Body ♥ Love Event in Chandler, Arizona

Child bearing hasn't been in vogue for decades, particularly not the trail fertility treads along the figure.  But now it seems that even pubescence and maturation is under attack.  It starts early, but as mothers, wives, and homemakers we are the most powerful consumer in the marketplace.  We are the most influential figure in the home.  We are the most properly equipped individuals to stop body loathing within ourselves and in the next generation.

If the Love your Body Challenge resonated with you, crystalize your transformation with this presentation?  All women and daughters over the age of twelve are invited.  This same symposium actually inspired my Reality Revised series.

Should you be in the area, please join me.

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 10: Appreciate the Evolution

One body will not fit you for your entire life.  We age, we scar, we widen, we wrinkle, we become.  It's a visual diary of where we've been, what we've survived, what we've enjoyed, what we've created.

Don't wish to erase your own evolution.  

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In the last ten years my waist has widened, while my bust has wasted.  My bottom is still dominant, but it's lost much of it's former bounce.  And I can tell you from personal experience, different body shapes offer different opportunities.  Broader bodies can carry bolder accessories.  Blouses drape better on flat chests.  Fluffy, full thighs look prettier in trouser jeans.

And I'll happily trade younger and smaller for wiser and stronger.

Age is inevitable, you are left with the choice to fight or embrace.

 Day 10 Challenge: Appreciate your Figure's Evolution, enjoy a change that time has presented.

Post your evolving embrace in the comments,  feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

And that concludes the challenge, thanks for the body camaraderie! 

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 9: Write Your Body A Valentine

Day 9 Challenge: Write Your Body A Valentine  

Post your anatomical ovations in the comments,  feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources


Feel free to inspire your ardor with Nike's series of body based poetry:

Happy Valentines Day!!

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 8: Flatter Your Coloring

In our journey to love the skin we're in, it's important to understand it.  Hence, a color analysis, or as the british say, a colour analysis:

You can direct yourself to the primary categories here:

Cool & Delicate

Cool & Brilliant

Warm & Fresh

Warm & Rich

Take an even deeper dive, by determining a seasonal subcategory.  Complexion based hybrids abound and perhaps you bloom in a border.  Might I suggest a quiz with plenty of supportive source materials?

Day 8 Challenge: Determine your color category and wear a sparkle inducing color.  

Post your complexion confession in the comments,  feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 7: Embrace Your Body Type

Body adoration begins with body education.  Below is a 4 step primer.

Step 1: Measure
directions here.

Step 2: The Math
I even made you this nerdy spreadsheet to assist. (Click the edit button in the upper right then enter your measurements in the "YOU" column.

Step 3: Declare

Step 4: Embrace

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Day 7 Challenge: Determine your body type and dress to flaunt it this weekend.  

Post your body type declaration and/or fashion embracing results in the comments,  feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 6: Accept a Compliment

The glitter of intelligence and kosher curiosity can not be ignored in your eyes today.  Someone presents you with a honey of a compliment, how do you respond?

1. Seriously? Did you not notice the cozy cushion of wrinkles they're resting in?
2. Who me, you must not have noticed Daisy Sue's viridian peepers?  And really, aren't everyone's eyes pretty in their own way?
3. Shut up :)  I love your nose, it's so perfectly centered on your face.
4. THANK YOU, what a lovely thing to say.

If you angle toward A, you are a rejector, at best a minimizer.  Not only are you degrading yourself, you are also discrediting your praising patron.  Compliments are a way of expessing opinion and blatantly disagreeing shows a lack of appreciation for their judgement.

If you bend toward B, you are a deflector. This cloak of altruism hides your own insecurity.  While it's noble to share praise, especially where warranted, it's also important to realize that compliments can not be eaten by the absent and leave nothing for anyone to savor when spread between too many people.  You need to eat your own deserving dessert and enjoy it.

