Wednesday is about work and getting things done, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to stop and smell the roses sometimes, even if it is mid-week. Especially because bringing something beautiful back into your awareness in the midst of everything else is an excellent way to restore order and sanity.
We don’t pay enough attention to beauty, in my opinion. We give it lip service on the weekends, and maybe we appreciate the exquisite bouquet of our morning coffee or the sunset during the commute home. But how often do we reach out to beauty, seeking its wisdom and inspiration for all the little things in our everyday lives?
When the boss yells, the baby cries, the effort fails do you know how to use beauty to survive with aplomb?
Our impulse is usually defensive when things go awry. But, perhaps counter-intuitively, turning to something beautiful instead may defuse and mend the situation far more readily.
Try a process like this with your journal.
1. On a new page, write the word, Beauty. Then let your pen explore all your thoughts and images around that concept. You can do this for a timed five or ten minutes. Another approach is to use an image that represents beauty to you: write about it for a page or two.
Example: a curve, a long sinew, the light glancing off it; a cheekbone; the waves, the shore; when someone forgives me; autumn leaves; fine crystal; overcoming insurmountable odds; my Pinterest collection of fashions …
2. Make a list of things you think are beautiful. Circle three of the list items that best represent beauty to you.
Example: a curve; the waves; forgiveness
3. At the top of a new page in your journal, write one thing from your list of three. Then write about that thing for the rest of the page. Do the same for the other two items on the list.
Example: A CurveSmoothness smoothness incomprehensible. Football players are smooth, at their best, ice skaters, athletes, I suppose, generally. This is smoothness beyond. Not achieved on earth except in a sunset, a river, a shell. The pink inside of a conch, smoother than ivories on a piano, smoother than my baby’s …
4. Write out a plan for inviting more beauty into your life. Where will you look for it as you get up in the morning, go to work, interact with others, enjoy your personal life?
Example: I’ll make a ritual of breakfast, look for loveliness on my commute, find the beauty at regular intervals during my day, emphasize beautiful things in my home and leisure activities.
5. Begin to track moments of stress or difficulty in your days, noting them with brief descriptions in your journal. Note also your reactions. Be especially specific about those times when you are able to call up an image of beauty to smooth out the challenges and bring things back to an even keel.
Example: Today when (my 5-year-old) Zack threw a hissy-fit in the grocery store, my eye lit upon a pineapple and I grabbed it and shoved it towards him. I told him to look hard at it. Just look. We both looked. It was amazing. He stopped crying, and told me, sniffling, that “It looks really crazy. It looks like a clown!” After that, we laughed.
Cultivate a new peace of mind by
• Studying your idea of what’s beautiful;
• Focusing on beautiful things in your life;
• Learning to use beauty as an equalizer.
It’s the royal road to happiness!
#
Are you truly interested in achieving a higher level of peace? Then sign up now for the next session of the 27 Days Self-Discovery Journaling Challenge, beginning January 1, 2013.
Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jkivinen/532021120/
Leave Comment