“I think people underestimate how much of a luxury it is to genuinely like your normal day. Not the holiday, not the birthday, not the reservation. Literally Tuesday.”
—@awakeningheals

I permanently removed the door in my office this past spring.

The decision to do so came as a lightbulb aha, but it had taken more than six years for me to realize it wasn’t benefiting anything, or anyone, to keep it. Yes, it may seem that a door to an office would be necessary – privacy, quiet, to name the first reasons that come to mind – but no, neither was needed, as I had those already. I live on my own and don’t need separation from anyone else. And when I need the house to be quiet while I record episodes for the podcast or for audiobooks, there is no one I have to ask to please keep it down. It’s just me. So why was I keeping this door? I had stubbed my toe on it; it blocked a beautiful expanse of wall that is wallpapered in Charles Voysey Bird & Butterfly print, a wall space that would be an ideal placement for my office clock, enabling it to be situated near my desk, much more easily visible than where I had displayed it; and I regularly ran into the doorknob, as it is a small room. Why was I keeping this door? … Because it was what one was supposed to typically have in a room – a door. But my door only brought frustration and pain, no support, no benefit, no ease.

The door, since removing it in June, has not once been missed. In fact, the door has been forgotten to have even existed, except in writing this post. The natural flow into and out of the room is a breeze, with no more bruises or stubbed toes, and the room’s full aesthetic beauty is on display, not hidden behind a white rectangular behemoth.

The real luxury of having an office space tailored to my lifestyle took time to arrive, and it didn’t arrive without frustration, pain, and quandary. Requiring a rethink, a stepping back from mainstream thinking and thinking about what would best nourish me, bring ease to my flow and rhythms, when I finally gathered up the gumption to remove the door, to actually experience it, lifted a burden I didn’t realize I had carried or knew was possible to remove. I had to be the one to give it to myself, because only I had the self-knowledge of what I needed and why I needed it. Every other home I have lived in has a door to the office, but the life I needed not only didn’t need one, it required that I not have one in order to thrive. This leads me to what real luxury requires of us in order to eventually experience it and all depth of awesomeness we will find.

When I came across the quote shared above, my smile appeared spontaneously. I read it while enjoying a day off, a regular day off that occurs each week. I was at home, not atypical for a day off, enjoying the autumn beauty in the garden, teacup having just been poured, Nelle curiously poking around the garden, and about to begin reading a book that had just been delivered. This, for me, is the best holiday, the best day I could be having. It was a Wednesday. No holidays were designated to it on the calendar. It was an average day in my regular routine, but it is a type of day that didn’t just happen without years of conscious effort and choices, many difficult, others small, yet repeated and gradual, yet significant in their effect.

We are about to enter the end-of-year holiday season. An expanse of just over two months of various holidays, dates on the calendar that either much of the world designates as important, or the culture we live in does. An importance that, while being well-meaning and sometimes offering a ‘day off’ on the calendar from work, actually comes with an abundance of work for those directly involved in its celebration and commemoration. The expectations can pile up, and if they prompt anxiety or stress in you that derails the ease and pace of life you have thoughtfully and with intention created in your everydays, this ‘special time of year’ or that one particular holiday that causes the angst, can be anything but something you look forward to. You are not alone. And no matter how intense or repetitive the marketing campaign may be (or how early they begin), it only seems to reaffirm the discomfort of the holiday’s arrival.

However you feel, if it is not a place of calm, know that your feelings are valid, and if you can’t change the culture, change how you live in the culture. You do not have to follow. Your peace is the most valid reason for changing how you experience your days, your holidays, your birthday, your [whatever date on the calendar a special occasion occurs that you are supposed to do a particular something that does cause anticipation, but instead anxiety and dread]. This is the most difficult part – to make the changes, but the discomfort from this chosen change is temporary, as opposed to ongoing if we remain in what pains us.

Or perhaps, you do love the holidays, but, as one TSLL reader shared recently, you dislike how certain holidays leapfrog over others, long before it is time to start thinking about them, leaving us to forget, if we don’t have a strong sense of awareness, or be distracted so that we don’t fully savor the one that we find ourselves about to celebrate.

This dismissal of appreciating the moment right where we find ourselves happens not only during the holiday season, but in our daily lives as well. In a culture where the weekend is celebrated, but conversely, Monday or Tuesday, even Wednesday or Thursday, are loathed, or uttered to express a tone of dislike, it can be an exercise in willpower and thinking for oneself to find the beauty in Monday, but when we do, we know real luxury.

Real luxury takes time to arrive, requires intentional effort borne from clarity gained by becoming an observer of the zeitgeist or those in our life to determine if we, our true selves, are considered, let alone valued, in the equation we’ve been either born into or stepped into unconsciously. Gradually, with conscious intention to change our environment and how we engage with our life, our unconscious living begins to dissipate as our clarity sharpens. In this moment, which may span many moments, or maybe even years, we make tough decisions. Decisions that change our environment and/or how we partake in holidays, but that change is necessary if we are to know peace and live in an environment – what we talk about here on the blog and in Savoring the Sojourn – as an enriched environment.

“In our society today, we don’t have to stay at a certain company or in a certain job, nor do we have to stay in relationships—whether romantic, familial, or platonic—that are harmful to our brain. We can remove ourselves from one social milieu and try our luck in another. And we can try to change a certain dynamic within an already existing social context; this, if successful, can result in dramatic improvements in well-being and happiness.” —Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life by Amir Levine, MD

The social milieu that Amir Levine speaks of is anything or anyone we live amongst or are connected to, and its ‘ways of living’ are assumed we too will adapt or accept as normal. But we can change what normal is for ourselves if what we are experiencing isn’t a place of security, a place to rest with ease, a place to feel as though you can be your true self without shrinking or disappearing, let alone changing.

