Four weeks of full time van living. I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. We’ve spent this week local to our home town and we’ve had quite a relaxed week. So for this blog I wanted to share my thoughts and realisations from living in a van for a full month.
While there’s been struggles, finding damp under the bed, learning to sleep in a bed that’s not quite long enough, and putting up with cooking meals on one stove, the highs of vanlife that we’ve discovered in only a month have far outweighed them. So here’s some food for thought, from the simple life.
When we lived in a house I used to always say “the cost of living is so high now” but I’ve realised it’s not. All the things we had are luxuries. Sky is luxury, phones are luxury, Xbox’s are luxury, hot water’s a luxury, a big house that costs upward of £600 a month is a luxury. These things aren’t living costs.
The cost of living, truly living, is not high. There is no price on life. Being happy is free, because having all these things don’t bring happiness. Happiness, contentment, joy, these feelings don’t come from external things - it’s a state of mind. You can buy all the things in the world, have the biggest house, the nicest car, but if your not happy deep inside, you won’t be happy with them.
All these things are nice, I love a hot waterfall shower, watching Netflix on a big screen, having a house with a big dining table to have friends over for tea, but they’re not necessary. Are they worth sacrificing your time, happiness and peace of mind for?
We realised years ago that our time was the most valuable thing, and even in the house we had bountiful amounts of time for things we loved to do. We only worked minimum hours and play always came first. But we realise now that mentally we were still in the rat race. Jon still worried about money, the daily grind of having to plan where the finances were coming from and what they were being spent on. I spent all my days too distracted by the tidiness of the house that I didn’t really enjoy my days.
We go around using up all our time, all our mental clarity, to work, to buy stuff. To buy the house and fill it with stuff. To fill our lives with stuff in hope it will bring meaning to our lives, that it will make us feel better. Yeah we have fancy showers, high tech washing machines, lavish houses, but are we free? Are you free? Do you feel alive?
I can only speak for myself, I do feel alive. I feel spontaneous, and free. Getting rid of all my stuff was the most liberating thing I’ve done. I’ve known for a while that who we are isn’t shaped by our house, or status, or financial position, and that true happiness comes from within, but nothing compares to this knowing than actually getting rid of our external things, and fully feeling it.
Now I feel free to explore new ideas, to play with life, without all that stuff clouding my vision. You really don’t realise how much of your life, your image, is causing you stress until it’s gone.
Another thing I have noticed since being in the van is that we like to have it all figured out all of the time. Our showers, washing, toilet, money. We don’t like to live in the unknown, we don’t like to play by life’s rules. Life is spontaneous, it’s flowing, it never stands still. But we want to know, we want it to stop so we can feel comfortable. So we can be sure we know what will happen tomorrow, next week, next year. But so many people are unhappy, unfulfilled.
Why? Why are so many people unhappy with their lives? When they spend so much time and energy to make their lives look great. Make their houses look great, their kids look great. But still there’s an unsettling feeling, something is still not right? You will say “I know, it’s the car, we just need a new car.” New car comes.. “we need a new bathroom”.. new bathroom comes.. “we just need a new sofa”.. “il just be happy once my gardens done”.. “once the kitchen is sorted i will feel more settled”.. “if I could just get.....”
The list is never ending. And it will never end if you keep looking outside of yourself for peace, fulfilment and contentment.
I always felt like I needed to travel, needed to leave this place and find a more peaceful, less busy place to feel still, but again stillness doesn’t come from your surroundings, it comes from within. Of course I still want to see places, experience the many different cultures of the world, but I see now that if I’m basing my happiness on the weather, or the sights I see, I will never be truly happy. If your are not content inside where you are, you won’t be content inside where you go.
For a while I didn’t feel free. I blamed this country, my circumstances, my kids ages, our income. But none of that was the reason I didn’t feel free. I didn’t feel free because I was imprisoned by my mind. I was trapped by my own beliefs and limiting ideas, in reality I have always had the choice to feel free, to feel in control of my own destiny.
The world is now going through a time where control seems so out of reach, where we no longer feel in control of our own journey, however, I feel freer than I’ve ever felt. I didn’t at first, I felt trapped, broke, controlled. My mind would chatter all day long, I was full of fear and anger. I wanted to flee, and was scared because there was nowhere to go.
But then I remembered, freedom of the mind is the only true freedom we have! I asked myself, Am I waiting for things to change to be happy? Am I waiting for pubs to open, for shops to open, just to feel happy again? I realised that if I was, then my happiness will always be based on external factors and I will never be truly happy.
I decided to choose unconditional happiness, no matter the external circumstances. No matter if the worlds turned upside down, or if I live in a 6 metre by 2 metre box, or if I don’t have my own shower. Could I be happy with nothing?
While I know this, it doesn’t mean I always remember it. I have times still when I want to run away, and convince myself I would be more peaceful in another country, but this isn’t true. If I can’t be happy here I can’t be truly happy anywhere.
Its only ever based on current feelings. Instead of trying to fix those feelings with buying things or running away, I’ve worked on acknowledging and allowing space for those feelings until they pass.
Van life has given me the space and quiet to be more present with these feelings. It’s dropped the external pressure of ‘keeping up appearances’ that I felt in the house, and made me live life outside of cleaning the bathroom and daily wash loads.
It’s brought me and Jon even closer because now he’s not stressed from having the daily worry of finances. It’s brought us all even closer to nature, as now we are outdoors even more than before. We wake up right next to the sea or in the middle of a forest, it doesn’t get more soul nourishing than that.
It’s opened my eyes to how much extra we humans pile on top, in the name of happiness. Life is already perfect, we just need to stop to see.
Just a thought from Jon
One of the most prominent and genuinely life-changing realisations for me that I will take away from this experience is this - we are layers and layers of experiences, emotional baggage and ideas about who we are; once we start peeling away the layers we reveal a purer side of ourselves each time.
Through a series of experiences over the years, like everybody else, I have burdened myself with the task of carrying emotional baggage around every single day, adding even more noise to my life through the means of buying, relationships, getting pulled into dramas, sitting in the past and worrying of the future.
When I was a child, i was a purer version of myself. Throughout my life I simply added layers on top with no skills to drop them.
Living in a van has meant i can spend an indefinite amount of time not worrying about rent/mortgages or household bills. I don’t remember the last time I didn’t have to concern myself with where this money would come from, and no degree of money management seemed to ease the pressure. This was a major layer of me that was literally blocking out the ability to relax, to play, and to be present.
I have learned so many songs on my guitar within just a couple of weeks because vanlife allowed me the space and focus to just play and learn and enjoy the process. Before this, i put the guitar down, because, who the hell has time for that?
But that’s also my point, living in a van didn’t suddenly mean time stood still for me. I guess waking up in the heart of nature, creating new positive routines, being around family with no option to busy myself (meaning time alone too without distraction) has allowed me to remove layers of myself that no longer serve me.
The irony is, in a house we knew a lot of the above and thought we were liberated then (to a large degree) but upon reflection we see it is like night and day. I can’t wait to discover and drop all of the other disillusions I have held onto for so many years.
Maybe I won’t fully know who I am until I am dwelling in a cave.
🙏🏼
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