If you travel or have ever traveled, you must be familiar with the feeling of coming home. Many emotions may arise: relief, anxiety, happiness, failure, peace. It is as though we’ve completed a rite of passage, returned from a journey and maybe we’re wiser, able to see much clearer than before.

I moved more than I’ve ever had to move in my life this Summer. From Paso Robles, to Portland, briefly to Bend and eventually home. This journey was my rite of passage. It was a great teaching of Freedom and Bondage. This journey was painful, difficult and eye opening. From finding snakes in my home, being a witness to a horrific car accident, a break up, instability, renunciation, alienation and an array of other difficult circumstances, I had slowly turned my back on any practice: prayer, journaling, Kundalini Yoga, running, juicing and even love.

My journey was a great teaching, that in time I will bow to. Eventually, the universe brought me back home. What I had left, turned my back on, had once again become the simple familiarity, comfort, predictability and stability that I absolutely loathed, but could not live without. I had come home. I had been burned. Completely. Every part of myself that I thought I knew was deeper, richer and more intense than I had ever known. In the past, had my spiritual practice desensitized me to this? Was presence to each and every single moment of life enough? Was yoga, prayer and seeking a complete escape? Maybe I did not need to attach to an outcome, a practice, a diet or even possessions? Was it enough to be present to the dance of life, as painful as it appeared and often still does?

For days after coming home I just was. Taking back in my life, my presence. I had come home to myself. I had come home to me in a purer state-no attachments, no expectations, no achievements, no failures. I realized home, was the ordinary. Home wasn’t this extravagant spirituality or mission I was seeking. Home was simple. It was the everyday things–the tea, the birds, the work, the dirty dishes, the traffic, the struggle, the suffering, the confusion. This was home, and it is beautiful. It just is.

Moving forward my yoga practice is no longer the most important part of my happiness. It is a great and healing friend. But it is no more healing as the fly on my wall and spider in my sink, the neighbors arguing next door, the grief I feel from time to time, the ocean waves on my morning runs or the long hours of work at the computer. I urge all readers to find peace in the present moment. There are many techniques that help us to get there, into the present moment, but beware of these techniques not becoming a crutch, a form of escapism from the ordinary. Just Be. Be here now.