Home is Where the Heart Is

Home is Where the Heart Is

By Marcia Martin

What is 'home'? Where is 'home'? Why is 'home' so important? And most importantly, where is my home?

After two years where home became a focal point for the whole planet, I've been thinking deeply about the meaning of home for each one of us and its importance in our lives as ambitious women.

I've known many places I could call home - Honolulu, Martha's Vineyard, Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Aspen, New York City, Toronto, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, Portland, Coeur d'Alene, and Louisville. I've traveled to even more destinations, including exotic places in Europe, Africa, China, Australia, Indonesia, South America, and the Caribbean. Each one of them has shaped who I am.

As a young girl, my parents relocated me with my two younger brothers and two younger sisters almost on an annual basis, which meant frequent school changes and being obliged to make and end many friendships along the way. Those constant moves caused me heartache and sadness, forever leaving friends and losing toys or cherished possessions in the transitions. Each move brought anxiety and fear, and I dreaded moving. And so, I developed a deep desire to stay in one place for an extended period - a place where I could really settle in.

As an executive in the business world, I found - that due to client priorities - I needed to move continually to deliver my training services or manage the current project at hand. Those moves were fun and adventure filled. I felt entirely differently about these moves. I couldn't wait to see the next city or discover the next land. Relocating was a source of joy, for I couldn't wait to discover new people, new cultures, and new adventures.

During that period, I never really thought about 'home'. It was a place, not an experience. Whether I owned the house or rented the apartment, it all seemed the same. A property was just a place I went to. I went 'home'.

But over the years, I realized how this concept of home has supported my evolution.

Now I realize that 'home' is a place to come from, not to go to. It has become a place in my heart, rather than some physical location.

On one of my trips to Australia, I happened to stop in the airport shop. At that time, the tiny Beany Babies were all the rage. I glanced at a certain small Beany Baby on the shelf, and I instantly fell in love with it and bought it immediately. The little stuffed animal became a sort of friend on my trip, which gave me solace and a sense of peace being alone in a distant country.

During my next trip to yet another country, I thought about the Beanie Baby I had left at home. I realized I needed to buy another to take with me, so I went back to the airport shop and purchased another small stuffed animal which also became my friend.

Needless to say, I soon became obsessed with collecting! These little objects became 'friends', offering me a sense of 'home' and peace while I was away from my own home. To this day, I still carry around a gigantic cardboard box filled with hundreds of little Beanie Babies that I can't seem to part with or live without.

Sometime after my fall into Beanie Baby land, I discovered that if I bought a bigger stuffed animal, I could also use it as a head rest or pillow on the plane, so I purchased a perfect sized Winnie The Pooh teddy bear. I loved that bear. I not only used it on the plane to rest my head, but at night I slept with him and cuddled up to the soft padding.

And with every subsequent trip Winnie the Pooh bear came with me, he became a constant companion for at least two years. I just felt better having him with me. He was a pretty yellow color with a red T-shirt. He was perfect – not too small, not too big, and very, very soft.

When I was home, Winnie became a staple on my bed, along with my other animals – real dogs and cats. They loved him too and would use him as a pillow or headrest. It was sweet. I took Pooh Bear with me to a convention I attended in Vancouver BC, Canada.

When I came back to my room one night, I discovered Winnie was nowhere to be found. I searched everywhere in my room, but Winnie was gone. I felt panicked inside, wondering what could have happened to him. I deduced that he must have been in the bed, and probably the hotel's housekeeper hadn't noticed, and folded him up in the dirty sheets and thrown him with all the other sheets into the big laundry tubs. He was on an adventure for sure. But I was suddenly distraught.

Many big luxury hotels use outsourced laundry companies to handle their towels and sheets. When I called the Guest Services to share my distress, they informed me that there was probably no way to know what truck the little guy was on, nor any probable chance he could be retrieved.

But this was my friend! I wasn't going to let him disappear like that!

