Beautiful Therapy

Today I learned about beautiful therapy - the power of love of beauty.

 Beauty in and of itself is not healing, but it often accompanies healing and is, perhaps, one of the greatest assets to "feeling better". Here's a quick summary of my notes on the subject:

Beautiful vs. Ugly. Ugly most certainly does not mean something that is physically ugly. Get in your mind and think of something that's ugly. Personally, murder and sloth come to mind. That's the kind of thing that consummate beauty can help with.
 "Here a beauty, there a beauty, everywhere a healing beauty."
- If you are surrounded by beauty, ugly things are easier to smother. Surround yourself with lovely things. Beauty varies per-person. 

 If you're in a rut in life, think about doing that thing that you love doing. Daydream and make beautiful things, because if you can change your mind into a beautiful place, you reap so much more from each moment. Everything is connected, everything is beautiful.

 Here's the thing. The physically beautiful things that I try to surround myself with are strange. During the session the speaker said that it could be a photograph of yourself doing a thing you love, or simply a very happy picture of yourself. Seeing "good" pictures of yourself is actually psychological therapy, while seeing a picture of anyone angry or confused (especially yourself) can cause a slight mental aggravation.

 Here's what I've done since that session;

 I pulled a laser-etched horse out of storage and put it on my window.
Made my computer background a picture of me on a horse.
Colored a glass coke bottle with a Sharpie.
Switched from conventional history notes to beautiful ones.
Started using colorful highlighters for bible study.
After the AP exam I'm even going to work on making my blog more beautiful.

I do not stress self-love. We don't have a problem loving ourselves. The main reason, the long term goal for therapy is to be able to love others and help those who need it. If our troubles emotionally impede us, we are not as effective in helping others.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3