finding your beautiful

It seems everywhere I turn these days I’m finding beautiful stories, pictures and videos celebrating beauty outside of the tight parameters of “the beauty standard”.

Three specific sources were so impactful that I wanted to dedicate a blog post to sharing their uplifting messages with all of you.

Let’s start with Taryn Brumfitt. She posted this photo on Facebook, and had the audacity to declare that she preferred her after pic to her before.

And an amazing thing happened.

It went viral. She got millions of likes.

Taryn has since began her Body Image Movement. You can learn more about Taryn and her project on her website, and you can also check out her campaign on Kickstarter (which is already fully funded, and then some!).

In the meantime, please enjoy this video that describes the catalyst for this project.

The truth about beauty:

Next I stumbled upon a post that Jennie Saia published nearly a year go. I just re-read it a moment ago to make sure it’s as awesome as I remembered it, and …it is!

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty: Models from My Community delivers a whole lot of punch in a small number of words, along with some very impactful images.

Now, since I know clicking links is just about your least favourite thing to do, I’m going to tease you with her opening paragraphs. I do this because I know you’ll be hooked and then you’ll be forced to click on over to read the rest!

Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty: Models from My Community

Two weeks ago, I was standing in a hot warehouse watching some of my favorite people leap in the air, strikes poses, and play in front of a camera. I was loving everything I saw because – unlike in most traditional fashion spreads – everyone was smiling. 

Welcome to the Model Community project. Those smiles are the crux of why I started this initiative. Being a person should be enjoyable. Having a body should be empowering. Wearing clothes you like should be uplifting. Right now, the impact the media has on body image makes all these things harder than they should be, because we see a narrow range of what’s considered beautiful and we question the validity of our own bodies. We can’t find fashionable clothing to fit us and we drift between “regular” and “plus size” stores, wondering where we belong. We hope our sense of self and our knowledge that we are more than our appearance will protect us from insecurity, but we all feel doubt.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Here is my cry to the fashion and advertising worlds to help people be more happy and confident simply by representing greater diversity in their campaigns. Together with my community, I’ve created a look book to serve as a tangible example of the form this might take. 

Click on over to see these photos. You will not be disappointed. Trust me.

Finding beauty…everywhere:

Then on May 1st my friend Laurel at Eat Less Sugar, You’re Sweet Enough published this post on something she called The Love Experiment.

Laurel is starting with “one hated body part” and plans to focus on it until she has transformed the way she think about it. Then she’ll move onto the next body part, and so on and so forth.

Since then she has made a series of posts featuring other women and their views on their own bodies and ‘the beauty standard’.

Here is the first one, titled Fitting Room Confessions.

And the next two:

Alisa, is an eye-opener. It served to remind me that the beauty standard is not only alive and well, but that it is even narrower in other cultures.

And then there’s, Shahin, whose positive energy and healthy outlook is something I aspire to. She sees beauty in herself, and in everyone around her.

Changing our minds is so much harder than changing our bodies.

…but I’m finally feeling so optimistic that we are headed in the right direction, as a collective.

That so many of us are thinking, writing about and living this more inclusive view on beauty fills me with joy and hope.

Keep moving,

xoxo nancy