Beauty Against The Machine. Week 4

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to the final chapter of our Beauty Against The Machine Personal Curriculum.

I feel like a changed woman.

As I mentioned in my letter to you earlier this week,

And as old and tired as it may sound, it’s true what they say: what we focus on grows. Spending the past four weeks deliberately turning my attention towards beauty has shifted something inside me.

The changes weren’t what I expected.

I find myself becoming less reactive when I hear the words of those who profit from fear and division. Their voices simply don’t seem to penetrate me in the same way they once did.

Perhaps even more surprisingly, I feel more able to take meaningful action when I witness injustice. Whereas before I felt powerless and overwhelmed, I now feel calm, centred and better able to respond. I know how I’m being called to rise against the darkness, where to put my energy and my effort. That’s because I no longer feel as though I’m responding from a place of depletion. I’m responding from fullness. From a reality rooted in love rather than fear.

Because I’ve dedicated myself to beauty, generosity, creativity and to seeking the abundance woven through the natural world, I’ve begun to see the dominant narrative for what it is: a story designed to keep us frightened, distracted and disconnected from our own power. And once you recognise that you’ve been living inside someone else’s story, its hold over you begins to loosen.

That, more than anything, is what Beauty Against the Machine has given me.

Not the ability to ignore the darkness, but the ability to meet it without being influenced by it. If the machine feeds on fear, then beauty is how I step outside of it.

So, here we are, the final week of Beauty Against the Machine.

Refusing to become hardened.