S3 E25 - What Hygge Taught Me

What if your life didn’t need an escape?

In this episode of Your Favorite Self, I’m inviting you into a concept that changed everything for my husband and me: hygge (pronounced hoo-gah). It is a Danish way of living that prioritizes coziness, presence, pleasure, and slowing down. Hygge became more than an idea for us, it became a lifestyle.

This weekend we were snowed in at our mountain home, building a rainbow igloo with our kids, sipping warm drinks, doing puzzles, and realizing something profound: our life no longer feels like something we need a vacation from.

In this conversation, I explore:

• What hygge actually is (and what it’s not)
• How a quiet cabin trip years ago planted the seed for a completely different way of living
• Why “busy” and “successful” are not the same thing
• How unsubscribing from hustle culture changed our nervous systems, our family rhythm, and our joy
• Why alignment looks different for everyone, and how to honor what you need
• How intuition, environment, and even human design can guide you toward a life that feels expansive instead of constricting

This episode is not about telling you how to live. It’s about reminding you that there are options. That if the life you’re living feels rushed, heavy, or misaligned, you’re allowed to change it. Slowly. Gently. On purpose.

If you’ve ever dreamed of a softer life, a cozier rhythm, or waking up feeling like your life already is the reward, this episode is for you.

Let this be your permission slip to imagine — and start creating — your favorite life.

Purchase your copy of Unleash Your Favorite Self book and the corresponding journal.

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Have a topic you would love to hear Sophia address on the podcast? Send your ideas to hello@sophiahyde.com

Transcript

Sophia Hyde (00:00.856)
Hello Welcome back to another week of the your favorite self podcast I am so excited to be here with you guys and today I Want to share a couple of stories with you? About something called huga and if you don't know what that is Stick around I'm gonna tell you how this concept completely changed my husband and I's life and the way we just really see

the see the world, move through the world. So I'm going to start by telling you what happened at dinner tonight. So we're as you guys know, we have moved to the mountains. You might have seen on the news if you don't live locally that a two big back to back winter storms came through this area. But the second one that we just had this past weekend brought with it so much snow.

Where we live, we got six inches, but I have a girlfriend in another part of the state that got 18 inches. And so most of the state of North Carolina is covered in snow right now. And we've been snowed in since, I guess Saturday? I don't know, kind of all runs together. I think this is our third day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I came in Friday night. That's right, yes. It started falling Friday night. And so then Saturday, we...

It was just so beautiful and puffy and yeah, it's been great. So we're on day three of snow and living all of our best dreams and fantasies. I have posted and sharing pictures with my family. did. We made a rainbow igloo, which at the time of me recording this, I had not posted them to Instagram, but I do intend to. So just.

follow my feed at some point you'll see the pictures of our rainbow igloo. So we did that we like froze the bricks prepared them on Friday they weren't ready on Saturday they were ready on Sunday so we spent all of Sunday and then Monday morning building this rainbow igloo rainbow igloo. Saturday we were sledding with the kids and our front yard is on its big hill so literally the day that we saw this house for the first time we looked at that hill and we just said my gosh.

Sophia Hyde (02:23.906)
That hill would be so epic for sledding. And sure enough, can confirm it is. So we've just been living our best life. We're on day three. We're we've got the snow gear. We're out there. We're making things. We're having fun. We're doing the memories and everybody in the family is happy. Nobody is complaining. We're all having a great time. We'll come in, you know, defrost, have some hot chocolate, apple cider. I've made two puzzles in three days. I mean, literally live in our best lives, right?

So my brother calls me. We happen to be sitting down at dinner, so I put him on speakerphone so we could all catch up with him. And he was asking us, he's like, how on earth have you spent, because I've been texting my family updates of the things we're doing. And he's like, how on earth have you spent all day in the snow? Because context, if you listen enough, you know my family's all in Florida. But just in case this is somebody's first time listening, all of my family lives down in Florida. And he's like, how on earth?

Have you spent your whole day in the snow, And I'm like, I don't know. I own the right clothes. I don't know what to tell you. And he's like, you're not, how, like, how are you feeling? And I said, ha, happy? I don't know. What do you want me to say? I don't like the sand. Like sand, this feels, I'm doing all the same things people, other people do in sand. People make sand castles. People make, you know, sand creatures. I could do that with snow. I got my snowman. I got my rainbow igloo. Like I am very happy, but sand.

