When will your new home feel like “home”? When will you feel comfortable? When will you be confident you made the right choice when you moved? Here are a few tips that I’ve learned.
It will start to feel like home when you decide that “good enough” is ok.
Moving makes us idealistic. We have a chance to choose the perfect house, neighborhood, job, friends. At least we thought we did. Some of those things, we find out, are impossible to find for one reason or another. The problem with that approach is that while we’re looking for “perfect”, we miss so much “good enough”.
The friendship you dismissed because she was not the age you imagined when you pictured the friends you would make.
The church that was great except for the bad coffee.
The job that made you wait longer than you wanted for lots of vacation time.
The neighborhood that only had 3 of the 4 things you wanted.
If you dismiss the “good enough” things in search of the perfect thing, you often end up with nothing at all.
I’ve found the more I extend grace to people and places to be what they are right now and not something I wish they were, the more I appreciate them and the more grace I receive.
{This sweet dog is the perfect picture of making yourself “at home”. 🙂  }
It will start to feel like home when you are at home with who you are.
We often picture hospitality as a house that is ready at any time to accept guests. Clean, sparkling bathrooms, Amazing meals. But that’s not truly what hospitality is. Hospitality is a way of living that says, “I have room for you in my life.” It says, “This is a safe place and I enjoy you.” It’s a way of living and relating.
Hospitable people are less worried about their own messes than they are concerned with extending invitations of friendship to others.
How does this relate to feeling at home in a new place? There is so much insecurity in getting planted in a new place. It puts our focus on ourselves. It’s normal, but it’s not a healthy place to stay. When you can take a deep breath, relax and be okay with people knowing you for who you are, including your imperfections and insecurities in this new place, that’s when you’ll begin to feel settled.
When you feel comfortable in your own skin, you can feel at home anywhere.
It will start to feel like home when you take it off probation.
When someone is on probation, there is a constant scrutiny. It’s not a scrutiny that is looking for the best in the person, it’s a scrutiny that is watching for any slip-up. Three strikes and you’re out, and so forth.
Quit making your new home prove itself to you. If you’re looking for the imperfections, you’ll find them.
Let your new home off the hook. Look for the charm. Watch for things that are good.
When I talk with people who don’t feel at home in their new location, I often wish I could fix it. I wish I could change how things worked so we had more control over how other people and places received us or lived up to our expectations. That would be nice. I’ve seen a hopeful pattern, though. It seems the quicker someone decides to focus their energy on the things they can control, the easier they seem to transition.
Are you struggling with feeling at home? Maybe taking a step to let yourself or your new home off probation would be a good first step. Perhaps being okay with something imperfect will, in the end, bring you more joy than you could have imagined.