Why Beauty Matters More Than You Think

18:32

18:32

Why Beauty Matters More Than You Think

by Katrine Horn

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

Suitable for

Everyone

Plays

1

Beauty isn't a luxury. Beauty helps us feel safe, present, creative, connected, and fully alive. In a world that often prioritises productivity and utility, beauty reminds us that life is meant to be experienced, not merely managed. In this video, I share seven reasons why beauty matters more than we think.

Nervous System Presence Positivity Creativity Healing Spirituality Nervous System Calm Present Moment Focus Creative Growth Spiritual Connection

Meet your Teacher

Toulouse, France

Meet your Teacher

Toulouse, France

Transcript

I wanted to share with you my seven reasons why beauty matters more than you think. It's so easy to dismiss beauty as something important because we've got so much more important things to be getting on with, Haven't we? But I actually think that beauty is far from being frivolous. It means so much more. And if we just cast our minds back to the time when we were cavemen and women, As soon as we went out of survival and we started to make life more comfortable, We also invented art or crafts and we were always very much interested in making things more beautiful. So doesn't that just make you think that it's part of who we are? So I certainly noticed from myself and my life that when I've been more in that survival mode where I've been striving and struggling, I have sort of deprived myself, I find it difficult to say the word, Deprived myself of beauty. It's as if beauty became a luxury. And, Well, I didn't need luxuries, Did I? I could just be getting on with life, With the important things. And so I made myself wrong for a very long time. I made myself wrong for really desiring beauty. And I thought, Oh, It's frivolous, You know, Just get on with it, Katrina. And I really have come to the complete opposite opinion of beauty. I think it's actually vital. So let me share just seven of the reasons why I think so. I would love for you to contribute with other reasons why you believe beauty is of the utmost importance. It's like a list we can keep forever. We can keep adding to and evolving, I think. And it's perfect if it's always making us think about it, Really, And help us focus on bringing more beauty into our lives. Don't you think? So let me share the reasons like the first reason is that beauty helps calm our nervous system down. When you think about it, If you're contemplating a sunset, You are not busy worrying about what's next. You are not inventing problems that don't exist yet and you are not preventing a catastrophe from perhaps happening in a few moments, Right? You are completely focused on the sunset or whatever it is for you, Listening to that beautiful piece of music, Picking those beautiful flowers, Whatever it is for you, But you are just feeling extremely calm because your focus is on the beauty and that feels so good. It's not a place where we can go into worry, It's not a place where we can go into the stresses of life, It's not a place where we can be thinking, Oh I must be getting on to the next thing. And that brings me on to my second reason why beauty is more important than we tend to believe. And that is that beauty brings us into the present moment. Now, We want to be in the present moment because, Well, That is where life happens. We have got a tendency, Of course, To ruminate on the past and then have fearful thoughts about the future. But right here, Right now, If you are listening to this video, If you're here with me, Then I suppose everything is good. Like, You might be commuting to work. But you're not at work yet. So you can be here, You can be present with yourself and with your thoughts. You're really in this moment, And that is precious. So if you can find something beautiful to look at, To smell, To taste, To hear, To listen to, To feel, To experience, In other words, If you can find something beautiful to engage with here in the present moment, You're also free of those worrisome thoughts, Right? You're not inventing problems. You are not going down the rabbit holes. You can just have. Exhale and be fully present. Be fully present with yourself, With your senses and with the life that's going on around you. So my third reason why. Beauty is more important than we believe it to be sometimes is that it helps us focus on what we like. So we can either believe that the world is a fearful place and now I have to spot all the dangers, Like I have to be vigilant, I have to be bracing against, Or I have to be spotting all the possible problems. Or we can decide that life is pretty amazing and now let me go out into life and start spotting the things that I enjoy. We've got a thing called the reticular actuating system. And that just means that our brain has been designed to focus on what we have predisposed it to focus on. So as you might know, Or guess, I love