Category: beautiful

This Is Your Season To Bloom

This Is Your Season To Bloom

The sound of leaf blowers and lawn mowers never makes for a good alarm clock. Usually I’m up before the sun, but sometimes my body tells me it needs to sleep and on the rare occasion when my schedule allows I’m more than happy to oblige. This was one of those days.

Spring certainly is in the air here in Massachusetts. Lawns and gardens once again become the priority of many. Rakes and shovels groom and till, spreaders spread seed and feed, wheel barrows of fresh mulch cover the colorless flower beds. Rejuvenation is in full swing.

What if we treated ourselves the same way?

A beautiful yard and garden doesn’t happen by accident. Time, money, and intention are poured into creating and maintaining the desired landscaping outcome. But how much time, money, and intention do we pour into creating and maintaining the desired outcomes of our lives?

A beautiful life doesn’t happen by accident. Like a beautiful yard it requires awareness, intention, and attention. Left unchecked, weeds grow in gardens and often within us, and if we don’t tend to those weeds the weeds eventually take over, draining the gardens – and us – of much of our inherent beauty.

While you’re raking and mulching and tending to the external world around you this spring, how much time and intention are you giving to the beautiful garden which rests dormant within you?

Weed yourself of those thoughts and habits which no longer serve you. Feed yourself with love and compassion, patience and Continue reading “This Is Your Season To Bloom” →

Waiting For The Beautiful To Become Beautiful

Waiting For The Beautiful To Become Beautiful

“They’re gonna be so beautiful when they bloom!”

This was overheard at a local nature preserve known, in part, for their large daffodil field, home to thousands of bulbs getting ready to share their gift. Visiting the field has become an annual tradition for a great many.

You could feel the anticipation in their voices as the daffodils were just days away from fully blooming and offering their vibrant color to the world. A few thoughts came to me in that moment:

Weren’t the daffodils already beautiful? Right now? As they already are? Like, at what point does something – or someone – become beautiful?

Ours is a results-oriented culture with a track record of celebrating successful outcomes. We usually don’t get too excited about the process. What we accept as beauty is greatly influenced by expectations and contingencies and once those conditions are satisfied we then feel free to affix the “beautiful” label. The daffodils, so close to fully blooming, apparently had not met their conditions for being beautiful just yet.

From a human standpoint, can we only see others and ourselves as beautiful when they/we are done growing? Can we find beauty in our incompleteness, in our unfolding, just as much as we do when we have finally blossomed and become?

For many we don’t allow our unfinished self to be beautiful. We “rationalize” that the process can’t be beautiful, only the result. As if beautiful is some sort of destination. But as humans we are never done blossoming, never done growing, are we? Because as humans, our unlimited potential for growth and expansion in an equally unlimited and expansive universe will never allow us to ever be complete, or done, or fully expressed. If we are waiting for the finality of our expansion before we can acknowledge our own beauty we will be waiting an entire lifetime before we do so.

And that would be such a shame.

Because beautiful is something we already are.

Exactly where we are, right now.

In our infinite incompleteness.

In our never-ending unfolding.

It’s a great day to be you!

When You Forget You Are Beautiful And You’re Not Sure You Matter

When You Forget You Are Beautiful And You’re Not Sure You Matter

You are beautiful.

You are unlimited.

And you matter.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten this. Please let me remind you.

Or worse yet, you don’t believe it.

Please let me convince you.

Life gets busy and often the importance of perspective gets lost as we just try and make it through another day. Daily demands and prioritizing others often means you never get around to taking care of the most important person in your life.

You.

Here, in no particular order, are seven thoughts to contemplate in hopes you’ll take the a few moments to reconnect with this beautiful person you call you.

Beautiful isn’t something you become, its something you already are. Walk through any supermarket check-out and you are inundated with the latest fashion and lifestyle magazines, Continue reading “When You Forget You Are Beautiful And You’re Not Sure You Matter” →