10 days of thanksgiving: home
It’s November, which means that for many folks, attention turns to thankfulness. Even Canada recently celebrated their Thanksgiving Day, for example. For the United States, Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This change in focus, of course, makes sense: As the end of the year approaches, it’s natural to take some time to stop for a moment, and reflect on the good that the year has brought.
So since Bliss Your Heart is all about gratitude (with a heaping side of journaling), I thought we should do just that. For the next 10 days, I’ll share some prompts for things we can reflect on in gratitude. The prompts can be used to add thoughts to your journal, or get out and use your camera (or camera phone) to capture, or sketch or draw, or even simply spend some quiet-time with a cuppa just meditating. My hope is that by the end of this time, we’ll all have created a body of work that reflects the bounty we’ve discovered we have in our lives. Are you with me?
Awesome. Let’s go.
These days, my home is a complete shambles. We’re in the process of redoing our kitchen and family room, and in so doing, found a huge leak that had been apparently rotting our walls over the course of several years. The stress of mounting repair bills is palpable, not made any easier by the the fact that for the last month, my family and I have been living on top of each other in a fraction of our home, and “cooking” in a makeshift kitchen which consists of primarily a kettle, a toaster and a hot plate. It’s been very cozy, to say the very least.
But even with our home in disarray, I know we’ve got it good: I’ve been thinking of the folks who have been affected by hurricane Sandy (and the subsequent nor’easter that blew in afterwards), and the fact that we’ve had heat and running water throughout our own ordeal makes me realize that we hardly have room to complain. In addition, having recently returned from a trip to Africa where I was warmly invited into the homes of the some of the poorest people in the world, I am very well aware that when it comes to a physical home, there are literally millions of folks around the world who have far more challenging living conditions than my family and I do, or have ever done.
So all of this has me thinking: what is it that makes a home, anyway? I mean, of course creature comforts are lovely, but when we say we want a “happy home,” are the creature comforts really what we’re thinking about? It seems to me that “home” is about so much more: it’s about that favourite spot where we love to read books, or play board games with our families, or have warm cups of tea with our partners. It’s where we share family meals, or share good times with friends, or even spend quiet times alone with our journals. Home is our favourite coffee mug, or favourite seat, or favourite poster or art hanging on our walls.
Home isn’t just where our heart is. It’s where our heart thrives.
Day 1 prompt: Today, I encourage you to reflect on what makes your home feel like home. Is it the people who live there with you? Is it your favourite chair? The coffee mug that is yours and yours alone? Your awesome bed? The bathtub where you unwind at the end of the day? Take your journal and come up with a list of things about your home that you’re grateful for. Or take your camera (or camera phone) and capture images of your favourite aspects of your home.
And of course, if you’re willing to share your thoughts, I’d love to read them in the comments below!
With that, stay tuned for tomorrow’s post, friends.
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What a beautiful idea! We’re celebrating a abundance theme this month and are focusing on abundance not as the collecting of stuff but as an appreciation of the abundance we are so lucky to already have. Think you hit the nail on the head in saying, Home isn’t just where our heart is. It’s where our heart thrives.” Can’t wait to see the rest of this series.
Thanks, Miss Lindsey D — I hope you’ll join me!
Great idea–I’m going to do this on my blog. I’ve lived happily in many different types of houses and apartments. Home is where my “people” are. When they’re with me, a space feels like home.
I sympathize your home problems. Five years ago we unwittingly bought a house with an ugly secret–masonry walls that were cracked all the way down to the foundation, so extensive we had to hire a structural engineer to keep the basement wall from caving in. All the damage was hidden from view behind painted paneling in the finished basement. We had spent months dealing with all the details and deprivations that come with an international move, and then instead of landing softly into a new “nest” we fell hard into a nightmarish situation. It was nine months before our house was repaired and we will never fully recover financially BUT we made it through, house and family intact.
[...] just want to thank the amazing Karen for her wonderful idea and prompt. This is the time of the month when inspiration leaves and I am swamped with work and life. So, [...]
[...] friend, Karen, is kicking off a 10 Days of Thanksgiving daily journaling prompt series. She’s basically my journaling hero so I’m super excited about [...]
[...] Day 1 Reflection: what makes home feel like home? [...]
Love this idea! The most important thing that makes our house a home is family… my 2 sons & my boyfriend. I love having my grown sons living at home, though I know they’ll be leaving at some point… and when their girlfriends join us, it’s even better! Other things that make our house a home: our kitchen table where we eat together, the back porch where we enjoy family cookouts & outdoor dining, the great room where we gather around the large, lighted tree at Christmas, the fireplace where we display special family photos & a digital frame with our history on the always lighted mantle, our cozy bedrooms where we can each retreat to our own private space, and my comfy bed with feather pillows & comforter! I’m in Amsterdam at the moment, loving it here, but missing the comforts of home & family!
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