I just came home, from home.
I mean I just returned to New York (my current home) from Hong Kong (where I grew up).
My daughter meditating during a hike in Hong Kong
Maybe it's the 13 hours of jet lag that is making me all confused and discombobulated, I wake up not knowing where I am, where home is.
Brooklyn, New York
Is home somewhere you grow up, spend your formative years? Or is it a place where you live? Or could it just be a place that you can keep returning to, over and over again, no matter how far or how many times you have moved away from it? A place where you'd rather be, more than anywhere else in the world, you feel you are yourself, you are home?
I am not a big fan of "vacationing". I am too much of a stickler for routine, traveling away from home takes me away from my yoga, meditation and green smoothies. Wherever I go, I do what I can to establish some kind of order. If I can't run, I walk. If I can't meditate, I try to find peace in nature. If I can't have a green smoothie, I order double portions of leafy greens at every meal. I practice yoga everywhere, in my parents' living room, behind the Christmas tree at my sister's house, on a boat at Halong Bay, Vietnam. You get the picture...I can only do what I can in any given situation.
Don't get me wrong, I love traveling and going to places. But there is something intrinsically unsettling when I am taken away from my "home court habits" - the things in life that make me sane, the tools that I can always rely on to bring balance and peace to my life.
So could home be a "life style", a habit pattern, or even a mind-set? Because when I operate from there I feel most alive, most at home!
I came across the term "home court habits" when I read the book "Foodist" by Darya Pino Rose. It means setting up routines that eventually become automatic, permanently integrating better habits in your daily life so they become your "healthstyle". Say if you want to lose weight, get rid of a food craving or make some dietary changes, relying on willpower and self-control almost always fails you, because it is based on deprivation and suffering. Building home court habits takes willpower out of the equation.
I guard my home court habits like my child, no one can touch her.
When you travel, these habits might be quite an inconvenience to pack in your suitcase, but boy, are they worth the shlepp?