When you think about it, autumn is the absolute beginning of new beginnings. Before Spring can come, Autumn must shed leaves to pave the way for new bud; natures  “out with the old, in with the new”.

The “out with the old” is really, really important. If we didn’t get the old, out, we’d be carrying around an awful lot of “stuff.”

At first, the shedding of leaves is beautiful and incites our playful sides to reveal themselves as we kick leaves, play conkers, make & bake hedgerow fruits.

But after Autumn (and the sparkle of Christmas) comes Winter and as most trees are bare and without leaves the world can seem a very stark place indeed.

But really, Autumn & Winter is the place where all the magic happens.

Hygge is about mindfulness

You can’t really have any resolution without a period of shedding old leaves. That in-between phase of old and new is when we wrap up, bed down, bed in. A time when maybe we pull our blankets and those closest to us a little bit closer. A bit like when a lobster sheds its skin, it’s and goes into a protective rock space whilst it toughens itself out.  We reflect & calibrate.

Personally, we’ve tried New Years resolutions (abandoned) . We’ve tried a monthly resolution (comes and goes too quickly) so we thought we’d seek out some middle ground and try a seasonal resolution. Here goes…

Reap the benefits of living hygge of last year

If you’re a regular reader of our blogs you’ll recall what an impact living hygge had on our lives almost instantly.

Four weeks of living hygge

So keep doing what we did last year. We’re doing ok!

Appreciate what I have, right here, right now.

Remember the board games around the fire, the stock of marshmallows in the jar (note to self; keep hidden from family or they disappear), the conscious efforts to make plans with family, call Grandmother more often and mindfully withdraw from thinking about work, having a book regularly on the go and saying yes and no to the right people at the right time.

But don’t hibernate too much!

In October 2015, I stumbled across hygge in a colleagues tweet. What I did was took it as carte blanc to plonk fireside as soon as I got home, which was hygge and very lovely but actually, I should have maintained the habit of those regular evening dog walks; confession… I did put on quite a few pounds last winter, thankfully lost with effort in early Spring. Don’t make that mistake again!

Take notice of nature

Now this one should be easy. I’d like to meet anyone that doesn’t notice that the leaves have changed colour, fallen from the trees and are crunching beneath our feet.

But I mean really look… The beaches are our closest wildlife haunts. What happens to rock pools, in the dunes and shore life? The seals that are lolloping in the coves? That will mean getting out and about and not just to the woods further in land that we usually haunt this time of year. We commit to do that.

And that’s it! No more & no less! I’m simply not going to beat myself up. Appreciate what I have, right here, right now, in my home. Hygge is about mindfulness. About looking inside and … feeling.

And how can what we feel ever be wrong?