Episode 69
Why have we accepted the idea that we alone must earn our beauty?
Why is it that we can stand before a magnificent old tree, a whale rising from the ocean, a tiny fiddlehead fern unfurling in the forest, or a shell resting on the sand and immediately recognize their beauty…
Yet when it comes to ourselves, so many of us have been taught that beauty is something we must achieve?
Something we must strive for.
Something we must work toward.
Something we must earn.
And what if that belief isn’t actually true?
What if beauty was never something to achieve in the first place?
What if beauty naturally emerges when life is allowed to fully express itself?
This week on Embodied Soul, I’d like to explore beauty—not through the lens of media, culture, trends, or society’s ever-changing standards—but through the lens of nature itself.
Because recently, I found myself surrounded by so much beauty that it made me stop in my tracks. And what I realized has completely changed how I’m thinking about beauty, health, self-expression, and even the way we relate to ourselves.
So if you feel called to join us, pull up a comfy chair, invite in your soul, and be open to receive exactly what you need to live, be, and thrive as the embodied soul you are.
A few weeks ago, I put up a community post asking what you would like us to explore together here on the channel.
One comment stayed with me. The viewer wrote:
“It should be health. It needs to be health… but beauty is quite present. Aesthetics.”
And then later expanded:
“Beauty feels more alive. In fact, the joy of feeling more beautiful is healthy too. It will result in healthier habits, and thus, again and always, everything is nicely linked.”
At the time, I appreciated the comment, but I wasn’t entirely sure where it wanted to take me.
And then this morning happened.
I was sitting on our sofa, and my attention was drawn to the view outside the window.
Before me were these brilliant, vibrant greens of palm fronds and tropical foliage in perhaps the most vibrant display I have ever seen. The sun was dancing between the leaves, casting intricate shadows everywhere.
My attention was drawn to our water storage tank, and how the palm fronds cast these geometric patterns of light and shadow across it. Something so ordinary suddenly looked beautiful.
And as my heart expanded and this beauty flowed through me, my mind was drawn to a number of images I have seen recently.
I thought of a fiddlehead fern before it unfurls.
So beautiful.
So intricate.
So glorious in the way it unfolds.
I thought of a salamander that had crossed the road in front of me a few weeks ago. It was this electric green-blue-teal colour that glistened in the sunlight.
I remember being struck by it.
Not just because I saw a salamander - although that was cool.
But because it was so beautiful.
Then my mind wandered to birds and various insects.
To spiders and their beautiful webs.
How some webs shimmer gold and others silver.
How birds come in endless colours and patterns.
How nature seems to delight in diversity.
And later, I found myself called to go walk on the beach.
I had seen the “whale’s tail” formation reveal itself out from our coastline as low tide arrived and felt called to go.
As I arrived, the ocean was every shade of blue and teal and green.
The waves danced with one another as they rolled in and out.
The shells and stones glimmered in the sunlight.
The ocean left beautiful patterns in the sand.
And standing there, my heart was overflowing with the beauty and majesty of all of it.
I was overwhelmed by how incredible nature is.
How diverse it is.
How unique everything is.
And yet somehow, everything belongs.
Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Everything is perfect in its own expression.
And then I found myself thinking again about that viewer’s comment.
Beauty.
Health.
Aesthetics.
And suddenly I realized that what was moving me had very little to do with beauty standards and everything to do with beauty itself.
Because nowhere in nature was anything striving to be beautiful.
The fiddlehead wasn’t trying to become a fern.
The spider wasn’t trying to spin another spider’s web.
The ocean wasn’t comparing itself to another ocean.
The palm tree wasn’t wondering if it should look more like a different tree.
Nature simply expresses what it is.
And somehow, in that expression, beauty reveals itself.
Which led me to a question.
Why have we accepted the idea that we alone must earn our beauty?
Why do we seem to believe that beauty is something we must achieve?
Something we must work toward.
Something we must prove ourselves worthy of.
When nature seems to demonstrate the exact opposite.
And this is where I think the viewer’s comment holds something important.