I think it's the texture of it. It like gets on my skin and the hot. I'm very pale person. And so I sunburns and I find it very stressful. I find the beach very stressful, which did not make me a good, me a good Floridian. One of the 100 plus reasons I needed to leave the state. So I, I was like, but this is just so great. It's, it's fun. It's, know, it doesn't bother me. I just live my best life. And, and he's, and he was just flabbergasted by this and

He said I just look at your pictures and just feel so much stress like I just I just feel traumatized looking at your photos thinking of how miserable it must be in that cold weather and I was like it's it's not You know again favorite life. We all have different things we want and He's like I would just you know, but it and I was telling him I love sweater weather so much and I got to like bust out my first sweater in August I'll probably get to keep wearing them through May and it just makes me so happy because sweaters are so sweaters are so cozy and he he was just like this is

Sophia Hyde (04:51.565)
wild to me. Like I can't even fathom this life you're describing. And I said to him, well, you know, we've just basically made a Hugo life for ourselves. And he was like, what? And I was like, oh yeah, we fully embraced Hugo. Do know what that is? And he had no idea what I was talking about, which is when I realized, oh my gosh, I have just been keeping this a secret. It's not a secret. A lot of people know about it. There's books about it. I'm not telling you anything new, but, but it's still new to some people.

I did not know what it was until four years ago. And so that means there are still some of you out there who may not know what Hugo is. And this has been a game changer for me. And it has basically become mine and Brandon's entire personality. So I want to teach you guys about Hugo because there might be some of you listening who are like, that sounds like my best life too. And you can just reframe the way you see the world. So let's go. Let's dive into this.

What is you go? We're gonna start by how Brandon and I discovered it in 2022. It was our 15th wedding anniversary and it happened to fall within a couple of weeks of one of my very dear friends. We've been friends since we were 14 and she was getting married in Denver. And so we decided to make it an extra long trip. went up.

the weekend before the wedding weekend and got a cabin in the woods in the middle of nowhere. I think we were three hours, maybe two. I feel like it was three hours outside. So we flew into Denver, got a rental car and then drove three hours away. And in this little middle of nowhere, tiny little triangle cabin, we went grocery shopping while we were still in the city. And then we just stayed in that cabin for

Was it four days, five days? I don't know, it all blurs together. I think it was four days. And when we got to this adorable little triangle cabin thing in the middle of nowhere, the whole thing was, it was called like the Huga Hut or something. And the whole thing was Huga themed. And by the way, if you haven't seen like the title of this episode, you should know how it's spelled, but it is spelled H-Y-G-G-E. And neither Brandon or I knew what this was. We were like, what is this?

Sophia Hyde (07:16.371)
So there was this framed picture as soon as he came in that said, Huga, and it told you how to pronounce it. So I've had people tell me, you're talking about hygiene. And I'm like, listen, that's, that's not how it's pronounced. I'm telling you, if you look it up, it is Huga, even though it doesn't sound like the English American way of saying it doesn't seem like it's how it should sound. That's how the Danish say it. This is a Scandinavian like way of life thing. And so.

We're gonna go with their pronunciation. All right. And then she had in this cabin, the Airbnb owner had all these little coffee table books. So basically she took the Huga concept and made the entire cabin. Everything about the cabin was based in the Huga like philosophy or way of life. And then she had all these coffee table books teaching about it. So I like spent that whole.

you know, extended weekend, were up there reading all about it. And Brandon and I were like, this is literally everything we've ever wanted. So if you're, you're probably like, Sophia, you're like, I don't know how long I've been talking five, 10 minutes, you're into this episode and you still haven't told us what the word means. Here we go. I got you boo. I got you. Just let me do my buildup. Okay. So here's, I decided as far as reading the information, this is from

Denmark's like the government's the Denmark government page like their tourism page, okay, so I Knew I would have my facts straight It says I'm just gonna read you like this little description from there from their site The hard to pronounce huga is difficult to explain in Brief huga is about taking time away from the daily rush to be together with people you care about

or even by yourself, to relax and enjoy life's quieter pleasures. The word hygge dates back to around 1800, at least in the meaning that it has today. However, various definitions of hygge can be traced back to the Middle Ages, where a similar Old Norse word meant protected from the outside world. Hygge is often about informal time together with family or close friends.

