To ask what makes you feel at your happiest, most real "you"?

[whereiscaroline]

During my younger years I had a really strong sense of self. Worked hard, dreams of climbing the corporate ladder, was happy in my job and lived for nights out at the weekend - getting "merry" and clubbing with friends.

Now I'm older, friends are settled, corporate world is horrendous and I feel a bit lost. I don't really know what makes me happy anymore so I'm hoping that IANBU to look to MN for some inspiration please

When do you feel properly happy, like you're being the real, true version of yourself?

@Ski40 agree - don't know why Christmas is so magical but it is and always will be to me ❤️

Oh and talking to my family
Feeling fit when exercising
In a black cab going through central London or walking round

Dancing, waking up really early and going outside to watch the world wake up (reminds me if my early teenage year when i used to do that), exercise and stretching, playing with kids.
Achievements- learning something new and passing exams, i always was quite nerdy and learning was a source of pleasure.
Drawing (used to be and probably still could be quite good at it if i had time)

When I'm with my children, Today I picked 2 of them up from town at 6pm and we drove home blasting music out of the car stereo (one son dj-ing the playlist) and singing along. Poppies just appearing in the hedgerows along the lanes home, sun still shining.

I was me then.

Listening to jazz fm, old American songbook style songs. In contrast listening to drum and bass from the 90s and remembering my youth.

Walking the streets of Central London and feeling alive knowing that I can call London my home after years of wanting to live there throughout my childhood.

Feeling groomed and well dressed with lovely smelling hair.

Walks in forests and the heady scent of flowers on hot balmy nights.

My beach hut. I open the doors, put the kettle on get the deckchair and the blanket out and wait for my shoulders to lower.

Dancing , making love and being outside. All three together and I’m in heaven. Can you tell I like festivals?

Yes it is!💖 It's like the hundrum and the miseries of "real life" are just put on ice for while...😁😁😁

Going out with DH and friends to watch a band.
Walking the dogs
Going to stay at our cottage
Out with dc for lunch, spa, gym, shopping etc
Decorating and furnishing my house
When my hair looks good

Unfortunately not much happening atm- post surgery recovery. Boring!

I love this thread! Surprised how many people have said the same things I would though - how unoriginal of me 😳

Walking fast listening to music on my headphones - as Puddleducks said you don't realise how rarely you are able to do something like that once you have kids 😆

And snap Theactualfuck - I love a journey, especially a train journey, anywhere really as long as I have an hour or so to just sit, wGch the world go by and read a book and peoplewatch. I also love train stations and airports - not bus stations though, too grim and sketchy!

Talking to strangers! I feel like when I you meet someone in a bar (long time since that's happened!) or just get chatting in the queue for the ladies or on the bus, you can be so spontaneously authenti, and it feels lovely to make contact without any agenda or obligation.

When I make my daughter laugh I am literally so full of joy I feel like I might burst. She's only one, and she's my first, and although I still don't think of my new mum self as "the real me", just because it's still so new, it is the happiest I've ever been, and I love who I am with her, who she makes me - I have discovered such a beautiful, wholesome, nourishing love, more patience and compassion than I ever thought I had in me. Before I had her I was always a romantic and endlessly disappointed by relationships, all the selfishness and compromise, the narrowness and conditionality of people's feelings for each other in practice compared to how they feel inside and how they are described in fiction - then I had her and suddenly understood what all the love in me was for. It wasn't to barter in the relationship market place, it was to give to her, freely, for nothing, forever. I love being a mum so much, it makes me incredibly happy.

This thread has really made me smile!

A few weeks ago I managed to go for a nice long, brisk walk in the countryside on a lovely sunny morning, with my headphones in. I felt very content. I very rarely have the time!

Spending time with, and riding my horses.
Sat night curled up on the sofa still in stinky horsey clothes feeling physically tired but so content
Riding out with my bestie on her horse solving the world and laughing our heads off
That’s when I feel most grounded and content.

Wandering around a new town or city finding stuff at random.

My singing lessons - classically trained in secondary school, but gave all my hobbies up when I left.

Now, with a music teacher who's a silly as me, over 30 years later and love it. Turns out I'm a soprano not an alto.

Lovely thread.

@Ennirem I love chatting to strangers & sometimes realising you have a weird connection - almost like you were supposed to have that conversation iykwim. Sounds weird, but experienced it recently when on holiday hundreds of miles away from home & we got chatting to someone who had been taught by my DH’s father who’d sadly passed away when he was young. It was lovely for my DH to see what an impact his dad had had. We might never have known that if we hadn’t randomly struck up a conversation.

There’s also nothing better than getting into comfy pjs & having a hot chocolate/glass of wine after a long day at work.
Friends who accept you for who you are & who you can have proper belly laughs with.
Curling up with a good book that you get completely lost in & forget the time.
Snuggling up to cats purring away on your lap.
Dancing to the music you danced to as a teenager (definitely 90s)
Being by the sea & feeling complete contentment

Baking
Going out drinking with dp
Dancing with dp
Snuggling in bed with dd2 and reading with her

The most free and content I ever felt was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a Transatlantic cruise. No WiFi, no phone, just me and my kids sat on the balcony watching the water and night after night of stunning sunrises and sunsets, took almost two weeks to cross with one stop in The Azores and two in Nova Scotia and it was just perfect. I literally unloaded all my worries as I walked up the gangplank and didn't think of them again till the flight home.

Lots of things. Family walks (especially in shitty weather with a flask of hot chocolate for us all, we’re a bunch of masochists). Yoga. Sci-fi films at the cinema with my husband. Crossword puzzles and a coffee. Skypeing my best friend.

Stepping off the plane in Paphos. The mix of hot air and jet fuel. Bliss.

A day in my workshop doing a floristry commission listening to Radio 2.

Listening to Kate Bush

Walking

Reading

Lying on a hot beach in sunshine reading a good book.
Snuggling with dh.
Playing with dgs.

It's the simple things that mean the most and give a happy glow.
Best of all sitting at the bench at the end of the garden having a cuppa and looking at my flowers. Especially my lavenders and bees.

My cat.

A house to myself even everyone is at work and school. Peace.

A walk every day is a must, good for the soul and my sanity. Puts roses in your cheeks and makes you appreciate the beauty around you. I love my village lanes. And even more I love looking at beautiful skies on the way back down the hill.

Learned long ago that anxiety can be put to bed and kept at bay with a walk every day. It's true.

listening to lungfish or moss icon.
when my cats cuddle up together on or right next to me.
when my cats do really dippy things.
finishing work after dark and walking out in to the car park alone and feeling like it's just me in the world.
as above but even more so when a fox appears across the car park.
being in the sea when it's warm (about an hour window once a year!)
when I'm in love with the book I'm reading.
when my wonderful dp tells me he loves me.
hearing water, especially if it's heavy rain in a storm.

My first coffee of the day.
Listening to the rain and wind at night.
By the sea in a storm.
Listening to Human by Ragnbone Man.
Snuggling my sons.
After exercise (not during)
The bursting heart feeling when you are so proud of your children.
Smoking weed with old friends and the giggles.

Listening to a few select pieces of music with headphones on (classical and pop).

Bike ride early on a weekend morning (off road preferably).

Rowing on a flat calm river (not often enough)

Walking various parts of the Fife coastal path, in summer holidays.

Arriving at Mo Bay airport, jumping in a hire car, driving and feeling free, finding somewhere to rent and just feeling completely me, nothing else comes close