Valarie

Valarie sent me this contribution to The Mirror Project on Wednesday this week.  

"At 51 I am redefining myself and my own 'beauty'."

I am beautiful:  strong, loving, kind.

Decision Points.

Okay - so I haven't received a submission for The Mirror Project for two Fridays now, so I'm thinking instead of pigeon holing myself into having to either post a photograph for the project or write about the fact that I don't have a photograph for the project, I'll just leave you, my readers, with the knowledge that if I get a submission for the project, you will see it on a Friday - if I don't - I'll blog about something else, or I'll take the day off (!) - much like today, though I suppose you could still consider it Friday, even though the sun is long down.

I'm trying to look at the days from a more Jewish perspective lately.  Meaning...it's Saturday now, and it doesn't matter if I post about The Mirror Project at all, except that I was neglectful of a somewhat arbitrary promise.

I'd still love to see submissions from those of you who keep telling me you can't wait to do it - you know who you are  :-)

So...  I suppose I'll be signing off for today.  Perhaps for the weekend.  I'm feeling rather under the weather and definitely like I haven't had enough sleep in the last month.  See you soon.

Peace.

Mirror, Mirror...

You probably noted there was no post yesterday.  Or you didn't.  Either way, since no one sent a Mirror Project contribution last week, there was no picture. 

Perhaps I should have posted this yesterday.  Not sure which is more appropriate.  Writing about it or just leaving it blank.

I'm also not sure exactly what I should do if there are no photographs for the Mirror Project to post, and it happens to be a Friday.  Perhaps just any old post accompanied by a brief - hey, no pictures today.  I suppose that's what I'll do in the future.


And maybe that's it for The Mirror Project.  Maybe that's all the interest that there is.  If that's the case then I'll leave it up, just in case, and just stop talking about it so much.  I still believe in it's value, and am so thankful for those women who were brave enough to send a picture and to think about their reasons for being beautiful.

In other news, I've picked up two acting classes to teach for the spring semester, and I'm teaching one now, so I'd better get moving out the door.  My mother-in-law is visiting today - maybe she'll be here when I get back.

Lots to do.

Peace.

Jackie

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, The Mirror Project is tardy once again.

I promise to be on time next week!  Really!

Regardless - here you go:

Jackie

 

 

Above is Jackie - here writing states:  "I love fiercely.  I laugh too loud.  I save lives.  I am beautiful!"

And...she is!

I love the composition of this photo!  The round mirror is super fun. Thanks so much, Jackie!

If you would like to contribute to The Mirror Project, send your photo to redefinedjuliet@gmail.com.  Please include a statement telling us what you wrote.  Can't wait to see how your creativity works!

Ruby.

I am, unfortunately, tardy on this entry.

I've been staying away from blogging this week for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being that my family is insanely busy preparing for Thanksgiving traveling and rehearsals for my current theatrical endeavor and unschooling and re-arranging the house, among other things.

My apologies.

This week's Mirror Project Photo comes a dear friend of mine:

Ruby

I've known Ruby for around six years now.  This young lady has been through more than I can imagine and has come out on the other side still kicking.  I don't know that I could say better what makes us beautiful as human beings.  I know that not everyone who reads this blog is a Christian.  I dare say that term has been used and abused by people who don't even know what Jesus said.  I do know that regular readers and supporters of this blog, Christian or not, are supporters of love, and I think we can all agree that the teachings of Christ say that God IS love.  And if you are a Believer, and you believe that Creation is an outpouring of that great love for humanity - then how beautiful all of us are and have the potential to be. 

The book, Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge describes the way that God loves a woman's heart.  How He can heal our wounds.  How He sees us at the soul level, not the physical one.

There are few people in my life who truly grasp this.  It takes time and growth and true relationship with The Almighty to understand how He sees our inner Beauty.

This picture of Ruby touches my heart in so many ways - some because I know her personally, and know where she's coming from, and others just because she's a human being with this understanding that I, now thirty, am just beginning to grasp.

Many thanks, Ruby.  And much love.

If you would like to submit a photograph to The Mirror Project, please send your photo to redefinedjuliet@gmail.com.  Photographs are posted in the order in which they are received; a new photo is posted every Friday.  Looking forward to your submission  :-)  For rules, regulations, and examples of Mirror Project photos, please click on The Mirror Project tab at the top of this page.

Jennifer

Today is Friday.

My posting for The Mirror Project is rather late in the day.  To be honest, I completely forgot about blogging anything at all today until just this moment.  My family and I were chillin' at the National Zoo, and it was all I thought it could be.

