Appreciation and Beauty

I find it interesting how life almost immediately started unfolding the moment I set my focus on the two things of appreciation and beauty. The intention was to keep them in the foreground of daily life, especially in relation to ‘doing’.

One of the first things that got highlighted was that it is much easier to hold a stance of appreciation and see beauty around us when life is meeting our perceived needs. It all feels good if everything goes according to our plan, right? But what happens when things do not go according to plan? When things are felt as obstructive, a test, or manifest as a demand, an expectation, an ask that reaches beyond our felt capacity to meet it? What then?

Does appreciation come with the same ease? Is it easy to appreciate what is arising, when that is upsetting and distressing? Is it easy to see the beauty of the ‘medicine’ of the upset, and perhaps appreciate that perhaps life is bringing us what we need rather than what we want? If we could see the beauty of what is arising, as a lesson that we need for our growth and expansion then perhaps it can feel less distressing and life can start flowing again.

How we think of life is how we experience life and perhaps if we started conceptualising life as happening for us, not to us maybe that moment when the demands of life feel a little bit too much, can turn into the moment that focuses our attention on re-prioritising what matters, appreciating what we do have, rather than what is missing and seeing the beauty in those that surround us and all the teachings that they bring. And begin again.

A practice that can support tapping into this space of appreciating the teachings that have come (to cause friction and perhaps strengthen our resolve), and allowing them to move through us with ease, without a lasting inner disturbance, is a practice of appreciation, beauty and presence.

Take 5 minutes each morning to appreciate:

• This day is only for today – it has never been before and it will never happen again; how do you want to live it?

• Give your whole attention to the next breath, as it rises and as it falls, and appreciate that each breath brings life to this body.

• Feel the miraculous presence of your body and its aliveness – through our body and our senses the world comes to life! Take a moment to be in nature and feel your part in it. It could be a fleeting moment of feeling the sun on your skin…

• Make an intention to respond to what arises today, and handing over the rest to the universe.

• With gratitude bring to mind everything that you have, everyone that surrounds you, and this moment that you are present.