Finding Your Happy Place

Everyone always talks about finding your happy place. If you’re having a bad day, think about your happy place. If you’re anxious about an upcoming situation, think about your happy place. Scared of the doctor or an upcoming procedure, think about your happy place.

What if you don’t know what or where your happy place is? I was 31 before I finally realized what my happy place truly was. I knew that there were things that I was supposed to think brought me peace or things that were suggested to me but it wasn’t something I could easily conjure up in my mind. I really had to put some thought into it to imagine what always seemed to be very cliché. I always pictured a meadow in a forest with wildflowers all around and the sun shining through the trees, with birds chirping all around me but this never brought me peace; it didn’t relax me. Sure, it was pretty but there was no impending sense of calm from it.

It wasn’t until I was on a cruise that I found what everyone always told me to think about…my happy place. My happy place is the water. Not just a beach, although that does the trick too, but being out on the open water. It wasn’t until I was in the middle of the ocean and looking out to see no land, no traffic, nothing but water that it hit me…this is my happy place. In that moment of simply seeing nothing did I notice that all my troubles were forgotten, all my stress was lifted, all my worries were gone. In that moment of looking out and being surrounded by nothing, I felt so small and everything seemed even smaller. I realized that for the length of time that I was looking out and seeing nothing, that was exactly what mattered at that time…nothing. It was heaven. So now anytime I am told to think of my happy place, I think of the open waters. If I am stressed or feeling down about something in my life, I think of that feeling I get when I watch the sunset over the horizon with nothing to obstruct my view. When I am in an uncomfortable situation, I think of the weightlessness I feel when I look out at the white capped waves. This is my true happy place. It’s not something that I feel it should be, it simply is.

If you haven’t found your happy place, give it time, you will. More than likely, you won’t find it, it will find you. Don’t think that it’s something that everyone else thinks it should be. Happy places are different for everyone. It could be in the kitchen cooking, entertaining friends and family or it could be hidden away on a deserted island by yourself. Whatever makes you feel 100% utterly at peace is your happy place and don’t think that you have to automatically have one. It’s ok if you don’t find it till you are older, as long as you know peace at some point because when you are able to immediately pull up your happy place, it really is good for the soul.