Welcome to Happy Quiet Life

I warmly invite you to start here

Aug 30, 2024

Hello, I’m Claudia.

Highly sensitive person & introvert in today’s stressful world

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found being a highly sensitive person and an introvert in today’s loud and busy world often quite stressful and sometimes overwhelming.

I love keeping life simple and quiet and living life at a more natural pace. I’ve always known that. But in my teen and adult years I didn’t give myself permission to live accordingly. I thought (for an embarassingly long time) I had to outgrow that idea to be successful in this world or at least to be okay, to fit in and to make a living.

After decades of trying which led to mental health issues early on and burnout / nervous breakdown / complete exhaustion in my mid-40s, I finally stopped putting pressure on myself and started shaping my life according to what I really want and need.

Keeping life simple, slow and quiet

After quitting my dream job and a long time off to recover from that mentioned breakdown, I finally feel like being me again after all those years. I’ve started to build a simple, slow and quiet life that really suits me as a highly sensitive person and an introvert, a life that I love every day (well, most days) and that doesn’t wear me out.

It has been quite a liberating journey – and it’s not over yet. There are still struggles and setbacks while I unlearn unhealthy patterns and conditionings, but I now firmly prioritise self-care. Reconnecting with nature also helps.

Closer to Nature

As a child I was very close to nature, but lost touch with it during my adult years while also living in a big city. With my increasing stress and exhaustion over the years, I began to long for fewer people and less civilisation, more nature, more wilderness, I longed for a quieter place where I could feel and experience the seasons more, slow down and reconnect with nature. (Read more about it here.)

Living in a small town in Northern Germany, I’m on a quest for a life closer to nature by taking walks, gardening (and rewilding our garden), paying attention to the seasons and all kinds of weather more, enjoying different landscapes, watching animals, noticing small and delightful details, reading all kinds of books about nature. I enjoy it so much!

Books, books, books - I LOVE reading!

I’ve always been a book person.

I’ve loved books and reading from very early on.

Reading has always been a pleasure and a delight, but also a beloved and much needed safe haven from a loud world. At the same time it has been a wonderful way to learn so much about the world in all its aspects.

It was (kind of) inevitable that books became my profession in one way or the other.

I got a Master of Arts’ degree in German language and literature studies. I worked (among other things) as a bookseller and as a librarian. I also became a published writer. (If you want to learn more about my published work, you are very welcome to visit my website.)

Claudia Kollschen at a reading in bookshop 2013 - Photo by Eva Steenbuck

So, books have always played a huge part in my life. There have been so many and diverse books that have moved me, excited my, made me laugh, made me think, taught me something, opened whole new worlds for me.

At the moment I have a particular fondness for nature writing and travelogues, but I’m always curious to discover and follow up on something new, so expect the one or the other post on a reading adventure.