Touching Beauty
Balm for the sensitive soul
Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.
Bipolar depression seeps in like molasses. The world starts feeling hopeless, colors become less vibrant, interactions are way more effortful, fatigue starts to veil every aspect of life. Slowly, over a few days.
One intrusive thought of, “What’s the point of all this anyway?”
And then the dark follow-up, “What’s the point of me?”
< red flag >
And at that moment, I recognized it for what it was: bipolar depression talking at me, tugging at me, getting louder, trying to lure me in the way it had in the past.
But this time, I knew what I had to do: Get quiet and tune in to my own spirit. Not my bipolar brain, but my soul.
And so I got quiet enough to ask myself what I really needed, deep down.
And in that introspective silence, the answer whispered from a faraway corner, surprising me in its simplicity: Beauty.
Full stop.
Not productivity.
Not achievement.
Not more money.
Not even connection.
My heart whispered again, beauty.
It was undeniably clear.
Art, poetry, music, film, nature … the things I’d been treating as rewards only for after I “earned” them (which I rarely ever did).
And I knew what I needed to do: Touch beauty every day.
Listen to Coltrane and do nothing else. Just listening.
Notice how the morning light catches my cat’s soulful eyes. And just appreciate that.
Look up at the sky and relish the miraculousness of planet Earth.
Read Audre Lorde poetry that moves me deep in my bones.
Stare at a Waterhouse painting and breathe in the softness.
Read that post that you wrote that cracks something open in me.
It doesn’t really matter what form the beauty takes … it’s the deliberate act of touching it, daily.
That conscious choice to let something beautiful and soft enter my soul and affect me. To witness my own response to beauty and honor it as important … no, as essential … for my mental health.
As important as eating, as necessary as sleeping, as expected as showering, as non-negotiable as breathing.
And that shift, of simply honoring what my soul was actually aching for, has made all the difference.
When I started touching beauty every day, the bipolar downward spiral lost its momentum. Beauty reminds me there are things worth feeling, enjoying, living, experiencing through the senses … resonances between me and the world, between the living and life.
Beauty is soul nourishment.
"Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life."
- Picasso
This is very beautiful.
I am so glad that you were able to see past your “diagnosis” and not let it define the person that you are. That is a wonderful mindset to have. There is beauty in so much. I don’t think that you just started seeing beauty only. I think you started feeling grateful for the wonderful things that are out there instead of focusing on your internal struggles.
That is a very difficult thing for a person to do.
I am proud of you for doing it!
Such beautiful sensitivity in your post thank you. Beauty for me right now is the bright yellow nodding heads of the daffodils and the jewel colours of the primroses brightening up the dreary grey winter days.
I am also finding beauty in writing, reading and engaging with so many sensitive souls in this platform.