Swerving toward C may indicate compulsive reciprocation.  Every hint of hurrah is immediately volleyed and matched.  If you flatter out of debt, you cheapen your sincerity.  If you mean it, say it, if not, smile and accept.

If you answered D you can take a compliment.  And I commend you on your open gratitude.

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The fact is you deserve the compliments you receive.  What you presented inspired someone, made the world prettier, or brightened what was dull.  It's not arrogant to be grateful.

Day 6 Challenge: Accept a compliment without apology, deflection, or reciprocal return.  

Post your favorite compliments or favorite responses to a compliment in the comments,  feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 5: Complete Your Whole

Spending years in fitting rooms has taught me one very bitter fact: women see their bodies through peep holes. Their vision is distorted seeing not full humans in their reflections, but disembodied thighs, bottoms, underarms, and stomachs. 

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You are not a jiggle of flesh, you are not a patch of cellulite, you are not a wrinkle.  You are a soul: a body, a spirit, a living thing.  Embrace yourself as a whole rather than a random assembly of raw materials.  Don't leave the entire sedan in the garage because of a scratch in the door panel.  Get out and enjoy the ride.

Day 5 Challenge: Look at your full reflection, inside and out.  Admire the curation that is you.

Post your holistic epiphanies in the comments, 
feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 4: Talk Back to Negative Thoughts

Your brain is a synaptic subway where information glides along the rails of thought.  Whatever thoughts passage the most attention, most frequently, subsequently become express trains.   If you are consistently disembarking at a dismal destination, its time to lay new rails in your organic abacus. 


Some of us have a rather pernicious psychological pilot barking connections between ourselves and less than fetching adjectives.  And while I am a gentle pacifist at heart, there are times for a quick, quieting Boo, Whore, which this inner mean girl needs to ear.  Following is the modus operandi for talking back to your negative thoughts.

1.  Prerequisite to talking back to your thoughts is listening to your internal dialogue. Set a timer for every 15 minutes and quickly assess what you've been thinking.  Or choose an activity you do frequently as a thought check stimulus.  For me, every time I change a diaper, I inventory my mental refuse.  

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2.  Once you've added conscious to the unconscious side of the conversation, prepare your comebacks.  Positive affirmations are reform school for your snotty self talk.  Proper mental repartee begins with a personal pronoun, Me, I, My; is clear and brief; describes the present tense.  Examples could include: I adore my soft, rosy cheeks.  I own strong bones.  My fluffy bottom is deliciously soft to sit on.  My thighs fill out pencil skirts delightfully well. I am grateful for my cuddly, inviting lap.

print, push a pen across it, then post upon your mirror

3.  Once your paths are mapped, it is time to derail negative thought trains onto positive mind travels.  Pronounce your affirmations now and often. Declare them aloud to your reflection, retort negative thoughts as they arise.  Affirmations are most effective when repeated, repeatedly.  Persevere and soon enough you'll be alighting at station body adoration.

Day 4 Challenge: Make a list of at least 5 positive statements about yourself.  Post them on your mirror, repeat aloud daily,  then refer to them every time you have a negative thought about yourself.

Post your positive affirmations in the comments, 
feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 3: Reconnect Your Mind & Body