To add some urgency to the situation and some commitment of the agent to help with this catastrophe, I informed the hotel that he was a family heirloom and that it was vital I retrieve him! Winnie had traveled for years with me on countless trips, and the bond with this little creature was deep and profound. Winnie was my 'home'. The power of that connection cannot be discounted. It may sound silly, a grown woman being attached to a teddy bear - but what he meant to me allowed me stability and solace on all the countless trips. He had and was my heart!

I felt bad about lying to the hotel, but too embarrassed to tell the truth – that at 50 years old, I was in love with a stuffed animal. So I made up the family heirloom story without even thinking that he 'wasn't old enough' to have been handed down! I didn't really think it through, but my story did the trick. I made sure the GM knew how important it was for me for him to find that bear!

For four long days and nights, there was no success. There were many trucks and vast laundry machines in each of the several laundry companies the hotel used as vendors. But the kind GM saw my distress and persevered!

I followed up each day and each night with not-so-quiet persistence. I wouldn't drop it. Maybe the staff wished that I was 3 years old and could have been placated by any old bear. But at my mature age, they wouldn't have been able to fool me, and I was not going to drop my attachment to an object that contributed to my wellbeing! By the time the GM found my Winnie the Pooh bear, the entire executive team of that hotel knew me by my first name.

Finally, the GM had Winnie sent to my room on a silver tray with a bottle of champagne. I enjoyed having Winnie 'home', and I also enjoyed the champagne.

It wasn't all about toys, though. Another time in my life, when I lived in my big house in Aspen, Colorado, my home became a focal point of significant distress once again. It was during the crash of 2008. I had lost a lot of money, and the mortgage was high. I was concerned I might not be able to pay the mortgage. I spent many sleepless nights, preoccupied with the reality of "not losing my home". I was desperate and anxious.

Many people know this experience, and going through it is an invitation to the freedom of detachment.

One morning I woke up and realized that this place I was losing sleep over was just a house. It was a building. My home would not be lost. Just the house. I could handle losing a house. I could replace it. It wasn't my heart I was losing. And it wasn't really my home. I was only going to sell a house.

I was liberated from the attachment to a place again with that realization. At that moment, I felt lightheaded, as if I was floating. Like I had wings. All the pressure seemed to lift, and I started laughing out loud.

Of course, I was fond of that house, but it wasn't the 'end of me' to lose it.

I really believe that if we realize who we are and come from that power and experience, we won't feel we are ever "away from home".

Home is where our heart is. And I can create that experience of 'heart' and 'home' anywhere I am in life.

HOME is an experience, not a place. HOME lives in the heart and is not found on a map. HOME doesn't have an address nor a mortgage payment. HOME is a place to come from, not a place to return to.

The ability to transform into our best selves and have our best lives depends on us knowing that we can be emotionally ‘home’ wherever we may be on the planet, when we take responsibility to be in touch with our inner personal power. When we do that, and exercise that ability, we are empowered to go after our biggest and best dreams.

It is in that ability that I find my REAL HOME.

Global speaker, corporate executive coach, transformational thought leader, and changemaker extraordinaire, Marcia Martin has trained over 300,000 people around the globe how to look in a very direct way at the prison they have created in life that limits them from reaching their full potential.

Dame Marcia (knighted in 2008) spends her time consulting entrepreneurial and corporate companies in leadership, communication, collaboration and championship performance including Capital One, Hard Rock International, Warner Bros., InterContinental Hotels, McCain Foods, and Evian Water.

As one of the Founding Members and Sr. Vice President of Erhard Seminars Training - est - (later known as Landmark Forum), Marcia Martin was personally mentored by innovative academic thinker Werner Erhard for 10 years in the art and technology of Self Transformation and Human Development, and helped take the est organization from inception to millions of graduates worldwide. She has consulted, trained or coached some of the greatest thought leaders and authors of our time including Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins, Lynne Twist, T. Harv Ecker, and Robert T. Kiyosaki.

Her programs teach all aspects of The Golden Triangle of Personal Power -Communication Mastery, Relationship Competence, and Enrollment Prowess.

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