Redefining Beauty & Celebrating Our Uniqueness

On this episode of Small Steps to Self-Love, guest Bridgett Burrick Brown shares how redefining beauty can help you accept your inner beauty and physical self more. If you struggle with seeing yourself as beautiful, this episode is for you!

Bridgett Burrick Brown is a holistic health counselor, professional model, and founder of the Beyond Beauty Project, a movement and multimedia platform that focuses on inspiring confidence and self-esteem surrounding beauty, body image, and mental health by providing education and awareness around feeling our best mentally, physically, and spiritually. With a mission to break down the barriers to true beauty and self-worth, Bridgett empowers women to ditch the patriarchal standards and shape their own beauty, free from judgment and others’ expectations. She is passionate about helping others with resilience and redefining the meaning of beauty, knowing all too well that beauty is an inside job. In her podcast, Beyond Beauty Project: The Podcast, she dives into raw conversations with women from diverse backgrounds and professions discussing the hopes, joys, and fears surrounding their own beauty.

https://www.beyondbeautyproject.com/
https://www.instagram.com/beyond.beauty.project/

ABOUT SHELBY:
Shelby is a mental health author, who has grown an audience of more than 500,000 on social media who resonate with her work. She is the author of 3 poetry books, including her latest release, girl made of glass and her bestselling book, changing with the tides. Shelby also runs an online poetry community, and helps authors market themselves and their books for more sales.

resources from shelby:

·        check out Shelby’s mental health poetry books

·        Free self-love poetry print

·        Join the poetry club

·        Get help with marketing as a writer

connect with shelby:

·        Instagram: @shelbyleighpoetry

·        YouTube: Shelby Leigh Poetry

·        TikTok: @shelbyleighpoetry

Transcript

Shelby Leigh [00:00:00]:

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Small Steps to Self Love. My name is Shelby Lee. I am a mental health writer and self love advocate. And today I am joined by Bridget Burrick Brown. She is the founder of the Beyond Beauty Project that focuses on inspiring confidence and self esteem around body image and mental health. I am so excited to talk with her today about redefining beauty and really diving into how this can affect our self love. Thank you so much for coming on, Bridget. I would love to just pass it over to you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Bridgett [00:00:35]:

Okay, well, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to chat with you today. My name is Bridget Burke Brown, and I'm the founder of the Beyond Beauty Project. And, yeah, I'm just working very hard every day, helping to inspire confidence around our body image, our beauty, and our mental health, because I think they're all interconnected.

Shelby Leigh [00:01:01]:

That's amazing. How did you get started with this type of work?

Bridgett [00:01:04]:

That's a really big question because I feel like it's sort of the history of my life. I grew up, like a lot of us did, with a challenging sort of childhood. My mom had multiple sclerosis, and she was in a wheelchair by the time I was seven. And I just saw her struggle with her. She was very beautiful, and I saw her, as she got sick, really start to struggle with her, her, like, physical appearance declining and her body declining and gaining weight from steroids. And then I went on to live in the dance world, and then I went on to the modeling world. And when I was in that world, it sort of led me to this. Like, I was traveling a lot on my own. I was in Paris. This was before, like, cell phones and being connected to the world still. And I just kind of dove into, like, self help and psychology. I was always sort of interested in that. If I would have finished my degree in school, that's what I would have done, psychology. And then we were always asked to lose weight and that sort of stuff. So I started educating myself on a healthier way to do it. So I dove into personal training, holistic, nutrition, but there was always this feeling of, God, I wish I had a more innate confidence. And I always said, one day I'm going to help women and girls with confidence. I didn't really know what that meant. And then I always shared kind of like people would always ask, what do you do for your skin? So I was always sharing that kind of stuff. And then I had this really rock bottom where I had a few years of I lost a bunch of family members. I went through a bunch of miscarriages. I was going back to the modeling world thinking like, okay, I'll get one thing back. Like it was before my world sort of flipped upside down and I was told that I needed to lose weight. And I was 41 and I had just lost twins at five and a half months. And I was like, you know what, I think I'm going to start my project for real. I'd already started kind of sharing on my social media about depression and suicide ideation and all of those sort of things. And I just started a podcast, and I just wanted to really change this narrative of feeling like we had to look a certain way to be accepted or to be enough. I dove into it, not really knowing exactly what I was doing, and it's just sort of manifested into this beautiful creation now. And I love it. I love what I do.

Shelby Leigh [00:04:09]:

I love that. Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm sorry to hear about the losses that you had. I also come from a dance background, and there's definitely a lot of body image that plays into the dance world and the competitive dance world, so I can definitely relate to some of those feelings you talked about and the podcast as well. I dove into this not really knowing what to expect either. Totally out of my comfort zone, but been really fun connecting with a lot of different people who are doing all different types of mental health work and self love work like yourself. Yeah, that's amazing.

