#realbloggerbeauty

A few weeks ago I shared a photo on Instagram referencing #realbloggerbeauty. My friend Maya from Charmingly Styled came up with this beautiful blogger movement that she discusses here on her blog.

The moment she emailed us about this project, I was maybe all of five words in and immediately responded, "YES! I'm in!" I've been at this blogging thing for four years now, equal amount of time I've been out of college (I feel old!). Let me tell you, the blogging world is a weird world. It's hard to explain to those who are on the outside looking in, so often you find solace in other, often local, bloggers that live close to you. We've often shared our frustrations and our successes with one another, and have all at one time felt envious of someone else's success, whether it be scoring a huge campaign with a brand, taking that one (or multiple) perfect insta shot, you name it. But to be honest, blogging is just a glimpse, often stylized glimpse, of each of our lives.

Not to be too cliche, but our lives are not perfect, my life is far from that. Outside of the beautifully styled vignettes that I sometimes share on my newsfeed, what I'm not showing you is my extremely messy house (laundry, both dirty and clean strewn about my bedroom and bathroom (where the washer and dryer live), my car, equally as messy, boxes and boxes of unpacked wedding gifts, an office waiting to be painted, DIY projects and supplies everywhere, and let's not even touch the state of my closet. Thankfully I'm blessed with a very understanding, abet forgiving husband....I've promised to get to all the messes post wedding, that starts this week! I've been stressed to the max the last few months with wedding details, along with still hitting deadlines for freelancing gigs, and working a full time job.

Amidst the craziness of my life the past few months, I've seen my own blog take a back burner, something had to give. And I can't write about my life if I'm not living it. I've tried to keep that in perspective when I find myself frustrated that my stats may be lower or I see other great things happening to my favorite bloggers around me. This attitude often throws me for a loop and I find myself having to have an attitude check. People who are successful are successful for a reason, they've worked their asses off to get where they wanted to be.  In a community both within my day job and my night job (the blog) I'm surrounded by very strong, intelligent women. I've observed that it is often easier to sit back and kibitz about who wore what that you didn't like or someone did something or said something to piss you off.  At 26, I find myself reverting to a high school version of myself and those around me that I am often so fed up with. We sit there and compare ourselves to each other, trying to one up the other, as if that is what life is about. Newsflash and reminder to everyone, including myself, it's not. Life is simply too short not to support one another in our successes and to offer support in our times of need.

In high school, I experienced several bouts of bullying and those experiences brought me to Kind Campaign my senior year of college and ever since I've supported this amazing platform. KC encourages young girls and young women to simply be kind to one another. What a simple yet profound task that we have to encourage women to be kind, to be empathetic to one another. Lend a hand, an ear, or a shoulder to someone. Send a smile or an encouraging and uplifting comment on their post. It sounds trivial but it's the little things sometimes that can make that person's day.

Love these girls - Molly (L) and Lauren (R), the founders of Kind Camaign at a screening in Iowa City (such babes here - four years ago!)

You may be wondering how I can connect the two things, the crazy world of blogging and Kind Campaign? It's simple, really. We won't always like each other or agree with one another, whether it's someone you know or some random blog in the inter webs, we can always be kind. Like a photo, leave a genuine comment if you like something you've read, just simply be kind in your actions.

If you are interested in reading other #realbloggerbeauty stories, head over to Maya's blog for the link-up and make sure to follow the hashtag on social media! Share the love by using #realbloggerbeauty on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter!