What stops you during your day to take a few breaths, and really look, or hear or smell something?
For me it’s been yellow roses lately, beckoning to me right before I walk down the stairs.
How often do you allow yourself to just stop when you notice something beautiful, or delicious, or touching?
My husband’s laughter or horse play with the dog heard from another room, is such a moment. The new crescent moon is another- monthly- reminder for me.
Why is it so important to stop like this?
It’s not just about feeling happier and having more gratitude. It is also training the brain to recognize more often all that is good and pleasant in our lives. Which means stopping and “smelling the roses” can become one powerful part in managing chronic pain, stress, anxiety and depression.
While we have great modern brains, developed over thousands of years, the old part of our brain is still running the show a lot of the time. Our brains still scan our environment for danger, strangeness, and difference all of our waking moments, just as it did in caveman times. That means we easily overlook that which is beautiful, peaceful, benign, and harmonious. Oops- not good. Exactly those things that would help us relax and enjoy our lives we DO NOT NOTICE.
Is it easier to see the one spot of dirt on the counter, than enjoy that the whole kitchen looks really nice? The one rotten apple on the tree? The one rust spot on the car? Do we linger over the one unpleasant encounter in a week of harmony? Do we feel fear about a twinge of pain after days of feeling better? That’s our brain’s natural tendency, developed to keep us alive (part of the limbic systems fight/flight/freeze system). But in today’s world this tendency drives us to constant activity, planning, feeling unsatisfied, deficient and judgmental. Rick Hanson has coined the phrase “the brain is teflon for good experiences and velcro for negative experiences”. He also has much good input (as do many other writers these days- see my mindfulness book recommendations) on how to train our brains toward more positivity. I have been working with this for a few years and am seeing some happy results. There is more to it than just stopping for beauty of course, but that’s a great, easy, pleasurable start.
So what moment of beauty are you stopping for these days?
Photo: Kerima Furniss