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You are Beautiful

You may be shocked to hear that you are beautiful. Yes, you, the person reading this right now is beautiful, amazing, unique, wonderful and totally awesome.

I always find it interesting how many people don’t realize how fantastic they actually are. How wonderful their unique
point of view of the world is and how amazingly sexy they are. Yes, I called you sexy…

See, you may look at yourself in the mirror and see that weird birthmark, or your crooked teeth, or the hair in areas where it doesn’t belong. Maybe you notice back fat, a muffin top, small breasts, too big breasts, skinny legs, weird physical features, scars, too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short or whatever other word may follow “Too” when describing yourself. This list can sometimes be long enough to fill shelves with countless editions of “Why I suck today” books.

The truth of the matter is that the person you’re with (or others) don’t actually see what you see in the mirror. What they see is someone they would like to strip naked with and get busy, like right now… or sooner than now if possible.


In fact, when most people get together, the beginning days are all about that… getting busy, a lot. I think the reason this happens is because you take a momentary vacation from your usual habit of breaking yourself down, you see yourself instead through the eyes of the person that finds you amazing, so for a brief period of time, you find yourself amazing. Eventually, you go back to criticizing yourself and then reminisce about the way things used to be.

If Klee (my wife) asked me what physical attribute I find attractive about her I think immediately my dude brain goes to “I like your boobs and your butt”… Yeah, well, I like them, a lot. Now, after my initial caveman response, I love her shoulders, her hands, her eyes, her smile, her snaggle teeth, the way she walks, her neck, her button nose, her freckles, and the list goes on.


For the most part, she feels good about herself but there are days where neither one of us may “feel” sexy or beautiful… Interestingly, no matter how she feels about herself all I see are the things I love and that list grows every day.

The fact of the matter is that if I ask her the same question about me, she would list off a billion things that I didn’t even think of… and most importantly, she wouldn’t even notice the things that I criticize about myself.

The people around you will eventually see what you constantly draw their attention to. This is where you have the power to rock or ruin a relationship. No worries though, it can be easily turned around if you take control of the way you talk about yourself.

See, when you constantly complain about your own body, the person you are with will have their desire to enjoy and love you erode a little at a time. In other words, you’re rejecting them by rejecting yourself.

Here’s an example:

They say, “I could touch your body all day, I love everything about you.” and you say, “I’m too fat, I need to loose weight.”

You just tore yourself down, and tore down how that person feels about you. Their desire, excitement and thoughts about you… rejected. Eventually, the rejection will add up and the relationship communication can become mundane and not very exciting.

No worries though, this is easily turned around by doing the opposite. Talk about the things you love about your body, talk about the things you love about their body. Talk about how sexy you feel, trust me, the person you are with will appreciate it.

For the longest time I felt insecure about my gap between my front teeth. I would smile a ridiculous closed mouth smile that made me look slightly disturbed. As it turns out, it’s one of the features that Klee finds attractive.

You see, people love what makes you unique. Hair color, curly hair, wavy hair, thin hair, thick hair, chipped tooth, body type, clothing style, crooked smile, and anything else that makes you completely unique. These are your features, things that make you unique and are truly beautiful.

This piece is inspired by the beauty and perfection that is you. The fact of the matter is that no one is as perfect at being YOU as you are. It begs to ask, if you had a choice, what would you say about you when you look in the mirror? There is magic in reaching out a hand and remembering that you have a choice… always.

http://www.rafiwashere.com

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Speak Your Passion

I created this piece based on something that I believe is very powerful. Word have a certain power that can sometimes get overlooked in day to day exchanges. Many times we relate to each other by talking about the most mundane and torturous experiences we are currently wrapped up in. We talk about how terrible our week has been and usually the other person will commiserate and top your story with an even worse story about their week. This exchange can take place for hours and at the end of it neither person feels better, but they do feel like they got something off their chest and call it venting.

Rafi-Perez-Art-218

I believe that by talking about the things that are going wrong in your life or the problems you are running into just perpetuates it further. You will keep experiencing what you are focused on. In other words you get what you think about over and over again, you talk about it over and over again and you keep seeing evidence that it is true because you keep experiencing what you talk about. Interestingly enough, this can change by changing the pattern by speaking the opposite.

