Where does inner beauty come from?

“In the flow of information that the Internet gives us today, sometimes you come across words or pictures that excite you and, as they say, truly take your soul. Recently, on one of the sites, I found the statements of the actress Audrey Hepburn; from the screen, through time, her face looked at me — in the brilliance of youth and the radiance of mature years. As a child, she nearly starved to death in the war-torn Netherlands; she was saved by the help that the UN provided for refugees.

At the end of his life, to the question: “What is the secret of your beauty?” — she answered with grace: «To have beautiful eyes, look for generous people»; «To have a slim figure, share your lunch with someone who is hungry»; “To have beautiful hair, let the child sometimes run his fingers into them.” And here are some more quotes: “Much more than things, people need to be picked up, corrected, put in place and forgiven; you never throw anyone away…”; “The beauty of a woman is not the aesthetics of her face; it reflects in her soul. This is her love and attention, the passion that comes from her. The beauty of a woman grows with age.

I know very well that I myself am far from always able to perceive beauty in this very way and live without ever rejecting another person. I could easily put these words in the category of unattainable ideals. But as soon as I allow such altruistic, generous look to touch me, I seem to feel a wave of warmth growing in my chest. Something comes to life in me that brings me closer to something true and fair, to something that is truly valuable in me. And I want to live and feel the world like this woman who went further than me to taste the bounty of life that belongs to us all.

Is it because of my naivety that I allow myself to be so touched? I don’t think. Our Western vision of the world is so obsessed with negative emotions that even scientific research turns to them in the first place. Of the five so-called basic emotions — disgust, fear, anger, sadness and satisfaction — only one is positive, and even that looks rather weak compared to others.

Negative emotions are helpful. Fear or anger overtakes us and powerfully focuses our attention on what we need to protect immediately. To do this, they narrow the field of our consciousness, closing it from other emotions, as if shouting to us: “Think about yourself first!” On the contrary, the inspiration that we feel, admiring the greatness of the soul of another person, or simply the harmony of some beautiful landscape, gives rise to a reverse movement in us. It also overtakes and stops us in order to tear us out of a series of routine affairs and thoughts. But if anger and fear close, then inspiration opens our spirit and heart, allowing us to see life in a new way, accept what the world gives us, and realize what exactly we ourselves would like to bring into it.

At the University of Virginia (USA), the laboratory of Professor Jonathan Haidt (Jonatan Haidt) is engaged in the study of positive emotions and, in particular, the phenomenon of such inspiration. Experiments have proven that watching a film (whether fiction or documentary), where a generous and courageous hero acts, touches us on a physical level, mobilizing us to act in the same way. By the way, breastfeeding women who were shown such shots had milk.

Indeed, oxytocin, the hormone responsible for our emotional bonds with each other, is produced by the brain when stimulated by those emotions that make our heart beat. It is released in abundance during breastfeeding, as well as during orgasm, if the partners are united by true love *. He also excels when we are moved and moved by the example of someone we admire. This hormone of love seems to remind us that it is through our connection with others that we can touch the most beautiful thing in ourselves.”

* J. Haidt. The Happiness Hypothesis. Basic Books, 2005.