Bridgett [00:04:47]:

I know. I love the connections that I've made through the podcast. Yeah, it's so cool. And I learned so much. I just love learning from people.

Shelby Leigh [00:04:57]:

Me too. Me too. I would love to learn more about how you define the word beauty with the beyond beauty project. What does that look like?

Bridgett [00:05:08]:

So I say beauty is how we feel. I think that I learned really quickly from being in the modeling world that how you look on the outside doesn't matter if you're not feeling good on the inside. So I could have been getting booked for the COVID of Vogue and getting told that I was beautiful, but inside I felt horrible. I felt ugly. So I really think that beauty has to come from inside, as cliche as it is. And I think beauty comes from our physical, our mental and our spiritual health. And then I really think that beauty is so much bigger than our appearance. It's this big, beautiful thing, and someone that we might think is beautiful can open their mouth and they can turn ugly very quickly. Right? So I think it's like, are you being a beautiful person? What does that mean? Are you being kind? Are you being open? How are you showing up in the world? And I really think being beautiful is being unique. I think if we could start celebrating that more and really owning that instead of listening to the world tell us that we need to look a certain way and to have a certain trend body, but to really celebrate how unique we all are because we are. And that's awesome. It's so cool.

Shelby Leigh [00:06:43]:

Totally. Yeah. And those messages are everywhere. The stereotypes are everywhere.

Bridgett [00:06:48]:

Oh my God, TV, radio, everywhere. Everywhere.

Shelby Leigh [00:06:54]:

So what are some ways that we can combat that and not let that affect our mental health or not let that affect our vision of ourselves?

Bridgett [00:07:04]:

Well, I think expanding our view first, I think specifically with maybe let's just take our social media scroll. This is an example. I saw somebody yesterday. I was reading someone's post and she wrote a pretty long comment on this girl's. I think it's she has like a body positive page and she's like, you know, when I first started going on your page and I started seeing bigger bodies, I hated it. I hated it. I would scroll by really fast. It made me uncomfortable. But I kept following you for some reason. I liked your message, but when you posted the bigger bodies, it made me uncomfortable. She's like now? I love it. And I've expanded my view of what beauty is, right? So I think if you actually want to, not if you're feeling sort of like in handcuffs from oh my God, I cannot live in this beauty ideal, or I can't be perfect enough, or I'm feeling a little bit controlled by it. Expand your view, expand what you think is beautiful. And I think we have to kind of step outside of the box a little bit. I think that advertising is starting to show different bodies and different races, which is nice, but there is still this strong need for us all to live up to these unrealistic beauty standards. And now there's so many more tools, there's so many cosmetic procedures or filters or face tuning to achieve it. So we have to be careful. Right? So I think expanding that, I think educating ourselves on knowing the difference between a filtered advertisement or a retouch advertisement and real skin, knowing that's actually not real skin, so I'm not going to be able to achieve that. And then I think probably the biggest part is really understanding that we're more than our bodies, we're more than our beauty, we're more than our appearance. And that can't be the most important thing about us. There's so much more about us. So what are the things that make us unique? What is really cool about us that has nothing to do with what we look like? And also appreciating what our bodies do? We're so quick to say, like, my stomach or all my arms aren't small enough or they're not toned enough. When I was really healing myself from some of my body dysmorphia, which still comes up for me, I think it's like a process and it's something that maybe you're always working on. But when I was really deep into it after I had lost the twins at five and a half months. I wrote a lot of love letters to my body because I'm a big journaler and I would just wake up and write, like, dear body, I love you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm so mad at you right now. I'm so mad at you. You failed me. I feel like you failed, but I was really honest. I feel like you failed me and you don't look the way I want you to look, but I love you. It makes me cry and it just started being like but I love you and thank you. You're healthy and you're recovering and you have legs at work.

Shelby Leigh [00:10:42]:

Yeah, that's so powerful.

Bridgett [00:10:44]:

But it is. It's like really thinking, like, we're more than our appearance, and when we get so caught up in what we look like and trying to lose three pounds or the forever seven pounds, that takes up so much mental space and time, and it takes us away from the present. It's like understanding that our bodies are for experiences. Like, if we weren't living, we're souls that live in these bodies. If we didn't have these bodies, we couldn't have this experience right now. Couldn't fall in love, we couldn't dance with our friends. So I think it's really reminding ourselves, like, I am so much more than my appearance. I'm freaking cool. I have things to say. I'm smart, I'm funny, whatever. You are.

Shelby Leigh [00:11:32]:

Totally. That's so powerful. I love that reframe. Reframing how you look at beauty, how you look at your body.

