No place like home?

A room that has been dark for a thousand years can be illuminated by a single candle. Light overcomes dark every time. It's the foundation of the power of the positive, the strength of respect-based living and the belief that events unfold for a reason, whether logical or unknown.
   Yet despite the positives of being positive, unhappiness and frustration, anger to the point of rage, is an easy place to list toward; a welcoming hole in which to set our feet. Sometimes it's the most comfortable place to be because it's home. While home is a concept associated with nurturing, convivial family ties,and warmth of comfort, in truth, in can be none of that. Home is different for all of us, and can be a place of judgment, cold shoulders, erratic behavior fueled by addiction and even trauma.
   But it's still home, and therefore the place, both emotionally and psychologically, we are drawn to throughout our lives, whether we acknowledge it or not.
   As adults, even though we know better and are fully aware that we don't like chaos, drama, feeling sorry for ourselves, lashing out at others, justifying our wounds and generally wanting to blame life and those around us for our unhappiness, we can't help it. It's our return home. Home is the first place we knew and has that type of lasting impression. The echoes from our home-life dynamic can be heard in the whispers of the innermost part of ourselves.
   It's hard to know that home can be whatever we want it to be, despite how, where and with what dynamics we were raised. The power of the mind and spirit can override the conditioning of the past which can and does become the present. It starts with the simplest of things, really, something shared by everyone--the ability to be aware. It has become somewhat of an unnoticed and unheralded trait this century. But awareness of self, otherwise known as self reflection, separates man from the rest of the animal kingdom. It helps us gain perspective and knowledge. And with that, the knowingness that internal change is not only possible but certain. Stepping outside of our egos is tantamount to eyeballing our lives from an objective perspective and embracing the understanding that we do not have to live out our lives as the sum total of our past conditioning.
   Once we key into why we react the way we react, we can change it, and truly understand that if we always do what we always did, we always get what we always got. And that shift requires another commonly shared human trait--it's called guts.