Happy Place

I took this pic on the trail that leads from Lake Thomas A.Edison to Devil’s Bathtub.  This hillside sits within the Ansel Adams Wilderness, one of several protected regions within the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  I won’t bore you with a lecture about the term wilderness.  If you’re interested in learning more, please take some time to research the importance of dedicated wilderness spaces on your own.  

The wilderness is one of my two ‘happy places.’  I think it’s okay to have more than one happy place.  What do you think?  My first happy place is when I am surrounded by my family. Sometimes it is ridiculously loud, and not everyone gets along with each other at any given time, but it still makes my heart smile when we can all be together in the same space. Rambunctious, noisy, chaotic, funny, sarcastic, supportive, enthusiastic, grumpy…one of our gatherings can hit all of these and more. 

As the photo demonstrates, I am also captivated by the wild places of our planet.  When my heart needs peace, I seek out a hillside like the one you see above. The stillness of the forest, broken by the sudden caw of a raven or the screech of a hawk as it dives after some unsuspecting critter on the ground, eases all of my stress.  I joke that I can sit taller and straighter just by driving up into the mountains from the valley.  But it really isn’t a joke.  The further into the mountains I go, the further away my stress and struggles seem to be.  Driving, and then hiking, into ever higher elevations allows the weight to peel off of my shoulders while the stress knot in my neck becomes softer and less pronounced.  No matter what season, I will always roll down the window to enjoy that first breath of pine-filled air when we pass into the the evergreen zones.  But the thing that truly makes my spirit soar?  Crossing the tree line into rocky escarpments and vistas dotted with pristine lakes and even, perhaps, a marmot or two.  

What is your happy place? Do you have more than one?  Like mine, are your happy places difficult to get to in “real life?”  I find my happy places to be very difficult to visit.  It’s very rare to have my entire family under the same roof.  That’s what happens when kids grow up and have their own lives.  I’m actually quite proud of them for doing so, and I know its the best thing for them.  So, I enjoy the moments I can, and I use memory and photos to remind myself at other times.  Getting to the treeline and further is just as difficult as wrangling nine different schedules into one dinner time.  So, I again use photos to help get me there.  I also find that meditation, with the high Sierra visual in my mind, is a great way to access my happy place, even from my living room.

I hope you can identify a happy place (or two) for yourself.  Having somewhere to go (even metaphorically) that soothes your spirit is a very important piece of building your healthy mind, body and soul.  I encourage you to seek out a place in which you feel safe and content.  A place where your struggles drift away for a while.  Then, find a way to visit as often as you can or need. Whether you arrive in a physical location or you get there through mental gymnastics doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that you find a place to relieve your stress and help you feel calm and relaxed - your Happy Place.