Anyway, hoping that all of you will still have a chance to peruse this week's Mirror Project entry by one of the most unique and promising young women I have ever had the pleasure of knowing:

Jennifer

Jennifer's  mirror script reads "I am beautiful because I am intelligent, passionate, caring"

I am certain that this young woman has great things ahead for her.  I was excited to get her entry.

Obviously, I don't need to know you personally to include you in the project.  The more the merrier!

Hoping to get YOUR entry soon!

Mirror Project photos (one at a time) are posted every Friday on this blog.  Please send your Mirror Project photo to redefinedjuliet@gmail.com for inclusion in the project, and be sure to check out the Project in its entirety by clicking on the Mirror Project tab at the top of this page.  Thanks so much, everyone! 

Beauty is on the INSIDE!

Summer.

It's Friday, Ladies and Gentlemen, and time for a Mirror Project Update.  I'm especially excited about this particular entry:

Summer

The text reads:

-  "You are:  awesome, wonderful, spunky, corny beyond measure"
- (and in different hand-writing altogether) "Beautiful"

Summer wrote the first items in her own hand and then left the bathroom.  When her husband, Jesse, got home from work, he added the last word and as he exited the bathroom said "You forgot something."

Kudos to Jesse :-D

And thanks to much to Summer for your contribution to this project.

If you would like to contribute to the mirror project, please send your image to redefinedjuliet@gmail.com along with a translation of your writing.  Please feel free to be creative!  Pictures with friends, pictures of moms and daugthers, pictures of groups are all SO acceptable!  I'd love to see what you can do with this project.  Of course the traditional picture of just you is perhaps the most beautiful thing I could hope to share, because it truly takes the most guts.

Thanks to all my readers who have participated in the project so far.  We publish one photo every Friday to add to the full Mirror Project, which can be found by clicking the Mirror Project tab at the top of the page.  Keep checking back for yours, if you've already submitted, photos will be published in the order in which they are received. 

Please share this project with your friends!  You can Tweet it or Facebook it using the boxes at the top of the entry! 

Thanks!

Heather and Jade.

In keeping with what seems to be a mother-daughter theme around here for the week, I wanted to post these two photographs today:

Heather

 

 

Jade

Heather and Jade are mom and daughter who wrote their reasons for beauty separately, but, as you'll note, they are pretty similar!  What a cool statement about the things that moms can pass on and daughters can live out!  Thanks so much to these two lovely women who sent their photographs to The Mirror Project.

By the way, in case you couldn't tell, Heather is an artist.  Not just an artist, but an artist with the empowerment of women in mind.  You can see her work here and read her awesome blog, Body Politics, anytime you visit the R.J. site through the blogroll to your right. 

To those ladies who also sent in pictures this week, I've decided to post one at a time or sets that go together from no on, since I'm getting so many entries and I want all of the photographs to get great attention from my readers. 

Project photos will still be posted each Friday, and most likely I will post them in the order in which they were received.  If you would like to add your photograph to The Mirror Project, please email it to me, along with your name and, if necessary, a translation of what you've written (in case there is a glare or the words are somehow unclear in the photo) at redefinedjuliet@gmail.com.  I can't wait to see where this project will go next. 

Thanks so much, Heather and Jade, for sharing this special part of yourselves, and without even knowing it initially, your relationship. 

Shaina and Sara.

I may have two or three more entries coming today - I've received a few emails asking for an extension until the afternoon...  :-)...  but I wanted to go ahead and post the photographs I received this week so far.

Shaina

(Shaina, if you're reading this, could you email me a translation?  Having a hard time reading the words.  Thanks!)

Sara

Thanks so much to these two LOVELY ladies! 

My husband says that perhaps I should consider only posting one photograph each Friday.  He feels like it will make each photo more special, as each will have their own entry.  I'm not sure what I think about that.  What do you think?  Continue to post bunches?  Or just post one each week?

If you would like to learn more about The Mirror Project, please click here!  If you are ready to submit your photograph, please email it to me at redefinedjuliet@gmail.com.  Thanks!  I look forward to your submission! 

Carrie and Heather.

Today is Friday, the day to add new photos to The Mirror Project.

I received these pics from Carrie and Heather throughout the week. 

Carrie

Heather

 

 

I haven't been getting as many submissions as I'd hoped.  I admit that.  But I want to take this opportunity to say thanks to those of you who have taken the time, who have been brave enough, and who have submitted photos to this project.  Beauty is on the inside.  And when we're beautiful on the inside - it shines through to the outside.

