HAPPY, IT’S HERE TO HELP! HOW TO INVITE HAPPINESS AT HOME
I - HAPPINESS, A MULTIDISCIPLINARY, TEMPORAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL CONCEPT
[Pour la version fran?aise, c'est ici!]
“Happiness is often the only thing you can give without having it and it is by giving it that you acquire it.” Voltaire
Since 2013, it has its international day on March 20. A ranking in the World Happiness Report, where the title of the happiest country has been put into play every year since 2012. Finland is again qualified in first place when France is after the first 20 lucky ones…
1. But what is Happiness?
ROI (same word for ‘king’ in French ??) of personal development, everyone gives their definition, their mood… between belief and concept:
- From all areas
Biology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, religion, politics, advertising, economics, education, statistics...
- From all eras, from all biases
For example, happiness is...
- Territory
Happiness is also geolocated and named. Some examples:
From concept, belief, art of living, to promise or reward, Happiness seems to be a due or a more or less competitive quest, nowadays.
?
2. Universal or personal criteria for talking about Happiness
Happiness is both measurable, personal and universal:
- The “serious” criteria of Happiness
The notion of Happiness is claimed at work with great blows of labels like “HappyIndex At Work”, certifications of the “WELL” type. You practice or perhaps benefit from “Happy management”.
It can also be measured: the Better Life Index (BLI) is the indicator of better living. There is a Gross National Happiness (GNH) indicator. To designate the happiest country, the United Nations crosses data on longevity (in good health otherwise it doesn't count), social support, GDP per capita, economic integrity, mutual aid and freedom... the grails of access to top of the podium.
- The perception of happiness
More intimately, happiness is experience, emotion and a visceral feeling of fullness in a suspended moment. It is sometimes made aware only in a second time, by the perception of the positive elements of the experience.
“You recognize happiness by the noise it makes when it leaves.” Jacques Prever
To avoid endless dithering, let’s relate it here to the feeling of joy: neither sacred ideal out of reach nor reduced to the notion of “pleasure” like a shot with an addiction pattern. In all lucidity, VS illusory happiness, Coué method or perched attitude open charlatans.
“Pleasure is the happiness of fools, happiness is the pleasure of the wise.” Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly
- Well-being as a common denominator to the notions of Happiness
Let's take a look at what it does concretely when we feel it: it provides a deep and gentle well-being that surrounds us. From various beliefs, let's bring it back to the feeling of living well.
Whether latent, cause or consequence, interior and exterior, Happiness contributes to our well-being.
What if injecting well-being into our relationship to time and our space made us more permeable to the joy of living...
How to give a helping hand to invite Happiness into Home in a sustainable way?
II - THE HOME AS ONE OF THE FAVORABLE FACTORS FOR OUR WELL-BEING OR THE ROLE OF HOME IN OUR ACCESS TO HAPPINESS
“Tomorrow's happiness does not exist. Happiness is now or never.” Rene Barjavel
Even in a certain underlying dictatorship of happiness - on the contrary distancing it - let us simply ask ourselves what makes us happy or not. This positioning is on the one hand a state of mind that we can each modulate and on the other hand the perception of our immediate environment. Identifying what we can act on, concentrating our energy on modulating it, contributes to the construction of our well-being and brings Happiness into our homes, into our daily lives. Sometimes little is missing: like to observe, to listen to us and to surround ourselves well, to begin with.
What if the Wellness Stay that you are planning for your vacation started at Home?
The idea is to make everyday life easier by rethinking the interior in connection with its inhabitants. Are You ready ?
1. The link to the Home and the World
I would be lying to you if I told you that your house can protect you from everything and that then you will find Happiness there. It would only reinforce your feeling of insecurity when you must open your door. Such a belief would do you a disservice and just as much take you away from any tangible happiness. (It's a spoiler to save you wasting your time).
“Happiness never stands still; Happiness is respite from worry.” Andre Maurois
The home is neither border, nor armor, nor bunker to hide us while waiting for until it's?blown?over but a permeable buffer zone in connection with us and with the outside, with LIVING rooms, as we call them. Much better than that, the house can be a case that absorbs the jolts of life, the pulsations, the too acute stimulations (cold, rain, noise, stress…), not being a sieve either. We can even enjoy listening to the rain from the window! The objective is for the house (studio, apartment, etc.) to envelop the history of its inhabitants, anchoring them somewhere without weighing them down but giving them a feeling of belonging to something that surrounds them. A part of our identity, in connection with the world around.
> The relationship to one's house lies in a mutual adjustment between house and inhabitants where them make a little more compromise than the house in general. A sudden consent when you do not have the keys to move from a balance of power to a pleasant cohabitation. For this I examine the singular bond that you have with your home, and your needs, your activities, your desires, your dreams. I like to work on how your interior fully participates in your daily well-being. May it serve you, even increase you.
领英推荐
2. Five levers to promote well-being at home
Happiness is not only luck or karma but sensitive to certain constants on which we can act, unless we want to (just like Voltaire) and apply the best of interior design.
- The feeling of Security: QUIETER
A quick look at Maslow's pyramid and NO! it's not really in survival and insecure mode that we can fully enjoy happiness!
