Sharing A Piece of My Heart! #IAmBraveandBeautiful #ColbieTry

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I am Brave and Beautiful – a beauty movement that is sweeping the globe. Colbie Caillat started it with her recent song and video called TRY. My blogging friend Megan of Brassy Apple wanted to push this movement along and invited women from all over to share what they looked like without make up and I joined in!! Colbie’s song says, “Take your make up off. Let your hair down… Look into the mirror at yourself, Do you like you? Cause I like you… “

Megan and her friend Cobi of Peacefrom6pieces have been the team behind this whole project. Their worldwide vision included creating their own video inspired by the song TRY. The talent of Robbins Creative made it possible for them to pull it off. You have to click play and see the beauty and bravery displayed and you might even recognize a few faces in there.

Me along with 101+ other blogging women from different backgrounds, religions, ethnicities, ages, shapes and sizes have decided to be Brave and Beautiful! You can join in this movement too by sharing what you look like without makeup on. You don’t need a blog either! Just tag your photo with #IamBraveAndBeautiful on Instgram and search the hashtag to see who else has joined in. ALSO, if you tag it with a second hashtag – #ColbieTRY we just might be able to get Colbie Caillat’s attention since she was the inspiration behind it all!

Are you brave and beautiful? I am, here I go!

I have always been one to never leave the house without my hair and makeup done. That includes not wearing sweats and tshirts, ponytails, or pajamas out. I guess you could say that I always wanted to look and feel my best. It’s also something that my Grandma did and I grew up watching her get ready for work in the mornings when they babysat my brother and I. My Grandma is someone who I wanted to emulate and I think that this ended up being one of the ways that I did.

I even did my makeup while in labor with my first baby! After they gave me the epidural, I asked my husband for my makeup bag and brush. With our second, I had it done before we went to be induced at the hospital. I’ve gone into surgery that way too and will often fix my hair and apply some makeup when I’m sick.

So what I’m saying is that it wasn’t all that easy for me to take a picture without anything on my face. I was completely exposed! All of my flaws, the little things I always try to hide… But you know what? It was freeing seeing myself in the picture without any layers. It was just little old me, and I did what the song talks about doing. I asked myself how I felt about the person I saw.

I struggled horribly as a teenager with self esteem. I hit a growth spurt when I was in fifth grade. Unfortunately, I put on weight and didn’t grow much in height. It took a couple of years to get out of it. I was eating diet foods as an 11 year old! I just wanted to be thin like my friends, to fit what I saw on TV shows and movies. Once I hit junior high, it was an entirely different story. I was faced with kids who had a lot more money than we did, who could afford the trendy clothes. I wanted so badly to just have one pair of Lucky Jeans and one pair of Doc Martens. I really thought all I needed were some cool clothes and thinner body to feel better about myself.

I could never get my hair right. In eighth grade, I would come home from school and sometimes get my hair wet and blow dry it all over again, attempting to get it “looking better”. I remember crying many times when I couldn’t get it just right. I NEVER looked in the mirror when I wasn’t home. Why? Because I was afraid I would find something that I couldn’t fix. That I would have to walk around the rest of the day knowing that I had some “flaw”. I wore baggy clothes, not because they were comfortable, but to hide my body. I hated it! I wanted longer legs, to have a smaller chest (because in my young mind, I was huge!), and to be just a little taller. I didn’t look some people in the eye and had a difficult time talking to some kids because they were more popular, fashionable, or pretty. I’m sure many thought I was shy, though that was not the real truth. I was just afraid they would take notice of my awful hair or the zit I was trying to hide.

Some of those insecurities stayed with me in high school. In fact, to this day, I still find that I avoid looking in the mirror. But I did make a decision at one point to stop letting these feelings drag me down. I had goals and dreams, and I didn’t want to waste my time worrying about things that really don’t matter.

What I realized was this. We are all beautiful because we are children of God. What we see in the mirror is how He made us, and that in and of itself makes us special and unique. We are loved more profoundly than any of us understand by a loving Heavenly Father who wants us to know that we don’t have to tweak, tweeze, nip, tuck, tattoo, or pay exorbitant amounts of money to clothe ourselves in the latest fashions. In the eyes of the world, I may not be pretty. I may not be fashionable. But fashions and fads come and go, and the ideals of beauty in the eyes of the world change with each generation.

I find power in knowing who I really am. I don’t need the approval of the world to be special or beautiful. And not only do I have the knowledge that God loves me, I have a husband who stands by my side and thinks I’m beautiful no matter what the situation. And I have two special little boys who adore me, with or without the makeup.

This is my natural self. And I found that even with the makeup, clothes, and jewelry, I’m still as insecure as I am without it! But that’s okay. It’s part of the process. And instead of focusing on my problems in pictures, I’m choosing to see the beauty in them instead. I found three things in each picture to take note of that were positive and turned off the negative thinking.

And what I chose to see was someone who was strong, who had overcome hard things. The little lines on my face are remnants of all of the laughter I’ve experienced over the years, the worries of life and being a mother, the smiles I make while playing with my children. My eyes sparkle with depth, insecurities, goals, dreams, heartache, and a faith the encapsulates my soul.

Like the song mentions, “take a breath” and look at what you really see. Do you like what you see? Just try…

Don’t stop here. Get clicking around – its a blog hop! Below are more brave and beautiful women bearing more than their natural beauty. They each have a little bit of their heart to share with you. Some get very personal. Some share stories. For some this was very hard to do yet they gathered their courage and did it anyway. We hope as you click around (and YES pin these different posts!) you will feel the importance of it, the empowering effect it has and that it encourages you in some way.

>>>>>>>Important info! Blog Hops often have glitches the first day. If the link has an ERROR, simply click on the HOME button for each site, or google the blog name next to the link, and you should see their brave and beautiful post there. Links will be updated as soon as possible.<<<<<<<<<<<<