On a recent drive by of my beloved childhood home, I got up the courage to knock on the front door. It was a weekday afternoon. After a while, a man in his thirties answered, looking annoyed and confused. I introduced myself and said that this was my dear, childhood home and its been thirty years since I was living here and I would love to walk around the outside property for a few minutes.
Where voids and weedy overgrowth now resided, I told him about the cherry blossoms, Douglas firs and rhododendrons. I wanted him to know this property was once so deeply loved, well tended to, and for him to see the magnificent Before to the current After we were standing in. It took some convincing for him to allow me to walk around the outside of the house to the back yard. He said he rents and doesn’t care about all that and wanted to go back to his sandwich.
I stood still in the back yard. The flood of a lifetime of memories mixed with the mourning for simpler, carefree times felt crushing. I cried for the magic and splendor contained in the property lines of my idyllic childhood, thanked my home and left.
Saying a silent good bye and thank you is recommended for any place you stay in – from an Airbnb to a friends guest room to your own home. It feeds the atmosphere of emotional sustainability and energetically brings closure and gratitude.
For most people, when you recall your childhood memories, those recollections are typically contained in the residence(s) of your youth. These early homes become the foundation for what unfolds later in life as a guideline for what kind of home you are drawn to. When you think of your early dwelling, what comes up for you? If you drawn out your childhood home floor plan and superimpose the Feng Shui map on it, it can be very revealing to see if there were any missing sections on the Feng Shui map and how that may have impacted you today, as well as if you grew up in any kind of extreme situation (hoarding, perfectionism, tiny home living, etc.)
For more on this, I spend some time in my Holistic Home School of Feng Shui Course on childhood homes. They tell our first stories and we have so much to learn from them now. If you haven’t said good bye to your early homes, I recommend you thank it and say goodbye.
xo.
Laura
