Imagine life as a jar you want to fill with fruits. I’d guess that the number one fruit you’d want to drop in that jar would be berries of happiness.
It often takes a long time—a lifetime, sometimes—to try and fill that jar. The desire to keep filling it doesn’t stop. And a lot of life’s energy is spent trying to find and pick those fruits, again and again. We often walk several miles to pick a couple of berries, or sometimes, to realize that there are no berry bushes along the trail we’ve been walking on for hours.
We’re humans, after all.
What if there was an easier and more efficient way to pluck and relish those berries? What if the berry bush was always beside you, at each moment of your hike along the trail of life?
“This moment.” Those are two precious and powerful words. They’re part of a sentence that has transformed my life in ways I never expected: I’m finding beauty in this moment.
Beauty, according to my definition, is anything that brings joy, peace, growth or nourishment in life.
Often, finding happiness gets postponed to later:
- “I’ll relax on the weekend.”
- “I’ll do some meditation tomorrow. I feel really tired today.”
- “I have a lot of passions to explore, so I’m looking forward to retirement.”
It’s reasonable to postpone or skip things sometimes. However, if you look at this from a wider perspective, if you’re not finding beauty now, then when? Later? Several moments (or minutes, days or years) will go by, and “later” will be “now.” If “now” is ignored, how often will “later” keep getting pushed forward, always eluding you?
In this moment, how you behave will alter what you crave. And if you’re able to fill your jar with the beauty you find in the moment, you may not have to walk so far for so long.
How mindful beauty helps me
Every time I find and pluck those berries of happiness, this brings beauty to my life. Over time, the jar keeps filling up way faster than I anticipated when I first got started with this mindfulness practice.
Two of the most significant ways in which the practice has helped me include:
Increased levels, sources and frequency of happiness
Paying mindful attention to what’s around me has boosted each of those three aspects of happiness. There have been moments when I found myself crying because of the overwhelming amount of happiness I felt while partaking in seemingly simple experiences.
For instance, it was a sunny June afternoon, and I was on a hike in Washington, along the Columbia River. I saw a Camellia tree basking in the summer sunshine, with butterflies dancing beside it. The smell of the flowers, the sight of butterflies buzzing around, the soft warm sunlight, the leaves blowing in the breeze, the sound of the river flowing by—it all added up to a point at which I had tears dripping down my face. I said out loud, “This is too much. I don’t know how to handle so much joy!”
I could’ve taken a photo of the tree and kept moving past it. That was what I did when I noticed beautiful things on most of my earlier hikes. But why should I miss out on an amazing gift that’s inches away from me, by getting out my phone?
When I thought about it later, I realized this was one source of happiness berries, and there are countless other places and experiences from which I can harvest those fruits. The key starting point is paying attention to what’s beside me.
Enhanced clarity and efficiency about goals
I’ve stopped running after things: goals, passions, “I-want-this” lists, and so on. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean my entire life is blissful because I found joy in the act of seeing a squirrel dancing in the front yard, and now I don’t need to do anything else.
I’m not discarding my desires and responsibilities. They absolutely matter a lot to me, and I will get things done. But the key word here is “running.” I’ll work on achieving my goals, but I won’t be running like crazy after them. Why? I know I have enough already.
When you have $100,000 in your bank account, you probably won’t work on weekends just to add a couple hundred more to it. You may still continue to work on weekdays, but you’ll do it with a sense of ease, confidence and clarity, knowing that your jar of fulfillment is filling up at an amazingly high rate—one that you’ll feel grateful for.
Aside from gratitude, I now have an extra amount of energy that otherwise would’ve been spent on running after stuff. I’ll save that energy and use it for other purposes (some of which might include developing a better plan to achieve those “big” goals, rather than tirelessly running after them).
Finding beauty in a grocery store
This mindfulness practice may seem like some complex ritual that requires you to sit down, close the curtains and take deep breaths, five times a day for 10 minutes each time. Those are great things to do, no doubt, but mindfully appreciating beauty doesn’t require all that. A simple starting point is paying mindful attention to your surroundings. The rest of the magic builds up with practice.
Here’s one example of when I found beauty in what otherwise might have seemed like a chore, and as a follow-up, how I used the energy from that experience to fulfill my “big” goals:
I was shopping at a grocery store, and one of the first things I bought was green leaf lettuce. As I was picking it up and putting it in a bag, my fingers pressed on a leaf. I paused.
