Seize Your Joy

Learn to say no to what doesn't light you up, and seek out experiences that send your heart soaring, says Annabel Chown

- By Annabel Chown

When I was 13, my mother booked me onto a sailing course in Dorset, with a friend who'd been before. I wasn't keen, but Mum assured me my friend had loved it, so I would too. It rained all week, and I spent most of my time capsizing my dinghy and missing home.

These days, many of my friends are hooked on wild swimming. Some even break the ice on winter mornings at Hampstead Heath's Ladies' Pond or Hyde Park's Serpentine Lake. I've tried joining them, but disliked how pondweed, invisible in the murky water, coiled itself round my legs. And the way the cold settled into my bones for the entire day.

My friends might rave about wild swimming and its benefits, whose potency I don't doubt. But I've found my own ways of enhancing wellbeing that feel pleasurable to me - such as yoga, lifting weights, and walks through London parks.

The younger me was more inclined to follow the crowd, however. In my twenties, even on the Friday nights I longed to relax in an oil bath after a full-on week, I'd accompany friends and workmates to Shoreditch pubs and bars. 'Don't be boring,' they'd say, when, by 10pm, I'd try to head off. 'Come with us to a club.' Often, I did. Back then, life seemed infinitely long.

But a breast cancer diagnosis at 31 woke me up to just how short life can be. Time felt precious, and investing it in what made my heart sing, important. Now, 20 years later, it still is.