Hygge
I grew up in Iceland where hygge or huggulegt is part of our vocabulary and way of life. Maybe not to the same degree as in Denmark, but still a concept Icelanders are familiar with. A place, an experience, or even a person can be considered huggulegt. Personally, I’ve alway associated huggulegt with the ideas of peace and light, with Christmas as the ultimate hygge season.
Christmas is the time of year where things slow down. The aromas of piparkökur (pepper biscuits – the Nordic version of gingerbread snaps), mandarines, and all things cinnamon and cloves fills the air. Snuggling up on the couch with hot chocolate reading a book or watching a family style movie, while the snowstorm rages on outside. I’ve also always associated it with dim lights like candle light, fire, or Christmas lights. It is a time when our world stops for a brief time and it becomes easier to just be. For example, this Christmas I did a puzzle, spent time with childhood friends, played board games with my family, and relaxed in Iceland’s hot geothermal swimming pools while breathing in ice cold air. The days were short, only 4 hours of daylight, but spending unrushed time together was a balm to the soul.
To me, the underlying theme of hygge is peace. All other hygge elements stem from that: comfort, togetherness, simplicity, mindfulness, and gratitude. If you’re constantly running and striving after some goal, stopping becomes increasingly harder or even negatively associated with laziness. Slowing down to experience a moment of comfort or coziness becomes physically harder, as our brains have been conditioned through neuroplasticity to keep going and be productive. It becomes harder to carve out time to be together – togetherness, instead of being a natural part of life, becomes something that is scheduled or even a luxury. Simplicity gives way to efficiency: I don’t sit to read, I listen to an audiobook while cooking or doing chores. Mindfulness seeps away as we feel the need to constantly engage our mind with some mental activity – sitting in silence or contemplating life is an art we have lost. One of my favourite quotes is by Socrates who said that “an unexamined life is not worth living”. Who takes the time to examine their lives these days? And in a world that is constantly trying to sell us something, gratitude is hard to practise.
Peace, in today’s world, is such a hard thing to come by. We are constantly bombarded by notifications, emails, or phone calls – the smartphone is decidedly the most un-hygge element of our lives. In a world that prioritises speed, efficiency, and productivity, it is hard to strive for inner peace. As a remedy the Western world has gravitated towards Eastern meditation and yoga, striving for a slower pace and mindfulness. But is it truly helping? I grew up as a New Ager where Eastern thinking was part of our ethos at home. I grew up watching my parents do yoga and meditate (before it got popular), and as I grew older they taught me their ways. However, I was never able to attain true peace as New Age and Eastern philosophies are a quagmire of ideologies where we seek after personal inner peace and enlightenment – and since everybody is different, their journeys and path to enlightenment, whatever enlightenment means to them, are different.
There is nothing solid to hold on to, nothing that tells us whether what we believe is truly True, and whether “I’ve got it right” – it just feels right or not, and this uncertainty, whether we realise it or not, does bring a sense of unease. In today’s post-Truth culture, where there is no foundation on which to stand, when push comes to shove, we shove those feelings of uneasiness aside and focus on our next productivity hack. When you don’t know where your foundations lie, true, everlasting peace, and thus the foundation for hygge, is unattainable.
True peace brings stillness, a time to stop and breath and just be. To take time to experience comfort, to spend time together, to spend time alone (as a major extrovert this is a hard one for me), to take the time and focus on simplicity rather than efficiency, and to take time to be present, mindful of the things we do have rather than striving after the things we don’t have. True peace is being at peace with yourself, with those around you, but most importantly, with God. As a New Ager, I didn’t find peace until I found Christ, the King of Peace.
The Christian message is one of peace. Peace with yourself, peace with your fellow human, and peace with God – another major element of the Christian message and one that is often overlooked, is the concept of taking time to rest, the sabbath.
In the Bible, God commands us to be still and to know that He is God. Part of that stillness is to stop working for one day a week and to just be – the ultimate hygge moment of the week. A time to stop, to reflect, to be together, to eat, to rest, all the while knowing that God is there taking care of things while He gives us time to rest. This knowledge that He's “got it”, enables us to rest fully.
The foundation of the peace that we find in God, is the knowledge that in Him we are safe. We no longer need to look for different ‘truths’ to our personal enlightenment, but have found The Truth upon which we can stand and firmly ground our lives upon. In God, we have a solid foundation and true rest – in a world that is constantly changing, that is priceless.
~ Janet Sewell
