because they believed we were capable of overcoming and rising up. Those people who helped us to believe in ourselves and reach for our potential are our heroes, and their words live and breathe in us encouraging us forward. Don’t you remember those comments or gestures as if they are a part of your very being? We have no control over when those heroes might come along and help us again, but we surely do have control over whether we can be that kind of hero to someone else.

Look around. Is someone you know in need of an encouraging word?

Do what you love

Posted on by Shari Swanson

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Do you ever feel pulled down by the people who tell you that you can’t do something? You should mouth the words when people are singing because you can’t carry a tune. You shouldn’t dance because your moves are awkward. Don’t write unless you are going to be a best-selling novelist. Don’t take up something in your middle years that you’ve always wanted to do because you might look silly. Don’t, can’t, shouldn’t–those kind of words.

Maybe it is you telling yourself those things, afraid to start something and be a beginner after you’ve spent decades learning how to do other stuff and have gotten quite good, an expert even maybe. We encourage children to try new things–to paint, to skate, to sing, to play. But something happens when we get older. We may even hear ourselves holding someone back, “Are you still doing that? If you’re not [insert adjective here–famous, discovered, wealthy, accomplished] by now, you’re never going to be. You should give up.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to lay down all that judgment and dance again? Or sing your heart out? Or write a love poem? The joy is in the doing, and how lovely it is to remember that and embrace whatever it is that makes your soul sing!

What’s chasing you?

Posted on by Shari Swanson

runninginside

We can gussy ourselves up on the outside. Or maybe change jobs or move. Or start over in our relationships. And yet something still eats at us. We have the same insecurities even when we reach our dream weight or buy a stunning outfit. We encounter the same obstacles over and over again, even in different scenarios. In these situations, we need to turn our attention to the inside. We need to consider what is bothering us or holding us back and do the work that needs to be done there.

Rest and be thankful.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

rest

Without the rests and pauses, music would just be noise. The pauses add shape and definition to any composition and allow the rise and fall of the melody to stand out. In order to hear the music that is our life, we need to pause. Between tasks, before we react, when others are speaking. We need to rest when we are weary, to conclude that not everything needs to be done today, now, or maybe even at all. Sometimes less is more.

And as we pause, let us give thanks. For this life, these opportunities, these people (including those who vex you), and the abundance of life all around us.

Thanks for it all.

Persist.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

persist

Sometimes progress is subtle and slow, born of persistence and endurance. Not everything needs to be solved now, today. But we must persist. We must set our goals and work toward them, cognizant that we may stumble and backtrack along the way.

Yet we push on.

For a lovely example of persistence, consider the story of  Jadev Payeng, a simple man who set out to plant trees in a barren stretch of wasteland where no one believed anything would grow. That was in the 1970s. Now that barren wasteland is a forest home to rhinos, elephants, tigers and more. One man, one mission, plus persistence, and now there is a sanctuary for many wild animals bigger than New York’s Central Park.

For a short video of Payeng story, go here. For a deeper dive, watch National Geographic’s look at this remarkable story.

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