It’s just past mid February and I’m finally coming up for air from an incredible season of busyness. I don’t know if it will continue, but I’ve just begun 2 weeks of disconnected resting that will hopefully be there reset that I need. The reset that brings me back aligned to a value I hold - that my worth is not tied to my production.
This month, my focus in my year of “-scopic” is Broken Pieces. Sometimes, the colorful reflections from a Kaleidoscope are created from broken pieces of colorful glass. I’ve been focusing in my journaling on my “broken pieces” and finding the beauty in them.
Rather than describe the 17 I’ve identified so far, I want to describe the process: the process of finding beauty.
To behold beauty is to observe with intention. To see something as it is, and then to look more closely with curiosity. Sunsets are beautiful, and when we get curious about the layers of the interplay of colors, it becomes magnificent. Flowers are beautiful, and when examined up close can become marvels of growth, insect habitat, and water collectors.
I know my own brokenness - my hurts, my stories that I believe about myself, my thrashing of myself when I hurt someone or I fail to meet a need. And when I look at those broken pieces with love, curiosity, and hope they become beautiful. It’s beautiful because it is part of me and part of every human on this planet. The brokenness is beautiful because it isn’t simple, and most often it isn’t what you first see. It requires closer examination - not with judgement, but with wonder.
You all are beautiful, my friends. Every bit of you, the broken bits and the otherwise. All of it is what makes you you.
I hope you find your own beauty today - the beauty within and the beauty without.
My father (Bo Ying Wat, professor of pathology/mentor to your FIL, BIL etc) would have been 100 this week. His career was looking thru a MICROscope looking for cancer cells. One of his favorite words was Retrospectoscope. He used this instrument as a way of looking back at lessons learned, and as a way of moving forward. I am enjoying your posts.
So true -- It's sad that loving and accepting ourselves is such a long, laborious process! Keep up the good work!