Tag: beautiful

We Don’t Have To Settle For What We’ve Always Settled For

We Don’t Have To Settle For What We’ve Always Settled For

You can always tell if it’s one of his photos.

My friend Peter Pereira is a photographer. Actually, he is a highly regarded and respected award-winning photojournalist who can tell an entire story within the frame of a single image. Peter’s work appears locally as well as globally in some of the world’s most recognizable media. I’m getting quite good at looking at a photograph and knowing that he was the photographer without needing to read the photo credit.

One of Peter’s greatest gifts is his gift of perspective. While many photographers will shoot at what is right in front of them, Peter will find his own unique vantage point. He positions himself outside of what would be considered the conventional. Above looking down. Below looking up. To the left side. To the right side. He will use components and lines within an image to frame his subject and direct the viewer’s eyes deeper into the photo. By positioning himself in unconventional positions, his work demonstrates the true power of perspective, of being open to seeing things from a different view point.

Perspectives are of great significance. Perspectives are how we choose to see the world, each other, and our own self.

How we choose to see our own self significantly influences everything about our life. Our experiences, our relationships, our expectations, our opportunities.

Everything.

Our sense of self is rarely intentional. It usually just happens as we evolve and grow through life. It will be shaped by our environment and those within it, reinforced and strengthened as experiences and relationships continuously repeat themselves. It’s not something we notice, so it’s not something we tend to question.

But there is great power in questioning who it is you tell yourself you think you are.

We have the ability to see ourself from a different vantage point. To reframe our self image. If we choose to do so. Maybe the Continue reading “We Don’t Have To Settle For What We’ve Always Settled For” →

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” →

What Would God Change About You?

What Would God Change About You?

Nothing.

In a Universe of intention, we are all created purposefully and deliberately, each of us a unique collection of talents, gifts, and abilities here to fully express the intention inherent with our creation.

Sometimes we forget that part.

Sometimes the inner and outer voices would have us believe a different story, the one in which we’re not good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, or strong enough as we already are. We often feel a pressure to change, to abandon who we are in order to become something we inherently are not.

When we become something we are not, we abandon those things that make us the beautiful, never to be repeated, once in Continue reading “What Would God Change About You?” →

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” →

The Honesty of November

The Honesty of November

What can a month teach you?

There’s a small window of time each year that I quietly look forward to. It’s the time when gone are the spectacular fireworks of the fall foliage, when the last leaves on the oaks and maples have finally found their way to the ground below. The bitter cold of winter’s chill has yet to arrive, but we are reminded that it is on its way.

November.

I’ve always had a special place in my heart for November. It was a great companion for me during the frustrating and challenging Continue reading “The Honesty of November” →