Tag Archives: confidence

Join Us For Tomorrow’s Beauty Revolution

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Beauty Revolution | Darling Magazine

Tomorrow is the day—our Beauty Revolution has almost arrived! As a way to help us all “discover beauty apart from vanity,” we are inviting you to replace your current photo on social media profiles with one that is 100% makeup free. It’s scary, yes, but we think we’ll all find that the freedom is a beautiful thing in itself!

If you’ll be joining us, we invite you to wake up tomorrow and post your bare-faced photo along with this (or something similar in your own words) as your status:

“I’m starting my New Year by going bare. Today I’ve changed my profile picture to celebrate REAL beauty. This year, I want to try a little harder to love the girl that looks at me from the mirror in the mornings, before the mascara and flat iron do their work. I want to participate in building a new beauty culture that will encourage women to be and love themselves instead of contributing to the jealousy, self hatred, and competition that social media often perpetuates between women. To join Darling Magazine’s Beauty Revolution and take your own stand, click here: darlingmagazine.org/darling-beauty-revolution.”

The Darling Core Team will all be participating in this, and we want to know if you are too. Share your true beauty with us by mentioning us in your social media post—we’re on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. We can’t wait to hear from each of you as you embark on this exciting revolution with us.

Happy New Year, beauties!

Darling Beauty Revolution

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Beauty Revolution | Darling Magazine

On New Years Day, we’re baring it all.

In February, I had a few girlfriends over for what would later be known as the “Naked Brunch.” I had the opportunity to write about it here on Darling Magazine and showcase the beautiful faces of those women just as they are—with no make-up. Darling readers responded. The article was read, re-read, and posted over and over again on the Facebook pages of many women. It got us thinking…

Social media is an entertaining outlet and effective way to keep our loved ones that are far away informed about our lives, but it has also become a significant source of competition among women. Comparison swells up and insecurity eats away at us when we see the highlight reel of someone else’s life displayed in pictures and statuses. We innocently but often play into the expectations that media has outlined for women by attempting to paint an image that mirrors what we see in the magazine pages. We become desperate to portray ourselves in a way that will encourage others to admire us, instead of just being real.

Part of Darling Magazine’s mission is to lead women to “discover beauty apart from vanity.” What better time to start afresh in our perspectives than on New Year’s Day? And what better place to do that than our virtual playground of envy?

Join us for Darling Magazine’s Beauty Revolution and make a statement about something real and beautiful: you. We invite women near and far to change their profile pictures to a makeup-free photo for 24 hours on New Year’s Day. Bare it all. Before you glam it up, snap a picture of the real you, then post it for the world to see and break down the towering walls of competition that these platforms can sometimes build up. If you’re with us, share this article to get the word out, and on New Years Day, post your bare-faced photo along with this (or something similar in your own words) as your status:

“I’m starting my New Year by going bare. Today I’ve changed my profile picture to celebrate REAL beauty. This year, I want to try a little harder to love the girl that looks at me from the mirror in the mornings, before the mascara and flat iron do their work. I want to participate in building a new beauty culture that will encourage women to be and love themselves instead of contributing to the jealousy, self hatred, and competition that social media often perpetuates between women. To join Darling Magazine’s Beauty Revolution and take your own stand, click here: darlingmagazine.org/darling-beauty-revolution.”

This challenge is the start of something bigger—the start of us women learning what beauty is really all about. Want to dig deeper? Check out some of our previous articles on real, lasting beauty…

- The Naked Brunch by Adrienne Sandvos
- My Body Is A Story by Adrienne Sandvos
- The Character of Beauty Series by Natalie Lynn Borton
- Healthy Girl Talk: Redefining Beauty by Natalie Lynn Borton
- Healthy vs. Skinny by Natalie Lynn Borton
- Loving Your Body Now: Overcoming Conditional Confidence by Natalie Lynn Borton
- Photoshopping Our Souls Away by Sarey McIvor
- Seen, Known, Loved: Messy Hair & Vulnerability by Stephanie May

Are you joining the Darling Beauty Revolution? Leave us a comment and let us know!

The Naked Brunch

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It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. I thought I had a cute idea when I asked a handful of friends to do a little experiment with me. I invited them over to my house for brunch one chilly, drizzly February morning to participate in a little photo shoot. Warm muffins, bubbly mimosas, creamy espresso, and friends. Magic, right?

