It’s been a while since I published a Daily Sunshine article – sorry – the summer and writing a new book took over for a while. But I’m back! And today I’d like to talk to you about the whole ‘beauty in the eye of the beholder’ thing. It won’t take long! Care to read on?
We have all heard the old cliche about ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’. Most of us have probably repeated it, without really thinking about what it means.
What does it mean?
It could mean that ‘love is blind’ – that’s what it is usually taken to mean when it’s used in a pub towards closing time…
These days, it can often be a derrogatory comment.
But what if it has a hidden meaning; one that could hold the key to living the life of your dreams, rather than your judgements?
Could you choose to see the beauty?
Whatever we experience in life, the good old Monkey Mind is running a commentary – evaluating, critiquing, assessing, replaying and imagining – but above all – judging.
It tells us what is ‘good’. It tells us what is ‘bad’.
But none of that is real.
Let’s take the example of ‘ugly’:
‘Ugly’ to one person may not be to another. ‘Ugly’ or ‘bad’ are simply labels that we have trained ourselves to use in certain situations. It’s like a form of short-hand, which saves us having to describe a situation, a behaviour or a person. Instead we can slap the label on and move on to the next thing.
These labels are something we train ourselves to see. Perhaps they’re instinctive. Perhaps they’re cultural (there’s plenty of evidence to support that one). But definitely they’re a habit.
What’s the problem with the labels?
Labels can never adequately describe what we attach them to. They will always be incomplete. They will always be a judgemental snapshot in time.
But worse than that…
We get what we focus on. It’s the real-world version of the computer-world’s WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get).
The labels we use most often are the ones we will see most often.
Buy a red car and suddenly it seems as though every second car on the road is red, whereas yesterday they were silver or black. Why? Because we have set our mind’s radar to tune into examples of red cars.
So spend your time telling yourself stories about ‘ugly’ or ‘bad’ or ‘unfair’ and guess what you’ll see more of…?
And how does life feel, when we do that?
But what if you could turn things around?
What if there were a way to – easily – let go of those painful thoughts and stories and nearly-instantly move back towards inner peace?
You know I wouldn’t be asking you those questions, unless I had an answer to share with you, don’t you?
Instead of looking for what’s wrong, how about looking for what’s right?
I don’t mean ‘pretend’ things are ok – I mean shift your focus, just for this moment:
In this very moment, we can choose to see hurt and pain and regret and mistakes and ugly and angry and sad and resentment.
Or we can choose to see the beauty – somewhere – anywhere – in this very moment.
Not ‘back then’. Not in a minute. But here. Now. In this moment.
Pause for a moment and breathe in; breathe out; breathe in; breathe out.
Allow your thoughts to settle on a feeling of beauty. Just in this moment.
And then again in this moment.
And again in this moment.
And perhaps allow yourself to smile.
That’s it.
It doesn’t have to be ‘beauty’, if that doesn’t resonate for you. It could be ‘love’ or ‘sunshine’ or ‘happiness’ or ‘gratitude’ or ‘ok-ness’.
What matters is that you get a sense of the relief your whole being feels, as you let go of pushing and resisting – and rest, in this moment, in the essence of who you really are.
With love, Namaste,
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