JOY

You know that place, where your heart soars and your smile glows from ear to ear? You know what I”m talking about, right? That place that leaves you saying, yeah this is what living is all about, this is what This One Precious Life is about.

That one, the one you’re thinking about right now.

I found it. I unearthed it and brushed off all of its dirty crevices and shined her up all pretty and glowy.

I now call it My Happy Place.

I’m a fairly happy person, which has led to great successes in my life. At least success that I’m satisfied with most of the time. But, now in my late 30s and having achieved all those dramas that we seek for so long (marriage, husband, children, job) … something has felt like it was missing. Something has been sparkling inside of me and nagging me. Like Torture, it’s there when I wake and there when I sleep at night.

In an attempt to understand myself, to understand this New Me who is now a mother, a wife and working woman, I read hundreds of blogs and gathered tons of inspiration from around the Internet. I worried about myself and wondered if I’d ever find my true calling. I wondered if I’d ever be happy or if I’d always feel like I was missing out on something in life.

Just this week, one of my soul sisters in the Universe, Elissa Elliott asked a question on her amazing blog: “What makes you feel alive?” Well, I’m most alive when I’ve allowed myself to live authentically, which means I get to be that brutally honest person I was born to be and that I get to be engaged and connected to the world in ways that feel right to me. It means, foremost, that I get to live and work and breathe my values.

It’s also when I’m in that place, when I’m most relaxed and happy, when inspiration of the supreme strikes and strikes BIG, which is what’s happened the last two weeks. I gave myself space to just be, to just be me.

I haven’t figured out my calling completely, but after writing hundreds of lists and dozens of pages in journals, I was able to finally figure out the most important part of myself — of any person, ultimately:

My happy place.

Oh, yes, I found it. I know exactly where it is and it is beautiful. It’s what led me to this project — Awesomely Awake. It’s what led me to knowing who I truly am in this world. Will I get rich off my happy place? Doubtfully. But at least I know!

My happy place is a very creative place that has everything to do with feeling one with the whole world, with feeling alive and ready for anything. It has a lot to do with accepting myself as I am, accepting my children as they are and accepting my husband as he is. Activities like yoga, meditation, studying Zen teachings, practicing mindful living, being One with nature and taking care of myself is my happy place. It’s nice to finally know that and be able to embrace it. It’s nice to know that, at the start of the day or the end of the day, these practices must happen just as much as I should drink water or sleep.

My happy place always involves writing and reading but more and more it’s about writing and reading about spirituality — by that I mean going inward and forgetting about the rest of the world’s problems for a while. By doing that, I always end up feeling more connected, more compassionate to humanity.

Now that I’ve found my happy place, I hope to help others find theirs as well. After teaching writing classes and hosting writing retreats over the last two years, I have discovered that I do possess a gift of helping creative-types be more productive and prosperous.

I love that my workshops have always centered on being awake, noticing, paying attention. That’s what writing is all about. That’s what living is all about. I also strongly believe that we cannot wait for the perfect moment to create and live out our dreams. The time is now. It always has been.

Now, your turn. What’s your happy place?