Мой дом — это я

Each of us understands what a home is: here they love, suffer, laugh, hug each other, sometimes cry. They gather at the table, talk, look into each other’s eyes. Until recently, even people were born and died here.

How have our feelings changed in an era when you can live in two or three houses or even “on an airplane”? Do we dream of our own homestead or do we prefer a sterile modern apartment where the most important thing is a bed, shower and wireless Internet access?

Кочевники с мобильными телефонами и планшетами, мы все-таки боимся утратить свой «причал». Ценность дома осталась прежней — во всяком случае, эмоциональная. «Современным людям дом нужен так же, как и раньше, несмотря на то что мы стали динамичными и независимыми: открыл ноутбук в чистом поле и вышел в мировое пространство, — считает психоаналитик Екатерина Калмыкова. — Мы привязаны к месту обитания и в этом мало отличаемся от наших предков».

Only 4% of the participants in the survey on the website Psychologies¹ need a house just for the night! More than half are happy to equip their home: repair, improve, decorate, embody their own ideas or be inspired by pictures from magazines. Why do we love our home the most?

Protection and support

“Home is the place where I feel safe,” said 28% of those surveyed. The second most popular answer is “a place where everything is connected with the family.”

The feeling of “I have a home” is close to the feeling of “I have a family.” And in our time, when there are fewer families in the traditional sense, and there are more single people, free relationships and second or third marriages, we sometimes want to lean … on the walls of our apartment. Although it’s not about the walls, of course. We are protected and given a sense of support by something else: simple familiar things, native smells, dear memories … In this sense, the feeling of “I am at home” always takes us to our parents’ house.

Let’s be fair: at all times there were people who preferred to spend their lives in hotels or just often move from place to place. “Passionate” to Moscow, to Moscow! – it is also about the fear of becoming rigid, about the thirst to make some changes in your life, – says Jungian analyst Tatyana Rebeko. We are arranged in such a way that we want both stability and change. The house, of course, is a reflection of the first desire.

“In our imagination, a house is a part of space, fenced off from the world, where external stimuli hardly penetrate. Something that we will never lose,” explains Ekaterina Kalmykova. It is very important to know that there is a place where we can always return.

“In a very mobile America, which lives on wheels, or in European countries where it is easy to change their place of residence, on Christmas everyone, as a rule, comes to the oldest or most “sedentary” family member,” notes Tatiana Rebeko.

Self expression

Once in an apartment or in the house of a new acquaintance, we can get to know him better than in a few hours, or even days of communication: what colors he likes, what things are in the most visible place, how he spends time, how important cleanliness is to him , order, comfort, solitude, silence …

“I was 14, and everyone who was in my room immediately understood who I was: huge posters with rock singers, photographs, posters hung on the walls so thickly that the wallpaper was not visible,” smiles 30-year-old Olga .

Our home tells others about us, but it can also explain a lot to us in our inner evolution.

“The house is a reflection of the basic, original essence of a person, which we value very much,” says Tatyana Rebeko. – If we are afraid that we might lose it, we will hold on to the old with all our might and deny any movement forward, minimal progress … But if we are afraid to freeze, then we will rush with all our might, run away. In everyday life, this is expressed in the rearrangement of furniture or repainting the walls, if it is not possible to change the home. There are other manifestations of our inner turmoil.

“I quarreled with my mother and did not communicate with her for several years,” says 42-year-old Alena. – One morning, I suddenly wanted, for no reason, to get out of the closet the elephants that I inherited from my grandmother, my mother’s mother. Two days later, I called my mother. I still don’t know if my desire to forgive prompted me to pull out these elephants, or whether it was they who pushed me to make peace with her.”

“Much of what a person fantasizes about the house, including in dreams — to repair, renew, maintain order or return to it — can be attributed to his body,” says Ekaterina Kalmykova. “After all, in fact, both the body and the house are the receptacle of life.”

This connection between our deepest self and the home was noticed long before the advent of psychoanalysis: the Greek philosopher, who lived in the second century BC, argued that the house that appears to us in a dream is an image of our self. We may dream of a house without a roof, bathed in the sun, a house without windows or doors, a maze house. For example, a dilapidated house can talk about hard feelings, losses, and a small poor house – about self-abasement and depreciation.

“If in a dream we move to a new house or dream about it, most likely we are on the verge of important changes in life,” says Tatyana Rebeko. “Such dreams must be interpreted by relating them to oneself, to one’s desires. For example, a person lives in an apartment, and he dreams that he has moved to a cave. Maybe he needs to touch the ground. And if he goes to the crystal castle? It’s also interesting to think about it.”

History of my connections

The situation in the house speaks not only about our tastes, culture, beliefs. It also keeps the history of our connections. After all, home is the place where we develop or do not develop personal relationships, where we share our life and feelings with other people. From this point of view, the design of modern dwellings can say a lot about our desire, for example, to live together with someone or separately.

“When I first ended up in his apartment, I immediately realized that this was a bachelor’s apartment and there was simply no place for me here,” sighs 25-year-old Marina. Those who suffer from depression, like 28-year-old Nikolai, have their own history of relationships with home: “I walk around the city at night, look at the illuminated windows of apartments and feel that, unlike others, I have no place where I would be Houses”…

What we do with our home reflects our unconscious conflicts. For example, endless moving speaks of internal disorder. Yuri, 45, moves every two to three years. Having barely completed the renovation in one apartment, he is already looking for the next one. He is not embarrassed by the endless construction around, the time spent, the inconvenience, the costs. Only with the help of a psychotherapist did he realize that this is how he seeks recognition from … his father. And that no repair would be good enough to prove his worth as a person.

Our home is a huge world. He invites us on a journey, and we ourselves can choose in which direction to move: delve into ourselves, explore our family history and family ties, or maybe make our dreams come true. In a word, to go on a journey, you have to stay at home.

¹ The survey was conducted in 2013.