“What does it mean for you to ‘come home to’ yourself? It will be different for all of us, and it may even come as you try something new. I can’t say specifically what this might look like for you, but I can say when you are close, you’ll know it. It will sound soft and gentle. It will feel safe and settled. You won’t feel like you have something to prove. It will be kind and open and free. It may be something that you’ll feel invited to grow into, that will require a bit of a journey. But it is one you will be glad to take.

I’ve had a lot of experience in walking up to the door of a house where I feel unwanted and unwelcome, because for years that is what I did to myself. I stood at the edge of the driveway to my own soul, unaware of the life that wanted to be lived on the other side of the door.

Coming home to yourself is not always and easy thing to do.

If you arrive at a house and the hostess stands on the porch shouting criticisms, judgments, and sarcasms at you, guess what you won’t want to do? Walk through the door. You will turn your back on that house every time and vow never to return. What if we stopped standing on our own front porch and bullying ourselves? What if we decided, instead, to be a gracious hostess to ourselves at the threshold of our own soul?

-Excerpts from “The Next Right Thing” by Emily P. Freeman, Chapter 19 ‘Come Home to Yourself’