For day three of our challenge, I have recruited the charming wit, ridiculous talent, and adorable fertile belly of Britt from A Day in the Life Too.  Her beauty-full message about initiating awareness in our minds to infuse the beauty of our bodies, expressed what I had struggled to share. Our bodies can not live in isolation of our minds.  Really and truly, if you separate them, you'll die.  So many times our internal voices are at war with our external bodies, sending the sting of berating arrows and wielding swords of degradation.  When we can positively connect our minds and bodies in a peace promoting activity, we can begin to love the total package. Hey guys. I’m Brittney. I’m a wife, a mom of 3.67 kids, and a lover of steak. Medium rare. And anyone knowing those three things about me pretty much qualifies as my best friend. Including you, now. Sleepover, my house, Friday night. We’ll stay up allllll night, like ‘til 11 p.m. Just kidding. I never make it past 9:30 these days… …which is actually an accidental a kind-of-if-you-stretch-it-out-enough segue into my current thoughts on beauty-full-ness. I’m 6-1/2 months pregnant, and, at 23 pounds (and growing! geesh) heavier than normal, “beauty” is an interesting beast for me these days. Beastly: I fit into about four articles of clothing, two of which are getting tight. Beauty-full: My husband smiled and even kissed me when he saw I had raided his closet to fit into something. Anything. Beastly: Physical discomfort = sleeplessness = staring back at myself in the mirror every.single.morning. are two of the tiredest eyes ever. Sometimes I stare and stare and stare at them and realize 10 minutes later that I’ve fallen asleep, standing up, with my eyes open, toothpaste running down my chin. Again. Beauty-full: My 7-year-old son thinks my corny jokes are hilarious and that I, therefore, am awesome. (I kind of pad the vote, though, with homemade cookies. Shhh…) Beastly: Zits. Many. And frequent. Beauty-full: My adorable 3- and 5-year-old daughters sing lullabyes into my protruding belly button for their unborn sister’s “naptime.” Basically, I’m not going to win any awards for physical beauty. Ever, if I’m being honest with you, but especially not as a lumbering, belly-heavy, puffy-faced pregnant woman. But, strangely, this fact neither defines me nor makes me feel UNbeautiful. My husband and family love me, which is a huge blessing and major perk in life. For me, though, beauty-full-ocity (yep) comes largely from living within my own head and being comfortable with the somewhat intelligent, fun, kind, and creative girl who resides there. (And even though she may vacation from those traits from time to time, she always comes back. And asks for her mail, oddly enough.) Some days I feel pretty. Some days I don’t. And some days who cares because I’ve got an important play-doh date with my toddler and a friend with REAL problems. My take on beauty: do the best with what you’ve been given and leave it at that. It’s interesting, isn’t it (to the one person still reading this rambling monologue…hey mom!), that as individuals we see and respond to the world through the same pair of eyes, whether mascara is alluringly spackled on dense footlong lashes or blearily smeared into under-eye cesspools of inky smudge. And, really? A woman who loves and is loveable is beauty-full either way. (Although I do recommend washing the cesspools-o-smudge or they get itchy. I may or may not know this from experience.)

Day 3 Challenge: Engage in an activity that kindly connects your mind to your body, eat a pretty plate of healthy food that pleases both stomach and spirit, stretch your breath and meditate on your calves within downward dog, kiss your dearest one directly on the mouth. 

Post your reconnecting experiences in the comments, 
feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 2: Stop Making Comparisons

Stop comparing: to your darling starlet, to the cover of your pet magazine, to yourself five years ago.  Cease staring at your coworker's stomach to discern any trace of a stomach roll beneath her blouse.  Desist browsing weekly magazines with fresh pictures of celebrity cellulite.


External body validation is excessively volatile.  Build a buttress of impervious, internal confidence. Love your body exactly as it is, at this very instant. Cherish the strength of your legs, the curve of your neck, the grace of your fingers, the soft skin on your upper arms. No one else can tamper with your own admiration.


There is no universal ideal.  One set of proportions does not fit all.  One set of proportions will not even fit a single individual for an entire life.

And I owe yet another bouquet of Thank You's to Miss Kayla for this treasure:

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Day 2 Challenge: avoid comparisons in features and figures, instead appreciate yours and others' unique individuality.  

Post your incomparable experience  find in the comments, 
feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Body ♥ Love Challenge Day 1: Expand Your Definition of Beauty

My Husband returned with a noisy sack of ceramic shards, which I  proceeded to wet with pity sogged tears.  What had been my long coveted candlesticks had returned from Thanksgiving dinner as an anthropological remnant.

Bereavement soon gave way to resolve and superglue.  And I painstakingly mended each and every recovered piece properly into place.  Reborn, my candlesticks are more beautiful to me now.  I love their broken lines, the tiny cracks, the uneven outline.  Part of me and my determination is in them.

