On Tenderness, Truth, and the Quiet Courage of Comfort.
Staying cozy is a practice
that helps me to meet myself honestly.
Even as some one who enjoys crochet, oversized hoodies, and a good mug of tea, I can also appreciate that being “cozy” isn’t just about taking care to curate soft textures and an aesthetically pleasing setting.
Though I certainly love those.
To me, being cozy is most often felt as a nervous system state: a sense of being met, held, and safe enough to stay in awareness with myself, regardless of the environment that I’m in.
The blankets, my favorite mug, the golden-hour light pooling through a half-drawn curtain: these are the accoutrements of cozy, but they’re just tools that invite me to cultivate my own inner space.
To a large degree, cozy is a type of hospitality that happens when a space has been prepared for your arrival. What practicing cozy has taught me is that I can be the person doing that preparation for myself.
I think that it takes a certain type of compassion and tenderness in anticipating a return to yourself that should be less of a luxury signified by overt types of exotic rituals and more of a type of commonplace gift that we give ourselves often.
I prepare this type of space for myself every time I settle into my corner chair, laptop perched on my knees, a blanket across my legs, amber light washing over me. My body exhales. Cozy helps me stay with the discomfort of writing honestly through the emotional mess that lives inside me, because my environment has become a place where I can feel safe enough to let my guard down and express myself freely.
That’s what cozy really does: it creates space for courage as a quiet invitation to explore the feelings and emotions that often feel too difficult to express.
Coming Home to Myself
Through Cozy
When my nervous system is dysregulated, I feel like there’s a frantic current of anxious energy that doesn’t know how to expel itself out of my body. It’s not the light buzz in anticipation of something exciting either, it’s more like a heavy, dragging, feeling that’s difficult to let go of or throw off.
In a gentle ambient setting with soft light from salt lamps, the sound of rain (real or YouTube-generated1), and a “beasty” playlist I can gently coax myself back into the presence of knowing that I am safe and start to relax.
Stress develops and lives in the body if you let it2. It shows up as a tight jaw3, hunched shoulders, and shallow breaths like the physical formation of a solid brick wall or a body braced for impact. This kind of tension doesn’t just block comfort; it blocks imagination. You can’t create when your nervous system is in survival mode4.
My body responds to simple luxuries in ways that help me re-regulate and release the chaotic energy that might otherwise compound itself over days, weeks, or even years if left untended to. Allowing and even encouraging my body intentionally to melt into this practice by creating space for myself often, helps me recall what safety feels like, even when my physical environment might challenge that perspective. Creating this space is a specific and vital contrast to the energy that I often encounter in the world.
Cozy becomes the bridge between chaos and clarity in the space where I remember I’m safe enough to allow myself to experience my emotions.
Creativity and coziness are intertwined because both require presence. I rarely create well in chaos. My best ideas flow in slow, quiet moments when my body is unguarded and when I’ve unclenched my jaw long enough for curiosity to feel safe again. I can recall often, for example, how during barre exercises my teacher used to tell me often to, “Stop thinking.” She always knew when I wasn’t trusting body well enough to let the muscle memory5 kick in so that I could feel the expression of the movements rather than to think through them in rigid execution.
Cozy is like that, when you cultivate a practice for it, your body knows how to find the memory of it even if your mind is engrossed elsewhere.
Cultivating cozy in my daily life, for me, is how I’m finding ways to slowly reintroduce my body to feeling peace when I feel overwhelmed. I think that creating safe environments where I can give myself permission to lean into and navigate those feelings without feeling flooded by them is the ultimate goal. This type of learning; how to connect with myself even when I’m angry, grieving, or lost in disillusionment and confusion, helps me to create a sense of safety in my own body6. It is ultimately helping me to trust myself again and develop connection with my inner knowing.
And this journey to self-reacquaintance is difficult (and awkward) sometimes, especially when the emotions are intense and I don’t know how to feel them, but I’m committed to getting to know myself well because I want to express the best parts of myself with others.
This continued practice of trusting that I can feel something all the way through and still be okay on the other side is the type of relationship I’m learning to build with myself through the practice of cultivating inner cozy.
Cozy as Ritual, Memory, and Identity
My inner cozy has always been a type of cultural identity too, born in the smells of my kitchen after I’ve made a really good meal, or in the lingering laughter between my sister and me dancing around the house.
Growing up, my sense of comfort was developed around the table with my family, surrounded by people who didn’t see the world as something to fear. My grandparents created safe spaces for our family in the midst of social and economic battlefields, yet I never felt the weight of those threats directly. Their love softened the edges of an often cruel and dark world.7
There’s a warmth and sense of safety in being understood without having to perform or act like everything is “OK” to feel accepted.
