In July this year, we finally listened to our heart and made it to live in France for 4 weeks to satisfy our dreams of countryside living. We are city dwellers living in London. My husband Paul spends all his life time in big cities. For me, spend most of my life time trying to escape from the small town I was born and hoping to live in a big city (I was born in a small Chinese town in Henan province, spent 4 years university in Beijing — the first big city I ever lived in) and then I made the boldest decision of my life — coming to UK.

Why we want to experience living in countryside? Be close to nature and the benefit of having a big garden, escape it from all. We still be able to work as we work from home mainly for our own business. It is an experiment of living in countryside as we have been thinking of moving to countryside since we had our girls.

I have expectations before the ‘experiment’. Things had been stressful with the business. I was feeling torn by the demand both from the family and business. I was overwhelmed and hoping to sink down to find myself again. what I really want from life? How I want my life to be? What I really enjoying doing and the continue journey of searching my passion. All these questions seem dancing around my head and trying to get my attention. I know that I need not to avoid them anymore as avoidance is resistance  we put on our life, isn’t it?

We spent the first two weeks staying most of time in the house. No particular plans everyday–just to enjoy the girls’  early morning running around in the garden, lunch under the sunshine which is the most enjoyable experience for us. we played swings, water in the garden (without worrying them getting too cold). For me, it is the real luxury of letting go, letting the stress from work go, letting all the tension back home go and focus on the time with my girls without multitasking on my iPhone and also allowing them to be total children and saying yes to them majority of the time. It feels great. I have the time listening to the girls, I mean really listening to them. I love the peace of mind I got by talking to them while looking into their eyes. It was that moment I realised that I am in control of my life and I choose to be here with them and I felt ever so happy and peaceful.

Ahh, French food market. For me, it is a bit like the ‘JiShi (集市)’ in the Chinese countryside. It really reminds me of my childhood going to the market with my grandpa. He had always treated us with a big bowl of lamb soup and some steaming buns. Here in France, it is all about the fresh and seasonal food; and It is a way of living. The smell of the fresh tomatoes is divine. We are eating tomato salads on a daily basis, hmmm..

Things I enjoy doing at countryside which I never knew I would:

Picking flowers from the garden with the girls, yes, pure simple pleasures – just picking flowers; Having a walk around the garden with Paul hand in hand – never feel so romantic before; Watching the girls play with water – it is just a pure pleasure to see their happy faces; Sunbathing in the garden – normally I will fell asleep of course something luxury for me; Picking up raspberries in the garden – give me the feeling of depending on the earth’s mother nature; Drying our clothes on the washing line in the garden – wow, the smell of the sun on the dry clothes; Walking on the grass barefoot – I have been inspired by my girls and decided to try it and didn’t regret one minute the moment my feet touched the grass, it is so liberating; Noticing a new flower opening – feel the power of nature and nature has its own course; Listening to the birds singing – when you really focus on listening to the birds, you don’t understand how can you miss their beautiful sound before, it is great feelings as if you discover something new in your life; Watching sunset with Paul – of course with a glass of local wine, I would like to very much freeze the time.

So here are the things I learned from living in french countryside:

Have some “me” time is very important – even I am just doing nothing with the time. It allows me to focus on just me as a being.  It feels the benefit of self-love; Life is all about choices and experiences. There is no good or bad choices, only the growth and wisdom you gained from that experience. So if you want to do something and do it now. There is really no need spending too much time on evaluating different options. Fail quicker, you can try different things quicker. It is just like there are different of routes to a same destination. It doesn’t matter which route you took, you will get there eventually; Nature has its course, same as life. Sometimes we need to go with the flow and be patient and allow things to take its course; Be clear about what you want from your life and focus on that. It will save you the turbulent emotions from comparing your own life with others. It will eliminate the chances of feeling jealous of other people’s life, instead of you are becoming generous with congratulating and praising other people’s achievements. When you see the light and direction in your life, you are not scared and threatened by other people’s achievements as you know you are growing and approaching your dream and goals every day, and most importantly you can control the pace of reaching your goals. It is not easy not to feel jealous from time to time. But we will get much more pleasure if we practice our generosity  on a daily basis; Happiness is from within. You are the master of your own emotions and happiness. Love yourself, forgive yourself, treat yourself with your favourite childhood sweets, counting all the good things in your life. Remember everybody has disappoints in life, it depends on whether you see it a half full glass or half empty one. It is really up to you.