For Those Who Have Never Quite Felt at Home — Anywhere

June has been a rich month for ideas. Following my recent reflections on shame from a workshop with Stephen Finn, I find myself drawn to another theme that has been sitting with me — one that feels equally universal and equally close to home, quite literally: the question of belonging.

Earlier this month, colleagues gathered to discuss a C.G. Jung Memorial Lecture by James Hollis, the Jungian analyst and author, titled Home: Why we must leave it, and why we forever look for it. It asked a deceptively simple question: what does it mean to feel at home?

For many of us — and perhaps especially for those who have lived across countries and cultures — that question is anything but simple.

A compass toward home

James Hollis offered a question that has stayed with me:

"When have I felt the most at home in myself?"

It is a compass. It points toward something essential about who you are — toward the conditions, the relationships, the ways of being in the world that allow you to feel most fully yourself. That feeling of deep inner settledness, of this is where I belong — that, in Hollis's reading of Jung, is home.

Jung's concept of home is not what you might expect

For Jung, home is not a geographical location, a relationship, or the country on your passport. It is closer to a state of being — a sense of alignment between who we truly are and how we are living. A feeling of being in the right relationship with ourselves and with what Jung called the Self.

This is why so many people can live in the same place their whole lives and never feel at home in themselves. And why others — uprooted, displaced, far from where they began — can find a profound sense of belonging within themselves.

You have to lose yourself to find yourself

We must leave home in order to find it. Jung understood that individuation — becoming fully and authentically oneself — requires a kind of losing. A letting go of the constructed self, shaped by others' expectations and the roles we have learned to play. Before we can find what is truly ours, we must be willing to release what is not.

For those who have moved across countries, navigated multiple cultures, or simply never quite felt they belonged anywhere — this may resonate. The disorientation of not knowing where home is can be deeply painful. But it can also be a doorway into a more authentic relationship with oneself.

Not everyone is meant to take this path

Jung understood that individuation is not a universal calling. It requires readiness, a willingness to sit with uncertainty, and the courage to ask difficult questions.

Not everyone is meant to take this path. And that is also okay.

But for those who feel the pull, the question is worth sitting with quietly:

When have I felt the most at home in myself? What was present in that moment? And what does that tell me about where home might truly be?

If these questions resonate with you and you would like to explore them further, I offer a complimentary 60-minute consultation. You are welcome to get in touch.

*These are my own reflections and interpretations, offered in the spirit of curiosity and exploration rather than as psychological guidance.