The Circle of Beauty

If I were to ask you what true beauty is, what would you say?   Can you define it in simple terms, or do you need to think about it for a while?  Is it an emotion; an appearance?  Can it be created; or does it exist only in places where it was meant to be?  Are you beautiful?  Am I? The notion of beauty, and its seduction, is with us our entire lives; but do we really know what it means?  And can we have it?  Sophia Loren, one of the most beautiful women in the world, said this, “Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes.” 

 I believe that Sophia Loren is right.  What is on the inside will indeed show on the outside, and you can’t hide from it.   It is what photographers mean when they say, “The camera doesn’t lie.”  Our emotions always come to the surface.  But I also believe that there is another side to the story:  What is on the outside will affect how you feel inside.  So that together, our innermost feelings and outermost selves form to make us complete.   When both of these parts are fulfilled and connected, it becomes a circle of beauty.  Our emotions, our bodies, and our souls are all one.  There is no distinction.  To favor one over the other would be to deny living fully; and in beauty.

To deny the soul is to deny the body.  And to deny the body is to deny the soul. 

The ancient Spartans understood this.  From a very early age they began training for their life’s work by strengthening the body, and the mind, by engaging in intense debate over the philosophical questions of life and death; honor and love; and following a diet and training regimen that would challenge even today’s Olympians.  They considered the body to be a sacred gift, and believed that it was given to them by the gods for the sole purpose of serving and defending Greece.   And they believed that living honorably and fully were the only true monuments.   They weren’t perfect, but neither is beauty. Before battle, in anticipation of death, they would exercise, then comb out each other’s long hair and oil their bodies, so that they were ready to be received by their gods.  They believed that their bodies, and their souls, would live eternally, and they treated them as such.

For the past two decades, I have worked to create an environment in my fitness studio where people from all walks of life could come to develop their bodies and their minds.  The Spartans, I think, would appreciate its simplicity and lack of fancy equipment.  I know they’d love the music!  My preferred “tools” are simple dumbbells because they know no prejudice.  They have the same relationship with gravity regardless of who is holding them.  They don’t care if you’re rich or poor; male or female.  A fifty pound weight is a fifty pound weight.  It’s that simple.  And the stark reality of lifting heavy weight gives us the opportunity to improve the mind by training the body.   We feel good when we accomplish difficult things, and we can accomplish difficult things when we feel good.  It’s a continuum that has no beginning and no end.  Just like beauty.

In the end, we are all beautiful if we choose to be.  But we must first resolve to be committed to it, and to do the work.  The tough work.  The stuff that requires looking inside by looking outside.  And when looking at ourselves is too difficult, it is important to find others who can, and who are willing to share with us what they see.  

I have always enjoyed my conversations with Salvatore Minardi because while they tend to be lighthearted by nature, they are also thought provoking and truthful.  I look forward to my visits with him in his small salon because the environment there suits me.  It is simple, friendly, and beautiful.  A rare thing to find these days.  I believe that in order to discover our own beauty we need people and places like Salvatore and his salon.  What Salvatore and I have most in common is our constant desire to learn and to be challenged; and then to teach what we know.  And what we know is this: