GOOD VIBES CABIN
Slow down & recharge
Tucked away in the small woods in the South of Belgium, there's a little paradise we called 'Good Vibes Cabin'. The perfect place to detach from modern life demands and be one with nature. It's the place where my body could finally calm down and it will always have a special place in my heart.
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A cabin in the woods: why?
During, and a couple of years after my burnout, I wasn't able to cope with the stimuli of a city. Every car, sound of a crying baby or playing children, made me overstimulated. I even needed soundproof headphones inside the house to cope with my husband and child when they were talking, laughing or watching television. All I wanted was silence, or very subtle music like classical music, binaural beats or any other 60bpm music. Since our house is located in the middle of a city, we decided to buy a cabin in the woods, just about 2h away from the city, so we could go there when our son didn't need to go to school. It was also the perfect place for Dolly since we could park her in the middle of our own forest, enjoying the surroundings just as if we were travelling. ​
The healing effect of the cabin & the woods
The cabin brought me all the peace I needed at that time. The cabin needed quite some renovation but since my husband was working during the day, I had a lot of time on my own and we did everything at a slow pace. It was a big part of my healing process. Spending all this time in nature, being able to go for a walk several times a day because there were no sounds except for the birds and wind, no social obligations because we were so far away from everyone, experiencing the change of seasons, seeing all the animals change their behavior during each season... Nature became my instructor, my mindfulness and meditation. I learned to use all of my senses again instead of living in my head. I tried out photography, videography, gardening, baking, and even started making scented candles and little bottles of essential oils to calm down whenever I got stressed. I finally felt I was given the opportunity to recover and sit in silence instead of trying so hard to deal with all the noise and other stimuli to get better. I took a break from social media, which also really brought peace of mind. I felt like I started to live again instead of surviving.
Am I still living there?
After a year of immersing myself into nature, I was feeling a lot better. I started missing the city life (I've always been a city lover), and especially doing meaningful things to contribute to a better world (which has always been a huge motivation of mine). The 2-hour trip became harder on everyone, and I started feeling lonely. We decided to move back into our house in the city. The transition to the 'real life' didn't go as smoothly as I hoped, because it took a lot of adjustment to all the stimuli again, making me run back to the cabin a lot of times. But this time, I did have more resilience, I had a place in nature to recharge, and I was hopeful for my upcoming future. I decided to start working as a therapist, which was only possible in a city (or online, but at that time, I hated everything digital). I'll be forever grateful for my time in the cabin, but I also felt it was time to move on.
atmospheric images
images before and during the renovations