They aren't perfect, they are beautiful.  

Finding beauty more often does not make it any less valuable.  By applying the label of beauty more liberally our lives only become richer.

Search beauty out and you will appreciate it more.  Don't settle for the obvious or ostentatious, curate a collection of unconventional beauty: the wood grain of a dumpster grate, the gentle curve of a wilted rose, the repetition of color at the ninety-nine cent store.

Children are much better at this than adults.  Adults have been trained in a strict definition of beauty and fail to see the sparkle in concrete, the wonder in soap wrappers.

By expanding our construct of beauty, we are able to fit ourselves inside of it.  

Day 1 Challenge: find pleasure in imperfections, seek out hidden elegance, apply the label beauty more liberally today.  

Post your unconventional beauty find in the comments,
feel free to link to blogs, instagram, pinterest, flicker, or other sources

Introducing the Love Your Body Challenge

Remember my Kayla, and I use the possessing pronoun correctly, she is mine, for I adore her, and the image of her sunny countenance is perched upon my heart.  One petal on the blossom of my devotion, has to be my admiration for her fashion challenges.

And in the truest form of admiring flattery, I intend to mimic her, with an empire slant.

The 10 Day Love Your Body Challenge
 

As the amorous month of February rises to its pinnacle on Valentine's day, kind thoughts for our figures can propagate and multiply as well.   By February 14th, my goal is to make at least one woman a little more cozy in her own skin.  Every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday between Feb 3rd and 14th, I will present a prompt which you may perform. 

It initiates this Friday and ends on Valentine's Day. 

May I have the pleasure of your company in this Love Your Body 10 Day Challenge?

Beauty-Full Tuesday: Entries from An Original Life Pattern

A panacea to perfectionism, unending social comparisons, and debilitating negativity, all in the pretty wise package known as Jessica from Entries from An Original Life Pattern

in my experience, we as women have a much easier time bestowing the word "beautiful" on others than we do giving it to ourselves.  aaand i'm not exception.  i think it's easier most times to seek beauty outside of ourselves instead of allowing ourselves to feel beautiful.

but for me that's what makes the difference - allowing myself to feel and be beautiful.

for a long time i denied myself the privilege of feeling beautiful.  but after waking up, i started on a journey toward what i think is true beauty: self acceptance.  during my journeying, there are a few things i do to allow myself to feel beautiful.  okay... there are a lot!  but for the sake of space {and your time} i'll just share three or four!

one} take care of myself.  this seems excessively broad, but for me it boils down to consistently doing a few things every day to make myself feel of worth.  things like making time to exercise and eat good food, making time to pray and connect with God.  i try to cover my bases so i feel taken care of physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, metaphorically...metaphysically.. you get the idea - in all areas!  i call these my dailies.  at the beginning of each week i plan three or four dailies for each day.  most of the time i don't get all of them done, but it's consistently giving my best effort to self care that makes the difference.  sometimes {especially on busy weeks} these are very basic: eating three healthy meals a day, getting some exercise, reading scripture, painting my nails.  when i'm in the habit of really taking care of myself it's so much easier to stay positive, think on the bright side, and rise above traps like social comparison and perfectionism.

two} be creative!  i'm an artist at heart.  before pursuing a degree in the social sciences, i dreamed of limitless creativity.  when i sold my soul to the family sciences i thought i'd kissed goodbye the ability to truly create.  but after a while i learned that anyone can create anywhere - it extends from the art department, to the business building, and down to testing center.  {forgive my college jargon - last week was finals so it's on the brain.}  we're all bestowed with creative ability and all equally capable of developing that ability.  and there's something to be said for creating something that you can truly call your own {whether it's an idea, an image, a cookie, or a blog post}.  it's good to be able to say, look.  i did that!  i made that all by myself from my own mind.  it's invigorating, and fills the soul with a recognition of the great worth we have - which is really, really beautiful.

