When, if ever, have you had a sense of well-being?

What lovely details. Thank you.

I feel content after my morning meditation. What you describe sounds similar.

When I do something productive that requires some attention, but not all, like active gardening. Back when I had my little business doing yacht detailing, I felt wonderful most of the time. I miss those days; being on boats, making them whole and clean and pretty again, in the sun, smelling the water, feeling the breeze.
Damn, I’m feeling better just remembering it! Thanks!

When nothing needs my immediate attention, which is rare. Last week was good.

The first morning I woke up when I stopped being an alcoholic. Head was clear, as were eyes. Wasn’t tired. I remembered the night before. Things became clear, never looked back.

I usually feel best after a good physical workout at the gym or canoe paddling with friends around a local lake loaded with many species of migratory and resistant birds (including Bald Eagles). Also occasionally River Otter, turtles, deer and beaver.

All the time. I actively work on it by meditation. Antidepressants help also

I’d say. most of the time. When not dwelling on the negative, some particular drama, world-scale problems, or when I was depressed.

It can be a spontaneous realization, on occasion.

The priceless times, are must in nature.
There are those times when I’m in my canoe, pushing through the swamp trying to find an open place to fish. Eventually I find an opening and glide in, nice and quiet. At first, everything seems offended at my presence. Gators and turtles splash into the water, from their sunning spots. Birds fly off. Fish swim off in the tea colored water…
Then. If I sit there quietly long enough, and paddle without making a splash or sound, it just happens. Suddenly all of the birds are back. Alligators float by, as if I’m not a big deal. I can see the gars, chasing after the bluegills I’m also after.
Everything seems to relax, and accept me as part of the place.
It gives me a feeling I cannot replicate… An ancient, instinctive feeling of coexistence…

Other times. When I’m in saltwater, I am done for the day and riding the tides back to my landing spot. (I normally time my canoeing, with the tides.)
On the way back, the Sun is setting. It paints the sky in impossible hues. The calm waters, consistent but not too fast, refract the sunset. I don’t actively paddle. I just keep my paddle in the water, dragging behind me as a rudder.
The dolphins usually swarm around me. Amazing animals. They give me a sense that they like hanging out with, and escorting me.
The temperatures have gotten cooler. My clothing is damp, but not wet. So. I’m super comfy.

With nature in full “watch what I can do” mode, it’s as if I’m cruising through liquid silver. Hard to tell if it’s even real…

It’s a powerful, mesmerizing experience. I just stare at the intense magnificence of the show I don’t deserve to be a part of…

There are moments in the mornings on the Edisto River, that are ridiculous. After the brief storms that come and go, there is a light fog just hovering across the water. The sound of the water moving combined with the magical rainbows dancing through the misty crisp fog, just enchants me…

Of course. It must be said. Moments sharing a bed with another, in the dark. Rolling around, laughing, enjoying the entanglement of your chosen partner. (When applicable.)...

Just yesterday, having cycled to Colintraive in the sunshine and enjoyed a lovely lunch in the hotel and good conversation with a group of friends it seemed everything was right in the world and with me.

We left the hotel to cycle home and one of our group told us a story of a father who had seven daughters and who had built seven houses nearby for them to live in. We rounded a turn in the road and there the seven houses were. They had red roofs and white walls and were in a line and were unlike any other houses in the vicinity. For a moment it felt as though I had stepped (or cycled) into a fairy story.

It was more than a sense of well being, it was a sense of the miraculous and no, I hadn’t been drinking.

I’m not sure if I’ve had this feeling. When I was physically more healthy I was dealing with doing so many things I didn’t want to do or just taking life for granted that I don’t think I had a feeling of well being as a young person.

After having health problems and appreciating when I “feel” well and now that I don’t have to work full time and don’t have to set an alarm most mornings, I do get what I call moments of bliss. The weather and scenery plays into it also. It’s why I keep moving back to Florida.

Almost every day I look outside and feel like I’m on vacation and at the same time I feel the comfort of being home. Almost every day I take notice when I feel physically comfortable and try to make those moments stretch out by being very present in the moment. I guess those are feelings of well being, except that I’m always fairly aware of my high risk of a cardiac event, and very aware my blood pressure isn’t controlled well. There is always these nagging things that I can compartmentalize and not obsess about, but they exist.

I am calmer overall than ten years ago. That maybe qualifies as a feeling of well being.

@JLeslie: ”Almost every day I look outside and feel like I’m on vacation and at the same time I feel the comfort of being home.”

That is a lovely sentence, very evocative.

Currently. It has been there for over a year.
Details are far to vast and reasons far to wide. Karma Rules!

@canidmajor Thank you.

In those small moments.

When I’m doing art with my kids and a glimpse of paint on chubby fists carves a quiet space in my brain for a moment.

Or on a walk and the smell of nature around me mingles with a certain quality of light.

I feel centered and present. Things feel simple in that one instant.

Usually fleeting though. Then back to the usual thunderous roar of noise in my brain.

@raum Yes!

I wish you many small and quiet moments.

@raum very lovely.

My normal is having a sense of well being, contentment, and peace. If any of that is out of kilter, I’m off my page.

When I returned to my grandmother’s house in Boise, Idaho, after hitch hiking 750 miles in one day from Las Vegas. The last three miles I walked from the freeway to her house was nothing!

Does anyone else notice an overriding, or at least parallel theme? @raum articulates this perfectly.
The moments when things are the simplest… If I’m not mistaken…

Life is so chaotic.
Our senses are constantly bombarded. We must negotiate the incoming intake of data, to function. So many tactful, meticulous chores of necessity are made difficult by the environment in which we have to exist.

I wonder. Are any of us, other than just me, prisoners of attention problems?

For me. Just trying to listen to a person talk in a quiet room, is a challenge. I am so distracted by the voices in other rooms. Conspiring to what end?
The sound of a small piece of paper thrashing like barbed wire on sheet metal, as it responds to the air currents.
The contours of the ground. Differences in the concrete are vast canyons, and tire tracks.
The fine hairs on my body, are sending me information about temperature, and directions of air.
My olfactory sensors are sifting through a gill net of degrees of pungent, aromatic, delightful, and offensive odors.
My tongue, ever busy, sending me reports of debris, or slight changes in my teeth or gums.
Or. Constantly kneading chewing gum, and reshaping it.
Still tasting the copper from when I brushed my teeth hours ago, resulting in a miniscule bleed.
My eyes constantly measuring distances, and monitoring peripheral movements. Pleased, or upset with the brightness in the room.
And my fucking brain. Playing a song I heard two weeks ago, that’s suddenly interesting. Wondering about what that person meant, when we were talking the other day.

An now. This person looking at me. Lips moving. Eyes searching mine. Making words that are intended to translate thoughts to me. Seeking something. An answer to a question. An opinion. Information…
How dare they join the army of various things currently assaulting my mind?

Acting like this isn’t just insane. Acting like time isn’t ticking away. Finite, and in unknown amount.
Acting like one of us couldn’t just drop dead, at any moment. And then what?....

My definition of having a sense of well being, is when I am so distracted by my current circumstances, that I can appreciate the little things.

Mindfulness…

Mindfulness is not so easy. With a mind already so full, it’s overflowing…

Perfect moments usually exist in being mindfully present to the beauty that surrounds you. Often we do not take the time to block all the noise and just look, feel, and appreciate a day or a minute or our loved ones for more than a few minutes.