Finding Beauty in the Everyday

I want to tell you about a prayer plant.

I ordered it online during one of the darkest periods of my life. I didn't know what it was called when I bought it — I just knew I needed something living near me. Something green. Something that was also, in its own quiet way, still here.

When it arrived and I looked up its name — prayer plant — I sat with that for a long time.

How fitting.

The attic

After my oophorectomy — a surgery that should have taken 45 minutes but took five hours — I developed sepsis. Then necrotising fasciitis. Then liver failure.

I came very close to not being here.

When I came home, I lived in the attic of my terraced house. It had been my yoga studio before Covid. After Covid, a roll-top bath had been fitted, an accessible toilet, a comfortable bed tucked under the eaves. No windows — just a dormer through which I could see the sky. The clouds. The changing light.

My days were filled with pain.

I had two large open wounds — one above and one below my belly button. The very core of my body. The place where so much of my story had already been written.

Strong painkillers. Strong medication. The kind of exhaustion where washing my face and brushing my teeth was the day's only task — and it was enough to send me back to bed.

What got me through

I want to be honest about this, because I think it matters.

It wasn't affirmations. It wasn't gratitude lists. It wasn't the kind of positivity the wellness industry sells.

It was small, specific, real things.

Fresh sheets. The feeling of clean cotton when everything else felt beyond my control.

Books of true stories — usually about childhoods far harder than mine. As sad as that might sound, those stories got me through the pain. They had it worse than me. Not a competition — just a perspective. A quiet reminder that humans survive extraordinary things.

Plants. I invested in a lot of plants during that time. The prayer plant was just one of them. But it became the one. I watched it open its leaves in the morning and fold them at night — praying, in its own way, alongside me.

Incense and candles. The smell of something beautiful when the body couldn't offer much beauty of its own.

The sound of footsteps on the attic stairs. Every evening, my partner Ian would come home from work. I would hear his footsteps on the stairs. And then — Bonnie and Heidi. My dogs. Bonnie has since passed, and I feel her absence every day. But in that attic, the sound of those eight paws on the stairs was the most beautiful sound in the world.

These were not grand gestures. They were not spiritual breakthroughs.

They were just moments. Small, ordinary, irreplaceable moments that reminded me — quietly, persistently — that I was still here.

What this taught me about beauty

I used to think beauty was something you went looking for. Something in galleries and sunsets and peak experiences.

I don't think that anymore.

I think beauty is what remains when everything else has been stripped away. The morning light through a dormer window. The sound of someone who loves you coming home. A plant that folds its leaves at night like it's saying a prayer.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine there is a concept called Shen — the spirit that lives in the heart and expresses itself through our capacity for joy, connection and presence. When Shen is nourished, we can find meaning in small things. When it is depleted — by pain, by illness, by grief — everything flattens.

Recovering my Shen happened one small beautiful thing at a time.

Six places to look for beauty today

You don't need to be recovering from surgery to need this practice. In fact the more ordinary your day, the more important it becomes.

☀️ The morning light — how does it filter through your window right now? Let it remind you that you are here. That this day is new. That warmth exists.

🌬️ The rhythm of your breath — pause for just a moment and notice it. The inhale. The exhale. The quiet miracle of a body that keeps going even when you've forgotten to thank it.

🌿 Something living — a plant, a bird outside the window, a dog asleep in a patch of sun. Life, quietly continuing alongside yours.

🌧️ Nature's details — the sound of rain on a window. The curve of a leaf. The smell of outside air. These things don't ask anything of you. They just are.

💜 Your own strength — take a moment to acknowledge what your body and mind have already carried you through. Not to perform gratitude. Just to recognise it.

🤝 A moment of connection — a smile from a stranger, a message from a friend, a dog's footsteps on the stairs. The moments that remind you that you are not alone in this.

Beauty is not the absence of pain.

It is what you find inside it.

And it is always, always there — if you look in small enough places.

🌙 She Thrives™ — the Womb Wisdom Reflection tool is a beautiful space to record the small beautiful things:
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Suzanne J Lawson is a holistic wellness practitioner, TCM-informed yoga therapist, reflexologist, reiki master and published author. Find free yoga and meditation practices on YouTube at youtube.com/@wellnesstowomb 🌿