Do you have a happy place?
A place where you can go and be free of the day to day worries and challenges?
A place where you feel truly happy?
This place may be real or imaginary.
In Mindfulness Meditation, creating a place where you feel calm, happy, relaxed and at ease is one of the exercises we sometimes do before exploring a challenging mindset topic or simply to give your mind a rest.
My happy place is always a garden, and I am blessed to not only have an imaginary one but also a real one. The garden here at my home is one of the main reasons why we wanted and bought this house. Currently the roses are blooming with new flowers opening up every day – we have over 20 rose bushes which is part of the magic of this garden. We have irises, apple blossom, lavender, lupins, honeysuckle (which smells divine), broom, mock orange and lilac to mention a few. The garden is an explosion of colour and beautiful birdsong. We’ve watched robins feed their baby and blackbirds gather nest materials. We’ve dodged the newts and the frogs that make their way from one pond to the next – we have two nature-based ponds in our garden. We have watched the local crow put bread, he has fetched from someone else’s bird table, into the pond so it can soak and then come back later to eat it. We have enjoyed the steady yet precise journeys of different types of bumblebees as they move from one flower to the next. We have (actually mainly me) had some strong words with the slugs and snails that are hell bent on eating my lupins.
I love my garden. My garden provides a regular break from the day. As I work from home, I am able to pop into the garden between calls or between pieces of work. More often than not, I sit in the garden to have my morning coffee and it is a wonderful start to the day. My garden is my sanctuary.
You may be wondering why I am going on about “my happy place,” what’s that got to do with mindset? Well, by being able to visit my happy place on a regular basis it provides the parts of my brain that have been working hard, to have a rest. It aids my productivity. I started this blog and wrote the first four lines and got stuck. In the past, I would have sat at the computer trying to force the words. Now I simply go outside. I know for some of my clients, whose happy place may be the beach or a mountain they’ve climbed or sitting in their Gran’s front room and isn’t easy to visit, they simply shut their eyes and let their imagination take them there. The power of the happy place is not to be underestimated. Not only can it aid productivity but also help to de-stress you, to remind you of your passion, to help you gain clarity, to allow the ego to be soothed and for other parts of self to come to the forefront.
So, today I invite you to consider where your happy place is and to have it on hand either in your mind or wherever you run your business. Allow your happy place to be one of the tools in your toolkit to help you look after your mind.
Until next time,
Best wishes
Philippa x