I have been dancing with beauty for several years now. When I first fell in love with photography I started noticing beauty wherever I went, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

For me noticing beauty, chasing beauty, and being chased by beauty are the things that make my heart dance. When I’m truly in the zone of experiencing beauty everything else drops away—time, pain, other people, even my inner chatter.

I find beauty in shapes, light, color, texture, and unexpected places.

We are here for the dance

Finding and doing that thing that makes your heart dance (like seeing beauty) brings wholeness and joy. That special “thing” is going to be different for each of us because we are all different. But there are some common characteristics of the things that bring us joy:

Challenge

But not too much challenge. If an activity is too easy, we get bored and walk away. If it is too difficult, we often get frustrated and leave. One of the reasons I love photography is that there is always something more to learn. While I can make images that I enjoy, there is always more beauty to see, more images to make to share that beauty.

“Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act.” ― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Totally present Without Strong Concern for Outcome

Being fully present and focused on what you are doing without a concern about outcome is essential. It opens the window to joy and play.

“…one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one’s own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one’s knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one’s attention.”
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology Of Engagement With Everyday Life

A Sense of Play

Letting go of our inner censor helps move into the flow zone. Too much judgment too early kills creation and learning. Recently when I went to my first watercolor painting class and discovered that it was not the beginning painting class I expected, I had to keep reminding myself that I was there to have fun, whatever I created was OK. Approaching it as play helped me to relax and enjoy the activity.