finding your happy place

Finding happiness is about listening to yourself long enough to understand what it is you need.  No one can tell you how to be happy because happiness looks different for everyone.  A yogi once told me that the more you allow society to tell you what is important, the less you will know what is actually important to you.  The same applies for happiness.  We are constantly filled with images of what is making other people happy; advertisements, movies, facebook, pintrest.  They all tell us what we need to do to be happy just like the other people we see.  We begin to think "if only I had that, looked like that, or lived like that, I would be happy."  False.  What you need to do is turn off your cellphone, television, and laptop and turn inwards.  Listen to what your spirit is telling you.  Where is it most at peace?  Where are you calmest?  What are you doing when you can literally feel your heart smiling?  When you can answer these questions for yourself, you will find your happiness.

I moved to an apartment yesterday.  It is right down town Geneva one block from the lake and two blocks from the red light district.  After arguing with the taxi driver for charging me 46CHF to drive me 2 miles, he crammed 10 of them back into my hand and left me on the corner with three suitcases, three giant bags of groceries, and a yoga mat.  This posed as a huge dilemma as I am not in the best area of town and there was no way I was going to carry all of this in one trip.  I loaded myself up with as much as I could possibly carry and scurried to the front door searching for the crumpled piece of paper with the entry code.  As soon as the door clicked open, I threw everything inside and rushed back to my pile of belongings blocking the sidewalk and repeated the process.  I then had to fit all of this into a 3ft by 3ft elevator to get up to the 5th floor.  I closed the metal gate behind me with an inch of spare room between me and the heaping pile of my junk three suitcases high threatening to bury me alive with one false move.  As soon as I opened the elevator door, I came tumbling out followed by my life's belongings.  I was home.

Silvia took my 2,100CHF, handed me the keys to my new apartment, and left me to slowly unpack my life.  It doesn't take long to move when your worldly possessions consist of what you can bring on an airplane without being charged extra i.e. two suitcases of 50lbs and one way over-packed carry-on.  Once everything was where it belonged, I sunk into a warm bath and stayed there for over an hour reveling in the fact that I was alone.  The residence had sucked more life out of me than I had recognized.  There was never a peaceful moment with the slamming of doors, chit chatting, and nuns making announcements on the loud speaker.  The next morning I made pancakes and drank my coffee looking out the window at all of the people walking to all of the mysterious places they had to be on Saturday morning.  As I washed the dishes, tears of relief and joy streamed down my face.  I had found my happy place.

There are a few things that I could never put a price tag on; silent moments in the mountains, a kitchen where I can spend entire days creating delicious food, and access to cultural experiences.  I now have all three here in Geneva.  I would pay 1,000 francs a month just to have a kitchen to myself.  The smell of banana bread is filling my new apartment and I am contemplating what I will make for dinner with the wide assortment of ingredients that now fill my refrigerator and cupboards.  When I am in the kitchen, singing along to my favorite songs, and creating a tasty treat, I am in my happy place.  This is thanks to my beautiful mother who also finds peace while baking.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are centered in our kitchen as she showed me exactly what consistency the cookie batter should be and how to thicken a gravy that was too runny.  Thanks mom!!

I have listened to my soul and it has told me how to be happy.