flowers. And so if I went on a bike ride with my best friend, Who doesn't ride a bike and I think, But anyway, Let's imagine we went on a bike ride now she's very much into cars. So biking around, She would notice all the models like she would say, Oh, Or did you see that Mercedes, Right? Or did you see that she would be very focused on the cars, Whereas I would be focused on the flowers in the ditches. I would be noticing this. Neither perspective is right or wrong, We just have this built-in faculty of spotting what we want to notice. So if we sort of preset our minds to beauty, Well then we go out into the world and we spot beauty, Be it in cars or be it in the wildflowers along the side of the road. It really doesn't matter, We will notice more of that and as we are out there noticing all the beauty, All the things we like. . . Well, We are not noticing what's wrong. We're not noticing the things we don't like. So I'm not saying live in La La Land or or ignore reality. But really, Can we not trust ourselves to spot something that is of danger? And then allow ourselves to be more in the space of what we enjoy. And I for one, I definitely enjoy seeing the flowers at the side of the road much more than listening to the frightful news or inventing problems before they even exist. So beauty helps us focus on what we like. Now the fourth reason beauty beauty helps us, Supports us in life, Is that it reminds us that life is more than utility. So you might say, Well, We have to be productive. We have to be efficient and blah, Blah, Blah in life. Yes, But I think we can trust ourselves to do all of that, Can't we? Can we trust ourselves equally well with inventing beauty and creating beauty whenever there's an opportunity? Can we really not just focus on how can I make this moment even more beautiful? I like to think of that. Let's say that you set your table with your best tablecloth, You bring out your best china, Your Waterford crystal glasses, Your silverware, Your flowers, Making everything look really, Really gorgeous. Now, Was it productive? Was it efficient? Was it useful? I think so, Yes, In the sense that it made you feel good. But of course, It didn't move the needle onto the next thing you're busy with, Did it? But what if we could allow life to be much more than that usefulness, That productivity? And what if we could actually allow life to be more enjoyable? So, Does it take more time to set a beautiful table? Yes, It does. But really when you think of it. . . I'm sure you eat out of something. Well, I mean, That you could be eating out of beautiful china, Or you could be eating out of a bowl like a dog, Couldn't you? I mean, There's everything between these extremes. So where do you place yourself? Where do you want to be? What brings you pleasure? What is the beauty you can create really in those everyday moments? And I think like, Why not create beauty in all the moments? Why not, Really? So I am aware that it might take a little bit longer sometimes, But if we just Just allow that to be a mindfulness moment. Why not? Why not leave some of that? Desire to be efficient on the side. And let's just tap into pleasure. Wouldn't that be lovely? And then creating those moments. As we go through the day, Really, I find that so rewarding. Now, My fifth reason is for, Well, Why I find beauty to be much more important, Why beauty matters, Is that it awakens our creativity. And so, Of course, If we are artists, We create art, And that is creative. But the rest of us, We can really just allow ourselves to be creative in many ways. We can be creative in our businesses. In our meals. We can be creative with our children when we play with them. We can be creative in our hobbies. Whatever they be, We can write poetry really on the fridge door, Can't we? We can be creative. All of the time. And again, That really just brings out all the enjoyment. I think creativity is simply us leaving a mark on life. It's bringing some of who we are at our best into life, Into our life experience, And perhaps an experience to be shared with others. So I'm all for being creative, And I think creativity is really such an underrated thing. We want to accomplish things, Don't we? And then we think, Oh, I have to follow a system or there's one way of accomplishing this. But what if it was actually a creative thing, Like you could accomplish through creativity, Because how you accomplish something could be your way of accomplishing it. And that could be totally creative. So that means we can leave out those. Patterns and programming that tell us we must do things a certain way and then we can allow ourselves just to feel into what it would look like if we were completely creative or we can call it playful. What would that be like in anything we want to accomplish? Because we're really just coming from a certain perspective, Aren't we? We're coming from this perspective that this is how I was brought up. This is what I was taught. These are my experiences in