How To Feel Hygge In Your Own Town

Now I am sure at some point or another you have wished you could be one of the many happy residents of a fictional town that has donned your TV Screens or Netflix accounts. My personal top five: Stars Hollow (Gilmore Girls), Wisteria Lane, Fairview (Desperate Housewives), Rosewood (Pretty Little Liars, Storybrooke (Once Upon a Time) and for some strange reason Sunnydale (Buffy The Vampire Slayer). Compared to the beauty, extravagancy and adventure our technology based live styles are so accustomed to seeing, reflected at us from each show we watch; our own cities, towns and villages seem rather dull.

This can make it hard to believe in your own personal ability to achieve hygge in your own home and in your own town. The truth is, to its inhabitant’s, the familiarity of living in the same area for a long period of time can appear less appealing than the towns and cities you see in blogs and Instagram photos daily. Your phone becomes a portal of doom, to a world where every blonde girl and her bicycle live somewhere more quaint and picturesque than you. Rest assured those photos appeal to you because these images are foreign and new to you. The residents of the place in the photo will not see it in the same way.

It is extremely hard not to compare your life to those around you, especially when we live in a world where sharing everything, even what you ate for breakfast is not only deemed socially acceptable but coveted. If you don’t photograph and document your breakfast, how on earth will the rest of the world know you ate that day? With social media sites, we are not limited to connecting to just people from our own countries. We can connect with others from all over the world. One of my best friends and I keep our friendship alive despite one of us is in Denmark and one of us is in the UK. This is great! But it does mean we now compare ourselves to different people from across the globe. When you are swiping and clicking pictures of palm trees in Bali and then look up from your phone and remember you are sat at a graffiti covered bus stop in the rain, your satisfaction levels lower regarding your surroundings.

Every inch of the planet has a history and a soul. With the planet being a constant everchanging being within itself, man can never truly own land or property. We simply borrow it for a while. Every piece of earth we inhabit has seen so much more than we could ever comprehend. Every village, town and city has roots. It has a story, so much further back than photographs portray. It has a roaring soul, an appetite for life and the potential to create one of the most precious things of all, memories.

Look outside of the window right now. Wherever you are, no excuses. If you are in a tent – unzip it! Then turn your phone off, you are wasting battery and you can read this blog tomorrow. Outside your window, all that you can see is the backdrop, the setting for the movie of your life. It has texture and balance. It has gradients and design. This is Manhattan to your Carrie Bradshaw. You have to get to know someone before you can fall in love with them and you have to get to know your town before you can fall in love with it. Treat it like a relationship.

·         Spend time learning about your towns history and all it has been through, be aware that even with all recorded knowledge there will be so much more that you don’t know and so you should tread lightly and respectfully.

·         Find out what your town enjoys and make the effort to join in. Whether you are living on agricultural land on in a big city skyscraper you can almost guarantee that this land is known for something. Find out what it is and try and incorporate aspects of that in your life. Support your towns teams and small businesses.

·         Get to know the people your town associates itself with and try to connect with those you feel you would get along with. Friends are a great way to discover knew things about the town and create new memories in it.

·         The hum of indistinguishable music around 11pm is the beat of my town. It sets the rhythm for the voices that the wind carries and the car horns at the traffic lights. The street lamps decorate each road like a birthday cake. My town is small but hearty. Its song is bluesy with an undertone of something else. Similar to reggae.

 Depending on the restaurants that surround you, your town will have a scent. The perfume of your home. This can be a very cosy, home feel when returning from a trip. Very hygge!·         Don’t forget to treat your town as well. Do something nice for it every now and then, support it in some way.

When you feel you truly know your town, you can then connect with it in a much deeper way. Suddenly hygge doesn’t seem to be a concept for the folks in the pictures but something that even you can do! You won’t have to move to a ‘nicer’ place after all.

Only when effort is put in can hygge truly begin.

Freja