I am exactly the person that I want to be

My good friend Kari shared this video with me. She said she saw it and thought of Our Beautiful Project. Now I am very much in love with this song. Once you watch it I think you will understand why. 

Pay it forward

If I had stopped to think about what I was planning on doing I probably wouldn't have done it. Not that it was a bad idea, it's just that I was kinda putting myself out there to a stranger who had only given me a warm but quick smile.

I went to a BNI networking group and met a great deal of wonderful people there. I was invited by my friend Eliza Truitt who found the networking group great for her photography business. Before the meeting started a beautiful woman smiled warmly at me. I instantly liked her. Each person said a bit about their business and that is when I found out about Zed, the warm smiling woman. She has a salon right in the heart of Columbia City. She came from Ethiopia and had a long and difficult road getting to the point where she now owns Salon Adidez. I could tell that everyone in the room loved her. 

Eliza told me that Zed's salon is the hub of Columbia City. It's a place where people of every color go to get their hair done—a real melting pot of culture. That's when I had an idea. 

After the meeting I drove to Salon Adidez. I walked in the door and said hello to her. She recognized me but was also surprised. 

I immediately started to regret my boldness but Zed was looking at me and then—I just handed her the framed Beautiful that I had decided I wanted to give to her. 

She was puzzled. She didn't know me or my intentions or the fact that I had decided that she was an incredible person that I wanted to get to know. I was just some woman who she had seen at her BNI meeting. 

And then I got red. I flushed with embarrassment and stammered out a "Here you go, I know you are busy, I'll just leave now." And she quickly said "No no. Please stay, have a seat." 

She showed the framed Beautiful to her client and asked her to read it. Her client loved it! And the 3 of us began to chat about this and that. About an hour later I finally left the salon feeling so much warmth from the visit. 

I went back to her salon a few weeks later and was visiting with Zed again. She shared with me a story about the framed Beautiful I had given her. She said she had a client come in a day or so later whom she hadn't seen in quite a long time. The woman was feeling terrible about herself. Apparently she had breast cancer. Zed wanted to help her realize that she is beautiful and decided to give her client the framed Beautiful that I had given her. The woman was surprised and so effusive with her appreciation. A day later the woman gave Zed a little bouquet of flowers as a thank you. 

Zed knew I wouldn't mind. And I didn't. I did something without stopping to think about the what if's. And now this framed Beautiful has found a proper home with someone who needs it. And that is the best ending to a story I can think of. 

Operation Beautiful is on a mission

One of the first things I did when I decided to start Our Beautiful Project was to google "Beautiful" and see what would show up. I wanted to know what is happening out there already to encourage women to grow their self-love. What were big corporations doing? What was happening on a grassroots level?  Number 4 in the google search was Operation Beautiful started by Caitlin Boyle.

Caitlin began by simply writing down on a scratch piece of paper "You are beautiful" and taping it to a public bathroom mirror for someone else to find. She would write variations of this note and leave it at work or the gym or even a grocery store public bathroom. Then she decided to launch a web site and grow a community of folks who would do the same thing and have this idea spread. There are quite a few stories of women stumbling across one of these notes at a time when they were really struggling and how much it helped to know that someone out there wanted to remind them that they are beautiful just the way they are.

Put a pack of post-its in your bag and whenever you find yourself in a public bathroom - jot a lovely note and stick it on the mirror for others to find. You can smile the rest of the day pondering what kind of impact you may be having on a total stranger. If you have a sec, take a pic of your Beautiful tactic and post it on Operation Beautiful.

One more thing about Caitlin, she is just publishing a book that tackles beauty issues and is meant for girls ages 8-14. Check it all out. She seriously rules.

Welcome

Here we ARE!

I have spent about a year and a half getting to the point of launching Our Beautiful Project. I am thrilled and humbled at getting a chance to share my little baby with, at first, family and friends. 

As I have gone through the process of creating the first product and launching this site I have been growing my beautiful self more than ever. Is it the sign in my bathroom that keeps me centered? Yes. Absolutely. It also seems that the more life hands me challenges the more the need to rally for love, for myself, becomes apparent. 

My site is not perfect. My knowledge of what I am doing is frightfully thin. But perfection is not the aim here. In fact, attempting to obtain perfection goes against the very idea of what Our Beautiful Project is all about. 

That's not to say if you find a misspelling or nonfunctioning link or something funky that you shouldn't let me know! 

Launching this site today is only the beginning. I hope to create a Beautiful community and offer products that make it easy to identify those who are also involved with Our Beautiful Project - t-shirts, water bottles, bracelets etc. 

And most especially, I really really want your own stories to publish on this blog - your own journey towards being beautiful either just starting or many years into it. Be an inspiration. Help me make this site a place of warmth for others who may only just be beginning their own journey from self-hate to beautiful. Submit your story to jen@ourbeautifulproject.com. Let me know if you would like me to change your name for privacy. 

Today, this survivor is thriving. 

thanks for stopping by,

Jen

Girl Hate

Laci Green tells it like it is. We have huge expectations of ourselves and one easy way to live up to those expectations is to cut everyone else down around us. Those snide thoughts or comments may be small but they build into omething pretty dang ugly in ourselves and in our society.

Share your framed Beautiful

If you are excited about your framed Beautiful and want to share a picture of where you hung it—please email me the image and I will post it here. Feel free to share how you acquired your framed Beautiful and a bit about your Beautiful journey. Thank you!