In recognition of A Call to Beauty launching next week (yay!), today I’d like to share 10 ways to discover beauty in your world.
#1. Look for it.
The #1 way to discover more beauty in your world is simply to be open to it and conscious of it. There is beauty literally everywhere, if you look for it. This is an attitude shift for many of us. We’re wired to see what we expect. If we expect ugliness and hate, that is what we’ll see.
If I tell you not to think of the color green, green is the first thing you’ll notice. So today I invite you to look for beauty. When you do, beauty is what you’ll see.
#2. Leave yourself a reminder.
It can be difficult to remember to be on the constant look out for beauty. After all, we have dozens of things competing for our time and attention. If you feel too busy to look for beauty, if you think you’ll forget, leave yourself a reminder. Set an alarm on your phone, leave a Post-It note on your computer, or tack up a sign on your wall to remind yourself of the beauty that surrounds us.
#3. Focus on the moment.
If you’re hustling from one meeting to the next, you’ll miss the awe-inspiring sunsets, the wonder of a child’s giggles, or the sucker punch of an unexpected moment of perfect understanding.
As I said above, we all have competing priorities but when you have time, sit peacefully and focus on the present moment. Slowly sip and savor your tea. Stop and smell the roses. Smile at a stranger. When you focus on the moment, the wonder of our human experience becomes more clear.
#4. Breathe.
When you find beauty, breathe deeply into your experience. Let the beauty you’ve uncovered fill you. Take it all in. If you sit with the beauty and allow the wonder, reverence, awe to fill you completely, your positive experience may last all day.
#5. Get outside.
So many of us spend our lives indoors. We move from our house to the car, from the car to the office, from the office to a cafe for lunch, from the cafe to a meeting, then back into our cars and back into our homes at night.
To discover more beauty in the world, spend more time outside. Eat your lunch outdoors. Take an evening stroll through your neighborhood. Hike or bike a local trail on the weekend. One of the easiest places to discover beauty is in our natural world. Enjoy the flora and fauna around you.
#6. Seek meaning.
We humans like to apply meaning to everything we see. We see connections and causations in all kinds of disparate phenomena, in forgetting our umbrella leading to a rainstorm, in taking the wrong exit leading to an unexpectedly pleasant encounter with a friend. Use that natural tendency to uncover more beauty.
Consider looking for hearts wherever you go, as Kelly Rae Roberts and Drew Barrymore do or perhaps look for your favorite number, a circle, or an infinity symbol. Each discovery will be a perfect little moment of beauty and the process of looking will keep you present and engaged in your reality.
#7. Create beauty.
One of the best ways to discover beauty is to create it. No, that’s not cheating.
Think about what gifts you have to share with the world and do so. Attend a painting class. Write out your life story and the beautiful lessons within it. Volunteer with the elderly. Rescue animals. Clean up a neighbor’s porch or yard. Be the beauty you want to see more of in the world.
#8. Honor your beauty.
Once you’ve seen the beauty you can create, you must honor that. You too are a work of art, an integral part of the beauty that exists here on Earth.
Honor the wonder of your gifts, talents, and abilities, the uniqueness of the self that resides within you and looks out into the beauty in this world, and the physical body that allows you to do so many amazing and mundane things each day. All of it is beauty-full.
#9. Look upon others with compassion.
Each of us is creating the world we live in through our beliefs and actions.
If you want a more beautiful world, choose to look with compassion at your fellow humans. You will be creating a softer, gentler world and helping to add to the beauty among us.
Each of us is doing the best we can, with our knowledge and understanding of the world, in this moment. Even those who choose actions you would not and do not condone.
#10. Take note of the beauty you discover.
Make a list of the moments of beauty you discover. As Tyler Kent White writes, “I promise if you keep searching for everything beautiful in this world, you will eventually become it.”
Cheers,
P.S. I’m in a generous mood so I’m going to share with you one of the wallpapers that’s included in my new e-course:
To download and install this wallpaper, click on the image and save it to your hard drive. Once downloaded, locate it on your computer and right-click it with your mouse. Choose the “set as wallpaper” or “set as background” option (whichever your browser displays) from the pop-up menu. The image will then be set as your computer wallpaper.
For 11 more wallpapers like this one and a whole lot more, join me in A Call to Beauty next week!