This is something that as an adult, I’m trying to continue to live with the reality of as well. I think that being in safe community with one another helps us all to cultivate inner cozy.
Sometimes experiencing cozy doesn’t even require having the right words to help someone be with their own intense emotions. Cozy can often just be held in the silence of a shared space, like a slow meal with someone who doesn’t rush you out of the room, or the quiet presence of being with someone who’s with you because they want to be, not because they have to. It can feel like sitting with some one, and holding their hand so that they can just be in the space there were the both of you are.
Cozy is a kind of truth-telling:
A belonging to oneself that radiates outwardly.
My grandparents were intentional in helping me to develop a strong sense of identity. My grandmother famously filled every inch of the walls in her living and dining rooms with photos of her children, grandchildren, and extended family to remind herself and others of the legacy of the space they were in. My grandfather’s favorite line from Hamlet, too, still echoes: “To thine own self be true.”8 This perspective from his life, to me, is cozy embodied because it represents the peace that he felt in the assurance of living in the valued feelings and emotions of his own identity without the requirements of external validation or need for adaptation. From this perspective, being cozy is a way of living truthfully and granting myself permission to be as I am where I am, but with the opportunity to continue to work to develop a perspective that complements my values.
The coziest relationships I’ve known are the ones where I’ve felt free to unravel safely; to be excited, conflicted, and afraid, all at once in community that understands and offers grace.
Cozy in Uncozy Times
In the face of chaos,
choosing cozy is a refusal to surrender my tenderness.
Cultivating my inner cozy has served me well in the unpredictable chaos of life. For example, in the aftermath of a hurricane, political and economic unrest, heartbreak, and moments otherwise when the world has felt too big and sinister to exist in.
Choosing to be cozy in those times has often felt like rebellion. In this way, remaining snuggly and soft, no matter what is my way of saying: "No, cruelty of the world, you do not own my peace."
Sometimes that means turning off the news. Sometimes it means leaving spaces that require me to shrink my spirit. Sometimes it’s as simple as deep breaths, warm tea, and the reminder that I can continue to cultivate my inner peace where I am with a journal, a playlist, or a self-care ritual. Each as a way to bring my mind back into my feeling body, and to resonate with the inner knowing and intention of what I am cultivating around what is true9 in the reality of what I want to focus on to feel safe.
Seasons of Cozy: The Permission to Rest
Fall and winter are nature’s reminders to slow down. The dropping temperatures (and leaves) invite softness, requirements to layer to stay warm if you go out, and even an invitation to just staying in. I believe that it’s dangerous to ignore nature’s cues.
During these seasons, when gathering and nesting become the norm, I’ve often felt guilty for indulging in my cocooning tendencies.
But what if we didn’t have to earn rest? What if cozy wasn’t a luxury but a foundation as a way of tending to the body and spirit as sacred practice inviting rest not out of exhaustion, but out of reverence.
Cozy as a Way of Living
To live cozy is to live awake, not escaping the world, but softening enough to truly be in it.
I think that if I moved through my days with “cozy” as my default state, everything: my relationships, work, self-talk would align more easily with who I ultimately am working to become.
Cozy, at its core, is presence. It’s how I meet myself and others with warmth, patience, and tenderness. I’m dedicated to this practice for myself and for the community I serve so that I can show up with grace, love, and peace in reverence for the life I’ve been given.
References:
- Calming Elegance Youtube Channel: Light ambient sounds for cozy. ↩︎
- The Body Keeps the Score ↩︎
- If you’ve ever dealt with TMJ, then you know. ↩︎
- Interesting article about mindfulness and the “flow state.” ↩︎
- Cool article on how muscle memory affects performance in athletes. ↩︎
- Recently leaning more into trauma informed movement practices and similar topics. ↩︎
- One of my grandfather’s favorite songs: What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong. ↩︎
- Shakespeare Reference: Act 1, Scene 3 ↩︎
- Philippians 4:8 ↩︎
(P.S. I receive no affiliate commission from these links, they are here purely for your enjoyment and reference).
Bonus Track
Share Your Cozy.
What helps you reconnect with a sense of presence especially
when the world feels chaotic or overwhelming?
How do your relationships, memories, or cultural roots teach you
about comfort, community, and self-belonging?
💬 I’d love to hear your responses.
Reply below, send me a message or tag me @rosnolia.
Share with this cozy community…