three}  last, but not least, nurture healthy relationships.  i can think of few things greater than a relationship that uplifts both parties, and nothing as terrible as one that pulls both down.  when you know that someone loves you just how you are {and would still if you made a massive mistake or gained thirty pounds} it makes all the self-seen flaws shrink in importance and gives individually-viewed worth a big boost.  having someone to turn to who can show your worth in a moment when you can't seem to get hold of it is absolutely necessary.  for me, this is my mom, sisters, and awesome fiance {nine days till the wedding!}.  when i'm down on myself, having a heart-felt conversation can lift me up and make me realize there's more to life than great grades... or what jeans size i am... or that crazy driver that cut me off.  it gives good perspective to have healthy relationships.  and a fabulous friend can help anyone dig up that self-worth, break out the nail polish and chick-flicks, and help you feel downright beautiful.

one last thought.  {i know i said number three was the last, but bear with me.  this one's short.} if all else fails, look outside of yourself.  it takes loving yourself to be able to really love others, but we're creatures of reciprocity.  we thrive on cyclical pattern.  i don't just mean the old "what about the starving children in anywhere..." routine.  looking at the drastically less fortunate always just put me in a bad mood and made me feel ungrateful {no disrespect meant to starving children anywhere, by the way}.  i mean help someone else recognize their true beauty and self-worth.  write a note, give a compliment, spend time creating some cookies for a friend... whatever it takes to get you outside of your own head and into the life of someone you can help.  for me, lifting someone else is a sure way to feel that my life is worth something.

so there you have it!  my great strategy for living after the manner of happiness.  because when we can recognize our self-worth and learn to give ourselves the word "beautiful," happy is what we'll be.  and i'd say that thought is pretty darn beautiful.

Beauty-Full Tuesday: I Love You Long Time

Beautiful starts now, don't miss of i dot or a t dash from Missus Mandy of Love You Long Time

He told me I was beautiful. It was late at night, and we were under this enormous New Hampshire willow. The summer night was getting cold, but not so cold that we would touch quite yet, although that would come. The stars hung heavy in the sky and felt closer than the night before somehow – and he told me I was beautiful.

I didn’t believe him at first, which is sad and something that I think a lot of us as women tend to do. The blushing denial wherein we shake our heads and pretend it wasn’t said. We look around and point to ourselves as if to say, “You don’t mean me –“when we know exactly who he meant. But when he told me I was beautiful I felt like he was right. So I said thank you, and I didn’t blush, and I didn’t avoid his eyes.

That was the first time I really believed I was beautiful, because my entire life prior I thought beauty had a timeline. In Junior High it was, “When I get my braces off,” in High School it was, “When I fill out a little” (never happened, FYI), in college it was, “When I can afford to buy nice clothes and get my hair done.” I pushed off beauty. I thought it was a destination – a place I would get to, not realizing that I was already beautiful – and I was beautiful not because of all of those seemingly important things, but because I was kind – or tried to be, and I had friends and family who loved me and I was becoming someone I was proud of becoming.  That is why he told me I was beautiful.

It is difficult to believe in our beauty. We believe in the beauty of others - sure, but not ourselves. We pore over fashion magazines, and ask our hairstylist to, “Make us look like her,” always disappointed in the result when we look like ourselves after the process, with a hairstyle that definitely does not flatter our long, or round or heart-shaped face. We buy clothes because someone else wore them first. We attempt to lose weight because someone else is thin and they wear thin well. We mimic beauty to the best of our abilities because beauty is something we don’t believe we will ever possess.

We all know the cliché about true beauty starting inside of us, but let me state it again because it is the truth.  The heart of beauty is self-love - which is very different from vanity. Self-love is to embrace our imperfections – our split ends, and flat chest and unshaved legs (if you are me), because at the end of every single day we only have ourselves, and we can either be our closest ally or truest enemy. We don’t need a man to tell us we are beautiful to believe it because when he told me I was beautiful it was something I already knew, but didn’t believe. I think each of us really know it all along if we try hard enough to hear our lungs and eyes and hearts reassure us every day we get to live on this earth. This earth is beautiful because we are on it and we are improving it – and that is how I feel beautiful. 

