The Poet's Gaze: Cultivating Beauty in Everyday Moments

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro/Outro Music (00:13):
Aloha and welcome to your Heart Magic, an
illuminating space wherepsychology, spirituality and
heart wisdom meet.
Here's your host, dr BethannKapansky-Wright.
Author, psychologist andspiritual educator.

Dr. BethAnne Kapansky Wri (00:33):
Aloha everybody.
This is Dr BethannKapansky-Wright and welcome to
your Heart Magic.
I was thinking today at thestart of a new week I'm making
this podcast on a Monday and soearlier this morning I was
spending a little bit of time inmy journal before the work week
began and the busyness startedto get going and I got caught up

(00:54):
in it and I was just taking alittle bit of space to
self-reflect and write someintentions and I was thinking
about how important it is thatwe continue to really focus on
training our eye to not only seethe beauty in the world but to
work on finding appreciation,finding gratitude, being fairly

(01:16):
persistent in trying to createthe story it is that we want to
write with our lives, and that'swhat I'm focusing on today in
this podcast is just someperspectives and thoughts on
those kinds of topics, and I usethe word persistent I think we
could also say relentless whenit comes to our ongoing

(01:37):
relationship with ourselves andour thoughts and our energy and
how we are taking in life andthe story that we're telling
ourselves about the world aroundus.
It's so easy for automaticthinking to creep in, it's easy
for negative thoughts to creepin.
It happens to all of us and Ithink, unless one is really

(02:01):
well-trained in mindfulness oris somehow blessed enough to
have life set up in a way thatthey have a lot of space and
they're really set aside from alot of stress, for most of us
that's not our day-to-dayreality and it's not necessarily
what reflects our lifecircumstances or how we feel
called to show up in the world.

(02:22):
I think the world itself can bevery stressful and many of us,
no matter how much we're workingwith shifting our mindset and
staying in our hearts, we havethe effects of stress.
We have the effects of lifechallenges.
We are planning to go in onedirection and life knocks us
over sideways and we have toreinvent and adapt and have a

(02:45):
thought process around thosechanges.
Sometimes they might not bewelcome.
We go through stresses thatmight impact our physical health
, our finances, our relationalhealth, our emotional health.
We go through spiritual crisesthat will sometimes awaken
something in us and shake us upand help us brush off an old

(03:06):
identity and go throughsomething that helps us step
into a deeper space ofauthenticity.
But in that transition spacethere's often a lot of challenge
and so I think, realistically,no matter how much we are trying
to stay in a higher mindset, tostay in our hearts, to stay on
the path.
It's easy for many of us to getcaught in the old default

(03:31):
cycles of stress or negativityor feeling down or stories of
lack or something like that.
And I really think that, likebuilding a muscle inside of
ourselves, we have to keepteaching ourselves to appreciate
the beauty of the world.
I think of that as developingthe poet's eye, a poet's gaze.

(03:51):
It's the whole idea ofromanticizing our lives.
And if you are writing a poemabout your day or a poem about
something you observed in nature, how might you need to slow
down and notice and payattention and focus on these
minuscule things that make amoment special or magical, or

(04:14):
observe something in that momentthat you might miss if you were
moving through it quickly?
And as a poet, I often feelthat when I'm in my poetry mind
and using my poet's gaze to seethe world is when I am most
likely to tap into beauty andappreciation and notice the
moment and really pay attentionto the words, the stories I'm

(04:38):
using.
What story do I want to tellabout this?
What wisdom am I learning fromthis?
And so, for me, poetry is sucha gift to my heart and a gift to
my life.
But you don't have to be a poetto develop the eyes of the
heart, the poet's eyes, an eyefor gratitude, appreciation and
beauty.
You just have to be open andyou have to be invested in being

(05:01):
an active storyteller of yourown life and taking time to
think about what narrative areyou creating?
What do you want to write?
What story do you want to tell?
So I actually have a poem todaythat I want to share with
everybody.
I wrote it this morning.
It's very unpublished.
I'm pulling this from the pagesof my journal and it's still a

(05:21):
little bit raw and in roughdraft form.
I would probably clean this upa little bit if I was going to
fold it into some sort ofpublication for a future date.
But the point of writing poetryisn't always to publish it or
put it in a book.
I think it's a practice that,for me, sometimes helps me take
a moment and slow down and setthe tone for my day, and I often

(05:45):
feel that some of my bestpoetry isn't super fancy, it's
not poems that would necessarilywin an award, or somebody who's
very literary would read it andsay, oh wow, look at her use of
prose and metaphor, it'smagical or something like that.
I think they're more thesereflections of life wisdom that
I try and capture in more of afragment or a prose form, these

(06:09):
shorter little reflections thattell a story and that help me
stay really connected to who doI want to be in the world?
What story do I want to tell inthe world?
How do I want to interpretwhat's going on in my
surroundings and what say do Iwant in my day, whatever's going
to happen in my day, whatenergy, what qualities, what

