“There is Beauty All Around Us—If We Look Close”

Even in the most desolate of locations there is beauty. Beauty is all around us if we are willing to get down on our hands and knees and see what Mother Nature has to offer. And many times it’s just our perspective that changes everything. And perspective has to do with a lot more than just seeing the beauty in nature.

Take for instance looking at a pile of rotting vegetation, it’s normally it’s something that we recoil from. But if we are willing to look close, by getting down on our hands and knees, we see a whole new world that brings us to understand that beauty is all around us. Once there was a man who decided to try out his friends gym and so they went together one morning at 6AM. And as they were driving back there was a little canal they came across and one of the men said, “What a beautiful reflection of the morning sun on the canal”, and the other man remarked “Boy their’s a lot of trash on the side of the road”. Both were looking in the same direction but both noticed something totally different, because of their inner perspective was different.

And this also translates into being able to see our own beauty when we look in the mirror. Many people are not able to look in the mirror and say, “You are Beautiful” or “You are Handsome” and not in a narcissistic way, but from a perspective of loving the one we see in the mirror with a sense of peace and contentment. Thus how can we see beauty if we can’t see the light of love that exudes from the one we see in the mirror?

A few years ago in Taos New Mexico on a large Indian reservation there was a little old Native American woman who lived in a simple one room adobe hut. Her face was weathered and very wrinkled, and she was cooking indian fry bread on a battered old camp stove. But even though she had lots of wrinkles there was a smile on her face and she exuded a feeling of love, and she asked everyone to have some of her fry bread, she had little but she was willing to share whatever she had. The hut was very rustic, there was just one bare light bulb handing down from the ceiling, and the floor was made of rough sawn wood planks. Later one of the people in the groups said, “What a wrinkled old lady” and another said, “What a beautiful kind gentle woman”, it goes to show that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Then there was an old lady in her 90’s and she was very nice and kept to herself. But on the average never strayed too far from home, perhaps going to the grocery store once a week or to the pharmacy two or three times a month. And her and her husband lived not far from a beautiful national park with running streams and tall pine trees and lots of fresh air. But she would never venture out of her home to go hiking or walking in the park… even when she was young. But her husband loved walking and hiking up and down the hills and following the trails and streams all over the park. And he would take photographs of all the beautiful sunsets and the running streams. And he was even able to capture bears, porcupine and deer in photographs once in a while. But his wife was always uneasy, and unhappy inside and didn’t feel at peace. And it was very easy to tell that she wasn’t happy with herself. In fact she would make discouraging remarks about herself and put herself down on a regular basis. After a while it became pretty self evident that she didn’t love herself, and because of that she really had a hard time seeing all the beauty around her.

So if we are to find beauty out there, it’s important to find our own beauty within, to allow ourselves to smile, and care for ourselves like a great painting which is priceless. For no one can crawl under our skin and help us find our beauty. It’s all an inside job, something we have to learn as a small child or later in life as we grow and heal old wounds. Perhaps that’s what life is all about, learning to love the one we see in the mirror.

Many Blessings to Everyone!

Dr. Paul Haider