Sophia Hyde (09:38.232)
Typically the setting is at a home or another quiet location or perhaps a picnic table during the summer months. It usually involves sharing a meal or wine or beer or chocolate and a bowl of candy if children are included. There is no agenda. You celebrate the small joys of life or maybe discuss deeper topics. It is an opportunity to unwind and take things slow. If I were to take that description and like pick the best sentence, I think it is that last one.

It is an opportunity to unwind and take things slow. So if you continue to like go down this rabbit hole and learn like all the different ways that people have embodied this, essentially think of, if you look up the word of like how it translates, technically I think it, some people say it translates into the word enjoy, but

For a lot of people, would tell you that that Hugo just means coziness, very like cozy vibes. Just think cozy, cozy, cozy. That's Hugo, right? And the, if you're gonna like, so what I learned from like staying at this woman's cabin was essentially it was just all the chill vibes you could imagine. So it is about coziness. It's about being present, but also think no harsh lights. We used soft lighting.

maybe lamps, candles. We've got warm socks. We've got throw blankets. You want to have like natural elements, maybe some like plants or wood decor. You've got puzzles, reading, maybe some board games, maybe crafting, maybe you're a knitter. Think warm beverages, whether you're a coffee, tea, hot chocolate. In our family, it's like they love apple cider.

Also, of the things is baked goods and I'm all about the baked goods. Did I tell you guys I made a, I made a reel about this on Instagram, but I recently learned how to make homemade cinnamon rolls. my gosh. I spent three hours like two Saturdays ago making homemade cinnamon rolls. they were so good. I'm definitely doing it again. Okay. Also, it's like, having treats, maybe like candies for the kids. You're, you're close. Think about like warm, cozy, soft sweaters.

Sophia Hyde (12:01.601)
Think about your fabrics is just like soft on your skin. This is what you guys, the according to the internet, it translates into the word enjoy. So I just think about it as like pleasure, fireplaces, puzzles, reading, blankets, candles. my God. So Brandon and I stayed at this cabin, loved it. We were so happy. And it's like maybe our favorite vacation we've ever taken.

I don't know, that's hard to compete with other things we've done. So that's hard to say, but it was up there. It was a great experience, top tier. And coming off of that, we just started saying, you know, that was a really great, whatever it was, three, four days. Why not make that a lifestyle? How come only the Danish or, and it's really spread to more of like a Scandinavian culture thing.

Lots of gathering in people's houses to just talk or maybe play a game or have a chat or just like hang. And it's really just like embedded into their culture. And remember, the Danes, Scandinavians, I mean, they often rank as some of the happiest people. It could also be their socialist policies, but part of it might be the huga. You know what I'm saying? They're just like pleasures built into the lifestyle. And so we started asking ourselves, what if...

we could also make this our way of life. And four years ago, we were living in Florida and we had just had the idea planted in our minds that Christmas. So this trip was the beginning of April and that Christmas was when we had visited his family in Tennessee and started saying like, maybe we should move closer to the other side of our family because we'd lived by mine since we met.

I'm like, what if we live closer to your family? And we started like kind of teetering that idea around. And then this really took that idea leaps and bounds because we thought, man, what if we could like just build a whole life of this Yuga concept and fast forward four years, that's what we've done. And I've realized I had never talked about it on this podcast, but Brandon and I talk about it all the time.

Sophia Hyde (14:28.255)
And when we were house shopping, it was a big part of like what we were looking for. Could we have that Hugo lifestyle in this home? Every home we looked at, that's what we were thinking about. So we were thinking about cozy vibes, thinking about the chill. And that's what we do now, right? We've got the mountain view, our windows. We've said, when I...

Brandon actually helped me come up with this idea of the podcast because I was telling him that I was kind of uncertain what I want to talk about this week. And we had just had that conversation with my brother and he said, you know, why don't you just talk about that on your podcast? I was like, my God, that's such a good idea. And then he said, you know, the only thing we're missing in this house is that we don't have a fireplace upstairs. The fireplace is down in the basement, which we haven't remodeled yet. And we do, when we do the big remodel for the house that we are saving up and want to do.

