In our new weekly Psychological & Spiritual Therapy column, therapist Jack Surguy is offering professional advice to The Mindful Word readers for all those questions and problems you have wanted to discuss with someone qualified and caring.

If you would like Jack to assist you in any areas of your life and relationships, fill out this form. He will respond to your questions through this column, published every Monday.
QUESTION
Dear Jack,

The other day I had a feeling come over me that I have only had a few times in my life. It's the deepest longing and I have sometimes said it aloud—"I want to go home." There are some instances I clearly remember.

The first time, I was about six years old and I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen with my mom. I said the words and she said, "Don't be silly, you are home."

Then 30 years later, I was talking to my sister in my home. Suddenly I had this overwhelming feeling of home-sickness. I again said, "I want to go home," and got the same response. I replied, "I'm not."

Now almost 30 years later again. I was talking to my partner in our home and the feeling overwhelmed me so much that I started crying, "I want to go home." He asked, "And where might that be?" I responded, "I don't know, but I know it's not here."

And by "here," I don't mean any specific country, or any specific place. I just don't know where home is. The feeling passes, and I'm not in the least suicidal, so that isn't it. It's just a not belonging wherever I am, an incompleteness of some sorts. Like an alien on this planet. Just weird.

It isn't always there, but when it comes, it takes my breath away and I remember it for a long time afterwards.

Jane

 
RESPONSE
What a wonderful question, Jane, and what a great start for this column. If I understand your question correctly, you're hoping to find some understanding and insight into where and why this feeling of “wanting to go home” overcomes you at times, and leaves you feeling confused about where “home” may in fact be.

There are a couple of ways to try and answer this, one from the “psychological” perspective and the other from a more spiritual perspective. I’ll try and address the psychological perspective first.
Psychological perspective
Typically, when most people think of “home,” it's often associated with feelings of love, acceptance, protection and security. Most people when thinking about their childhood will readily admit that it was not perfect, but that for the most part they knew they were loved, accepted, encouraged to grow and provided for by their parent(s). Most people also associate home with their friends and neighbours who played important roles in their life and development.

Furthermore, in looking back at those times, and through adult eyes and understanding, we realize how carefree we truly were. If we were fortunate as children, we did not concern ourselves with bills, money, savings or planning for the “what ifs." Instead, again if we were fortunate, our lives were consumed with our friends and making big plans about how we were going to be hugely successful in life.

All those aspects, the feeling of belonging, being accepted, protected, and loved, are vitally important for a growing child. If those components are present for a young child, they're internalized by the child and continue to provide a sense of those feelings long after the child has grown and moved into adulthood. The person, in a very real sense, carries "home" with them wherever their life might lead them.

However, what if a child is not fortunate enough to have truly experienced feeling loved, accepted, belonging, feeling secure and protected? This can happen for a whole variety of reasons. Growing up in what may be considered an abusive or neglectful home can cause this. Life events can also strike a very close, loving family and cause this as well.
An example from the movies
In the 1986 movie Stand by Me, which was written by Stephen King, the main protagonist, Gordie Lachance (played by Wil Wheaton), is trying to come to terms with the death of his older brother, a star athlete. Gordie feels like he does not connect well with his father, who did appear to relate more easily with the older brother through their love of sport and competition.

The death of the brother obviously turned the parents’ world completely upside down and shook them to their core. In the aftermath of the death, the parents became more withdrawn, resulting in Gordie feeling lost and abandoned in a world he no longer understood, and a world that was no longer safe from loss and death.

At the end of the movie we see Gordie break down and cry as he revealed, in intense anguish, his belief that his father hated him, and that he was the one that should have died. I doubt Gordie’s father truly hated him, but due to the intense emotional pain the parents endured, that was the message that was unintentionally conveyed to Gordie.

At the very end of the movie, we see Gordie as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss. Gordie is now a successful author who has for the first time, finally set down and processed everything that happened that summer in his youth. In other words, Gordie had carried the feeling of being unloved by his father throughout his entire adult life, and was only now beginning to process those feelings.

Sometimes as children, we're born into unfortunate, unhelpful or challenging circumstances. Take for example a child who may be more inclined to study and self-reflection, and place them in an environment where only physical labour is considered appropriate work and asking deeper questions is considered nonsense.

The child may grow up feeling that they do not belong. That may not have been the intended message, but it may have been the message the child received. As I stated earlier, abusive or neglectful home environments can also cause significant feelings of alienation as well.

These are the areas I would likely explore with a client if they came to me with a question similar to yours. In session, I would ask them to think back as early as they could to times when they felt like they did not belong, times when they felt deeply misunderstood and/or alone, times when they perhaps felt unwanted, and explore those significant moments in their life.
Spiritual aspect
The other approach to exploring these feelings takes more of a spiritual interpretation. I believe in a spiritual level of existence and feel comfortable in exploring the client’s spiritual beliefs, as well as what possible spiritual meanings they may believe apply to the feeling of wanting to go home.

One's spiritual path helps them to cope and deal with such feelings. Whether taken from a purely psychological perspective as detailed above, or from a more spiritual perspective, the process of dealing with those feelings is very similar, which will be discussed next.
Dealing with feelings
The most difficult and unpleasant truths I have been forced to repeatedly learn are that life is completely unpredictable, that there are no certainties, and that nothing stays the same. Everything is always changing.

Just when I feel like I’ve finally gotten all the pieces into place, life changes and all the pieces are scattered once again. Just when I start feeling safe, like everything is finally going to be OK, something happens that either threatens that sense of security, or completely obliterates it.

Life is groundless; there is really no solid ground upon which we can place our feet. My Christian friends often have a difficult time with this lesson. I agree that on a surface level, it seems to contradict what many people are taught to believe about God and their faith. However, as we discuss the issue further, I try to make the point that a person’s belief about God or the divine is based upon their current understanding of their faith. Novel information they're exposed to will affect their understanding, thus resulting in a faith that is dynamic, fluid and always in constant flux.

Regardless of this truth, we struggle to put ground underneath our feet, to construct certainty and security, to find final solutions to ambiguity and dissatisfaction, to find a place that's unchanging and feels like home, all of which are fundamentally impossible. As such, as a possible course of therapy with someone haunted with the feeling of wanting to go home, of feeling like an alien and not belonging, I would try to help the person truly welcome and fully accept those feelings of alienation and feelings of being incomplete.
Welcoming painful aspects of self
But why do this, many ask? From my perspective, one possible reason for the feelings of alienation and incompleteness may in fact be due to the person trying to alienate, or push away, those parts of themselves that trigger emotional pain and sadness.

They're in a sense incomplete—not because they're missing something, but because they have fragmented and pushed away parts of themselves they do not like. Once a client welcomes those painful aspects of themselves “home,” they start to feel more at peace, more complete, and more capable of living an uncertain life.

The more a person comes to fully accept and incorporate all aspects of themselves into their conscious awareness, the more they feel at home, within themselves, where they're indeed fully accepted and loved. The person can create a sense of home that they carry within them, even when they find themselves in a foreign land.
image via Pixabay

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