Beauty as Wellness & Joy
This stained glass sun catcher my mom made helps me appreciate beauty and inspires me each day!
As part of my journey to joy, I have done a lot of self-reflection and learning. One of the important steps to learning more about yourself is understanding your strengths. Throughout my work career, I’ve completed several assessments including Gallup StrengthsFinder, DiSC personality assessment, and others. As part of my positive psychology studies, I learned about character strengths. Character strengths are slightly different from how we’d think of our strengths at work in that these strengths are what help us flourish across every aspect of our lives and at each stage of life. We rely on our character strengths at every age to achieve goals, remain resilient, deepen relationships, and feel like our true selves. Knowing and understanding our strengths helps us flourish in life.
To determine my character strengths, I took the free VIA Assessment. VIA stands for “values in action” and is the only scientific validated strengths assessment. After taking time to complete the assessment (it’s 120 questions), I was surprised with my results. Prior assessments had called out consistent themes like how I am strategic or hard-working, but this one was different. My primary strength was “Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence”. At first, I was disappointed. It sounds so superficial. Then, as I learned more, I began to understand its importance.
Appreciation of beauty and excellence isn’t admiring movie stars or million dollar homes. It is an awareness of what is good and admirable in the world which leads to an overwhelming sense of awe in the presence of beauty and greatness. This beauty can be in nature, or art, or music, or mathematics, or science. It can also be in basic, everyday experiences.
For example, one of the things I do on a daily basis is call out how beautiful something is. I will notice the colorful sunrise, the flowers peaking out in the Spring, the green grass after a rainfall, the sun shining through after a cloudy day, and the peaceful noise of an owl in the background. It is an awareness of these small things that creates big joy.
After my initial thought that “appreciation of beauty and greatness” felt less of a strength and more of a distraction, I began to notice it in more and more places where others were experiencing the same thing. In art museums and community art projects. When attending work meetings and training with experts and leaders who are inspiring new ways of thinking. Listening to old records and being blown away by the talent. Sporting events, concerts, and holiday gatherings. Each time, the collective feeling was energizing and inspiring.
With my new awareness and understanding of this strength, I still didn’t make a connection to how it could enhance overall wellness until I saw a “Beauty as Wellness” headline called out by a celebrity turned wellness company CEO. She said “beauty can be wellness, and taking time to invest in yourself - whatever that may look like - is a worthy endeavor, one that will pay untold dividends”. Taking time to invest in ourselves is taking this strength to the next level. Because if we can be awe-inspired by the beauty around us, we can be just as awe-inspired by the beauty within us.
Each day I try to embrace the beauty within me, around me, and in others. Recognizing that beauty IS wellness & joy.
Micki Schaffer
PS - I’m constantly in awe of my mom who is an artist and has created so many beautiful things with her talent. She made this stained glass suncatcher of my MŌR JOY logo that shines bright in my office window each day. Thanks Mom!