We are definitely putting a fireplace upstairs. That's the only thing that's missing. But literally, I looked around at the house. I said, we're gonna look around right now. Look around right now. We have the puzzle table. We had rearranged the furniture to look out at the view. We had throw blankets around. There was mugs out from when we had had our warm beverages. You could see the snow out the window. I said, we have really made this our entire personality. And as I was describing to my brother,

when I was telling him that we've basically made Huga our whole life, I said, do you realize I spend like three hours a day reading for pleasure? I like to wake up with my book and my coffee and it's also how I like to fall asleep. I like to begin and I end my day in this very relaxed, slow morning, soft evenings. We've really just unsubscribed from the, not just hustle culture inside of, know, you know, overworking and overachieving, but also hustle.

like in the day to day, we don't like to be busy. We don't have our kids in a million extracurriculars. and we have stuff. Eleanor's auditioning next weekend. She's got an audition. and when she's in play season, my gosh. I mean, we're there like after school and weekends. I mean, don't get me wrong. We still have to like, we're still parenting, but just in this like slower paced lifestyle way. We don't like rush. We don't like urgency.

Sophia Hyde (16:54.805)
It's just a very soft way of moving to the world. And the purpose of me coming on here today to tell you about the Hugo lifestyle and the way that we live. I'm not here to shit on you. I'm not telling you that you should do this too. What I'm hoping the message I really hope you received from this is that you heard that there's different

ways to live. And if the one that you're in right now doesn't feel aligned for you, that you can change it completely. You can take a three to five day vacation and say, what if this was our life? I have, I know some friends who loved the use to, there's this town in central Florida. If you haven't been, called Wiki Watchy and they used to go there.

Every few months they would like to go up there and they would You know, there's great kayaking canoeing and paddle boarding but there's like the manatees are up there and they just loved to go up there and then one day they were up in Wikiawachi and just said Wait a second. What if we've lived here? What if we lived where we vacation and it took some sacrifice? He's a firefighter in Tampa and he continued to commute with so it changed his commute from like a 20-minute commute to like a 70-minute commute, but you know firefighters

They work depending on the schedule, you know, you know, just a few days a week. And, so he just started commuting further and she's a realtor and, just extended her business to a new geographic area. And they just did it. They just relocated their family so that they could live where they left to vacation. they bought property right on the water so that they could kayak, canoe paddleboard just every day after school or work.

Just that was their evenings. And I don't want to live in Wiggy watching, but that's basically what we did, right? We did the same thing. We just relocated to be able to create a life that we just wake up and live it. I was telling my husband, I was supposed to go actually to Hawaii this weekend. I should be leaving in a few, I should be, had I stuck to my schedule, preparing right now to leave to go out of town.

Sophia Hyde (19:22.797)
One of my best friends lives down there and I was gonna go visit her before she moves away And I was working in December to try and find the right date to go and I had picked out the for the second weekend of February or first first weekend of February as what was gonna make the most sense and Then when it came time to book the tickets, I couldn't do it. I couldn't I couldn't book them

And I didn't really know why in retrospect. Thank God I do is my intuition. called her and I was just like, listen, here's the deal. I'm not coming anymore. And I don't actually have a reason to tell you other than my intuition says not to. just, I don't, that's the only reason I just something in my gut doesn't feel right. I can't bring myself to click buy on these tickets. So I didn't, I didn't buy them. didn't go. And thankfully I didn't because these two back to back winter storms, I had to reschedule my daughter's birthday party in it.

felt when I would have been out town. But in addition, it's, I told Brandon, like, thank God I'm not traveling right now. I would have missed this amazing three days snow thing. But everything about our lives, I said, I don't, when am I supposed to vacation now? I like all over the months. I can't miss fall. I can't miss winter, summer. Are you kidding me? It's the best. I haven't lived up here for spring yet. That's my last season. But what if I,

I don't know. I don't want to book a trip. want to experience all of it. I just love all of it. think vacations, they used to feel like I needed an escape from my life and I don't feel that way anymore. I don't, there's nothing here I need to escape. So if I'm traveling, which I still do love travel and seeing new places, I'm just not hungry for it right now at all, but it'll be out of a desire to experience something or learn something or participate in something.

But there's no longer anything to escape or run away from or need to take a break from. Like my life feels like a vacation. I talked to my doctor today. I had, I had to switch practitioners. My Florida one stopped seeing out of state patients. And so I was, today was my established appointment. I had to do it virtually because we can't drive on these mountain roads and snow. So every, like the whole Western North Carolina is shut down. And,

Sophia Hyde (21:50.037)
And so we did, we had to do the appointment virtually and I asked her if I was drinking too much coffee. Cause I told her, said, I don't know if this is really good for me or not good for me. And so we had this conversation about it and I explained to her how my favorite joy in life before I moved up here, one of the reasons I moved up here was I just wanted, I never felt happier than when I was anywhere in the world. I've seen mountains in Taipei.

