Feeling Serene
I took my first step, last December, I found myself sitting in my new flat with a glass of wine, a lit candle creating a warm glow lit up, listening to some music and to the tempo of my daughter as she slept in her bed room
And I felt serene, happy and content. This was my pre-Christmas gift to myself and what a beautiful pre-Christmas gift it was. I had found myself a beautiful small and cozy place to live and a place where I could keep on learning and growing for this next chapter of my life
I had finally managed to move out of a beautiful house – a house in which I had lived in for the last 16 years, a house which everyone thought was so beautiful, everyone except me. I never felt comfortable living in it: a 400m2, 200 years old very special house. For me living in that house always felt very heavy, dark and so my mood grew heavier, darker over these 16 years. No one could understand my feelings about that house. Everyone saw me as being really lucky to live in such a beautiful house.
Lucky really? Happy really? I am not sure, my body was showing something different, my smile slowly disappeared and my joy of living became as flat as en EKG of a dead body
- No! I was not happy
- No! I was not lucky, or at least not in a way I would have liked to be lucky and happy
Not only did I move out of the beautiful house, I also stepped out of a relationship of 18 years which had also started like a Christmas gift, (I met my husband on the 25th of December), and which had become very one-sided in my opinion. I realized I was slowly dying inside myself, feeling really lonely, not supported, and for sure not loved anymore
Did I still love that man? I don’t know, did I want to know if I still loved him, I don’t know
All I knew back then was that I had to rescue myself from a life, which I had not chosen, from a house I had not chosen, from a relationship I had chosen, but which had become lifeless…
For sure It has not been an easy decision, and it took quite a number of steps, pleasant and unpleasant ones to get me to where I am now. However each of these steps were necessary to realize what I needed, what I was longing for. Each single step helped me to grow and to continuously learn more, to rediscover who I was, to be curious about myself and to go on that road to discovering myself
So here I was sitting on a huge cushion, and just feeling the lightness of life, the easiness of plenitude, and the loneliness in serenity. Listening to beautiful, inspiring and funny TedTalk from Matthieu Ricard, sometimes called the happiest man in the world, a Buddhist Monk talking about happiness, our deep and profound desire of happiness and how we can train our minds in habits of well-being to generate a true sense of serenity and fulfillment
Felling serene was THE first step of my new life, and here I was moving toward my first step
Like Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher and writer and founder of philosophical Taoism said: the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
What would be my next step and where would it take me?
What has been your first step to move out from an uncomfortable situation?