(06:31):
essence do I want to bring intothe day and the week ahead that
might help shape the outcome ofthat.
So I was delighted today whenthis little poem came through.
I wasn't sitting there trying towrite one, it was more like I
could hear the first words in mymind, which is something that
will sometimes happen when Ifeel called to write.
And I am busy enough right nowthat when I receive a poem like

(06:55):
that and receive thatinspiration, it feels like such
a gift.
So I want to share that giftwith you today.
So I want to share that giftwith you today, and this is
untitled.
Can you be in this goodness,recognizing that, while nothing
is ever perfect, perfection isnot the purpose, but growth and
wisdom, taking the time toappreciate what is beautiful and

(07:18):
blessed.
It takes a brave soul to noticesuch things and to keep finding
the courage to focus on thebrightness when the world is
affixed in gritty grays, and tofind the wisdom of grief, growth
and change found in life'sshadows and valleys.
It is there for the noticingthe bright and the wise when

(07:41):
your heart stays connected tothe cause of love who seeks
forgiveness and grace and trustbeyond the space.
The world has its own story totell, but so do I.
And when the rain is softlyfalling and dewy streaks, a cat
and old dog curled up at my feet, coffee and a faithful mug

(08:04):
taking the time to set the tonefor the week, I realize I am
writing my own story ofauthenticity, self-empathy and
peace.
Something that I often do is Iwill think about what qualities
do I need in my life this week?
What energy do I want to tryand create right now?

(08:26):
And no matter where life is at,no matter how stressful or not
stressful, no matter if I'mlooking forward to the week
ahead because wonderful thingsare happening or maybe I'm
gritting my teeth and I have alot going on or I'm in a place
of challenge.
It varies week to week, but Ireally like thinking about what

(08:48):
qualities do I need this week,what do I want to manifest, what
do I want to receive, and Ilike just finding key words like
forgiveness, grace, love,support, abundance.
I think for this particularpiece when I chose authenticity
for me.
That is always something that Ithink about is how can I be

(09:11):
authentic this week and how canI give myself permission to be
an authentic expression and tobe at peace with wherever I'm at
on my journey and to practiceself-determination and being a
spiritual homesteader andknowing that my choices and my
mistakes and my growth and mywisdom and my intuition those

(09:32):
are things that I could alwaysget feedback from others about
if I have questions for my path.
But I often think like, hey,that's all on me to figure out,
like, hey, that's all on me tofigure out.
It is a joyful right and aprivilege and a challenge to
have so much space and freedomto practice soul sovereignty and

(09:53):
to find out what is my path inthe middle of all of this, and I
feel like authenticity reallyplays into that, with just
trying to be my most authenticself and own myself and own my
choices and try and step forwardin a way that is honest and
true and in my integrity.

(10:13):
And then self-empathy is anotherword that I chose for this week
and the poet in me wantedsomething that kind of went with
authenticity.
But I really love the idea ofself-empathy.
I think we always want empathyfor others and I would imagine
that many who might be listeningto this are naturally empathic.
You might even identify as anempath or somebody who just

(10:36):
tries to be sensitive and awareof others.
But the idea of self-empathyhow would we speak to ourselves
as if we were a friend toourselves?
What might we say to ourselvesif ourselves said, wow, I really
blew it with this.
And we might come in and put anarm around ourself and say with
compassion and say with empathylike, hey, everybody blows it

(10:59):
in life.
It's not about that.
It's about figuring out how doyou keep going and find your way
forward.
Maybe we would just giveourselves a hug.
How would I talk to myself if Iwas being more empathic, more
friendlike, more kind, morecompassionate?
Easier to give that to othersthan it is to ourselves.
It's linked very closely withself-grace, I think, and really

(11:35):
taking time to resonate with ourown experience of self and see
it with sensitivity and kindnessand forgiveness.
The other quality that I chosefor this week in my little poem
was peace and really wanting tomove through the week with as
much peace and ease as possible,and for me, peace has moved
away from this idea that thingsneed to be peaceful on the
surface for me to feel peaceful,because I have learned that if

(11:56):
I am waiting for that, I'm goingto be waiting around a very
long time.
It just hasn't happened.
Life is too busy and there'stoo many working parts, and even
when I'm working really hard onsaying how can I make life more
peaceful, right now thingshappen.
Last week on the podcast I wastalking about our sweet old dog

(12:17):
Frodo and how he was recentlydiagnosed with diabetes, and it
has taken most of his vision ina very short amount of time
really a matter of weeks.
If that it might have just beena few days to a week is when
the worst of it happened and hewent from being fairly capable
of seeing to almost blindovernight.

