"Beauty is an ecstasy;
it is as simple as hunger."
Today Sarah shares a story about a day that we've all lived.
She had been really good about living
the Simple Abundance principles, and one of
those is to be content with window shopping
because all you have is all you need.
She was looking at a book
"crammed with pictures of things" she loved.
Start Quote
Angrily I returned it to the bookstore shelf,
furious that I couldn't afford the book
and fed up that I was not living the lifestyle
I thought I wanted.
All I had may very well have been all I needed,
but certainly wasn't all I wanted.
After several hours of churning, I stopped.
Something was going on within;
this emotional response was occurring for a reason.
I meditated on what had pushed my buttons.
Was it that I had been living too stringently on a budget?
Was I depressed about my lack of money for decorating trifles
that I could once have purchased without a thought?
Or was something deeper happening?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized
that I hadn't been paying enough attention
to my passion for beauty.
My deprivation was caused by NOT appreciating, savoring,
or celebrating the beauty that already existed in my life
- so much so that my soul had erupted into a volcano of protest.
When something calls to us on a deep enough level
to engage our emotions, our conscious attention is sought.
Beauty was calling to me, not objects.
After I realized this, I headed for a farmers' market for flowers...
When I set my lush arrangement of flowers in the living room,
my authentic craving for beauty was satisfied very inexpensively
and the wants immediately quieted down.
Don't feel you have to deny or ignore your feelings
when you want something beautiful but can't afford it.
The desire offers clues to satisfy this holy hunger.
Explore why you behold something as beautiful;
use your impressions to jump-start your imagination.
Beauty surrounds us.
It is everywhere if we search for it,
if we're open to having more of it in our lives.
End Quote
All I can say is Amen.
I went through my pictures to see
what beautiful things I could find
that I actually took the time to get a picture of.
Beauty is all around us,
you just have to be willing to see it.
Sometimes you just need someone to help you find it.
Please listen to your emotions.
"Listen to what she is saying, and respond"
Hitch
You have them for a reason.
Hitch
You have them for a reason.
***
Gratitude Journal
***
1) Robbie. So I don't ever do work on Sunday, I've tried very very hard not to since I was in high school? Maybe it was college. Anyways, today we needed laundry, like no one had clean underwear...so after the kids went down we got all the laundry together and Robbie helped! He scrubbed stains and food gunk with me for over an hour. If I had done that mountain by myself, it would have taken me all week, and then some. I'm so grateful he helped me, and now I can just put those 6 loads of laundry in the washer and dryer, respectively. Yes...that's one weeks worth of laundry. That's not including sheets and towels and things...Yes, that's more than a load a day...
2) An energy efficient washer and dryer. Can you imagine what my bill would look like if I didn't try to be good about not wasting water?
3) Church. I had the opportunity to bear my testimony during Sacrament. I'm so grateful for my testimony.
4) Family. My aunt and uncle are great. I didn't want to go home after church, because by the time I got home and got the kids out of the car I would have had to put them right back in the car and drive back to their house, which is right near the church building...where we just were...so I asked if we could come over an hour earlier, and they were like sure. It's so wonderful to see my kids playing with my cousins. I have some really great family.
5) Yard sale finds. I think I got like 10 or 12 movies yesterday for like an average of 50 cents a piece. One of them was The Women, and it is fantastic! It's a great story about living an authentic life. It was a play written by Clare Booth Luce, we talked about her when we talked about failure.
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