Genius loci, feeling at home.

Grounded at the core of expat experience, a perception of self in relation to the environment is paramount to growth and the development of a sense of belonging. Stranded between places, stuck somewhere unfit for our soul, anxiously seeking accommodation or organising containers, suitcases and boxes for a relocation somewhere else, our sense of identity keeps shifting, adapting, looking for a perception of what and who we are in transition. 

While focusing on logistics and rational decisions, an often hidden or ignored need for beauty, comfort and sensorial coherence often fosters the desire to be "there", already. What is "there"? It is where the uncertainty fades, where our minds can focus on the next step where we feel welcome, settled, comfortable. It defines sound decisions already made and implemented, places in which we feel pleasantly guided by intuitive gestures and structures, environments where our inner instinct ceases to be guarded against unknown, hard to decipher, possibly hostile circumstances.

Our own established environments can often lack the same characteristics of homeliness, predictability and soul nurturing habits. When cluttered, disorganised, cold and unpleasant the very place we call home can reveal to be a cage rather than a refuge. We then suffer from the consequences of our own lack of direction and intentionality, while at the same time feeling lost at what to tackle first. 

We become more aware of this impalpable aspects of life when we visit environments that have a soul, a genius loci. Where order and rational use of space are married to a poetic, human and pleasant atmosphere. We can feel our shoulders drop in such places, our breath slow down and become deeper. We start having a more positive outlook on the future and brighter ideas. Then we go back to where we live and feel burdened again, prisoners of our own home. The busy and stressful list of things to do often takes us away from such awareness, and we get used to it again, meaning we don't notice how heavily such lack of harmony affects us.

Such reflections are at the base of a desire to change things, may it be a relocation, a renovation, a decluttering or rearranging or decorating session. In those moments we are guided and in touch with what the ancients called Genius Loci. While it is not an identified deity to us, it still has a presence, an effect, a soul. It is the spirit of the place, its inner message written within its conformation, location, organisation and general feel. As a deity, we offer our attention, respect  and compliance to its wisdom while it reciprocates gifting us with the deeply settling harmony of its power on the environment around us. We do the work and a reward we end up feeling at home, belonging. We become more grounded, effective and happy people, and we learn lots about how to be human and what humans need to be truly invested with a sense of direction and purpose.