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Places and things that feel like home

Places and things that feel like home

Finding safety and love outside of "home"

Angel Zheng's avatar
Angel Zheng
Jun 14, 2025
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Places and things that feel like home
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Recently, someone asked me "where do you feel the most at peace?" A lot of moments came up but the forest trail near my last home stood out with quiet clarity.

The trail is well-groomed and kept that way by the cycling-community that uses it year-round. Beautiful as it is, it's when I veer off path that the magic starts to show. Underfoot, the moss-covered forest floor springs back after each step and light streams in through the thick canopy, highlighting in gold the soft greenery. When I’m there everything slows: my breath, my steps, sometimes even time itself.

Bearded lichen hangs from every naked branch but it’s the sweet scent of greenery and earth that indicates just how clean the air really is.

Alive but quiet, the forest always seems like it whispering to me, inviting me to explore. I always think that the forest wants me to be there, otherwise how could it feel so welcoming?

Mika, my pup, is always with me when I'm on this trail, and it sweetens the memory that much more. Watching her dash between the trees brings a quiet calm to my heart that's hard to replicate. For those reasons and many more, this small piece of where I used to live will always feel like home, no matter how many miles I've put between us.

I’ve been planning an international move for a few years now and as I get closer to making it a reality, I’ve started to think more about what makes a place a home. These thoughts were then put to the test during my most recent post-break up move.

The idea of home

For me, home hasn’t always felt the safest. My father was a man that often reached for anger instead of learning to process the entire spectrum of human emotions that we feel throughout our lives. Nowadays, the flame has taken on the form of warm steam and his reactions lean more to frustration rather than rage.

Growing up, much of my headspace was spent worrying what will trigger him next. This unsettled feeling was then exasperated when inevitably I dated a boy that coped with emotions the same way.

I know I’m not alone in this feeling. I think more people than not have some sort of parent-issue (whether it’s daddy or mommy). But we do all cope with childhood trauma in different ways. For me, it often feels like “home” is when I get to be alone. I’m realizing that’s the reason why I used to thrive so much living alone but also why I isolate when I’m going through something hard.

As a way to remind myself that home, or the places that make my nervous system feel calm, can be shared and outside of myself, here are the places that come to mind when I think of home:

When I’m with friends

I must have done something right in my past life because I’ve been blessed with the most amazing group of friends. While I was grappling with my break up, all of them (with their partners in tow) came to my rescue. They fed me, talked me through my emotions, and poured love into me. There’s a reason why novels with a “chosen family” theme have always moved me—because my chosen family couldn’t be more perfect.

Anywhere with Mika

Having and taking care of a pet is one of life’s great lessons and blessings. It teaches you so much responsibility, how to love unconditionally, and how sometimes caring for another means learning to take better care of yourself. Mika is my soul pup in so many ways and having her near me automatically makes me feel more at peace.

In the comforts of a kitchen

In many cultures food is a love language of it’s own. My mom’s go-to way of apologizing for an argument is cooking me my favorite dishes, often times letting that action replace the verbal apology. Engrained in me now is the deep comfort of creating dishes and nourishing myself and sometimes loved ones. The act of cooking, the warmth from the stove, the familiar clink of utensils—it all adds to an atmosphere that feels nurturing and comforting. Even when I’m traveling and staying in Airbnbs, cooking some sort of a meal always makes me feel more settled.

Libraries and bookstores

Being someone who’s all too used to blending into the background, the quiet of bookstores and libraries have always drawn me in. When my mom used to go grocery shopping, she’d leave me in the public library while she ran her errands so that I had a chance to pick out a book for the week. I love that everyone speaks in hushed tones, the smell of paper, and that feeling like you’re just one book away from the ultimate escape. There’s also a unspoken feeling of community when you’re in that quiet space.

Coffee shops with the right ambiance

Not all coffee shops feel like home, but when you find the right one—with its perfect mix of ambient noise, comfortable seating, and that lived-in feeling—it definitely is a refuge for me. These spaces often become our "third places," somewhere between work and home where we can feel both productive and at ease.

@pinterest

The dark side of familiarity

It feels wrong to write about “home” without addressing the psychological phenomenon that too often works against our best interests. Our innate attraction to what’s familiar can sometimes be a detriment to finding things that actually make us feel safe, loved, and heard. Whether the pull is from a traumatic experience or something related to your childhood, these tendencies toward familiarity can keep us tethered to situations (and often times people) that hold us back.

The fact of the matter is, our brains are wired to seek comfort in the familiar.

According to research published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, this is known as the "mere exposure effect" - a psychological phenomenon where people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. This effect was first studied by Robert Zajonc in 1968, demonstrating that repeated exposure to a stimulus increases our liking for it, even if we're not consciously aware of the exposure.

It’s why we often find ourselves repeating similar situations and relationships into adulthood and why we stay in relationships that no longer serve us. The familiar, although providing our brains with a certain level of “comfort”, is actually what brings us pain.

I’ve talked about learning to actually listen to your body in my article on “How to love yourself (beyond just treats and self-care days) and just like your body will give you clear signs signalling burnout, it’ll also tell you when something isn’t right for you.

Some signs that could be pointing towards toxic familiarity are:

  • Finding that you’re drawn to relationships that mirror past trauma

  • Nervous system feeling engaged even when you’re just hanging around someone

  • When your “safe space” starts to increase your anxiety or stress

  • If your brain often flip flops on whether something is right for you

  • When you start to exhibit avoidant tendencies around a specific topic

  • When being alone starts to feel more comforting than being with that person or in a certain situation

These signs will often produce a sense of cognitive dissonance or overload which is why it’s important to pay attention when they come up and even record down the instances so you can track whether it’s become a pattern.

How to redefine home when you feel lost

When home starts to feel like a space you don’t want to be in, it may be time to reflect on why that is and discover new spaces, people, and mindsets that can help you regain a sense of safety and security. Here are some journaling prompts that I’ve used over the last year that have helped with that:

Part of the perks of being a paid subscriber is that you get expanded versions of certain articles! Below the paywall, you’ll find 10 personal journaling prompts that have guided me back to a safe space, a journal entry that I wrote recently, and my final thoughts about finding home.

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