Category: Wellness

Hygge Lifestyle

Published on by Elaina M. Avalos1 Comment

📷: Photo by Alena Zadorozhnaya

Hygge is my favorite concept. I am working at a more hygge lifestyle. If you haven’t heard of it, the basics are:

*It’s a Danish idea and word. It’s tough to say. It is pronounced as “hooga”.
*Hygge is a cozy quality that makes a person feel content and comfortable.
*From the Danes themselves, they define hygge as being “about taking time away from the daily rush to be together with people you care about – or even by yourself – to relax and enjoy life’s quieter pleasures.”

There could be many ways to define hygge for you. While there does tend to be some concepts that seem to be shared with those of us who are working toward a more hygge lifestyle, it can also be a very personal idea. There are those who might feel as though spooky Halloween movies are hygge. There are others who might find that is not hygge in the least. What is comforting, relaxing, and helps you “enjoy life’s quieter pleasures” may not be the same for someone else.

I am working at cultivating a more hygge lifestyle. Some of the ways I am working on that include:

  1. Decorating with softer light and adding “fairy lights” or white string lights, that are used throughout the year (not just during the holiday season).
  2. When searching for something to watch or listen to, more often than not, I’m gravitating toward television shows, podcasts, movies, etc., that create that feeling (or remind me of it). An example of a super hygge movie for me is You’ve Got Mail. When I need a break from the world, I am re-watching Newhart on Amazon Prime.
  3. Fresh flowers, plants, and thoughtful displays of beautiful things (beautiful to me) in my home. This one is interesting because Danish homes may have a more minimalistic aesthetic. I am not minimalistic in the least. But I still think what I love to have around me is hygge.
  4. Working at remembering the delight and joy around me.
  5. Letting lovely *art like this one, below . . . inspire me and remind me of the kind of lovely environment I want to be in and around.

This is a short list and not definitive. But I wanted to share a few examples as I work toward resetting my clock – back to a time in my life where living a hygge lifestyle was my life more than it wasn’t.

Have you heard of hygge and if so, what are some ways you try to practice a hygge lifestyle?

*I don’t know who created this art. I’ve done a reverse image search and can’t seem to find the origin. I originally found it, here. More than happy to give credit to the artist if I find them.

Let it Happen

Published on by Elaina M. AvalosLeave a comment

“No, I know
I’m a walking contradiction and it shows
Got a history of being in control
I’m aware that I could end up here alone

But then we spoke
I had a backbone made of glass, and then it broke
Now I stay up and I wait here by the phone
if you’re ready, all I mean is we could go

I’ve never craved someone’s attention
As much as yours, thought I should mention
that

I bet all my money that I will
Lose to you and hand you my life
Here’s to hoping you’re worth all my time”
Lyrics by Gracie Abrams & Aaron Dessner (Aaron, my king – I love you. Lol)

I love, love. I am forever and always a romantic. I write about love and relationships. While not all of the relationships I write about are romantic, they certainly play a huge role.

It’s tough out here for us lovers, sometimes though. I’m not the best at not feeling, not caring, or turning it off. Once I’m there, I’m there (i.e., once I have feelings for you, I’m . . . stuck 🤣). There’s something about Gracie Abrams’ lyrics that hit me in just the right way at the moment.

She sings (read this as one thought/line):

I’ve never craved someone’s attention
As much as yours, thought I should mention
that

I bet all my money that I will
Lose to you and hand you my life
Here’s to hoping you’re worth all my time

When you stand on the edge of interest or infatuation and you sense this thing is developing and your feelings for someone are growing, there’s a moment when you make a decision to jump in or take some steps back. I’ve spent a lot of time worrying about risk versus regret in recent times. A heart that is beaten and bruised reaches a point where it begins to question literally everything. Ev-er-y-thing. What once felt easy and part of the deepest part of you, something you used to love about yourself (i.e., loving and caring easily), transforms into something scary. I am not risk averse. Lately, I’ve been extremely risk averse. I feel trapped there in that place where I fear taking the risks.

But when you’ve lost too much, you question your decisions. You question who you’ve fallen in love with. You question who you chose to trust. You question it all. The problem with this, as I’ve come to accept in recent weeks, is that there are never guarantees in life, love, and relationships. In my heart of hearts I know that it’s possible to find your true companion. I (perhaps far too stubbornly) still believe in the possibility of a soul mate (or more than one in a lifetime). But it’s not easy to reconcile this after heartbreak and then unrelated grief that follows.

My therapist recently said (this is a massive paraphrase) that there may not be a clear timeline of comfort in knowing a person. When do you know – when do you know you’re seeing red flags or interpreting something innocent, through your own trauma and issues? When do you know a person is trustworthy? When do you open yourself to deeper levels of intimacy with someone?

You don’t. There’s no easy answer. There’s no magic formula. I think there are probably some signs. I think there are probably relationships and people we should avoid. But we could also be very wrong and miss out on something or someone that is “worth all my time.” I’ve been guarding my heart, time, and dreams jealously in recent memory. But it’s not really me.

Let it happen. I’ll let it happen. I’ll take the risk and let it happen. Because the alternative is simply unacceptable.

https://youtu.be/6jvGUN4CChU?si=ozrj_aRM8m1SBjru

Grief is Really Just Love

Published on by Elaina M. Avalos1 Comment
Grief Jamie Anderson, grief is really just love, elaina avalos

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
― Jamie Anderson

Today, for the first time since my brother and father passed away, I went to a new doctor. I’m establishing primary care in my new city and I had to answer all of the questions and fill out family history (twice). The wording on this questionnaire hurt my heart and I had to fight back the tears. On this form, it asked for my sibling’s info as well as my parent’s. It asked about their medical history. Checking those boxes was traumatic in a way I didn’t expect. It was harder for my brother – as it always is. My dad was unhealthy for a very long time with multiple hospital stays over recent years. My brother was seemingly healthy and getting healthier all the time. Or so we thought. He was also my younger brother. One never, ever expects to say goodbye to their youngest (and only) sibling.
It has been tough this afternoon and evening to distract myself from the loneliness of facing the death of your only sibling. I will miss him always.

For someone that had one primary dream her entire life (to have a family) – facing the loss of family is deeply painful. We don’t ever fully get over these losses. I believe that completely. I believe the loss changes shape over time, however. Our grief is really just love . . . and because of that, we’re gonna hurt, we’re gonna laugh at the funny memories, and we’re gonna naturally long that it wasn’t a pain we had to know it the first place.

I will always love and miss my brother – he was my only sibling. But grief – while hard to navigate, is also a reminder of how much he was loved, too.