call it by its name

I am lucky enough to currently live in a home with the most beautiful backyard. Sitting outside on the terrace, or even at my worktable looking through the window, feels like being enveloped in a tight embrace with nature. Long stretch of trees, butterflies, bees, the most radiant flowers, birds... oh my gosh, the birds. They are chirping away, tweeting, as I write this. It’s a song I hear every single day. This is the beauty I must notice daily, in a world that seems to be full of so much negativity and evil. 

You don’t need to go too far to find bad news or things that make you question humanity. Turn on your phone, open your email, or even your door, and you are hit with the stench of a seemingly decaying humanity. But can I tell you something interesting? The world is, in many ways, factually better than it has ever been. The only difference is that for the first time in history, we have access to all this information. You don’t need to hop on a plane or be a secret agent to have access to things that might have cost a life or a limb to know in years past. And oh boy, doesn’t bad news travel quick? 

There are a lot of things that I do today that would have seen my head on a pike, or my body at the stake — literally — in the past. As a woman, a Black woman, African, while I am aware of the atrocities that mar our world, I try my best to take a breath and count the progress I recognise in my life, in my walk. In many ways, I and the women around me are the first of our kind. We have choices. And even though there’s pushback from systems loyal to the past, we do not take these hard-earned options for granted and are committed to making the most of them. 

This is the beauty I must notice. 

I have always been of the opinion that the world is as good as it is bad, so whenever I find myself inundated with evil, I assign myself a quest: to seek out equal goodness. Not to diminish the reality of evil, but to remind myself that the Earth belongs to me as well — a place I can exist fully, despite the overtime efforts of agents who make us constantly want to abandon our home.

The Earth is ours, and even amidst the chaos, we can still find beauty. 

Ehhmm, before I continue, let me share rapid-fire facts with you... 

Did you know that our brains have a built-in negativity bias? This means that negative experiences are processed more thoroughly and remembered more vividly than positive ones. From an evolutionary perspective, noticing danger (bad news) kept us alive. Our ancestors needed to remember what could kill them, not what made them feel warm and fuzzy. 

The amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure in the brain which plays a central role in emotional memory, is more activated by negative stimuli. This means it signals your brain to pay closer attention and store it more deeply. 

When you hear bad news, your body often releases cortisol and adrenaline. These stress hormones heighten alertness and boost memory consolidation, particularly in the hippocampus (which stores long-term memories). So bad news literally gets imprinted into your system more powerfully. 

On the other hand, positive news is processed differently. These experiences tend to be less urgent, so they don’t trigger the same biological alarm bells. They’re stored more softly — unless you intentionally savour, reflect on, or repeat them. 

Do you see why noticing beauty is your assignment? Repetition reinforces memory. With the media exposing us to bad news repeatedly, our bodies hold the memories of massacre, trauma, inhumanity, and insanity. 

If you want to live on Earth — not as a guest but as a child of the soil — you must notice. You must see the beauty that is all around: in the eyes of children, in music, dance, in community, love, colours, creativity, touch... in the curve of the moon, in the lash and warmth of the sun, in the kiss of the wind. 

And as the towers of pain, suffering, anguish, and hatred grow, you join the millions of people who toil daily to keep love alive by calling beauty by its name. 

What will you notice today? 

As always, it’s been an absolute pleasure. 

Catch you in the next note, 

Pearl ♡ 

^{The Unmasking Comprehensive Workbook: A 150+ page, comprehensive, soul-deep workbook for those ready to stop abandoning themselves for approval — and start choosing themselves, for real. Nine chapters, over 400 tools, including reflection prompts, embodiment and ritual practices, self-dialogue and identity reframes, visual mapping with somatic work, grief, inner child, and anger work, journaling exercises, and affirmations} 

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