The Simplicity Mindset: Living Purposefully in Contentment

By Carmen Shenk

I looked up at my handsome husband. "Can we really live this way?" He just pulled me close. We were standing behind the tiny house we'd found through Craigslist. Moments later we shook hands with the owner, bought the house, and boldly began our tiny house adventure. In the years that followed, I learned so much about living simply. This littl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carmen Shenk
• Release date: Sep 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088039281

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The Simplicity Mindset

The Simplicity Mindset

The Simplicity Mindset

Living Purposefully in Contentment

Carmen Shenk

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Lydia Sofia Biblia

Copyright © 2023 by Carmen Shenk

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, whether by graphic, visual, film, microfilm, audio recording, internet or any other means, without prior written permission, except for the case of brief passages embodied in critical articles and reviews.  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

First Printing, 2023

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-0880-3924-3

Published by Lydia Sofia Biblia

To Xaver,

Thank you for believing in me,

encouraging me to shine,

and for creating a world where I can.

Contents

Dedication

1 Conformity

2 Generosity

3 Gratitude

4 Sacrifice

5 Autonomy

6 Compassion

7 Letting Go & Holding On

8 Contentment

9 Connection

10 Wealth

1

Conformity

Henry David Thoreau wrote:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...

Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately. Years ago, I went to a cabin on the mountain to write a book. I lived in a big house on the golf course at the time, but the cabin I visited was small, spartan, and simple. I remember looking around and wondering why I couldn’t just stay there?! It was so simple. Why did I need all the stuff I owned? Why couldn’t life just be this simple? That whole cabin would have fit inside my kitchen, but it felt so intimate and freeing. It felt honest and authentic.

I wrote for a few days. No phone. No email. No internet. Blissful silence except for the birds and breeze, and the sound of a squirrel on the front porch eating the reed seat out of an old rocking chair. The host came up the mountain to check on me and to refill the generator one time. Unlike some of their other guests, I was reveling in the solitude. I had a guitar with me, and I went out on the porch and played guitar and sang. Musical prayer in the wilderness felt amazing.

I prayed, I wrote... and when the chapter was done - I cooked up some dinner and sat down to eat. Sometimes I worked through the day, and sometimes I worked through the night. It was a vibrant place of Flow for me, a powerful experience. Even though that book is still filed away in a box in my office, I have those vivid memories of a simple cabin in the woods that suited my soul just fine. 

The whole drive home I saw rainbow after rainbow after rainbow, God was trying to ease my reentry I guess. I walked in my front door and back into my horrible life and it hit me hard. I looked around my huge house and my crumbling marriage and it was just all so overwhelming. I needed to make some big changes.

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