The truth is that sometimes we are too busy to really see the world around us. It’s all too easy to spend our time living in our heads and not connecting with the wonder of the world in which we live. Often we don’t realize how much beauty is surrounding us or even how beautiful we truly are, because of the world’s expectations.
Life is mostly made up of routines and patterns. Every day we act them out and they are what make up the bulk of our lives. Many of us live according to a socially acceptable template, within the realm of safety, while living repetitively and dreaming of ways to escape.
Boredom due to routine is a creation of the mind. In reality, there are no ordinary moments if we recognize that our existence is one of the extraordinary moments of creation.

We’re too busy talking to ourselves and to each other, that we have forgotten how to truly listen and observe.
We’re living in a world of abstractions about reality; words that describe, label, and categorize things. This can be an excellent tool to organize and communicate, but it can also be a curse when it gets out of control. In order to become intimate with life, with creation, we need to really listen and observe. Slow down and just be aware of yourself and your surrounding and look things with different eyes. There is beauty everywhere. If you truly understand this, you can look at any ordinary object and find beauty in its existence. You can even look at a pile of rotting compost and realize that within that organic waste is the possibility of a garden of flowers. Beauty is experienced through a state of peace, never through a form of condemnation or punishment. And yes, non-judgment also means to stop complaining.

Stop doing what you are doing for a moment, even reading this article. Just be still for a moment and cast aside any distractions. You cannot fully appreciate something if your mind is elsewhere. Pick one thing close to you and study it intensely. Notice the beauty in its complexity and the complexity in its simplicity. Make the time to deliberately see the beauty in everything around you. Pick out details that attract you and notice that when we put our full attention into any object, structure, landscape or person, there is always beauty to be appreciated.

We are constantly surrounded by miracles, that we do not recognize because they come to us so gracefully and seamlessly, that often we miss them because of our disconnection with creation. When you allow yourself to shift to this humble state, you'll be amazed at what opens up for you.
Opening our senses is a matter of viewing ourself as a marvelous creation and see life in any form as a precious and beautiful gift. It’s letting go of all your resistance to the flow of life and the flow of circumstances.

This practice will open the veils between worlds. Everyday, keep opening your perception to see the potential in everything. I know it is not an easy task to accomplish, since humans have the ability to make things ugly, but in order to consciously appreciate your existence on this amazing planet and live a full life, seek the things that make your heart smile, your soul sing, your spirit content.
Remember that you are a spiritual being having a human experience. And as such, the most enlightened thing you can do is accept yourself wholly and completely, with nurturing and kindness, and then extend this same grace to the world.

There is beauty around you, and most important….You are beautiful!


Paola Luciani Fulbright