From a very young age, I became aware that I did not comfortably belong either to my family or to the country. I felt like a mismatch, born to the wrong family or into the wrong society. I was yearning for a permanent home to feel safe at and to belong to. That quest led me to pursue a PhD in Studies of Exile. The insights I gained about the concepts of home and exile led me to ancient contemplative teachings and practices. I subsequently have been a meditator of over twelve years, attended dozens of guided and silent meditation and study retreats, trauma workshops guided by leading trauma experts and qualified as a mindfulness teacher.
During the years of my PhD, my thinking mind was trying to understand what the concepts of home and exile are, and how they are perceived. At the time, my understanding of exile was largely limited to its socio-political meaning. As someone who chose self-imposed exile because of the Islamic Republic regime, I understood exile primarily as displacement from one's homeland, and home as the country where one belongs.
But over time, both concepts deepened. I began to realise that exile is not only geographical or political — it is an unsettling yearning to belong. And I began to realise that Home, too, is something deeper than a place. It is Being.
The qualities, stories, thoughts, tragedies, achievements, failures, and losses that seemed to define me were all appearing within an open space of awareness. In the reality where exile is experienced, I introduce myself by a certain name, having a certain age, from a named land, born into a household with certain qualities. But in truth, where Home is, all I can truly say is: I Am.
The more I remembered to stay at Home, the more experiences of exile lost their grip. The stories did not disappear — I still play the roles — but being aware of them makes the roles more playful, lighter, impersonal: real but untrue, and childlike. The more often we remember that, in truth, we are not our roles, the more our relationship to our stories changes. We begin to meet life with inner belonging, peace, compassion, and resilience. Our exilic experiences remain real, but they are no longer the whole story.