Bridgett [00:11:40]:

And things are so much more interesting now that I've reframed it. I'm like, there is so much more interesting thing. Obviously you have friends from different groups and I have a few friends. That's all they want to talk about. And now that I've sort of started reframing a lot the last few years, I'm like, I find it pretty boring. I don't want to talk about I still love, like, a red lip and a good blow dry, and I love putting on a dress and feeling feminine. I love talking about other stuff more than that, of course.

Shelby Leigh [00:12:19]:

Yeah, I love that tip about journaling and talking to your body. Are there any other steps that you take or have taken during your journey to accepting your body more? Is there anything else that you've done that you found has really been powerful for you?

Bridgett [00:12:37]:

Absolutely. I think getting out of the mirror is huge. I think there's a lot of body checking and standing in front of the mirror and pinching our thighs, and I really spend minimal time. It's to the point where I go out the house and then I'm like, before in the morning, I'm like, should have looked at myself. But just like getting out of the mirrors, even if you got to cover them up for a little bit and not talking negative about my body. Listen, there was a time where it was all consuming. So I really needed to get it out to my therapist and my husband. I never talked about it in front of my daughter. I think that's a huge one for anybody listening that has children. I really had to say, like, this is something I need to heal, and she doesn't need to be a part of it. Right. But trying to really not talk negatively to myself about my body. I've recently stopped filtering completely because I think filtering sends us this message that we need to be altered. Right. What's filtering? Filtering the definition is like the altering of a photo or an image, and it's just sending ourselves messages that saying, like, I'm not good enough. I need to alter my appearance, basically. And then a big step that I've taken is throwing out clothes that don't fit me and that aren't comfortable, like jeans. Like, I just did a huge jean clean out. I'm like every time I come into this closet, I'm reminded that I don't fit into my gold jeans. And it's okay, I'm going to get new jeans. Fitting into your clothes and feeling comfortable in your clothes is really nice because when you shove yourself into clothes that don't fit, it's just this reminder all day long, got to lose seven pounds. I'm not good enough. How dare I don't. It's like the shame cycle will start to fit into your jeans, your piece or whatever. It's like, it's really easy to go to not being very nice to yourself. So I think getting rid of the clothes is a big one too.

Shelby Leigh [00:15:03]:

That's great advice. Definitely. I feel like a lot of people, a goal is to have a piece of clothing in the closet that they don't fit in, that they want to fit in in the future. And I think that would just be a huge drag to see that all the time and be reminded.

Bridgett [00:15:20]:

Yeah, get rid of the gold jeans. Who started that? Some really horrible tabloid. Get rid of the gold jeans. I had so many gold jeans, and yeah, I threw them all away. I was like, took a garbage, just threw them all and dresses and anything that doesn't fit you. Yeah, totally.

Shelby Leigh [00:15:46]:

No, that's great advice. If there were one of those things or something different as a small step for our listeners to take with them this week, what is one thing that they should focus on or do to work toward that body?

Bridgett [00:16:00]:

Acceptance, I think slowing down and having the time and the space. And I don't even mean a lot of slowing down, but even taking a moment in our days to say, what do I need? What does my body need? How am I feeling? You can put your hands on your heart. What am I feeling in my body right now? What do I need? What does my soul need? And kind of really getting in touch with our intuition because when we're recovering from any sort of body image, eating, disordered eating, et cetera, we're oftentimes really not embodied in our bodies. We're really living outside of ourselves, almost like objectifying and looking at ourselves as an object, whether it's in a mirror, photo, or just in our heads. And if we can really get in touch with our bodies again, in our intuition, and it can be as simple as stopping at your desk and just taking a couple of deep breaths and just being like, how are you feeling? What do I need? What do I need mentally? What do I need physically? What do I need spiritually to help me right now? I think getting in tune with ourselves is like it helps a lot.

Shelby Leigh [00:17:20]:

Absolutely. Those are great questions. I definitely encourage everyone listening to take those with them to speak and pause and ask yourself those questions. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, your story, your advice today. If people want to learn more about you, where should they go?

Bridgett [00:17:39]:

We're very active on Instagram. It's Beyond Beauty project. Our website is Beyondbutyproject.com, and we're a little bit on TikTok, but that's just starting. Our website and our Instagram is perfect.

Shelby Leigh [00:17:57]:

Love it. Wonderful.

Bridgett [00:17:58]:

Thank you so much.

Shelby Leigh [00:17:59]:

Anything else you would like to add to the conversation before we wrap up?

Bridgett [00:18:05]:

I think start really celebrating the things that make you unique. Start writing them down and celebrating them.

Shelby Leigh [00:18:13]:

I love that. Beautiful advice. Thank you so much. And thank you, everyone, for listening. I hope you have a wonderful week filled self love and confidence and kindness.