When the domestic space makes it possible to slow down the rush from the outside, daily stress and to accommodate activities within it: it becomes a source of tranquility, a boost in telemote time, then a resource... by reconciling different speeds. Knowing that finding your rhythm is a key to being at the top of your potential (marathoners teach us that, and not only them), it is not only a question of health but also all good!
> For this, in the form of a zoning, I square the house which then consists as much as possible of energizing and comfortable mixed day spaces and other night spaces, restful and regenerating. Intimate spaces and others shared or even public, with both openings and isolating, up to you.
- The user-friendliness: HEALTHIER + QUIETER
And hop, a step higher at Maslow’s model, it's immediately better!
Friendliness is a perceived feeling of social harmony, when we feel good with those around us in our environment. Between affect & proprioception, it is a carnal and emotional relationship in connection with those around. In general, we live in cohabitation with loved and trusted people (preferably at least!). To share more than walls, conviviality requires intentionality and benevolence between inhabitants. And if we live alone: the same, at least towards ourselves and our plants, our guests, or our cat! A friendly home is a place of carnal, emotional and intellectual exchange, a meeting point with us, others and the living space.
> Living together only brings people together when we feel listened to and understood. Hence the need to study some places for everyone and others for meeting, in a fine management of intimacy and sharing in the layout of space. Active listening to the needs of each cohabitant, their activities and the setting greatly increases the happiness of being together ??!
- Minimalism or the Big Minimum: EASIER
"You don't need much to be happy” Baloo (who joins Pierre Rabhi).
Decluttering feels good!
First, so as not to take the umpteenth gift from your sweety aunt when you get up at night. Which, you will agree, is both a killer of joy and love (no getting up the night of course: we all have our urges to check our mailbox in the next room (!), but not to step on an object with sudden death of the toe).
Beware of all those objects that enter your home, encumber your cupboards, cover themselves with dust and invade you murmuring "it can always be used" (the ice cube machine), "these are great memories" (the popcorns’ one), “it’s a gift” (the mold to make square eggs)…
> A half-dose of Marie Kondo (for an interior that is a bit tidy but leaves room for life), a decluttering and storage coaching* made in TORTUE (gently ??), a personal height measurement or an obligation for moving (this is more radical) … and you will gain in fluidity, in breathing!
*Inventory, analysis of the layout, the proportion of furniture and circulation and advice for a more pleasant interior.
- The concept of Care: HEALTHIER
To take care of it is to cultivate attachment to our Home.
Attachment to the place is a reflection of the relationship we build with, in two dimensions:
Strengthening the attachment to the house offers a virtuous dynamic not only inside but with the surrounding community. The will to take care creates, reinforces and also results from the attachment to the place of life. And the quality of the attachment depends on the balance and the well-being of the inhabitants.
> Acting on both dimensions, the action of the interior designer is to anticipate your daily interactions with your home to save time and lighten your mental load, for a healthier home:
So, your maintenance routine is less time-consuming, more logical, and easier. All that remains is to pamper your plants and enjoy... Breathe!
- The Cozy: HEALTHIER + QUIETER
It's a bit like conviviality but without the help of the hosts! It is the atmosphere in its link to our affect. Generally rendered by a personalized decor conducive to the life that takes place there: a bright setting with a living light, candles for example (this is why it is difficult to leave Ikea without one), the heat of a stove, a fragrant and steaming hot chocolate, cushions and a throw blanket, natural plants, organic materials, paintings that speak to you and photos that speak of you... Not the eternal wedding photo on the bedside table that just reminds you that you've aged (and eaten) since. Although you decide! But snapshots of your daily life and highlights. The successive drawings of your children on the fridge. I can hear some horrified saying: "For a decorator, it's not very Instagram able, the fridge under a pile of school doodlings".
> That's good! I am not a decorator but somewhat between the architect and the decorator, my colleagues ??. I am an interior designer with tools to infuse so much of you into your home, whatever it is and whoever you are or want to be. From the redistribution of rooms, if necessary, creation of spaces dedicated, lighting suitable, your colors, overall harmony: your house then becomes a strange entity made up of you, your +1 or 4 and your roof, like a super 5-seat tortoise (no longer a utopian sheep with 5 legs).
So come in, take off your shoes, turn on the music and the light that goes well, have a drink or share a meal, a few board games, add children's laughter, purrs… and it's osmosis guaranteed in your cozy-cocoon!
III - And?now, play on!?
Do not leave the monopoly of Happiness to Finland! But let’s test, to grow, to perceive it and to share it... And because you have everything to gain by not giving reason to the podium, cultivate -the local, inspired by the Finns and other happy people! Offer a second reading to your house, where this time the Happy Hero is all of you and it, The place where you want to come back even after the most beautiful of journeys.
Offer yourself more than a wellness journey: live it Here!
In one click: right here!
1. Help those who want to help themselves
Nobody can be happy in our place or in spite of us. Participating in our inner well-being on the one hand and in the well-being of our interior, on the other hand, is our responsibility. You can be accompanied and inspired for both. And I suggest you share the second part that will make it good for the first one!
I am Charlotte Godfroid, woman, mother, designer, resident and inhabited by a mission: design your interior EASIER + HEALTHIER + QUIETER to improve your daily life. I analyze your requests and produce your plans, descriptions, inspiration boards to make your development project a reality, according to your budget. For a serene construction site.
2. Contact
TORTUE
Advice, know-how, interior design project design
In Paris and remote work