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. Most of the time we only catch a glimpse of how amazing things really are before we get sucked back into the monotony of our routines. We lose mindfulness.
In order to make awareness of beauty a permanent fixture in your life, you need to practice being mindful and aware.
1. Practice Listening. One of the biggest blocks to recognizing all of life’s extraordinary moments is that we often don’t stop to listen. We’re too busy talking to ourselves. If we’re thinking all the time, we’re living entirely in a world of symbols. We’re living in a world of abstractions about reality; words that describe, label, and categorize things. This can be a wonderful tool for communication, but it can also be a curse when it gets out of control.
2. Practice Non-Judgment. Have you ever noticed that when you judge other people, it immediately puts you in a negative mood? Usually, the judgments we make are because other people aren’t conforming to our version of the way we would live. Everyone’s values are different, and that’s what makes life interesting. While there are some justifiable judgments you can make, they’re still, ultimately, not worth it. Compassion is a better vehicle for change than judgment. The next time you’re about to make a judgment, try to practice compassion instead. Beauty is experienced through a state of peace, never through a state of condemnation. And yes, non-judgment also means to stop complaining.
3. Open Your Heart. Opening your heart is a matter of accepting yourself and life as it is. It’s a matter of forgiving yourself and others. It’s letting go of all your resistance to the flow of life and the flow of circumstances. If you want to take action to change something, that’s fine. But it doesn’t make any sense to resist what is already a reality. Surrender to this moment, accept things and people as they are, and your heart will begin to open.
Tips for Daily Living
What all of these things have in common is presence. The more you’re living in the present moment, the more bliss you allow to come into your life. If you’re always living in the future, always seeking something, you’re rejecting what Is – you’re never actually here to experience the miracle of life, right now.
Find beauty in the little things. It’s amazing to me how when I stop the incessant mental chatter, and actually just see things, I am blown away by how beautiful they are. The trees swaying, the leaves blowing around on the ground, the waves crashing on the shore. The simplest of things have the most profound beauty.But you can only see them if you’re really there. If your mind is brooding, if you’re off somewhere else, you’ll completely miss them.
Source: thinksimplenow.com