If you’re like me, your mind tends to lean towards the skeptical and analytical. It’s not an entirely bad trait. But when it becomes all encompassing, I need to redirect it.
When I catch myself in an overthinking moment, I’ve started to practice a mental trick. The very next thing I see I immediately say,
“It’s beautiful” — and keep going…..
That sidewalk crack – beautiful
The face of a stranger – beautiful
That brown puddle water – beautiful
Looking at things I might not immediately consider beautiful MAKES me see the beauty I would have otherwise missed.
Right now I’m sitting on the subway, watching the coupler cover uniting the subway cars move and pulsate like it has a life of its own. It is doing its job so well as it connects and curves the train gliding over the tracks. Beautiful
I think of how it’s a mechanical marvel. Its silver and black colours creating a bold contrast. I could ride it like an urban skateboard if I wanted. Beautiful.
This coming from the mind that moments before was so frustrated by the slow streetcar driver, it was somewhat cathartically saying “You, sir, are a garbage human!! Drive faster or take a long walk off a short pier!!”
I won’t pull punches. My mind is the wild west. I’m slowly taming its bucking bronco ways with meditation and mindfulness practice. Calling more things beautiful is one of those techniques.
Piero Ferrucci in his book ‘Beauty and the Soul‘ calls this “…increasing your aesthetic range”. By widening your definition of beauty, you increase your capacity to find loveliness in the everyday things that surround us, and by extension, you end up enjoying life a bit more.
I’d like my mind to become a slightly less hostile environment. But, tbh, still maintain its sarcastic edge ;).
Try it out. Give up a bit of the negative Nancy inside, and call more things beautiful ❤️.
