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Create a Restorative Ambiance

Create a Restorative Ambiance

It takes four words in English to translate the Danish word 'hygge'

At this point you’ve probably figured out that part of our objective is to rescue self-care from the kind of white-washing that associates it with nine dollar pressed juices and spa treatments for rich ladies. At the same time, there’s room for a little dash of ancestral European cozy here: wool sweaters, tallow candles, and the like. Europe was once filled with indigenous and ancestral peoples as well, who knew how to get their cozy on.

While creating a restorative ambiance means different things to different people, a restorative ambiance is generally one that makes you feel safe, first of all, and then supports embodiment, calm, rest, restoration, connection, and an “earth-based pace.”

The Dutch and the Danes seem to have a lot of words for this, presumably because its so dang cold where they are, and dark in the winter for a long time. It has therefore been necessary to create a lot of rituals and spaces that are about keeping people warm and cozy, and keeping their spirits up when there’s not a lot of light. I hear they know a thing or two about saunas. There’s the Dutch word gezellig, for things that are homey and cozy and social and fun. The Danish hygge, which is about creating atmospheres of coziness, and lagom, a Swedish word for the Goldilocks ‘not too little, not too much’ sort of quality. In the video above, we explore some of the qualities that can give a space a restorative ambiance.

We think about the space itself, the importance of a hearth, building materials, air and light, analog elements (as opposed to digital), tactile qualities, and a felt sense of history.

Related Practices:

See Learn Feng Shui. See Tidy up the Nest.

Who taught us this?

I have been thinking about this since I was a kid growing up in rural New Hampshire. Particularly when we left that place, where I was immersed in a restorative ambiance, and moved to a suburb in St. Louis. I've spent a long time thinking about what made those spaces feel so good. Obviously, much of it was about connection and relationship. This practice explores so of the elements that make a space itself restorative.

Teach me how

If you like this practice, check out Cabin Porn. Their book Cabin Porn Inside is one of our favorite coffee table books of all time. They are total white people–flannel-shirt-wearing, fancy-coffee-drinking, NPR-listening, but you get the sense they smell like woodsmoke, and they know how to make a space 'hygge.'

Who taught us this?

We have been been working with this metaphor for many years. Originally we used it when teaching mindfulness to children.

Teach me how

Check here for classes.

Video: | Photography: | Licensed from Pexels.com, used with permission.

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The Restorative Practices Alliance is headquartered in Northern California and serves internationally. Our mission is to re-center safety and connection as the baseline of an ecological human multi-culture. We are a philanthropic ancestral neuro-technology cooperative and culture repair engine, powered by intellectual property licensed from Applied Mindfulness, Inc., and held in trust from other sources of wisdom.

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