One of the most difficult parts of the journey toward experiencing real luxury is when we realize we have to let go, or step back significantly from, people who have been in our lives for a long duration or are part of the familiar fabric of our life, people in our life that society deems we should do whatever we can to remain close to them (siblings, parents, grandparents, children, spouse, etc.). However, over time, once we begin to learn, through the choice of gaining self-knowledge, choosing to do the healing, learning the helpful skills of how to care for ourselves well and engage with the world constructively, and then apply and put into practice these skills, if those environments don’t respond or change, but instead continue and thus remain unhealthy, we have to make difficult decisions to limit, change or conclude our time with them. This is heartbreaking, but necessary if we are to know peace.

In a recent book, titled Secure, written by the co-author of Attachment (from which episode #318 was inspired), Amir Levine, MD, shares the science and research, paired with anecdotes from his clients, on how we create a life that is secure – emotionally, in regard to attachments and connections with others. I will be dedicating an entire episode to this book and what he teaches in episode #437 (this coming November), but I couldn’t wait to share with you the importance of knowing ourselves and choosing to live differently if that is what reduces our anxiety or fearful avoidance when it comes to expectations of how to live. Your feelings are valid. And you are not alone in feeling such feelings and feeling fear even in just considering making the necessary changes.

In my own life, I have made many difficult decisions of letting go (what Levine teaches as the ‘Appendix Removal’), limiting and stepping back (the ‘Wall Tennis with Love’ approach, also taught by Levine). They were necessary and, ultimately, upon making them, did give me a much more peaceful and enriching life. I still have changes to make, but my awareness of becoming alert to what is unhealthy or damaging to my secure attachment peace of mind now is more quickly ascertained, so that the ‘infection’ is far more minor than in the past. Part of how this improved is through honoring my self-knowledge and not letting others dismiss my feelings even if they didn’t understand why I felt them. Reading a variety of books, many shared here on the blog and the podcast, have given me invaluable insight and confidence to trust feelings I have had for years or for prolonged periods of time about situations or particular people. I no longer doubt myself as much as I used to, but it has taken time. In sharing all that I do here on TSLL, I want to offer these tools to you so that you too can know peace and fulfillment in your life.

The evidence that proves we have consciously chosen the life we are living is that each day is a joy to live. We want to wake up and live it, experience it, and savor it. The everydays, the Mondays, the Tuesdays, every single day is a day we wake up to and get excited to live. In an interview, Raymond Blanc, the French chef who lives in England and is the founder of the renowned restaurant in Oxfordshire Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, shared, in answer to the question of what gets him up in the morning, “I just love life, and obviously though my work pattern is different [he’s retiring soon], I still do. I love to walk, I love the cinema, I love to see art, I love to see friends. It’s easy to wake up. It’s easy. I am excited, and I rarely have the blues.”

Such a life doesn’t just happen. It is a choice, and along the way to arriving at this thoroughly, unabashed love of waking up each morning no matter what day it is on the calendar, are tough and scary choices. Some exciting scary choices – pursuing a dream, and others scary because we know it will be emotionally difficult. But while we don’t enjoy making them, the feelings of trepidation, shaking nerves and doubt are temporary. Necessary to face and step through, yet temporary, as with our action to change, we will arrive on the other side, the side that holds our every day being a delight and absolute thrill to live. It is possible and these difficult choices make it so.

To this point above, each night when I go to bed, book at-the-ready to read, Nelle nestled up next to me, classical music playing to sing me to sleep, I cannot wait to wake up in the morning. This happens each day now. I deeply savor my evening rituals while also feeling giddy about waking up tomorrow to experience what the day has in store. I get to live tomorrow the life that is one I love that took years to materialize through difficult, intentional choices. This doesn’t mean there aren’t hiccups and questions to answer in my everydays now, but they come as what I view as membership dues to live this life, dues I will happily pay.

So, what is real luxury? It is forged out of courage, clarity, and self-love. Compassion for others, along with ourselves, and a determination to bring more peace into the world. That peace can only begin when we find it for ourselves by creating and living in an environment that fills us up more than it drains us. By living in an environment, cultivating an environment, made possible by our tough choices, clear-eyed choices, loving choices, to prioritize peace.

“The trick for making the brain more secure? Immersion over prolonged periods of time in small but highly beneficial day-to-day interactions.” —Secure: The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life by Amir Levine, MD

It is absolutely, most definitely possible to live a life in which you delight in your middle-of-the-work-week days. It is absolutely possible to savor the holidays, the birthdays and all the special days that you deem special. The key is cultivating them in such a way that honors what you need. Yes, let others do what brings them joy, but neither we nor they can force others to feel similarly if it doesn’t. In such cases, the loving thing to do is let go. If we truly love someone, we want them to know joy as they experience it, not as we do. That is a lesson for us all. What does bring us joy? We only have the keys to the car that is our life, one person. And we, that one person, matter. We deserve to feel joy in every day.

Wishing you a most wonderful day full of many seemingly insignificant minor interactions that delight you (an acronym created by Levine, SIMIs). In so doing, you are teaching your brain that every day can be delightful, secure, and amazing.

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