While participating in the 14-Day Mindfulness Photo Challenge these last two weeks, I passed a recently cut down tree and noticed its fiery orange color coming from the inside. (photo below) I've never seen anything like it.
Short of knowing a lot about trees, we would never know the brilliance wrapped up inside a typical coat of brown bark. From the outside, it looked like any other tree.
This made me think about a life—a soul wrapped up inside a human body. It looks like everyone else for the most part, yet each of us has our own unique brilliance on the inside.
Life breaks us open to give us access to our inner treasure. It might be painful, but it’s worth it. We grow when we break. Even in wonderful circumstances such as a new baby being born, our hearts expand with love in a way that almost hurts. Many of us have lost someone we loved and we know how much that hurts, yet we’re stronger for it.
Like a fruit that has to be peeled to get to the goodness inside, pain and change make our layers come off one by one and our gifts are revealed more and more. Our beauty, once concealed inside (possibly even from ourselves), becomes more visible to us and to those around us.
Imagine a room full of people whose outer walls have broken and we can see one another‘s inner beauty. Authenticity and transparency are gorgeous! Please don’t hold your treasure inside. Let life open you up to an even greater way of sharing yourself with your world.
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The mindfulness photo challenge may be ending but I hope we all continue to raise our awareness to finding extraordinary beauty in ordinary life.
Cheers to a great week, noticing the gifts that matter most. Feel free to share this with a friend. Until next time...
To your gifts!
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