If you'd like more information on The Mirror Project, click here.

If you're ready to submit your photo, send it to redefinedjuliet@gmail.com

Looking forward to your submission.

Please be creative!  And share this post with your friends.

Thanks.

Reflections on the Mirror.

After starting The Mirror Project last week I've been doing a lot of thinking.

Why did I start this project?  Is it because I want it to catch on so I can be famous?  So I can be on Oprah or something talking about my blog?   So my blog can be listed somewhere important?  So I can afford my own domain name?

Or is this project something that I am doing because I care about the women and girls in my life and the readers of this blog and the women and girls around the world and I'm hoping that in doing this project and viewing these projects they will be able to see themselves for the gorgeous people that they are - on the INSIDE?

It's a soul searching sort of thing.

I want to be honest in my writing.  It's one of my biggest and scariest goals.

So.

Is there some little part of me that wants to be famous?

Yeah.  I admit that.  There is that part that thinks it would be amazing to have my blog recognized on a grand scale.  Did I think about the fact that if this catches on at all then that might happen for me?  Yes.  I did.

Is that the reason I started this project?

No.  It isn't.

I have been praying a lot for humility.  Which is a really scary thing to pray for, because, as they say, when you pray for patience, what you get are opportunities to be patient.  But I don't want this blog, at any point, to be about me getting famous.  That's insanity.  That's not why I'm writing.  It's not why I hope for readership.  It's definitely not why I started this blog.

This blog is a blog that has a lot to do with me.  Sure.  It's my writing.  It's my voice.  A lot of it is based on my personal experiences.  But this blog is about a journey.  A journey into womanhood and through it.  A journey about embracing something that in my younger years I had rejected: my femininity.

It's not some feminist manifesto.  It's not about my political bent.

In the end, the blog is about me trying to spread a message to the women around me that they can embrace the fact that they are women.  It's not a weakness.  It's something in which to find JOY.

So in my soul searching about my reasons for the mirror project, I asked myself a lot of hard questions.  I determined that if this project was really all about me and getting what I wanted and having people do my bidding then I would be taking it down.  Then it was a sickness.

So I prayed.  And I thought about it.  And I asked myself those questions.

And I analyzed the reasons for doing the project at all.

I looked at the pictures sent to me by all these women and I stared at the words I had written on my own bathroom mirror and I realized the why.

So often, when we look in the mirror, we look to check for flaws.

We want to see if that pimple is still there or if we have a hair out of place or if we've got some food stuck between our teeth.

With these words on the mirror it is hard to see the mirror as something negative. It's hard to stand there and study how your skin doesn't fall the way you'd like it to when you are faced with the reasons why you are beautiful and none of them have to do with your skin.  That's the first thing.

The second thing is - as I was writing my reasons - I realized that it was sort of hard.

It was easy to write down things others had said about my body - I could write down - unique hairstyle, pretty eyes, shapely collar bones... but when it came to the internal beauty parts, I found it more difficult.

I found myself coming up with cop-out answers that really didn't have a lot to do with me.  It actually took some time and a re-write to decide on the three things that I really wanted to have on the mirror and in my photograph.

I think the biggest point of this project is for women and girls to get inside themselves enough to figure out what it really is about them that makes them beautiful.  To take that time to come up with three things.

I hope that for many of you, it will be easy!

But for those of you for whom it is hard - those are the women I really hope take the time to do this.  To think about it.  What IS it that makes you beautiful?  What are your three things?

As I was doing all this soul searching, pacing around the kitchen in front of the computer, putzing around the house in general, and thinking about what I had written and why I had written it and wondering what the project was all about, I trudged back upstairs to the bathroom.  While I'd figured out the symbolism behind the Mirror Project, I still felt sort of weird about it.  Like I was missing something.  Like maybe it really was just some selfish self-indulgence.  I also figured, now it was evening, my writing had been there awhile, it was probably time to just go ahead and clean off the mirror.

When I got to my bathroom, this is what I saw:

The brown dry erase marker was lying next to my purple one, still uncapped.

The heart was from my son.  And it's message was so clear I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I stared at it right there, over my sink, and under my words.  A message of love.  Unconditional love.  The love of a child.