When you are focused on your problems, it is impossible to find the solution because your thoughts are not solution oriented. Unfortunately it is really hard to hit this head on and simply try to focus on the opposite because even if you try to think about the opposite you are still thinking about the problem.

I found that it was simpler for me to focus on the things I loved, the things that worked, and most importantly the things that I was passionate about. It seems that when you speak your passion, you mind orients itself to find more of the same. In fact, when you are focused strong positive emotion it changes everything. It changes your chemical makeup, your outlook, your problem solving skills become powerful and your over all state of being becomes one of optimism and hope.

This piece symbolizes the power of speaking your passion and the freedom that come with it.

Speak Your Passion was originally published on Rafi Was Here Studios

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So, What is Happiness?

On-a-LimbSo, Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what the real meaning of happiness is. When you look it up online (because everything you read on the Internet is true) it says “Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”

This caused me to ponder the complexity of this description. I agree that Happiness is a mental or emotional state of being. The interesting part of this description (bare with my nerdom) is that the “being” part.

Being vs doing… You can try to do things that will instigate happiness within you, but in all honesty I’m pretty sure you don’t find actual happiness in those things. So, where do you find happiness? Obviously, you can’t find it in anybody’s pocket or in anything outside of you.  I’ve been in situations where everything came together perfectly to create a situation in which I should be jumping for joy, yet my emotions almost felt muffled… So, I’m pretty sure it’s not situations or other people that make you happy… It only stands to reason that happiness must be a choice… But what is it?

I wondered about this as I thought about the little insignificant moments in my life that I can remember vividly. Staring at an inchworm for a long time fascinated, studying the colors in an autumn leaf, laying under a star blanketed sky loosing myself in the infinity of it all… The small moments of curiosity and absolute love with the world around me.

I think as adults we tend to allow ourselves to get consumed by the everyday role we are supposed to play with the myriad of people in our lives, forgetting that natural ability to fall in love with everything around us… In other words, we know too much about how we think the world works, we know what an ugly tree looks like vs a beautiful tree, so we overlook the amazing miracle that the tree exists in the first place. I think the simplicity of happiness is to just allow yourself to understand that you ultimately don’t know anything and allow yourself to experience everything in life as if it was the first time you have ever experienced it. Imagine experiencing your first kiss over and over, or feeling the wind in your hair as if it was the first time, seeing the ocean for the very first time and taking in every single detail… So, for at least this moment in time in my life, I believe happiness is experiencing all of life, fully and not allowing yourself to take even one second for granted.

-Award Winning Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez

http://www.rafiwashere.com

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Rainbow Love By Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez

Rainbow Love By Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez
Rainbow Love By Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez

I looked behind a silver cloud, I found a pretty rainbow there I walked out to the rainbow’s end and found a rainbow love The one that I was looking for, the dream that I was dreaming of There down at the rainbow’s end I found a rainbow love
I found my pot of gold, my rainbow love Just you and all your loving, charming rainbow love I searched, hoped someday I’d find someone to bring me peace of mind I found what I’ve been dreaming of when I found my rainbow love
I found my pot of gold, my rainbow love Just you and all your loving, charming rainbow love I searched, hoped someday I’d find someone to bring me peace of mind I found what I’ve been dreaming of when I found my rainbow love

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Ignited by Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez

“Ignited” Mixed Medium on Canvas 20″ X 23″ – Passion rebuilds the world, it brings dreams and dreamers to life, It makes all things alive and significant, it burns with desire to move forward no matter what the odds are… Passion, true passion is a powerful thing 😀 – http://www.Rafiwashere.com

ignited by Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez
ignited by Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez
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Undeadly Nightshade

The Undeadly Nightshade By Rafi Perez
The Undeadly Nightshade By Contemporary Artist Rafi Perez

This is the pieces that I submitted to Artel Gallery in Pensacola for their Fruits, Vegetables and All Things Still submission. I used vibrant textured colors of tomato reds and greens and even threw in tomato seeds for good measure.

 

“Undeadly Nightshade” Mixed Medium on Wood 24″X25″

 

http://www.rafiwashere.com