When There Seems to Be No Escape Take Me to My Happy Place

Self-soothing leads me to a place of contentment where I no longer need to escape

While driving this morning I experienced synchronicity.

I heard a song on the radio, Happy Place, by SAINT PHINX, which prompted me to write this story. I immediately thought of multiple places I would call my happy place, so I then thought hmmm… this is interesting. Why and what do we call our happy place? For me, when I walk alone in the woods, walk along the shore of the beach, or climb to the peak of a mountain I am at peace. I call it my happy place, but really it is because I can tune out the chaos of the external world for a few moments and enjoy the beauty of nature around me. I tune into the sounds, the sights, the smells, and I become engulfed in the present moment where all my worries and stress seem to melt away.

I then thought well actually my goal is contentment over happiness as a basic rule. When I achieve a baseline of contentment I do not need to worry about the highs and lows of the extreme mood shifts that occur when I go up or down the emotional scale. My happy place offers me that space in between too little and too much — it presents that level of contentment where everything feels just right.

My Happy Place is More a Feeling Than a Place

So really, I thought well, if that is the case, then my happy place is not a place to which I need to travel or seek out. That is the ultimate level of comfort for me. My happy place is not so much of a place as it is a feeling.

Actually, I have many happy places if I were to list them they would be: in the arms of my lover, long meals with good friends and family, walks on the beach, ocean, or mountains, road trips, loud music alone in the car with windows down, my yoga mat, cooking, laying in front of the fire, camping, walking outside, bubble baths, helping others, a glass of wine at the end of a long day’s work and snuggling my fur babies. I am quite certain I could think of more and add to the list, but hopefully, I have made my point — these are very accessible to me wherever I may be in the world.

We all need a short break from reality from time to time. This becomes even more necessary and critical when we have experienced trauma and have triggers. When I get triggered by a negative emotion such as hurt, anger, or betrayal, I love to take a walk outside. I observe everything around me — what I see, what I hear, what I smell as my feet connect with the earth.

This awareness of connection is mindfulness in a nutshell.

It’s not a complicated concept. You don’t need to pay anyone for lessons on achieving it.

As I breathe in slowly through my nose, I say silently to myself, “accept it.” Then I take long slow exhales and say silently to myself, “forgive it.” Then I try to let go of that heavy energy. By the time I return home I am usually calm and peaceful.

It is not always possible to escape to a physical location I love such as the beach or the mountains that brings me peace and happiness. However, when I find simple ways to return to that baseline of contentment and return to the present moment, I realize my happy place is not so far away and in fact is always in reach within me.

You can reach within and discover your happy place within you too.

Try harnessing your own energy within by staying present and shifting your mindset and do that through your breath and through personal awareness.

Feeling every emotion as it surfaces on every level of the emotional scale is very important. In the past, when I stuffed emotions down to hide them and avoid them, they eventually festered inside of me and bubbled to the surface and then burst like a geyser, exploding like a bottle of shaken champagne, and I ended up erupting and saying or doing things I later regretted.

I learned that by observing my thoughts and feelings, I gained a better level of self-awareness, and figured out how to shift my mood faster when I felt myself slipping from contentment into that negative area on the emotional scale. Not that it is bad to feel negative emotions, I just do not want to stay there longer than is necessary to process what the emotion is teaching me, then I want to get back to my happy place which really is that baseline of contentment. On the baseline of contentment, I do not feel conflict or stress and feel joy and comfort.

Ways you can practice self-soothing when triggered — basically, anything that comforts you and allows you to return to that baseline of calm.

• Go for a walk
• Practice slow deep breathing
• Light a candle or use aromatherapy
• Listen to music
• Watch or listen to a comedy
• Listen to a podcast
• Call a friend or family member
• Exercise or practice yoga
• Mediate
• Journal
• Practice positive affirmations
• Make a list of everything you are grateful for
• Enjoy a meal with friends or family
• Take a drive and turn up the music
• Take a bubble bath

Self-soothing and practicing acceptance will help overcome obstacles. When I realized that all I must do is embrace life as it is without expecting it to be anything other than that, it was magical. I let go of the need to be anything and anyone other than who I am here and now. Suddenly the stress of life has lightened, and the miracles began to show up more vividly.

Earth Angels

I know that there are angels that walk here among us on Earth because I have met a few along the way. How do I know you might wonder? I know because there is no logical explanation for how we met, for their extreme generosity, or other unexplained things. I witnessed a piece of metal fly into a good friend’s car windshield and onto his lap. Had he so much have ducked he could have had his throat slit like an assassin's blade would. There is no other explanation other than that he was divinely protected.

We can choose to believe, or we can be skeptics, just as everything else in life, every choice we make gets us one step closer to our desired outcome or one step further from it. I choose to believe and as I do my life is unfolding beautifully right before my very eyes. I have never experienced more happiness and abundance.

I see angel numbers daily such as 11:11, 2:22, 3:33; 4:44, I see feathers, and other angel signs such as orbs, and these are all signs that my angels are watching and guiding me. Maybe you are seeing them too. If so, pay attention, it is not happenstance. I am forever grateful for the lessons I am continuing to learn, the people I have met and am continuing to meet each day on this wonderful planet. Not every day is good or easy, but good things do not come from comfort zones, so again, I accept that. I move through those hard days with grace knowing they make the good ones feel even better and brighter. I trust the process of the journey.

Another synchronicity — please read this amazing story by a talented writer I was recently introduced to by one Earth Angel, Marcus, whom I love and cherish, who sent me this article from Rebecca Romanelli. She expressed to me a hesitancy to publish it due to the skeptics in the world but I am so glad she did. It is a beautiful and powerful story that so wonderfully illustrates the miracles that Earth Angels are actually capable of bestowing on any of us at any time.

So, please choose to believe. Believe in yourself, believe in your worth, believe in the Earth Angels that are here to guide and help us along our journey. Believe and accept each situation as it is — the good, the bad and the ugly. It is all here for a reason whether we like it or not. It either teaches us a lesson, protects us, or steers us in a direction we may not have otherwise been aware of. We do not have to understand everything. What is important is to learn to observe free from judgment, which takes a lot of practice and patience. It is well worth it though because the reward of actually living in your happy place is sweet.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope you will comment on what your happy place is and I hope you like the spin that I received on mine as I heard that song on the radio this morning. By the way, where do you, as writers, get your inspiration?