It's impossible to see beauty when you feel ugly

​I was reading something last week and it made me feel resentful. So I read it again. And the second time through things that didn't make me feel resentful the first time suddenly added to my resentment. Then, when I was done reading, and now stewing, I found myself making up things to be resentful about that weren't even a part of what I had read.

For days, because of something I read, I resented the world. A world that was one day beautiful was now suddenly ugly. Not because the world had turned ugly; but because I had.

I eventually dealt with me. Through prayer and reflection I tamed my resentment. And just like that, I could see beauty in the world again.

I'm discovering this a lot lately. Our emotions have momentum. Being angry about one thing can make us suddenly angry about things we never would have been angry about in a million years if it wasn't for that momentum. And what I've found in me, that momentum can make me prone to wrongly blaming an ugly world for an ugly me.

When I think I can't possibly be the only one out here who battles this emotional momentum, I wonder just how collectively ugly we all see a world that might actually be quite beautiful.

I also wonder this - I wonder how much of our emotional momentum is pouring ugly into the world, making the world look and feel much uglier than it has any intention of looking and feeling. Because when our view of the world gets tainted by our emotions, we tend to collaterally damage the way those around us see the world.

It's a vicious cycle, really.

Something in OUR world makes us feel ugly.

We blame THE world for it.

We then in turn begin releasing the ugly we feel INTO the world.

Sometimes I wonder if the world doesn't want to just hit the pause button and forcefully hold up a big mirror to us all.

The world can't do that, but we can. We can hit our own pause button.

We teach our kids a trick when they are little: stop and count to ten... I'm realizing that's not a kid thing. And it's not a trick. It's actually a healthy defense.

It's actually a way for us to stop the momentum of our emotions - a way to stop and identify this is a me thing and not a world thing - it's a way for me to regain my focus on the beauty in me so I don't risk tainting the beauty in we.

Maybe today - stop and count to ten. It may help you see beauty in the world that's actually been there all along. It may help you discover - like me - it's impossible to find beauty in anything while you're creating ugly in yourself.