Because I don’t hear them saying that beauty is about proving worth.
I hear them pointing toward something much more alive.
The joy of beauty.
The delight of beauty.
The way beauty calls to us.
The way beauty expands us.
The way beauty can inspire us toward healthier choices, healthier habits, healthier relationships with ourselves.
Not because we are trying to fix ourselves.
But because beauty awakens something within us.
And I think there is an important distinction here.
There is a difference between enjoying beauty and needing beauty to prove our worthiness.
There’s a difference between expressing beauty and chasing approval.
There is a difference between delighting in beauty and striving to become acceptable.
One expands us.
Another contracts us.
And if we’re honest, many of us were raised inside systems that taught us beauty was something we had to earn.
For as long as I can remember, there’s always been some image of what a beautiful body should look like.
One decade celebrated curves.
Another celebrated thinness.
Another celebrated fitness.
Another celebrated toned muscles.
Then it became strength.
Then it pivoted wellness.
Then health.
And what strikes me now is that these ideals keep changing.
The standards keep changing.
The trends keep changing.
But perhaps beauty itself was never the thing changing.
Perhaps what was changing was the lens.
The cultural lens.
The media lens.
The societal lens.
The lens through which we were taught to see ourselves.
And even when the conversation shifted away from beauty and toward health, I sometimes noticed the same message underneath.
You should look different.
You should be different.
You should become something other than what you are.
And I think many of us have internalized those messages without even realizing it.
I know I have.
Even now, in my fifties, I can still find places where old ideas surface.
Places where younger versions of me absorbed messages about what a beautiful body should look like.
And yet what moves me most deeply today has very little to do with those ideals.
What moves me is what this body can do.
What it can hold.
What it can integrate.
What it can feel.
The sounds and tones it can bring through.
The experiences it allows me to have.
The way it carries me down to the beach.
The way it allows me to stand before the ocean and feel awe.
The way it allows me to experience life.
And so I find myself wondering:
What if beauty is different than we think?
What if beauty naturally emerges when something is allowed to fully express what it is?
What if beauty is not something we achieve?
What if beauty is something we recognize?
What if everything naturally expresses as beauty when allowed to?
Without judgment.
Without criticism.
Without comparison.
Without constantly wishing it were something different.
And perhaps that is why nature feels so healing.
Because nature isn’t trying to be anything other than itself.
It simply is.
And in being itself, it reflects something back to us.
A truth we may have forgotten.
That we, too, are part of nature.
We are not separate from it.
We belong to the same living symphony.
The same unfolding.
The same intelligence.
The same creative force.
And perhaps the invitation this week is to simply notice.
Notice where there is a tug-of-war inside of you.
Notice where you are being told you should be something different.
Notice where an old belief, an old expectation, or an old standard is still operating.
Notice where your heart is quietly pointing in another direction.
And then ask:
Whose voice is that?
Where did that belief come from?
Is it actually true?
Or is it simply something I inherited?
And perhaps more importantly:
Can I see myself with the same generosity that I offer nature?
Can I look at myself the way I look at a palm tree?
A shell?
A whale?
A fiddlehead fern?
Can I allow myself to unfold at my own pace?
Can I trust my own expression?
Can I recognize beauty without demanding perfection?
Because nobody stands in front of a fern and says it should unfold faster.
Nobody looks at a whale and says it would be more beautiful if it were smaller.
Nobody asks the ocean to be a different shade of blue.
Yet we often speak to ourselves in ways we would never speak to anything else in nature.
And maybe that is the doorway.
Maybe that is the place to begin.
Not by becoming something else.
But by recognizing what is already here.
The beauty that has been here all along.
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Embodied Soul, please like, share, subscribe, and leave me a comment below.
What resonated for you?
Can you see the beauty in yourself, independent of what others have told you that you should be?
What beliefs are you beginning to question?
And where in your life are you being invited to trust your own unfolding?
I always love reading your comments and hearing your perspectives.
And if there is something you would love us to explore together in a future episode, feel free to leave that below as well.
Until next time, take good care of yourself and allow beauty in.
