Finding home

I left Sweden almost nine years ago to explore the world.

Not running from something (okay yes, the dark winters), more like following a pull I couldn't quite name.

Over the years I lived for extended periods in places like Spain, Costa Rica, and Portugal, and spent significant time in the States, South Africa, Australia, and parts of Asia. I was looking for home. Not just a place to live, but somewhere that actually fit, that felt like mine.

A few things became clear along the way. I'm a saltwater man. I need a wild ocean. West coast. Non-negotiable. I come alive near the ocean. And there is something about the combination of mountains and ocean, the kind of raw natural beauty you find in places like Cape Town, that genuinely vitalizes me in a way nothing else does.

Costa Rica came close. The nature there is extraordinary, potent in a way that is hard to describe. I loved it. But I also sensed, quietly, that it risked becoming an escape rather than a home. There's a difference. An escape is somewhere you go to leave your life behind. A home is somewhere your life actually takes root.

Community mattered too, more than I initially understood. When I spent time in places like Barcelona and Costa Rica, I was trying to build it, putting effort into creating the connections I was looking for. It never quite clicked. Not because the people weren't good. It just wasn't fully my vibe.

Then, about three years ago, I landed in Portugal.

I remember the first day, sitting in a coffee shop, falling into conversation with interesting people who felt like my kind of people. Effortlessly. That had not happened before, not like that, not on the first day. And it continued.

I started out living in Lisbon and gradually moved further out, closer to nature, closer to the ocean. A year ago I settled in the Sintra region, thirty minutes north of the city. And then, at the beginning of this year, I finally moved to the ocean side itself, and the west side of the mountain.

This is, genuinely, my slice of paradise. The wild Atlantic coming in. The Sintra mountain in the background. A community that has unfolded naturally, without effort. Friends I trust. The kind of place where I wake up in the morning and feel grateful without trying to. And every sunset keeps refilling my tanks.

I somehow always knew in my heart that this place existed. I had a felt sense of what I was looking for, even when I couldn't name it precisely. For years I kept mapping that blueprint onto different places, waiting to see if it matched. It never fully did. So I kept going.

Until it finally did. I remember the first time I came down to the beach that I now live very close to, my "home beach". I was walking around barefoot at sunset and thought to myself "life makes sense here." And it still does.

Sometimes the things we are looking for exist as a felt sense before they exist as a clear picture or a fully lived experience. We sense the shape before we can name it.

That is how I found home. And it is, in many ways, how I found my way into the work I do now, and into the creation of Being Man.

What I have learned from this is to trust the felt sense. To keep exploring, to keep finding the pieces that matter, and to let go of the ones that don't fully fit. The full picture has a way of revealing itself as we keep searching, stay honest about what is true for us, and don't settle until we find it.

And if I'm honest, the adventure of the search has been as beautiful as the arriving. There is real settledness and joy in finding the place, the work, the life that fits. But the exploration itself, the curiosity, the willingness to keep going when something doesn't fully match, that has shaped me just as much as any destination.

Is there a thread, a felt sense in your life that you are currently in the adventure of following, not fully knowing yet what the end destination will look like? All the best, Sebastian