I realized in that moment a myriad of things - but more than anything it affirmed what I was doing.  That this project was a worthy one.  No matter how many women actually send a photograph.  My son wanted to reassure me that I was loved no matter what.  My beauty isn't just wrapped up in what I think of me.  It's wrapped up in the love that I am able to give to the people around me - it's part of our duties as women to make OTHERS feel beautiful... 

And when I went into the kids' bathroom, I saw this:

Hearts.  Hearts all over their mirror - and my two year old daughter's additional writing in purple (that's her in the bathtub).

To pass on this love to my children - to  understand and have them understand that to pass on love is the greatest thing that we can do, and to understand that when you pass on love you feel love in return, and that it is cyclical and beautiful and Godly...THIS is the lesson!  Jonah, my amazing six year old, got this simple truth when I couldn't wrap my head around it. 

My son drew that heart on my mirror because of the love that flowed out of him when he saw what I had written - he wanted me to know that no matter what the words said or what I was thinking about myself, I was loved.  And after he had done that, he wanted to spread that love even further.  To his sister, and yes, to himself.

It is my absolute feeling that to love is the greatest duty we have on this planet.  To love others.  And in order to love others - to REALLY love others we must first understand our own worth.  Our own worthiness of love.  To know that WE are loved.  To understand the great love that has been shown to us through Christ - yes, this is a part of my message.  I know not all my readers will follow here, but I think you get the point anyway - the great love WE have been shown can spill out onto us and into us and through us and out of us to those around us.  Gosh - this project really has NOTHING to do with me at all.

I'm just the messenger.

And a participant in something more.

So.

The Mirror Project is about beauty.  It's true.  But it's also about LOVE.  Loving ourselves.  Loving our children.  Loving the people around us.  Allowing them to love us.  To see us.  Knowing that we have value and knowing that everyone around us is valuable too.  And lovable.  And somewhere, sometimes very deep down, they are also filled with beauty.

Morriah.

Our first submission was from Morriah.  As you can see, she's got more than one reason to feel beautiful  :-)

I have much more to write regarding The Mirror Project today, but, to be honest, I'm a little strapped for time, so I just posted the above photo and hope it will speak volumes for itself.

Thanks, Morriah.

If you haven't yet submitted your photo - I can't wait to see it!  Please submit any photos for The Mirror Project to:  redefinedjuliet@gmail.com  Photos will be posted every Friday.  Thanks!

If you'd like more information on The Mirror Project, click on Morriah's photograph, above.

Valuable Images.

I was perusing facebook this morning and I came across this photograph of my friend, Becka:

I have to say, I love the trend that I see happening among women lately.

So many are looking in the mirror and truly believing that they ARE beautiful.  For a myriad of reasons.  I know that this is a battle that has been fought across the ages and a battle that will be fought forever.  There will always be the girl who looks in the mirror and see ugly, fat, dirty...and other words that hurt her - every time - but maybe we can help that number to go DOWN instead of up.

It has become evident that women across the nation are not interested in the fake media portrayal of beauty.  The made-up, airbrushed images we see in the pages of our magazines...  I hope that most women can look at them now and say - I do not have to be this image in order to be beautiful.  I hope that our men will stand up and fight back when the media tells them that a particular image has to be their idea of what beauty is - that beauty is only surface, only skin.  I hope that men and women will learn, if they have not already done so, that beauty comes from the inside, the aura, the energy and soul of a woman - not from her clothing or hair or make-up or skin. 

I want to pose this challenge to you, my readers.  Take a picture of yourself in the mirror like Becka did, above.  Write "I am beautiful" on your mirror before you take the picture, and then write three reasons why (inner beauty stuff).  You can use dry erase marker and it comes right off (PROMISE!).  If you dare, send it to me to post on this blog.  You can send your photos to me at redefinedjuliet@gmail.com.  (Images deemed inappropriate for this readership will not be posted.)

 Please share this post with your friends, neighbors, and family members.  Encourage them to join "The Mirror Project".  I'll post submitted photos every Friday on this blog, so the project can keep going and gain momentum.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your daughter.  Do it for the girls you mentor and the girlfriends in your life.  Just do it!

If you don't have the courage right now to take the picture and send it to R.J. for posting, still take the picture.  Still write down your three things.  Leave the ink on the mirror so you can remember!  And post the photo somewhere you'll see it and be reminded.

To all my male readers out there - encourage your wife, girlfriend, or daughter to take part and tell her why.  Help her to find that inner beauty and point out the beautiful things.  Encourage your sister or best friend.  Let's take this small step toward breaking the paradigm that beauty is only skin deep.