Denver, New Mexico, Pacific Northwest, here in Western North Carolina. I've seen mountains in a lot of places. And it doesn't matter which mountains, but if I am sitting on a porch looking at a mountain view and drinking a cup of coffee, there is nothing that feels happier. Like that is my highest level of joy. And so I told her I didn't used to drink coffee. I always drink it, but just like a few times a week, two, three times a week. And now it's like daily and sometimes multiple times a day. And so was telling her about this and asking her if it was good or bad for me.

And, and I just, I told her, like, I just started doing it all the time because it just makes me so happy. And I just love creating this pleasure in my life. And, and I just realized that we've built everything around this. We still work, we still have our careers. I still have goals. My husband's still working. You know, we're still raising kids. We're still doing all the things that are life. I'm not retired, but I don't have to wait.

till I'm in my 60s or my 70s to have that feeling. I guess that's the best way to put it is we actually where we live is has a ton of a lot of people retire here is huge retirement population. So we essentially like took that vibe and just kind of started doing it now. The things that people in retirement like to do, guys, I'm starting a Mahjong group. That is definitely thing retired is something retired people do.

I got a group of people together and we start February 20th. It's our first Mahjong date. I'm really excited about it. Um, and so I have essentially just decided at 39 that I'm going to just live like a retired person does while also having a career in raising kids. And it doesn't feel stressful. I don't feel rushed. There's no urgency. It's just like, I wake up, I have slow mornings, I do my job.

Sophia Hyde (24:16.812)
and make sure my kids are taken care of well loved.

I have a restful evening. I don't know. It's the Huga Man. We've just made it a lifestyle. It's just a wave of me through the world. And I have unsubscribed from busy culture, I've unsubscribed from the hustle. We're all about the cozy vibes. And I just wanted you guys to know this existed. It's an option. Maybe you're a Huga person. Maybe you're a busy person. I have friends who love, you know, living in New York City.

the city that never sleeps. It's like the rush, the energy of all the people. just makes them so happy, makes them come alive. It feels, you know, so calming to their nervous system. So you might have a completely different alignment than I do, but I hope that you go find yours. BT dubs last thing, just gonna throw this out there. I've given a lot of plugs over the years in this podcast to your human design. And if you have not discovered that yet,

That's a great section. Like run your human design chart, scroll down to the environment section and see, cause like buzzing atmosphere and it's called, or like I have a girlfriend, we were just looking at her chart yesterday. And she's a dry kitchens, which means like she needs to be around a community of people. My husband's, his is mountains and mine is called shores. It doesn't mean that I have to live on the beach shore. It just means I need to be able to like see a horizon, which is so true.

It's so true. When we saw this house, it felt right. But we also had looked at this other house that we thought was our dream home, but it was on an acre of land that was all forest. And so it was surrounded by trees. It looked really cool. It sounded like it could be cozy. And when I stood in that house, I felt claustrophobic, like the whole world was shutting down around me. I got a stomach ache. I mean, we were only in there for how long do you tour house? 15 minutes, maybe 20. And I told my realtor and Brandon and my in-laws who were with me, I said, I can't live here.

Sophia Hyde (26:16.148)
I don't feel right. I can't explain it, but it's like my whole my shoulders are like are hunching forward. It makes me feel small. I'm like like turning in on myself. I do not like this. But like this house with the mountain view and like this wide open space, it's almost like I come alive. Like my posture lifts. It's like elevate. It's expansive. It's expansive. And it's so funny because my human design actually says that that I need to like have a view of a horizon.

to feel aligned, I'm like, my God, that's so true. Brandon needs to be at high elevations. And it's so funny, this works for us. So if you haven't done that before, highly recommend it. Go pull your human design, scroll down to the environments, see where you are. And I have quite a few friends who need to be in hustly, busy body type of environments, and that works for them. so this may, Hugo may not be your vibe, but just know that you can build a life.

that feels right for you. And I hope that this episode inspires you to explore what that is, to ask yourself and to start taking actions towards creating your favorite life. Love you guys. Bye bye.