Me and the boy who told me I was beautiful

Beauty-Full Tuesday: Anna Sanford Lowe

It takes a lot for me to pull out a dictionary, but semiotics, I like a girl willing to string together a rarely used combination of syllables. I like Anna Sanford Lowe. 

In 2005 Elder Holland gave a talk, "To Young Women", in the October session.  A few lines of this incredibly insightful talk have been permanently burned in my memory and heart:

"I plead with you young women to please be more accepting of yourselves, including your body shape and style, with a little less longing to look like someone else. We are all different. Some are tall, and some are short. Some are round, and some are thin. And almost everyone at some time or other wants to be something they are not!"

My whole life I have tried to "fit in".  To be someone I am not.  I wanted to look like everyone else.  Average.  Normal.  I have had to stop using those words, because I reached a point in my life where I realized that they don't have any meaning.  Now I am not delving into semiotics here, claiming words have no definitions, but normal, average have no meaning because they mean something different for every person.  There was a time in my life when I measured my thighs multiple times a day.  What was the ideal measurement?  Someone once asked me that.  And suddenly, I realized.  There is no normal.  There is no perfect thigh size.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  And I am the beholder in the mirror everyday.  I had to start believing that I am beautiful.  I had to stop trying to "fit in."  Because that state of being doesn't exist.  We are who we are.  And we need to like the way we are.  

I thought about some lines from one of my favorite ever, and ever children's books: I Like the Way You Are.  Two turtles.  Two friends.  Very different.  And at the end of each story, one turtle says to the other: "I am who I am.  And I am not who I am not."  And the friend turtle answers back: "I like the way you are."  I cry almost every time I read that book with my kids.  I want to put those lines on each of their walls and say it to them every night before they go to bed.  And when they wake up.  And when they come home from school crying because someone said they were too this or not enough that.  I want them to know and be proud of who they are.  And proud of who they are not.  And to know that I, and their Heavenly Father, LOVE the way they are.  

Here is the big surprise: I am skinny.  I covet my daughters' thick, healthy thighs (they're 3 and 2).  I have tried to make myself gain weight through eating, prayer, weight gaining shakes.  But you know what: my body seems to know something that took my head and heart a lot longer to learn: I am who I am.  I am not who I am not.  And I like the way I am.  My body has a blueprint and it knows who it is.  And I am learning to love that person. It is different from my sisters, my mom, my grandma, my friends, my sisters-in-law, my mother-in-law.  But it is me.   

That is why Elder Holland's talk resonated with me.  Because everyone wants to be something they are not.  So many people want to be thinner.  And I have spent my life trying to be bigger.  I am no one's ideal.  Just like they are not mine.  Because there is no ideal.  There is no perfect measurement.  There is no normal.

And thank goodness!  We are all so beautiful and so different.  The world would be so boring if we all looked the same.  When I look at other people, I don't see weight, I see beauty.  I see personality.  I see love.  I see faith and charity.  When I look at myself, I am trying to see those same things.  Because if everyone is trying to be someone else, we are not spending enough time being ourselves.  And God needs us to be ourselves.

Elder Holland quotes a Young Women leader, "'When you let people’s opinions make you self-conscious you give away your power. … The key to feeling [confident] is to always listen to your inner self—[the real you.]'"

Everyday I tell myself that I love being me.  I love my imperfections and my strengths.  It is all me.  My weight does not define me, if I do not let it.  There is no normal.  We are all beautiful, powerful daughters of God.  And I like the way we are.  I like the way I am.  

