I woke up the other morning and saw two canker sores forming on my bottom lip. I was sick all of last week and I viewed these canker sores as the outer evidence of the final stages my body was going through to fight whatever virus it was fighting. Besides for being a bit painful, these canker sores are not a pleasant sight. I applied a medicated cream to help numb the pain while these sores took their necessary time to heal.
As you might know from your own personal experience, while going through this process of healing, these sores do not look pretty. My children anxiously pointed out to me how the sores on my lip looked terrible and were certainly getting worse. I insisted they were getting better as previous experience with canker sores had taught me. I was quite focused on these sores and checked on how they were healing multiple times throughout the day.
Yesterday morning I did the same, although for some reason I chose to step back from the mirror and take a good look at my lips instead of just the sores. In my retrieving I noticed how beautiful my lips are. In my hyper-focusing on these canker sores, I realized I had forgotten about the rest of my lips, or my whole face, for that matter.
So often we tend to zoom in on what is wrong or imperfect. When we do this we magnify that ‘imperfection’ to the point where it overwhelms the lenses through which we are viewing everything around us. This thing that is wrong, this ‘imperfection’, gets blown up to the point where it is the only thing we can see. It is this zeroing in on what’s wrong that leads us to feel bad about ourselves or our given situation(s).
What if we zoomed out, though? What if we moved our focus away from what we see as imperfect, wrong, or bad and widened our scope? If we did this more often, we would likely realize that this imperfection is only a very small slice or piece of the bigger more ‘perfect’ and beautiful picture. This thing that we see as wrong or imperfect is only a tiny blip on the bigger, awesome and beautiful screen of life.
When I zoom out in this way, I find that not only do I have nice lips, I also notice how wonderful my husband is; what incredible, unique human beings my children are; how lucky I am to be living, and to be doing what I love; and how beautiful and perfect the world really is. I am full of gratitude looking at my life in this way, and as a result feel blessed and happy.
How about you?
What do you tend to focus on?
Does your eye tend to veer toward what you notice is wrong or not good either in yourself, in others, or in your surroundings?
If so, what if you stopped and ‘zoomed out’ and away from this ‘wrong’ that you are focusing on? What comes into your ‘frame’ then? What do you see?
What are you now grateful for?
…
In support, admiration, and in awe of all that you are,
Leave a Reply