I looked at my fingers, hands and arms and felt a stream of awe drifting into my mind. I thought about how many soft petals my lovely fingers have touched, how faithfully my hands have helped me hold things and how many challenging items my arms have lifted (not just bags of lettuce!).
The list went on, leading me to a point at which I couldn’t help rising in grateful love with my body and mind. What joyous gifts I’ve been bestowed with!
I moved on, buying a few other things before stopping at the fruits aisle. I picked up a nectarine and was trying to see if it was ripe enough. As I was looking at it, I noticed its orange and red colours intertwining. I was curious how that happened: What determines how much red there is and how much orange? Does red indicate ripeness?
I had no answer to those questions, so I did what I usually do in these situations: make a note on my phone to read more about it later. I moved on to the next aisle, feeling good about continuing to cultivate a growth-oriented mindset.
Soon after that, I wrapped up the purchases and was waiting in the self-service checkout line. It was a long line, and I felt a bit annoyed about it. That’s when I got a notification that a package was just delivered to my doorstep. I felt worried about it: What if someone picked it up from the porch? It was going to be an hour before I’d get home.
Worry and annoyance started dancing in my mind as I waited. A few minutes passed before I realized that all I could do was turn on the security camera by using my phone and hope for the best. And regarding the long line? Not much to be done, aside from being patient. That mindful pause and acceptance of the situation brought me back into the present moment by easing my mind, pushing aside worry and letting in peace.
When I reached home, the package was on the porch (great!). As I was placing food in the fridge, I felt a sense of confidence and ease. Once I was done with the grocery stuff, I opened my laptop and started writing a plan for self-publishing my book about gratitude.
Why did I come up with that plan? Because I felt enriched by the mindful experiences I had in the grocery store. They reminded me that I have a strong and healthy foundation within myself, and that strengthened my confidence and my desire to achieve a goal.
5 steps to getting started with the practice
Here are five simple and powerful steps to get you started with this mindfulness practice. It may seem overwhelming, but once you get started with the theme of mindfulness, it’ll eventually become a part of your personality and you won’t have to think about which of the five steps you’re on. Your mind will automatically do it for you, whether you’re in a grocery store or watching television at home.
It’s like drinking water when you’re thirsty: You don’t have to ask yourself a dozen times if you should drink it. Your body and mind just go for it when they want or need it.
Make an affirmation
Decide when you’ll start the practice, and then speak this affirmation out loud: “I’ll pay attention to whatever interests me. I’m excited and eager to indulge in this wellness practice. I’ll make time for it.”
Pick an experience
Look around you. Pick something that’s interesting—it can be your attractive couch, a bird chirping outside or the taste of the food you’re eating—and spend a few seconds observing it with curiosity.
Indulge in the experience
Spend a few seconds (or minutes) being part of that experience. If it’s a bird chirping, give all your attention to what’s going on: how its body moves, what it sounds like, what kind of bird it is, what colour it is and so on.
Review your thoughts and feelings
Next, spend a few seconds (or minutes) reflecting on the thoughts and feelings that came to your mind about the experience. Maybe you wanted to learn more about birds, or you felt like laughing while seeing the bird jumping around on the branch, or you felt rejuvenated due to observing something new.
Express your feelings out loud
Expressing how the experience made you feel will have an upward spiral-based effect: The more feelings you express, especially out loud, the more motivated you’ll feel to find more of these moments. As you find more and more mindful moments to appreciate, you’ll keep on up-levelling your well-being.
Here’s an example of an expression of feelings: “Watching that pigeon dancing around the maple tree really made me laugh out loud. It was fun to watch its wings open and close so many times. I never thought such a seemingly simple experience would make me so happy.”
Daily affirmations to repeat
In addition to the five-step practice above, as you move on with your day, here are a couple of affirmations you can repeat several times to keep you motivated and inspired. You can set a reminder on your phone about them if you think you might forget.
“I will fill the jar of my life with beautiful opportunities that each moment gives me. I won’t ignore the gifts residing in the hammock of this moment.”
“I will cultivate gratitude for the beauty I find in small moments. Every instance of beauty is a petal that lovingly kisses the jar of my life before floating into it.”
A life-boosting gift
As of now, I’ve been engaging in this mindfulness practice for three or four months, and every day, I feel the emotional and physical benefits of the practice. It’s an upward spiral: Practice leads to benefits, benefits lead to motivation to continue the practice, motivation leads to more benefits, more benefits lead to more practice, and on and on and on.
I hope you’re also able to boost your life with this gift.
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images: Depositphotos
