The heart

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope your day is filled with love and hugs and all kinds of other mushy stuff. And most especially be sure to give a bunch of that love to your own self. "Self! I love you! You are so special and so beautiful! Thank you for being awesome."

Hopefully you smiled while reading that rather than rolling your eyes. If instead you thought about all the reasons you are not awesome, please read on. 

"When you see the heart you will know what to do." 




It's an excerpt from: The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents by William Martin which just so happens to be great advice for raising children AND living with other adults AND being with ourselves.

Here is the passage edited with a focus on looking to ourselves (rather than how the author wrote it as a focus on children):

Some behavior in yourself will seem "good" to you. 

Other behavior will seem unequivocally "bad."

Notice both in yourself

without being overly impressed by one

nor overly dismayed by the other. 

In doing so you will be imitating the Tao 

which sees our behavior as a mask

and sees immediately beneath it 

to the good within our heart. 

Above all, do not attack your behavior 

and attempt to change it by endless talking and scolding. 

Stay at your center and look beneath the behavior 

to your heart. 

There you will find only good. 

When you see the heart 

you will know what to do.

I find this passage so immensely powerful. It gives me a path away from self criticism. It gives me a way to love the parts that I initially call out as "bad." When I see my heart, I can do nothing but love myself even more. 

Okay, now I have a visual of some eyeballs rolling after reading that. I am here to tell ya, that this stuff is real and powerful. And more importantly, at least for me, is that it's peaceful. I get to think about all kinds of other fun things when I set myself free from trash talking. 

Give it a whirl: "Happy Valentine's Day to me." "I love being me."

Thanks for reading my post. I sincerely hope you enjoy your magical Valentine's day. 

Teenage girl is a beautiful object

I love The Onion.

While watching the SuperBowl yesterday and then waiting while the power was out at the dome I saw this tweet from The Onion which made me giggle:

Onion Sports Network ‏@OnionSports

Over 100 NFL players without power in New Orleans right now. Please help. Every donation counts. #SuperBowl

This little number made its way around on Facebook and I thought it was important to share here as well. The sarcasm hits poignantly:

Teenage girl blossoming into beautiful object

Isn't She Beautiful?

This is my mother-in-law, Susan Arntson! She is awesome. She has been very supportive of me every step of the way in getting Our Beautiful Project launched! I feel very fortunate to have her in my life.

Advanced Style: Inspiration

Photo by Ari Seth Cohen

Some of New York City's senior women are getting recognized for their stunning fashion sense at Advanced Style. Blogger Ari Seth Cohen has been taking pictures of chic women over 60 since 2008. These women may have wrinkles, they may have a few extra pounds but no one can deny they have beautiful style. 

You have to check out this site. It's just incredible.

Getting beyond "You are so cute!"

Check out this great article written by Lisa Bloom entitled "How to talk to little girls"

Our first impulse when we meet a little girl is to compliment the way she is dressed or how cute she is. "Oh my WORD! You are simply adorable in that tutu! You look like a beautiful princess!"

How wrong could it be to break the ice with a stunning compliment?

If adults are children's source of understanding what is valuable and little girls hear only comments about how they look - isn't that just another way we are setting up the pressure to be beautiful?

The article gives a few scary stats confirming that the pressure to be beautiful is thriving quite well even among the 3-6 year old girl group.

Consider another line of conversation. Have a few back-ups so you can work on the fly. Show little girls that their tutu maybe a fun thing to wear but what goes on in their head is what's really delightful to you.

I am exactly the person that I want to be

My good friend Kari shared this video with me. She said she was feeling in love with this song lately 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. Heads up: there is an expletive in there towards the end. 

Loving the ugly

I dream of of being famous. Adored by a million fans. Going on talk shows and having everyone hang on every ounce of wisdom that comes out of my mouth.

And I am deeply ashamed of wanting this celebrity status. The ego that needs the adoration of strangers is ugly to me. Being famous, I can intellectually assume, is vacuous and unfulfilling. And anyway, the desire to be famous is from feeling deeply insecure about my worthiness right? I should want to stand on my own without needing any positive feedback from others. What I think of myself should be the most important thing to me.

So, I admonish myself constantly for having this yearning to be famous. Bad Jen, bad.

About a month or so ago I was having a over-the-top fantasy about being adored by everyone but this time I did a small thing that made a big difference.

I recall getting ready the first morning before I was to volunteer in my son's kindergarten class. My thoughts went something along the lines of: Those kiddos are going like me so much that eventually they will jump up and down when they see me. The teacher will be thrilled with how awesome I am with the students. I will get an award for being the best volunteer the school has ever had and they will hire me to be the deputy of inspiration and excitement for all the children.

The next line of thinking went like this: I can't believe I think like this. How horrible to have such an ego. This will lead to arrogance. That's not the way I want to be. Be more humble and realistic. Bury quickly this embarrassing ego.

In the middle of the chastising, I stopped. Wait a second. The goal of being beautiful isn't to hide the ugly parts of myself and only focus on the beautiful parts. It's about loving ALL of me.

I would never berate my son for having larger-than-life dreams, why would it be okay to berate myself?Then, I thought about my ego as a little child inside myself that just wanted to be nestled in complete secure adoration. I started to laugh. This desire to be famous and loved by everyone is actually kind of sweet and child-like. And a little sad. It's a part of me. Not all of me. I can love this part of me—this "ugly" part.

I can still rip myself to shreds with the best of them but now I have a path to stopping it. The part that I don't like I create as my little child—something to understand rather than control or hide or stomp down.

Do you have any fantasies that are totally ridiculous? What ugly parts of yourself can you turn around and love? Give it some thought, dear friend. If you have a hankering, please share. You can comment below or send me an email and I can post anonymously—whatever you prefer. If you found it valuable to read my story, then believe that others would find it valuable for you to share yours.