The last blog post in this series.
Wow, what a ride.
I genuinely hope this helps someone.
Anyway, moving on...
You probably thought (at least once in your life) that beauty was just your physical appearance—how acceptable you looked to society.
It's not.
Beauty isn't about your physical appearance or your genes—
It's about the way you carry yourself.
The aura you exude based on how you interpret the world.
That aura, that glow, enters other people's eyes and shows them beauty.
"You are not an image, you are an experience."
This misconception that beauty is in your physical appearance is like the extramission theory, which claimed that vision occurred because our eyes emitted invisible rays of light, or a special kind of optical energy, that would then interact with objects to allow us to see them.
Haytham proved that theory wrong, stating that light entered our eyes and our mind simply interpreted it.
But for beauty, it's different.
It's a mix.
We do emit an aura, a glow, that makes us see things differently.
That aura, that glow, comes from building your life and knowing yourself; from how you interpret your world.
By knowing oneself, one can actually shed light on what others are going through as well.
Collective consciousness.
Emitting an aura that is interpreted by others and speaks to their soul due to the collective consciousness
Understanding human nature is essential, and what better subject to study than yourself?
You have full access to yourself.
"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man."
— An Essay on Man, Epistle II (by Alexander Pope)
By knowing oneself, one knows everything there is to know about mankind.
And that level of intimacy with not just the self, but others, is what makes people beautiful.
Beauty doesn't stem from genes.
It stems from your soul.
Your very essence.
Your physical reality is a manifestation of your abstract one.
But that doesn't mean that your abstract one has to be spotless, perfect, free of flaws.
It just has to be real.
If anything, the flaws in your 'garden of life' are what make it more beautiful.
Whether those flaws are pests, disease, weather damage, whatever.
They show the journey of your garden.
That it is alive enough to have flaws.
That it is alive and transforming.
Afterall, those flaws are a part of nature.
Nature living in its rawest form.
The way you cope with this, the way you live on because of this—
That's what beauty is.
I don't like the word 'despite' because it makes something that's a part of your journey seem like it was a hindrance, an obstacle that shouldn't have been there.
Or that those hindrances and obstacles had no effect.
I disagree with that.
I believe that no matter what difficulties you've gone through in your life, where you've gotten to today is always because of those obstacles, those hindrances.
Those hindrances did have an effect.
It's like saying, "I faced fertility issues for my garden, but I didn’t let them affect me, so I grew many flowers."
Instead of saying, "I've grown many flowers in my garden because the fertility issues I faced later provided a contrast that showed me the beauty of those flowers. They made me more determined to grow them."
See the difference?
I guess my main point is this: don't invalidate the messy bits of your journey.
Don't treat them as obstacles, as problems that need fixing.
Treat them as challenges to the mind that keep it fresh, that test the soul and its values and endurance.
Treat them as the most important parts of your journey, because pain ultimately shapes you in truly profound ways.
Trauma wouldn't be as effective as it clearly is if pain weren't a significant part of a person's journey.
Pain is related to beauty.
It always will be.
Because beauty is in transformation.
And transformation, in every sense, is messy and painful.
Shedding skin.
Growing wings.
Life is art.
It is creating your own galaxy.
Embrace it, the chaotic beauty.
Splatter your canvas with random colors.
Try different painting techniques.
Let it be messy.
Figure out which one speaks to you.
I think the hardest part is realizing that you still have to add to the canvas of your life.
But just because you were mistaken about the canvas of your life does not mean that the love was fake.
It was real.
And it was necessary for the next step.
To continue the masterpiece.
Beauty is in the way one builds their life, paints, and continues painting their masterpiece.
It is in how they choose to live it.
I won't be so bold as to say that there are ugly lives out there, because that's a blatant lie.
Every life is beautiful; our beings are capsules of our personal universes.
But what really makes life beautiful is embracing it in its truest essence and choosing to build yours with everything you have, even your messy bits.
That's how you start creating inner and outer harmony.
By accepting, embracing the messy bits in both.
Your inner and outer selves are interlinked.
You cannot destroy or neglect one without destroying or neglecting the other.
You must align them, care for them both.
However, as always, change begins within the self, from thought, which buds into intention before blossoming into action, into tangible evidence.
Beauty is in the way your aura glows.
(And, for the love of God, I do not mean the Gen Alpha slang/crap going around nowadays.)
You can either choose to replenish, take care of, enhance your aura.
Or you could choose to do the exact opposite.
The choice is ultimately yours.
And no one else can make it for you.
Now, I'm spiritual. So I'm saying this particularly for those folks who believe in God:
"Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves."
— Qur'an (13:11)
So you see, nobody can save you but you.
Others can help, for sure.
But life is like a test.
You remember answers given to you before you were born, slowly and gradually.
Life is a test you studied for but forgot all the answers to as soon as you opened the first page.
But this test is a privilege.
It is beautiful.
It isn't like a school test.
The test is how you choose to paint the canvas of your life.
Even when someone splatters something 'nasty' onto your painting.
And it wouldn't really be your life if others were painting it, would it?
They can give you advice.
They can be there for you when you need them.
They can provide you with the right colors and the right brushes.
But it's up to you to do what you want with the painting of your life.
I remember reading a metaphor in 'The Forty Rules of Love' that described destiny as a musical instrument God has given us.
But it's up to us how well or badly we play it.
And others can't really play our instrument for us.
Nor can they give the precise advice needed.
Because they weren't given the specific instrument we were given for their destiny.
They have their own.
They might even try to mess up the music of your life.
But there's only so much they can do.
In the end, the way you spend your time and energy will determine the beauty of the canvas of your life.
What you invest that time and energy into will determine the beauty of the canvas of your life.
So, ask yourself:
How am I using and where am I investing my time and energy?
Answering this question is the first step to start mindfully painting the canvas of your life.
Remember, the only thing you can control is your response to things.
How will you respond to this question?
And how will you use the answer to this question to respond to the different aspects of your life?
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