There was only one catch–NO make up. It didn’t take long for my cute little idea lose its cuteness. Some said no. Some asked questions, cringing. Some were excited. Some said nothing at all. We ended up with eight women that morning. For some, it was uncomfortable. For some, it seemed easy. The real challenge came when we saw the photos. There was gritting teeth. There was anxiety. I squirmed a little, looking into my own eyes on the computer screen and it began: “Is my face really curved like that?,” “My nose is shaped so weird,” “Why does my right eye always look kind of sloped?,” and “My eyebrows need pencil so bad!”

And I wasn’t alone. There was a unease and awkwardness in seeing them. Us. Just the way we are. Just the way we were created. It’s not something that will change overnight. One little revolutionary brunch can’t cure a disease. Not when we’ve been indoctrinated our entire lives to strive for beauty instead of finding it in the rest of just being who we are. These are the women that husbands wake up to every morning. These women are real.

If I can find a way to grab hold of it, somehow cling to that reality, I can love that girl in the mirror before she has her make up on. What difference does it make? At that point, I can adorn the beauty I have instead of trying to fabricate a beauty clone. My make-up becomes decoration instead of a mask and I have nothing to hide.

Photo Credit: Photos taken by Adrienne Sandvos. A huge thank you to the brave women who allowed me to use their pictures!

The Character of Beauty: Confidence

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When I was in high school, I carried myself with too much confidence. While I didn’t see it that way at the time, I now know that my confidence was rooted in pride, rather than a strong grasp of my own value and worth.

Years later when I was in college, my confidence plummeted to the ground as I battled with my body image for the first time ever (how I skipped that phase of adolescence, I have no idea). Not only did I have a negative view of my appearance, but I also had low self-esteem rooted in the self-imposed pressure to succeed at everything I set out to do. I was a mess, to say the least. The pendulum swung from one extreme to another, and I couldn’t seem to find the balance.

Some say that “confidence is the best accessory,” and while I agree to an extent, I’d argue that the statement is only true when our confidence is based on the right thing. Confidence and pride do not go together, but rather true confidence stands firmly on our understanding of who we are.

As a girl with an affinity for statement necklaces, I appreciate having the best accessories. And when it comes to confidence, I want the real deal. The kind that sparkles and shimmers and that people can’t help but notice. The beautiful kind, that is neither connected to my insecurities nor my pride. The kind that generates itself based on living an outward-focused life.

Want to be beautiful? Want to have real, deep and true confidence? It’s time for us to grasp our God-given identity and believe that nothing (and nobody) can take that away from us. Real confidence is rooted in our faith. Not only by believing in God, but by believing God when he tells us who we are and what we’re made for.

You are loved, you are cherished, you are valued, you are made for a purpose, you are worth more than you know. Have confidence in that.

 

Read the rest of the articles in the 6 part series “The Character of Beauty” here.

 

Photo Credit: http://pinterest.com/pin/209487820136540494/

The Character of Beauty: A Six-Part Series

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We’ve all met that woman–the one who is so radiant we can’t take our eyes off of her. She’s beautiful, but we can’t quite figure out why. Is it her hair? Her figure? Her clothes? After speaking with her for a few moments, we know that her beauty is far beyond the physical. She exudes something lovely, contagious and rare.

I can only imagine how powerful it would be if we all grew into that kind of woman I just described–if we all started accepting who we are, loving our bodies, understanding our true value, and spreading real beauty wherever we go.

In my last article Healthy Girl Talk: Redefining Beauty, I talked about the need our culture has to redefine beauty for what it really is–so much more than physical appearance. I also shared four steps we can all take each day that will contribute to that redefinition: use positive language when talking about bodies, focus on the function of our body parts, celebrate non-physical qualities, and live a beautiful life by demonstrating those non-physical qualities.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to expand on that article by discussing various qualities of beauty that we could all afford to have a little more of in this world: kindness, joy, compassion, love, generosity and confidence. After all, how can we affirm others and live out these qualities if we don’t fully understand what they look like?

Let’s explore together what real beauty looks like. Let’s redefine beauty by the way we speak and act. Let’s take the big risk of being examples for the women we interact with each day. Wouldn’t that be something revolutionary?

Read all entries in the series “The Character of Beauty” here

Photo credit: madewell.tumblr.com

Meet the Beautician

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Oh, how we all long for beauty! Mysterious and diverse as it is, we capture it, photograph it, and worship it, often forgetting how fleeting it is—like sand in an hourglass. However, in order to hold and keep beauty, we must build it solidly from the inside out, then it will never slip through our fingers.

What fascinating creatures we are with eyes like endlessly deep colored pools, long beautiful eyelashes that keep out all harm, and limbs and systems that function in perfect unity with one another. We are walking miracles, but how often we despise ourselves, hungry for what we don’t have, feeling like we never measure up.