Beauty-Full Tuesday: The Wild & Wily Ways of a Brunette Bombshell

Meg's writing reads like a fine conversation at a cafe table, with steaming chai latte, or in my case over-frothed pero.  Someday she is going to find me chasing behind her imaginative essence on the hudson river.  If she isn't too alarmed, perhaps I can talk her into going to the ballet with me because I adore the wild and wily ways of this brunette bombshell.

when Reachel first emailed me about this lovely series she posed a question that i loosely translated to what makes you feel beautiful? and then quickly mis-remembered as what make you feel sexiest? (there's some kind of insight into my core right there). the question could not have come at a better time. (precisely because i was feeling anything but).

 beauty is a funny thing, isn't it? a fickle mistress. what i've come to understand is that feeling you're beautiful and knowing you're beautiful are entirely different things. and i'd take the feeling any day of the week, because the feeling--that inner spark--well, that informs everything. so i took Reachel's question and i went for a jog (literally). and as my feet pounded away at the pavement, and the hudson river rolled past on my left, i made a list. and that list made one thing very clear: i feel most beautiful when i am most myself (which as it turns out is also when i feel sexiest--for me there is no difference between the two), when i am fully engaged in this chaotic and turbulent and wholly exciting world we live in. what does that mean?
















well, it means i feel more beautiful when i'm laughing really hard. out loud. and even more so when i'm telling a good joke or a good story--watching the eyes of the people i love crinkle in response to something i've said? heaven. few things trump that. i feel most beautiful while eating a green apple, after an impossible exercise class, with my hair pulled into a high, messy bun, as i traipse about lower manhattan giving thanks for a body that moves and runs and spins--holy heck is the body a miraculous thing! or when listening to good music. or waiting for the subway with a good book in hand. reading and understanding and reveling in a poem that three years ago made no sense to me (walt whitman's "song of the open road"). watching the rain move in over chicago as portugal. the man plays "so american". standing arms and mouth open to welcome said rain. imbibing a hot drink on a cold day. a walk through central park on a cool morning. furtively glancing at the guy at the end of the bar and then catching him mid-stare. or a nod from the bass player from that one alaskan band i so love. doing something, anything, that a year ago i couldn't (or rather, was too afraid) to do. heading into the belly of the beast of fear and coming out the other end makes me feel beautiful in a way that nothing (and i do mean nothing) can touch.

what i look like will change with time. my weight will fluctuate. the lines on my forehead will crease. the gray hairs will take hold and multiply. but my mind, my intelligence, the light behind my eyes--that (God willing) will remain. more than that (again, God willing) it will grow and burgeon. it is my belief that my intelligence and my desire to live life fully--to live imperfectly but honestly, makes me wholly myself.  and the more i can align myself with my value system, the more i balance on the axis of who i am--the more i know what i want and what i believe in, the more beautiful i feel. and there, on that axis, perched atop it all--balancing on the bounties of this life (both good and bad) well, then, from there, the opinions of others regarding what i look like will matter only with my consent. it will be how i feel from within my body--inside the sweet-spot of life that will dictate my response. i won't need a mirror or a scale or any of the trappings to provide me with what i've somehow always known but often doubted: that i am, in fact, yes, beautiful.

Beauty-Full Tuesday: A Few of My Favorite Things

Lush eyelashes to filter a prettier view of the world

Strongly arched brows to discern miserable illusions

Smartly framed glasses to focus on what's really important

Molly of A Few of My Favorite Things and her Beauty-Full View of the World

I am petite by nature.  It is in my genes.  I am actually smaller now than before I had my three boys.  Now before you switch your computer off and stop reading, I say these things for a purpose.  By all outward appearances, I should have a good sense of who I am.  Alas, I am like so many of you ladies out there --- I am too hard on myself.  If I let self-doubt creep in, my confidence begins to dwindle.  She is a terrible thing.  Self-doubt can drag me low and vanish any happiness I once felt for myself.  I have fair skin.  Small breasts. I am not tall enough. My skin is oily.  These are the words that self-doubt whispers to me.  She is ruthless.