life. And so we just prolong that, Don't we? And then we are perhaps surprised when life starts to not feel that exciting anymore. But it's because we've just been sort of on the trodden road. Done what was expected of us, We've just prolonged perhaps what our parents did or perhaps what society told us was the thing to do. And if we're willing to become creative and step out of that sort of uh what can i call it that beaten track without making anybody wrong for not doing what we're doing, If we can just allow ourselves all to do things a little bit differently, Then really where's the harm? Where is the harm? And if you start thinking about, Oh, How can I make my life even more beautiful? I mean, My life, I believe, Is already pretty beautiful. How can I make it even more so? And then that can be part of my evolution. That can be part of my growth. As I go through life, I'm always thinking, How can it be even better? How can it be even more beautiful? And that can be a guideline. It can also help us sift things out. Like when we get the feeling that we're perhaps settling for something, That it's not exactly what we want. We can just notice it and say, Oh, What would the beautiful version of this look like? I find that so much fun to think about. Back to my list. My sixth reason why beauty matters more than you think is that beauty is healing. No, I just threw that out there, Didn't I? I think that Research in the years to come will prove, Not just suggest, But actually prove that worrying is harmful to our organism. I believe that worrying creates illness. I believe that continued stress creates illness. So I haven't got any facts to prove that yet. But I think we will find it. So what if. . . Creating more beauty in your life would take you away from that worrying that we are so prone to go into. Take us out of that stress and that anxiety. Getting on with or getting on to the next thing and accomplishing this and doing that, What if we could just open up to the idea that beauty is healing? And when we're focused on beauty, We are not worrying, As I already said. So we notice with people who've been ill, Who are healing, That they start opening the curtains, They start tidying up clutter, They start bringing in perhaps plants or flowers into their homes, They start taking an interest in their appearance. All of these things connected to beauty are just signs that they're going from survival into thriving. Think they are healing and wouldn't it be so good if we did some preventive healing really if we cultivated that aspect in our lives and thinking instead of saying oh I don't need this but I actually want it. And what if, Allowing myself to have it, What if it just prevented a lot of illness in the future? I like to think so, Like when I indulge myself, I think, Oh, You are putting, I don't know, I'm putting some extra points on my credit account, On my credit score for my health, Because this is really something I enjoy. And I think the more I enjoy myself, The healthier I am. So feel free to disagree with me. You can comment below and you can let me know if this is not right. I'm okay with that. And we can have a discussion about it. So, The sixth reason why beauty matters more than you think is that it's actually healing. It can heal you. Seventh reason is that I believe it connects us to something larger. Now by larger, I don't know what that means to me, To you. Something larger could be just art. It could be God. It could be the universe source, Whatever you want to call it. It could be the life force that puts the leaves on the trees. But something larger. It could be humanity or the oneness. It's really good to know that when we are focused on beauty, I think it's a direct connection to that which is more than we are. More than each individual here on this planet. I think that beauty can connect us spiritually to that. Great universe of ours and we can feel much more connected through that. Connected to whatever you want to be connected to. But really it can bring us into that meditative state, Like I mentioned a sunset because most people like sunsets. And if you're contemplating a sunset, You might be able to feel that, Oh, There's more to life. There's really more to life than me and my problems. There's really much more to life. There's so much here. And I'm part of it. I am part of whatever the ocean I am a wave in the ocean or whatever you like to think I'm a raindrop or Whatever. And it's really so calming and I wanted to say blissful. To know that we are not alone, That we are part of something much bigger. And I think beauty simply reminds me. Now you don't have to agree with these seven reasons and I'm sure you can come up with 12 more. I would love to hear about that. I would love for this to be like a living document and we can keep adding to them and come up with more reasons why it is that we can really indulge ourselves and we can start thinking about ways in which to bring in more beauty into our lives.