Finding Your Happy Spot to Live Large

Posted October 23rd, 2012 by kerri and filed in small house living
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18 Comments

The Belle Writer's Studio solved our issues regard­ing work space and privacy

 

We’ve been going through some “stuff” here at Our Little House.

What we’ve been deal­ing with here is a seri­ous med­ical scare. A rou­tine mam­mo­gram on August 28 turned up some­thing “con­cern­ing” and I sub­se­quently had a bat­tery more of mam­mo­grams and a biopsy.

It was a 6-week ordeal that ended as I hoped. The results were neg­a­tive. As I exhaled that sigh of relief though, we've also been deal­ing with my mother-in-law’s ter­mi­nal ill­ness and com­ing to terms with her mor­tal­ity, which of course, always makes us think about our own even more.

I've learned a few lessons, though, from the stuff we've gone through in the past sev­eral years.

The biggest les­son in life, I think, is that we all go through this “stuff,” no mat­ter how per­fect our house, how pretty the scenery is out­side, how happy we are in our rela­tion­ships with our spouses, our friends/family and even our pets or how sat­is­fied we are with our careers, the say­ing is true: “Stuff Happens.”

The next most impor­tant les­son I’ve learned in my life is that the bet­ter spot we’re in men­tally when this stuff hap­pens, the bet­ter able we are to deal.

It’s when we find those things: The lov­ing rela­tion­ships, the sat­is­fy­ing career, our “dream” home, that make the chal­lenges, the “stuff” we all have a bit eas­ier to take.

There was a time not too far in dis­tant mem­ory when all of these things were not in place and I felt crushed by the extra chal­lenges life brings to us all.

For me, it was about tak­ing con­trol of my life by leav­ing a job and pro­fes­sion I absolutely despised and felt did not fit my tal­ents. It was about appre­ci­at­ing my lov­ing, pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships more and drop­ping con­ven­tional think­ing, which dis­con­nected neg­a­tive rela­tion­ships; find­ing that niche in vol­un­teer­ing help­ing res­cue some of the most vul­ner­a­ble liv­ing beings in our soci­ety – home­less ani­mals – and it was about get­ting to a place of seren­ity in in our phys­i­cal space.

While I don’t like the extra­ne­ous chal­lenges, hav­ing some of my life’s goals in place puts me in a hap­pier spot and a bet­ter posi­tion to deal with the hard stuff.

For me, Living Large is about hap­pi­ness in a small phys­i­cal space, but more impor­tantly, Living Large is about find­ing your dreams, what­ever they may be, going for them and mak­ing them hap­pen. When you’re in your happy spot, phys­i­cally and men­tally, the hard stuff may not be easy to take, but it is less of a challenge.

What is your Happy Place to help you Live Large?

18 Responses to “Finding Your Happy Spot to Live Large”

  1. MyKidsEatSquid says:
    October 29, 2012 at 9:35 pm

    Sometimes, my happy place is going on a run and lis­ten­ing to my music a lit­tle too loudly;) I'm so glad that you're doing well and things have turned out well.

  2. Donna Hull says:
    October 29, 2012 at 7:31 pm

    Well said. And I'm so happy that your health ended with good news.

  3. Alisa Bowman says:
    October 26, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    Inner peace cre­ates outer peace. It has to come from inside, and once it does it makes every­thing out­side seem brighter and calmer. But suf­fer­ing does indeed hap­pen, no mat­ter what. We can't escape sick­ness, aging, loss and death. Inescapable.

  4. Heather L. says:
    October 25, 2012 at 4:19 pm

    This is a good les­son for all of us to learn.

  5. Irene S. Levine says:
    October 25, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    What a beau­ti­ful post! Thanks for shar­ing~
    I'm so happy that your health scare turned out to be just that!

  6. Brette Sember says:
    October 25, 2012 at 12:07 pm

    I'm so glad you have the bal­ance in your life that let you weather your recent storms. I too made big deci­sions that put me in a bet­ter place and make it eas­ier to cope with the challenges.

  7. Melanie @ Frugal Kiwi says:
    October 25, 2012 at 11:42 am

    Realizing that no task is so impor­tant it can't be post­poned was an impor­tant step for me. when your health explodes, you quickly find that out.

  8. Susan says:
    October 23, 2012 at 6:38 pm

    Just want to say I am so happy that every­thing came out ok. Thoughts and prayers for you and your family.

  9. Hawk's Nest Cabin says:
    October 23, 2012 at 10:39 am

    Scaling back life's com­plex­i­ties to a more digestable bite, has helped me to main­tain my 'happy place'. That — and my faith and spir­i­tu­al­ity. When so much comes at a per­son and they feel that they have peace, bal­ance.. really think it affects their per­cep­tion of what is a bonafide prob­lem. I've gone through that with my own health issues (Autoimmune arthri­tis and sub­se­quent treat­ment of it). It's a higher hur­dle yet a hur­dle that I can jump, none the less. So glad that you are alright and sorry to hear about your MIL.