Life has always been a contact sport. There are 8 billion of us, rolling with the punches, ducking and diving, trying to avoid the worst of life’s jabs, uppercuts and body blows.
With 8 billion humans bobbing and weaving, the canvas is never far away.
It turns out that the long-awaited ‘new normal’ is uncertainty. The mid-life crisis has become a quarter-life crisis. It’s hitting the 18 to 25s who are between phases of life, between jobs, unsure about a path to take. In these situations, it feels like nothing is nailed down except our own anxieties and troubles.
You might have heard of mindfulness as a suggested remedy. And whilst that absolutely can work, sometimes it can be tricky to empty your mind when it’s so damn full!
Enter hygge (pronounced ‘hoo-geh’), a Danish concept that doesn’t directly translate to English, but it’s best described as a feeling of comfort and cosiness. Think snug, happy, content. Hygge is about taking time out of the drama to enjoy a quiet moment of peace.
But the beauty of hygge (and the thing that can help it stand out from other forms of mindfulness) is that it’s about being cosy even when the world isn’t.
Stuff like having a cup of tea inside a warm house whilst it’s hammering with rain outside, or warming your feet up next to a heater when your toes are cold. Despite being Danish, it’s not limited to cold weather, my personal ultimate hygge is taking my sweaty socks off after walking around with shoes on during a hot day… what a feeling (too gross? Sorry).
The thing about hygge is that it’s personal to you. In fact, figuring out your own hygge moments is an important first step in learning to embrace it. Awareness of the concept of hygge allows you to notice it (and name it) for the first time. Once you’re aware of it, you’ll find you notice it and take time to appreciate it more often. And little by little, you start to notice the present moment, and your life becomes filled with little bursts of joy.
Hygge is comfort. Not just the comfort we feel when we are in a hygge moment, but a comforting and reassuring feeling that these moments will always be there no matter what. Hygge is a massive time saver. There’s no need to sit cross-legged. No ‘omming’. No need to book on a retreat. The trick is simply to notice the present moment, find its beauty, and embrace it.
If hygge can teach us that there’s always something to appreciate even when it feels like we’re on the ropes, maybe there’s a lesson there about ourselves too. The BIG learning is this. In a world that constantly tells us we’re not enough, or that we don’t have enough, or that we need to speed up…
… what if the opposite is true?
When you find hygge, you’ll discover the truth: you are enough, you have enough and slowing down means you can tune into the present moment.
Plot spoiler, the present moment is all you ever have.
That’s why, at Art of Brilliance, we build hygge into our workshops and webinars. Like everything else we do, it’s simple, powerful and rejuvenating. Because we recognise that drama can be exhausting, and there’s nothing more peaceful than learning to fall in love with the present moment.
To discover more about the hygge mentality and a bunch of other stuff from the world of positive psychology, we have keynotes, workshops and webinars that provide an instant uplift for staff and students.
Schools, colleges and universities, here are two that would be perfect for you to build into your curriculum:
Resilience: Rolling with Life’s punches
Interested? We’d love to chat things through.
Ollie and Izzie