Home is where the heart heals

 

The third strand of The Happiness Programme is about building a stronghold.

You can't be out there achieving, being confident, glowing with happiness full-time. Sometimes you have to retreat to a safe place and build up your energy stores ready to take on the outside world again. Sleep forces us to do this on a daily basis and it's one reason why sleep is vital to humans. But sometimes sleep just isn't enough. Things come along in your life which knock you for six. And this is when you need a stronghold.

There are basically three types of stronghold: the cave or den, the pack and the champion.

This is the first unit of this strand. In this unit I'm going to ask you to think about the first of these strongholds: your cave, or den.

What is a den for children or a cave for early man?

It is basically a place to hide. Just as an animal will run away when endangered and retreat to a safe place when a threat comes along that it calculates it cannot deal with head on, so humans need to do the same thing. Today humans call this the home. It might be a bedsit, it might be a palace. Size is irrelevant. It is safety that counts. It has to be a place where we can literally close the door on the outside world and yes, hide, inside.

Children from an early age, and certainly by their teens, demonstrate the need of a den. Signs on their bedroom door along the lines of 'Keep out' mean just that, however amusing they are. This instinctive need of a hiding place where they can recuperate is clear. Rows break out if they feel someone has been into their den uninvited. Parents despair of children who disappear for hours or days at a time into their private space. But the stresses on humans moving from childhood to adulthood are massive and sometimes hiding out is the only option to retain sanity and, ultimately, happiness.

Home-making used to be lauded in the fifties but now we need two incomes to support a mortgage it's seen as something that just happens naturally. But women know that this is not the case.

Making a home which fulfils the needs of a family should not be regarded as of minor importance. It is a mainstay of confident, achieving and happy people. A house people hate to come back to at the end of the day, a house echoing with rows and sarcastic comments, a house that allows all and any to wander in and out of it, such houses are not homes.

A home is a refuge. Everyone living there should feel they are at peace, even if that means giving everyone their own room and accepting that they may not want to mix much. Peace means compromises have to be agreed about noise. Safety means it must be a place where everyone can truly physically relax in the knowledge that the outside world cannot force its way in.

That means personal jibes about threats and failures outside the home must be silenced. No harping on about your child's poor school grades, your partner's failure to get promotions at work, your brother's lack of friends. These are dangers in the outside world. You come home to shut them out. Complaining about them brings them into the house and that destroys the point of a home as a refuge from a dangerous and threatening world.

What is useful, however, is acknowledging the home as more than an individual space (unless you live alone, of course!).

Whilst everyone needs as much private time and space as can be given them, they can also benefit from being part of a group. So plotting and planning are excellent home-making activities. Couples and families should regroup in the safety of their home to plan strategy. Ambitions should be discussed. Future plans announced. Ways of dealing with external threats talked through. This aspect of the den is highly valuable.

Speech allows humans to plot, plan and co-operate with a subtlety quite beyond animals (as far as we know). Nowhere is this more essential than in the home. That is why dreams, hopes and aspirations, however far-fetched they might sound, should never be stamped on. A major role of the home is to provide a space where strategy can be trialled. How will each individual achieve the goals they have set themselves? Do others in the home have experience to share that can warn against pitfalls or push the individual on even further in the right direction?

Criticism or laughter at another's hopes simply allows the baying horde from outside to invade the den. If children are open to the threats of the outside world even while they are inside their own home they will find happiness difficult to achieve. If partners feel unfree to express their aspirations, their relationship will be vulnerable. Staying together under the same roof will seriously threaten the happiness of both partners.

Parents need to provide a safe refuge and planning HQ for their children. And couples need to provide a place of peace and free expression for each other. This is what home-making is. And home-making is a major component of developing the ability to be happy.

So what if you live alone as so many people do?

Well you only need to look at the massive market in online partner-finding to know that instinctively most humans know they are stronger in a group. But if you live alone you must make the best of a less-than-ideal situation.

First you must be aware that the den, your home, is just as vital to your happiness as it is to a family's. Spend time making your home welcoming (to you) rather than seeing it as a place to flop between work and meeting friends. Spend time there, relax there. It is not a changing room or a hostel. It is your home. You cannot plot and plan as a couple can but you can think through your strategies for dealing with dangers outside and work through ideas for how to achieve your private goals.

Your inner dialogue has to be your 'group'. Not ideal but sufficient.

Close the door, look around you at a space you like, unwind for as long as it takes, sip a drink and think through your encounters with the outside world. What hopes do you have? What constructive plans can you develop to make your hopes a reality? It might be a quieter evening or weekend than you dream of but compared with a family home you have far more time and peace for rational thought. Compared with being part of a couple you have absolute freedom to make your own choices and concentrate on making yourself happy without regard for how this might impact the choices and happiness of your partner. Not ideal but it has its compensations.

The exercise based on this unit is to look around your home and see if it welcomes you and your family when you come in. Is it somewhere all of you love to get back to? Is it a real den – a place to hide out, regroup and gather one's strength? Is it a safe place? Do you enjoy spending time there? Do your family actually like being at home?

If you answer 'no', or 'not sure', to any of these questions, then now is the time to start making some small changes.

Think carefully about what each member of your family needs from the home. And plan how you can offer this. You don't need to spend lots of money. Just clear up, organise, perhaps redecorate or put flowers out, find spaces for everyone's gadgets and places where every member of the family feels they have the right to shut everyone else out and relax in the way they want to.

Once you understand the purpose of the home, it is easier to set rules which let each family member get the most from it. It also becomes more obvious why annoying things like clearing up and cleaning are vital.

Your home, whether it's just for you alone, or for you and a partner, or for you and a family, has to fulfil the basic purpose of a den or cave. It has to be safe from the outside world. It has to be a place ideas and hopes can be discussed without ridicule. It has to be warm and comfortable. It has to be easy on the eye.

A house that makes you sigh with resignation as you step through the front door is not a home. Is it the overflowing washing basket that depresses you? Or that untidy pile of bills? Or the unfinished DIY project in the sitting room? Or the knowledge that you can't express yourself openly because your partner or your children will treat you with scorn? Or the feeling that everyone treats the place like a hotel?

So take a good look at this space you call home. Does it fulfil its purpose in aiding everyone's ability to develop resilience to the knocks life brings? If not, start to sort it out at once. Do something every day to improve its effect on the mental health of those who live there. Set out some rules for yourself and your family. Explain why those rules are important. Explain what you want your home to become – a safe, warm and welcoming environment where everyone is free to dream and plan.

Listen to what your partner and your family need for this to become reality. Their needs might be different from yours. You'll all need to agree on compromises. Accept that privacy is not about hating others, it's about recuperation. Allow your family to shut themselves away for as long as they need to. Tell them you will need time alone too. You might be surprised that once people know they have the absolute right to be alone, they feel more able to join in.

The home is where the heart is – yes, it is! So keep it warm, safe, attractive and calm.