Cultivating the “Wabi Sabi” spirit in everyday life

In the era of social media, Wabi Sabi takes on its full meaning.

This Japanese philosophy counters this world of Instagram filters, where we always try to show ourselves in our best light, rather than showing ourselves and our lives as we are, with our imperfections.

Let's discover here this concept advocating the beauty and impermanence of things and how to apply it in our daily lives for a more serene life.

What is this ?

Originally, Wabi Sabi is a philosophy that questions the nature of beauty, by associating the "wabi" (which could be translated as something like a sobriety marked by melancholic intonations) "sabi" (which relates to the effects of the passing of time).

Wabi sabi is a philosophy of happiness, a concept of aesthetics or even an art of living inspired by Zen Buddhism.

According to Leonard Koren, architect and theorist of aesthetics, “Wabi sabi is the beauty of imperfect, impermanent and incomplete things. It is the beauty of modest and humble things. It is the beauty of atypical things…”

Wabi sabi is, in a way, a simple look at reality, which involves accepting that nothing is immutable and that transformations are part of the essence of things.

How to apply Wabi Sabi in everyday life

According to the book “Wabi Sabi: the art of imperfection”, Tomás Navarro, its author, gives us advice to follow to apply this philosophy in our daily lives. And thus lighten our lives and our minds.

• Acceptance is the basis for growth

Accept yourself as you are, without shame or guilt. Analyze the areas you want to improve on and roll up your sleeves so that you can achieve this little by little, without rushing but without taking a break either.

• Just as you change, you must change your self-awareness.

Forget who you think you are. The image you have of yourself is made up of what others have said about you. Give yourself the opportunity to discover yourself and accept your imperfections in order to grow. Observe the judgments you have seen made about yourself and your personal effectiveness over time.

• Commit to yourself and to life

You won't be able to change until you face the consequences of your passivity, which requires a commitment to yourself and your goals.

• Don't judge others and don't judge yourself.

Learn to analyze, observe and understand.

When you judge yourself, you end up judging others and vice versa.

Commit to treating yourself with kindness, don't talk to yourself like you wouldn't want to be talked to.

• Make sure you live in a relaxed way

If there is tension within you, you will be more susceptible and will tend to interpret what happens to you as a threat or a provocation.

If you live in an environment that doesn't allow you to relax whenever you want, you need to relax even more. To compensate for what you can't change, at least for now.

Exercise, read, breathe, bathe, get massages, and enjoy the outdoors. Nourish your soul, your life, and your spirit just as you nourish your body. Your commitment to yourself will grow stronger based on the nourishment you give yourself.

• Choose to love yourself whenever you feel overwhelmed by a negative emotion or gripped by a feeling of insecurity.

So you will find the patience, serenity and humility necessary to step back and examine in detail what is happening.

Look at yourself kindly and be lenient with yourself. Punishing yourself will not help you, quite the contrary.

• It is better to try to understand resistance than to seek to overcome it.

Most of the trees you see would never have grown if they had sought to overcome resistance. Instead, they adapted their shape to acclimate to the north winds, escape the shade and find the light above the other trees.

• It is better to look for personal solutions rather than universal prototypes.

The situation you are in is a combination of parameters that are almost impossible to reproduce. Instead of copying universal solutions, develop your own solutions.

• Find the balance between wisdom and madness

Life is a bit like learning to cook. At first, you may prepare a dish that is bland or not salty enough. But with time and experience, you learn how much salt to put in your dishes. That's life, alternating moments of madness and wisdom to find balance.

• Analyze your perception of your skills

Maybe you are more competent than you think?

You can learn, improve and grow

And the more competent you are, the more secure you will feel.

A sense of competence is essential to developing courage and motivating you to take action.

• Don't give up being who you are to be accepted.

Control your ideal self.

Idealization has the effect of demotivating you in that it tells you that you are not okay the way you are.

This lack of acceptance causes sadness and then anxiety in you when you see that your ideal is not being realized. This representation is often illusory.

• When you are not functioning well, it is not the time to act or make decisions.

Observe your imperfection and work to unlock it

And to unlock it, there is a tandem that always proves effective: exercise and spend time in the fresh air.

And if you are stuck in indecision, put this maxim into practice: If it is not a matter of life and death, it is better not to decide.

• Remember that you are hoping that things will be in tune with your mental state.

You let your expectations guide your life. It is now important to review them in order to avoid many disappointments and unnecessary headaches.

• Intention will get you nowhere

What we need to do is transform our intuitions into actions.

Make a list of your motivations and priorities, your desires and needs, and examine whether you are meeting them. The choices you make determine how you evolve, but to grow you must have transformed your intentions and resolutions into commitments and actions.

• Meet all kinds of people

Make friends with people who live in another country, talk to people from another social class. Seek the company of different people, without judging them or judging yourself. Travel to meet people from other cultures and you will see, in addition to enriching yourself, that there is a world beyond your world. (And that you are not as weird as you think).

• You are vulnerable and that's what makes you human

You are as fragile as you are strong. Commit to repairing your scars and pain.

Don't hide them, they make you more beautiful and stronger. You are imperfect, fragile, broken but you are not ashamed of it.

• Learn to live with some degree of dissonance within and around you

You need to give yourself and others some leeway, because total consistency would paralyze you and result in you being unable to tolerate the faults of others and having difficulty relating in a positive way.

• Give yourself another chance

Stop dwelling on a failure you experienced in the past.

What's more, what you consider a failure will cease to be one if you can learn from your experience.

• Stop trying to adapt your life to the rhythm of others.

Your situation and circumstances are not theirs, and you don't have to live their life before you can start living yours. By looking too much at other people's lives, you're missing out on your own life. Set your priorities

• Examine your habits and routines

You often do meaningless things, hidden behind a habit. Like getting a coffee you don't need or checking your phone while driving. The meaning of what you do is the key that will guide your life.

Also make sure that what you do makes sense to you and not to other people.

• When you live a lie or chase a chimera, you are afraid to wake up.

Some people have gradually disconnected themselves from the world by cutting themselves off from reality. Commit to not telling yourself stories

• Observe yourself as if you were someone else.

Look at yourself from a distance by taking a step back. We see much better with hindsight. You need to understand deeply certain aspects of your mind, your emotions and your behavior and how they interact at certain times.

• Run away from social approval

Get over it and you will be freer. Someone who feels threatened by you, by something that you have, that you represent, that they lack and want to have, that they need and that you have, will attack you, distance themselves or attack your self-awareness. But you have to protect yourself and your self-awareness. Because it is not you who have a problem, it is them.

• Wabi Sabi is about respecting diversity and inclusion

Be careful not to discriminate, marginalize or point fingers.

Accept others and move closer if you want, or move away if you prefer to move away, but always with respect.

Be sure to include rather than exclude and share this attitude with those close to you.

You now have all the keys to adding zen to your life and thus worrying less on a daily basis.