I moved nine times during my childhood years. My father worked for the USDA and helped oversee various plant and personnel changes. And my mom got her real estate license later in life. Both jobs required us to move a few times to find a central place where my Middle Eastern parents could build a life and raise three boys.

We lived in all types of homes, from little duplexes in Iowa that shook when the wind picked up, to classic suburban two-story-white-picket-fenced-houses in Indiana with plenty of room for my brothers to reenact superhero movies. Pieces of each home are seared into my memory.

Home Has Changed
The idea of home is deeply seated in all of us, but it’s also changed over the past year. Maybe your home has been a madhouse of e-learning and remote working. Or maybe you’ve had to move back home because of a job change or to take care of a loved one. Or you’ve left home entirely to get a change of scenery.

But home isn’t just a physical space. It’s a state of mind—a feeling that can be conjured by a smell, a sound, a scene. Your internal sense of home is where you can experience safety. And when you are safe you are able to think, make, play, and work. In times of uncertainty or stress, that sense of home is what helps you recenter.

Finding Home
What does home look like for you today? Not just your four walls, but the sensation that you are safe and able to do what you need to do next. And how can you help your family, your community, your students, or your teams experience a sense of home so they can be their best?

Start with home, and the rest will follow.