And so, when she comes knocking at the door, I promptly shut it.  I turn off the computer.  I set aside my phone.  And I dig deep.  I remind myself of my divine nature.  Of my talents.  Of all that I have achieved and can achieve.  I stop comparing.  And then, I go sit on the floor with my three boys and relish in their delight.  They truly lift my spirits and plus, they give me killer compliments.  When I am with my boys I feel beautiful.  I grew them.  I helped create them.  Each one has added to my beauty.

Besides spending time with my little guys, I've found an almost fail-proof way to help facilitate a good day.  I get dressed.  I dab a bit of color on my cheeks.  Swipe on some gloss.  Do my hair.  And spritz on a bit of my favorite scent.  When I look my best, I feel better about myself.

Beauty-Full Tuesday: Michelle of What Happiness Is

This Michelle must have a proud mother, and a proud husband, and proud daughters, because I know I'm proud to be hosting aspiring author Missus Michelle of What Happiness Is 

Feeling beautiful has been so elusive for me.  A good portion of my life has been spent worrying about my lack of beauty, and as a result, I have missed out on opportunities and happiness.  Thankfully in recent years, I have let go of all that nonsense.  Of course I still have days I wish I were thinner or that my hair was fuller, or whatever it may be, but for the most part I feel beautiful and here are my two main secrets:

1 - Accepting and believing sincerely given compliments.  Especially the ones that have more to do with my character and less to do with my physical appearance.  I allow myself to see that beauty involves much much more than my dress size.  

It's like looking at a Monet painting up close.  If you scrutinize individual brush strokes, it is nothing more than squiggly lines and smeared paint.  The beauty of the masterpiece is found in stepping back and taking in the whole picture.  The same is true when looking for beauty in ourselves, we need to stop focusing in on individual features and appreciate our full characters.

2 - Being true to myself.  It takes practice and courage, but I believe that beauty is reflected more abundantly in those who know what they stand for, and honestly try to live in alignment with those standards.  It can be so easy to be a different person depending on who we are with, but where is the power in that? Real beauty comes from confidence, and real confidence comes in being true to who we are.  Knowing who I am, and being true to that knowledge makes me feel beautiful!  

I guess what it comes down to is the belief that beauty is our birthright.  We were all created with the ingredients of beauty, the only thing we need to add is our willingness to believe it and the courage express it!

Beauty-Full Tuesday: Yep, They Are All Mine

Hi, my name is Kim, and since I can't afford therapy I write over at Yep, they are all mine.

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback when Reachel asked me

to write this - a post about body confidence and feeling beautiful in my own skin?

Me? Okay, I'll give it a shot...

I've been pregnant three times and have birthed three babies.

Age, stress, and more food/less exercise means that

my body looks very different then it did 10 years ago

{photographic evidence HERE}.

But here's the thing: I refuse to be sucked into the mom trap.

I'm not a size 6 anymore,

but that doesn't mean I need to give up on life

and live in black yoga pants {never actually used for yoga} and baggy t-shirts.

There are a few "fashion rules" I try to live by {most days} that help me feel good about myself:

{1}

On the days I don't work,

it's really easy to fall into the "lounge around in my jammies all day" routine.

However, I would rather not drop my kids off at school looking like THAT mom,

so I make myself take a shower and get dressed.

When I'm put together, I feel better.

And I don't embarrass my kids.

{2}

I don't have a fancy wardrobe.

I buy most of my clothes from Target and thrift stores.

The one thing I splurge on is jeans.

Nordstrom Rack and consignment stores have amazing deals

on premium denim - and it is totally worth the cost.

This ass needs to be properly contained.

{3}

Accessories are my best friends - they punctuate - and distract away from

a potentially boring outfit on those days I don't have any clean clothes.

Even the 4-year-olds understand.

{4}

I love, love, LOVE colors, patterns, textures, and layers. They make me happy.

And when Mama's happy, everyone's happy.

{5}

Wedges.

The only chance I'll ever have at long legs.

Thanks so much for having me, Reachel!