This is my ultimate goal. Freedom.

Freedom to do what I please at most moments in the day. Thankfully, I have a job I love, working for IMA World Health, for which most days I am happy to sit down at my desk and perform. Mostly I enjoy a certain freedom of time.

My loss of freedom is experienced financially. Too much house. Too much upkeep. My current path to finding freedom is leading me into a small, 40 ft container home. It’s a home that my architect husband and I designed way back when we were pregnant with our first child. But then due to the complexities of building in Costa Rica, it is only now nearing completion, three years, another child, and a LOT more money later.

Now we are a family of four moving into this tiny container. And I am really nervous about it. I wake up in the early AM stressing about it. Where will I work? Where will we hang out when the kids go to bed? What about my musical instruments and equipment? Sometimes this thinking leads me straight into an anxious frenzy for which I must draw on my decades of yoga and breathwork to calm my mind and body. Sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn’t.

Finding Freedom in Day Dreams

Something that has been working for me lately is focusing on the financial freedom we will enjoy by downsizing. These thoughts lead to daydreams of working fewer hours and spending more time with my kids. Going to the beach with them every morning in the dry season. Planting a garden and teaching my kids to grow their own food. Maybe, just maybe, if I have more financial freedom, I won’t need a big indoor space because I will be spending most of my time basking in the sun and jungle.

Our move-in date is one month and four days away. In order to take this huge leap into a tiny space, I have to let go of my preconceived notions of comfort and find freedom in the small things. The little beings. Fewer things. The simple life.