In recent weeks I’ve felt overcome with awe at the vibrant colours of Brisbane in summertime glory: jacarandas in full purple bloom, contrasts of green verdure in forests and gardens, and hues of blue in wide-open summer skies. Honestly, the vibrancy brings me to my knees, it’s that beautiful.
Today, once again swept up in awe, I remarked to my kids about how incredible the colours are, only to be met with a shrug. Surprised they didn’t see what I was seeing, I lifted my glasses.
Sure enough, the landscape looked a lot duller and flatter without my sunglasses on. Less vibrant. It dawned on me – I had been swept up in a joy-filled state of wonder, and it was largely due to observing life and nature through polarised glasses.
Polarised glasses or vibrancy-coloured glasses?
You see, wearing polarised lenses allows us to see the world with greater clarity of colour, clearer and with more accurate vision. Polarised lenses work by eliminating horizontally-scattered white light and only allowing vertical light to reach the eye. This enhances contrast and perception of true colours.
We’ve heard of perceiving life through rose-coloured glasses, but in fact, most of us are walking around observing life through vibrancy-coloured glasses.
It made me ponder:
What if we not only looked through vibrancy-coloured glasses, what if we lived our lives that way?
What if we did things each day that allow us to see our reality more clearly and accurately? What if we brought more vibrancy and vitality to our day-to-day lives?
Just as we may be unaware how much clearer and more vibrant things would look if we wore polarised glasses; so too, many of us are going through life unaware that simple habits can help us live with more mental clarity, vitality and vibrancy.
Practices such as mindfulness and meditation have been widely studied, with results showing that regular practice reduces stress and anxiety, regulates mood, increases self-awareness, improves memory and sleep. Like polarised lenses, meditation filters out elements that make our mind and body feel flat, instead providing more clarity, vibrancy and wellness.
Exercising regularly has similar benefits, including boosting energy-levels and increasing vitality. Spending time in nature has also been proven to reduce stress, boost mood and cognitive ability. Committing to a creative hobby also provides similar benefits. Engaging in regular laughter, spending time in a community – also provide benefits that improve mental health and clarity.
These activities are well-known and acknowledged, yet in our increasingly busy and hectic lifestyles, these simple activities are often overlooked. (I ponder whether they’re overlooked because they’re so simple, as our life increasingly becomes more complicated.)
Your invitation to the “Vibrancy-Coloured Life Challenge”
What if, just as you don your (vibrancy-coloured) sunglasses when leaving the house, you also develop a daily habit to bring more vibrancy into your life?
To help you build more vibrancy into your life, I am inviting you to take a 7-day challenge. This is how it works:
1. Pick one thing from the ‘9 Ways to Live with More Vibrancy’ image above and commit to doing it every day for one week. (Or come up with your own idea based on what you know lights you up.)
Select an activity that is so simple you can’t say no, and can be built into your daily routine. For example, you might decide to wake 15 minutes earlier to listen to a meditation track. Or maybe do some laps of the pool on the way to work (perfect for summer). Or before you go to bed, you might write down 5 things you’re grateful for. When creating new habits, keeping them simple and building them into your daily routine can help them ‘stick’.
2. Download the Vibrancy-Coloured Life 7-Day Challenge tracker. Each day, after you do the activity, mark it down on the tracker and note down any insights and reflections you have.
When you keep track of your habits, you are building awareness and accountability. Plus, the satisfaction of ticking ‘done’ feeds the reward centre in your brain.
It’s worth noting that when building new habits, sometimes you may feel challenged or uncomfortable. You may find yourself making up excuses as to why you don’t have to do the activity that day. That is normal and to be expected. Write the feelings down. Living a vibrant life almost always involves getting comfortable with discomfort and moving through it.
Once you finish taking the challenge, you may wish to extend the challenge further and see if you can build more vibrancy into your everyday life.
Did you take the Vibrancy-Coloured Life Challenge? Let me know how you went, I’d love to hear.
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Connection Compass acknowledges the Turrbal and Jagara people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work, live, and gather. We pay our respect to Elders past, present and emerging, and draw inspiration from their connection to Country, community and spirit.
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