To care for yourself well is to bring into reality the value of your being, your essence, and your own mark of beauty upon this world. Nutrition, exercise, skin, hair, and body care are essential to well being. When we neglect basic care of ourselves, we should see this as a warning sign that something is wrong on the inside. Without love for ourselves in our hearts, we have no desire to foster beauty on the outside.

Every woman possesses her own outer beauty. We should work to accent what we have been given, not work for what someone else possesses. Some of us are shaped like pears, others like apples, rectangles, or hourglasses. Yet why do we try and nip, tuck, re-shape, or alter our bodies? Darling believes it has to do with unrealistic standards of beauty presented by media, thus creating an invisible “pie” of beauty where a certain ideal equals 99% of your worth. We must fill in the other pieces with different aspects of beauty, and measure only by what we’ve been given. Besides, beauty also resides in our minds, hearts, talents, athleticism, and grace. If we build these from the inside, there is no doubt a deep-seated spirit of beauty will shine through. There is a lovely air to a woman who knows she’s beautiful and carries herself without a hint of jealousy or discontentment.

Yet we can’t deny the outside, as it is our unique face of the world, so let’s find a balance in beauty and health that truly builds self-worth apart from any form of vanity. What a pity to live under unattainable pressures and standards when what we have is just what the world needs to make it perfectly beautiful.

 

Photo Credit: thealternativebride.blogspot.com

Loving Your Body Now: Overcoming Conditional Confidence

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I’ll love my body when I lose weight. When my skin clears up. When my thighs are slimmer. When my stomach is flat.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all had a conditional love for our bodies. Whether it was in middle school when we dreamed of having more curves, or 10 years later when we cursed every curve on our body. We want what we can’t have, and we refuse to love our bodies until they’re in whatever perfect state our twisted minds want them to be in.

It’s a messy situation. Is it wrong to want to look different? What does it mean to really love our bodies anyway? Is it possible to love a body that isn’t the way we want it to be? These are the questions I want us the dive into together.

First things first, what about wanting to look different? Truly, it’s a natural desire to want what we don’t have. The grass can always be greener, and we will always want something different. Whether we wish we were curvier or skinnier, taller or shorter, we each have a certain size and shape that we’ve been given and we can’t change that. However, I believe the desire for beauty is something everyone is born with, and there is no shame in desiring to be or making ourselves more attractive physically. The key to keeping these changes within healthy boundaries is to stay true to what makes us unique (i.e. wearing clothes that flatter our figure, rather than going on an extreme diet to lose weight). Remember: there’s nothing special about being a copy of someone else.

Secondly, what does loving our bodies even look like? The best way I’ve heard it said is, “Treat your body like you would treat a friend.” This could include some or all of the following:

-Feed your body nourishing food and be true to your real hunger.
-Buy and wear clothes that fit your body as it is today, not as it was five years ago or will be in a few months.
-Use positive language when talking about your body–regardless of if it’s in your head or out loud.

Lastly, how can we love our body if we actually hate it? It’s a paradox, indeed, but if we ever want to have healthy body image, we have to learn to accept the way our bodies look as they are RIGHT NOW. If we can’t love our body today, we won’t love our body when it’s “perfect,” because that idea of perfect will always change.

Look in the mirror today and delight in what you see, even if it’s not the reflection that you wish you had. Look at your eyes, your smile, your skin, your hair, your legs. Thank your body for what it does for you and spend this week delighting in the joy of your beauty. You are a woman, and you are beautiful.

Photo Credit: http://livingmindfulgrace.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/girl-with-arms-out.png

To Be “Fashioned”

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It only takes a person 4 seconds to form an opinion about another individual. This is primarily based upon what that person looks like; it has much to do with their grooming and what they have chosen to put on their body. These choices can also inform the way they carry themselves.

Our garments are an outward expression of inner passions, joys, inspirations, personal culture, experiences, knowledge, interests, family and country history. They are a tool to make ourselves into a particular form: to be fashioned.

“Style” is set apart from “trends.” Trends can be a fun addition to one’s life. However, they should not dictate your personal style, nor define your visual aesthetic. You should always take into account what suits your body type, coloring, and perspective of the world.

Take a moment of introspection and think about what it is you would like others to perceive from you. What is the emotion or image you want to project? What colors, places, experiences, cultures, sounds, textures will your choices include? How can you incorporate your vision into your personal style? Style is part of your character; not entirely, but it is a key component.

The repeated job of dressing is an opportunity to bring beauty to daily experiences, not just for your own pleasure but to enrich the lives of others that surround you.

Utilize your 4 seconds.