Brave & Beautiful

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!

The picture above is the one I use for the majority of my online/business personality. As you can see, I’m not wearing tons of make up in the picture but to be honest, I added quite a few filters and photoshop effects to smooth out and brighten my skin. I didn’t go a crazy as I could have with photoshop but it still isn’t 100% my natural face. Which leads me to…

And here I am without a lick of make-up on and possibly looking even worse than usual because my allergies are so freaking horrible this year. Honestly, this is what I look like about 90% of the time. Most of my days are either spent working at my craft desk or running around with my boys, both of which I find make-up to be absolutely unnecessary. Sure, some days, when I have a little extra time or I decide to wear a cute dress, I might put on a little tinted concealer and mascara but I never want to fall into The Make-Up Trap of believing I ever need any of it.

Because I know how hard it is to pull your self out of that trap, I promise you, I do! My trap started almost five years ago while visiting my step-father, who was battling cancer, in a hospital. I was fine one day and then the next, the skin on my nose began to itch with a slight burning. I didn’t think anything of it for the first few hours (I actually thought it was from me cutting jalapenos!) but immediately grew concerned once the itching and burning migrated to other parts of my nose and the outer edges of my eye and lip.

Twelve hours later, after a sleepless night, the small irritations had spread to three more sections of my face and were itching so badly, it felt like something was eating away my skin. I immediately went to see my general practitioner who prescribed an ointment that did absolutely nothing and quite possibly spread the infection even further. You can imagine how absolutely freaked out I was because the infection wasn’t reacting to any medication and scary words like “MRSA” and “Staph” were now being thrown around. Scary stuff, right?!

The following day I was transferred to an Infectious Disease Specialist and was immediately given a handful of heavy medications to take along with another ointment. Finally, after a few more nervous hours, I began to feel some relief! The infection was finally retreating and we were no longer worried about it jumping to other parts of my body or getting into my bloodstream. The clouds were clearing and after a week or so, I was beginning to feel like myself again…and then I would look in the mirror.

I was so thankful to be alive and healthy but it was really hard to look in the mirror and see the scars of the battle MRSA had waged on my face. You see, all that time when the itching felt like something was eating my skin…it really was and as a result, I was left with a few large “cut-outs” in my nose and a handful of small indention everywhere else. It’s a crazy feeling looking in the mirror and not recognizing the woman looking back at you.

So, yeah, even though I never liked it before, I fell into that Make-Up Trap and I fell hard! I felt like I had lost so much control while fighting the infection, piling on make-up every morning (even though I rarely wore it previously) made me feel like I was “normal” again, like I was in charge, like I was myself again…and then it didn’t…

It wasn’t normal for me to hide behind concealer or foundation. It wasn’t normal for me to take pictures from only one angle. It wasn’t normal for me to shy away meeting new people because “What would they think?” Make-up should be something you put on because you want to, not because you have to. How was I going to wean myself off the only thing that prevented the world from seeing how truly scarred, inside and out, I was?

I started by going out without make-up and pretending that all the people staring at my nose didn’t bother me one bit. Those early days were really hard but eventually, I pretended that I was brave and self-assured enough that one day I realized, I wasn’t pretending anymore. I was brave and I was self-assure and I was scarred. Slowly but surely, I started looking in the mirror and recognizing the woman who was looking back.

So, what’s the lesson I learned from the super freaky Skin Battle of 2009? I am perfectly comfortable in the skin and scars that I live in because the thing is, they aren’t the legacy that I plan on leaving behind. They aren’t my masterpiece.

My masterpiece is the hard work and dedication I’ve put in to a marriage with my best friend.
My masterpiece is the circle of family and friends that represent all that is good and crazy in this world.
My masterpiece is the privilege of knowing the two amazing little human beings that call me “Mama.”
My masterpiece is being brave and beautiful, not in spite of my scars, but because of them.

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.<<<<<<<<<<<<