Beauty in the Waiting

There are times that finding beauty is easy. I’m a nature lover - always have been, always will be - so if I want to find beauty all I have to do is go outside and look around me. Sometimes it’s birds flying, or a rabbit hopping across the lawn. Sometimes it is the wind through the trees. Sometimes it is a sunset, or sunrise if I’m lucky enough to be up that early.

Lately, I’ve challenged myself to find the beauty in the hard things. In the places where my anxiety flares. In the places, I’d rather check out from than deal with. In the places where I really, really don’t want to do the hard thing and grow as a human. It is NOT easy.

Finding beauty in the hard and expressing it as gratitude has shown me more than I’d expected. It has reconnected me to perseverance I was sure was lost somewhere along the way and has made me dig deep into a well I was sure was dry. It has shown that I have a choice to focus on what I want.

Life is often less than ideal, but we have a choice. Always. There is always a choice that we each get to make. How will I live this day? This hour? This moment? This one breath? After all, there is nothing guaranteed to us. This life is our personal responsibility. There is no one who will live it for us and no one to blame for how we choose to live it or what we choose to focus on.

So, when the train in my mind starts rolling down the rails of the tried-and-true track of anxiety that my mind has been running for years - maybe as far back as I can possibly remember in this lifetime - I stop and make a choice. I choose where to focus my attention. I find the things that are beautiful in the exact situation that I am having a current panic attack about. Is it easy? No. Does the panic stop? No, but I am training my mind that I can indeed focus on beauty even in the pain.

You can, of course, think this sounds absurd. That’s your right, but it has immensely helped in my perspective on quite a few situations and I imagine it may do the same for you. There is beauty in the waiting. There is something to be grateful for. This breath in your lungs, for example, is a good place to start. Then move to the situation that has you vexed. Find beauty there - in the love, the bittersweet of it, or even the pain because you know such deep feeling. Find the edges to be grateful for. Find the bits you can muster the strength to hold up and say this - this part is beautiful, this beauty I can express gratitude for - and watch the change it brings to your view on what is going on around you.

You are loved. Today and every single day.

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