(12:38):
He can still see a little bit,but it's pretty sketchy and he
runs into stuff a lot more, andthat was a curveball in life
that I couldn't see coming.
And so I find that, even when Itry and designate space and
organize everything, life ismoving of its own accord, and
that's okay, that is beautiful,it is what life does.

(13:02):
Life is not happening to us, itis happening with us and we are
moving with it and moving withthe flows.
And when we're engaged indynamic relationships and
dynamic relationships withourself and the world around us
and people in the world aroundus animals, nature, plants,
ideas, causes that we believe inwhen we have those kinds of

(13:26):
dynamics, dynamics are subjectto change, and so if I'm waiting
for things to stay stable so Ican be stable, that's not going
to happen.
We have to keep learning tofind our peace in the flow, and
that's something that I reallycrave that, no matter what's
happening, that I can come intothat space of stillness and

(13:46):
peace inside of myself and pause.
And so, even this morning,taking time to write a poem and
to follow that intuitiveinclination, I could hear the
beginning of it in my mind andfelt like, oh, I think if I put
pen to paper right now,something might come out.
And trusting that and followingthat and taking time on a busy

(14:09):
morning to have a little peaceof following my joy and
following something that bringsme bliss and finding peace in
that, finding harmony in that.
I often practice affirmationsthat might go something like I
choose to be at peace witheverything in my life that might
not feel peaceful.
I am at peace in the ebbs andflows.

(14:31):
I am at peace with the ups anddowns.
I choose to find peace and allthat feels in harmony inside of
myself and all that feels indisarray, and I find peace in
the path of bringing harmonyinto all of that.
I will play with words likethat to offer myself a different

(14:52):
story and I share all thesethoughts with you today, hoping
that maybe this helps inspireand spark something with you and
your story and how you might begoing about navigating your
week right now.
We can always work with ourthoughts, our mindset, our
hearts.
We can keep working withgratitude and developing that

(15:14):
wonderful poet's gaze to see theworld through a lens of color
and magic and taking time toappreciate the miracles
happening in nature that mightbe happening in a moment of life
.
We can work with gratitude andmake a little list that it is
those tiny things.
I think.

(15:35):
I use the phrase coffee in afaithful mug.
My coffee today was in a mugthat we've had around forever.
I think my husband brought itwith him from Oregon years ago
when he first moved to Alaska,when we were first getting
together and living together,and I thought, wow, this mug has
been through so many moves andso many incarnations of who we

(15:57):
are and just taking time toappreciate that and to
appreciate that story and toappreciate the rainfall, there's
always gratitude to be found.
So there's many entry pointsthat we can use to drop in and
we can just focus on one smallthing and say this week it's
going to be gratitude, or thisweek it's going to be the poet's
eye, or this week it is goingto be writing out the qualities

(16:21):
that I want to manifest and seedinto the week ahead of me.
I want to lay the energeticgridwork for and hope to
cultivate in my life.
There's always something we cando.
You can do all of the above,but something that shifts our
focus and shifts our hearts andmoves us out of that space of
falling into the stream ofbusyness or stress.
Falling into the stream ofbusyness or stress.

(16:43):
I sometimes think of that asthe default mode, like the
factory setting, where we mighthave this composition inside of
ourselves of messages or oldways of seeing things, or things
that we've been taught negativeways of thinking about
something and it doesn't reallywork for us anymore.
Right, I think just the worldon a daily basis doesn't always

(17:06):
give a message of beingencouraged and finding the
positive and adhering tospiritual, heart-based
principles.
It's just so easy to fall into aspace where we focus more on
mental chatter and stressfulmental chatter, chatter and

(17:28):
stressful mental chatter, and sowe have to keep building ways
to come back into whatever it isthat we want to create instead
and train ourselves to do it andpractice it, and that can be
joyful work and wonderful work,and sometimes you might find
that as you're doing that work,that you are gifted with a poem
or a moment that really stopsand makes you appreciate and
find the sacred magic in theeveryday.

(17:50):
Thank you so much for joining meon the podcast today.
I am so grateful for yourpresence and for the listeners.
And, while I'm thinking aboutit, if you feel called to leave
a review on your favoritepodcast platform, a positive one
, and to say a few words oranything that this podcast stirs

(18:11):
in you.
That's always so helpful forhelp keeping it relevant and
helping others find this spaceas well, and I hope everybody
has an amazing week.
I will be back next week withan all new episode and, as
always, be well, be love, be youand be magic.

Intro/Outro Music (18:33):
You've been listening to your Heart Magic
with Dr Bethann Kapansky-Wright.
Tune in next week for a newepisode to support and empower
your light.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Cardiac Cowboys

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Poet's Gaze: Cultivating Beauty in Everyday Moments

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Crime Junkie

Cardiac Cowboys

All Episodes

The Poet's Gaze: Cultivating Beauty in Everyday Moments

On Purpose with Jay Shetty