We often hear about beauty. We are surrounded by images showing us what beauty looks like. But finding beauty in life is not always as easy as it may seem. Deciding to see beauty more, I started to intentionnally look at what was missing in my everyday life or what I was missing to notice and appreciate.
I soon realized that not all my senses were nurtured. I was missing the colours of the flowers I used to admire, the smell of the rain in the leaves of trees, the colourful and more textured clothes in the streets, the sounds of the bees in the countryside. I heard lots of noises, but not so much sounds, let alone beautiful random music in the street. Most of what build up my childhood memories seem to have faded away.
Was it my ability to open to beauty? or was I looking in the wrong direction?
Continuing to play hide and seek with beauty, I continued my exploration by listening to people and observing behaviours continuously diving deeper to see the beauty through the lens of meaning and purpose.
The struggle to find beauty was real and raw. We all have been there.
Came back the popular self-development quote that there is beauty everywhere even in hardships. Started then the process to transform this quote into a scavenger hunt for beauty. And after ups and downs, I came up with a list of reminders to finding back beauty when we lost touch with it:
- Know that there is beauty everywhere for you to see starting with a good memory or a dream.
- Find a glimpse of colour or a flower to smell.
- Remember there is beauty in letting go of people’s perception, judgment, opinion because they were theirs all along.
- Look in the right places and for the right persons.
- There is beauty in doing nothing.
- Listen to silence.
- There is beauty in opting out of what does not make sense for you.
- Life is beautifully self-orchestrated. Trust it.
Opening new ways to see beauty is a beautiful exercise in itself and the most beautiful reward is to find peace.
Virginie MARTINS de NOBREGA