Beauty Interview with Olivia Panella : “If you can see the Beauty in the pain, you’re heading a new level of Beauty in life.”
Olivia Panella offers Beauty to everyone she comes accross by sharing the 4 foundations of Uma Gaia : compassion, unconditional love, gratitude and humility. She sees Beauty everywhere and shares with us how Beauty heals her everyday.
Can you tell us about the last time Beauty helped you or healed you ?
Beauty heals me every moment of my life. When I wake up, take a breath and I look outside and see nature in the morning through my window… Beauty heals me literally in every moment of my life. One moment, when I can really remember Beauty healing me was when I was 11 or 12 years old : I saw the Yves Klein exhibit of his blue series, the anthropometry series of women’s bodies that he painted. The Beauty in using the human form as a paint brush, the Beauty of color, of connecting spirituality to that was really powerful for me. In that time of my life, I had a lot of fears and a lot of inner turmoil going on, around Beauty, the human form, femininity and many other things. Yves Klein’s work permitted me to see Beauty and to feel Beauty. He transformed something that I had always looked at in a fear perspective into a beautiful perspective by aligning the divinity of human form, color, spirituality and space. Yves Klein has continued to live on through my entire journey and my life, in many different forms.
How do you bring more Beauty to the world ?
I bring Beauty into the world by offering the 4 foundations of Uma Gaia to my existence, to everyone that I come across in all of my experiences : compassion, unconditional love, gratitude and humility. When you have those 4 elements with inside yourself and can share them with the world, you are offering all your experiences : Beauty.
As through the eyes of compassion you see everyone healed and as a being of light. You don’t just feel bad for them like empathy or sympathy, compassion goes above that and you can see them as an equal. When you have compassion, your experiences are beautiful, even the ones that may be darker or traumatic. When you have gratitude for all your experiences and connections, you have the understanding of why these things are coming into your life : people places, things… and having gratitude for it and all : the good, the bad, the light, the dark, the ying, the yang.
When you can have humility in whatever success (gran success, small success) it’s being able to see past just the physical existence and physical objects, being able to have humility in the grandeur of life, for yourself, men kind, nature; for everything. When you can have unconditional love, that brings the ultimate Beauty. Everyday whether it’s with my students, my friends, or my family, I work installing and sharing unconditional love, humility, compassion and gratitude.
If I say Beauty, what do you think of ?
I think of sun, of Quartz crystals, I’ve always been connected to them since I was a child. Quartz crystal is the second most abundant element in our earth. The first being oxygen, the second being Quartz. Quartz is made of oxygen and silicon as we are, as the universe is, as the stars are. But what’s beautiful about Quartz is that in its molecules and atoms are always perfectly moving and exchanging in harmony together whereas other objects in our atmosphere or in our universe. So, when I think of Beauty, I think of Quartz but also of flowers and nature.
Do you believe that Beauty will save us ? How ?
I do believe beauty can save us, the world and humanity. One way of achieving that is by seeing the Beauty in every individual, seeing it in nature, in each other and in ourselves. If we can get closer to our true self which is full of light, we are able to then share and spread that light which is true Beauty. Even if at times the world is feeling chaotic and full of uncertainty (as maybe it is right now and as it has been), if we can collectively come together, we can make changes and get to all live empowered.
Beauty can save us by gestures of kindness, for example, you know, when I was living in New York, there would be many times that I would be in a coffee shop or at the grocery store or at a restaurant and I would see somebody behind me, and maybe be they were at the same level of financial security as me or maybe they weren’t, but somedays I felt like offering them the coffee on me or the meal on me, just to share and to do acts of kindness to strangers. By spreading that Beauty, I don’t even have to know you but I can connect to you, I can relate to you : that is uniting. It hasn’t have to be a big and extravagant gesture or act, it can be little things to.
Do you remember the first thing that amazed you as a child ?
Anything related to the cosmos and the universe : the planets, the stars, the moon, the sun… Really I would just want to be outside at night and stare up into the sky or in the day : staring up in the clouds and in the sun.
Another thing that amazed me as a child was the ocean, the sea : how deep it went, how blue it was and how the waves just continued to crash endlessly, over and over. I was definitely in tune as a child to nature and the magic of life. I believed in fairies, in unicorns and I still do.
Where does Beauty hide ? Can it be found in the most ordinary things ?
Flat out : Beauty hides everywhere. Beauty is in every single thing, even in the shadows of life. You can see something or go through something that is really painful, heavy and dark but, to be able to overcome it, that’s Beauty. To see Beauty in the pain and seeing the lessons, and how those are actually gifts, little gifts in treasures of life that create who we are.
Beauty is everywhere, in every society, every culture, every civilization, every belief system, in every color, every object, every human, every animal… It’s in every breath that we take but, if you can see the Beauty in the pain and in the lesson : you’re heading a new level of Beauty in life.
What is your motto or philosophy in life to make you feel beautiful and fulfilled ?
This is an intention. An intention is a high vibrational statement that is in the present moment, in the positive and that’s concise. I have my students work with them, I work with them, living intentionnely. The intention is the starting point of everything so even if you are not working with intentions, in this format, you really are working with them every day. The one I use and that makes me fill beautiful or offers me beauty is « I am whole, devine and perfect at all times ». That means that, even in times of transition and change, you are still whole, perfect and divine. Even if there are aspects that you want to let go of or release you are still whole, perfect and divine. And even when you are in your ultimate joy, love and self expression, you’re still whole, perfect and divine. It’s definetly a philosophy I like to share and stick by.
What feeling does Beauty arouse in you ? Could you describe it ?
It arouses goose bumps, shivers, a sparkly and glittery sensation flowing throughout me. It arouses a twinkle in my eye or a flutter in my heart. It arouses passion and fire from within. Beauty arouses ultimate alignment of self and being able to tap into that. It arouses my senses and my clear essences (those are the next level of senses). Beauty arouses all aspects of my existence, of my being, and it can be in a painting, in a collage, in a conversation, in a hug, it can be waking up or going to sleep to my husband playing the piano and practicing his preludes, that feeling of the melodies and the harmonies flowing together in unison. Beauty arouses all types of emotions. It can even arouse tears, tears of joy. Beauty is an essence of life.
