Bridgett Burrick Brown (00:01.144) Hello. I'm really excited because today is my first ever solo episode and I have been doing my podcast now for four seasons. This is our fifth season and I finally, honestly, if I'm being super honest, I finally have the guts to do a solo episode. We've been talking about it with my team for a while. A couple of people have asked me like, are you ever going to do a solo episode? So Here I am doing it. I feel like I come from a generation that didn't have social media. So since I've started my project, just putting myself out there, now I feel like I put myself out there all the time, but it's like little by little I've gotten to being able to do this. So yeah. So I'm going to just tell you today like a little bit about my journey, why I started Beyond Beauty Project, a little bit about just what made me who I am today. And sort of continuing from what I just said when I first started my project a few years back, I really... I really didn't have my voice yet. You know, I grew up not knowing that I struggled with some learning differences that really internalized into not feeling smart enough, not feeling enough. One of my like core beliefs was that I was stupid. And I think that really silenced my voice along with being in the modeling industry for a really long time. So, It's like a big deal too. So I'm excited. So I'm just going to start from the beginning and kind of walk you through, you know, some of my childhood and so get to, we'll end where I am today. So I grew up in the Midwest in Michigan, right outside of Detroit. And I have a twin brother, Brad. Bridgett Burrick Brown (02:14.642) My mom and dad got married after my dad had already been married. So it was his second marriage. So we had older siblings, two brothers and a sister. My dad worked about 70 hours a week as a welder at Chrysler to support our family. And my mom got sick when we were five with multiple sclerosis. And I think I always like, this is where I will like text my brother like, Hey, like, how old are we this year? Like what year did that happen? And so I think around the age seven, she was in a pretty much in a wheelchair. and yeah, I think growing up with a mom who had a chronic illness that really did affect her very, very deeply, like it just built resilience in us and scrappiness. My dad was always working and my mom was not well. So we kind of had to figure things out for ourselves. My older brother Steve was sort of like our second dad and he was super fun. He'd bring us to like Halloween or haunted houses and like cool things like that. But you know, since I've started my project, I've kind of didn't I don't know if I think I did sort of know this but I've put together the pieces a little bit more now, just how much I was, I guess, influenced by my mother and how her body changed and how her mental health changed as multiple sclerosis sort of took over. you know, her body and her mental health. My mom was so beautiful and she was really tall and she was a hairdresser and she loved girly things. And, you know, that was hard for her when it was taken away. So I was I was the only other girl that lives in the house. And there was a lot of times where I was like helping her get dressed or do her hair. And I just like saw the frustration and Bridgett Burrick Brown (04:30.318) the deep pain that that came with. And I can remember at a young age being very grateful that I have legs. I remember being young, probably like 10 or something and saying, I'm so lucky that I have legs that work. I was a big dancer. So that was another thing growing up. I just lived at the dance studio, basically. I loved dancing. did all kinds of dancing. I competed. I met some of my best friends dancing. And when I was 15, was pretty like, I was pretty, for as like resilient and scrappy I feel like my brother and I had to be, I think we were pretty innocents. Although like, I don't know why, because I don't think, I don't feel like our childhood was innocent. But, You know, I was pretty, I guess I was so involved with dance that I was sheltered a little bit. anyways, cut to high school and my dance teacher had really been, uh, I guess suggesting like, oh, you should try modeling. You should try modeling. So I ended up taking some photos. I don't really want to do it. I I didn't find it comfortable. I was pretty shy and I didn't need like a lot of, I didn't like the tension on me. so I go into high school and four junior highs had merged and I started dating this boy named Raymond and, and I just, somehow we were at like a student council meeting. He mentioned to the, hold on, cut that part. I'm gonna start that part over. Let me see. Bridgett Burrick Brown (06:38.84) So yeah, so I ended up doing these modeling photos and what happened in high school was, unfortunately, the boy that I was dating, my like high school sweetheart, he was being just like the proud boyfriend and he mentioned that I had taken photos to this speaker at the school wide student council meeting. And we were like setting up, I was in student council and she announced it to the whole school. Why she would do that, I have no idea because as you can imagine, all the attention was on me and not in a good way. There was a girl that had dated Raymond at another junior high. So like we all come in, nobody knows each other, right? And she like didn't like me. And I just, it just like snowballed this. bullying that I really went through in high school. And it kind of took me down this path of trying to prove that I was nice, that I was fun. Like it was probably the first time I thought like, what's wrong with me? Like I must be doing something wrong for them to be treating me this way. Never did anything with the modeling photos again. I feel like that scarred me. But like mean stuff, like I would, I remember I walking into biology and like someone had written like Bridget's a whore on the desk. I don't even think I had like kissed anybody at the time. So yeah, I spent a lot of years anxious and worried. Like, am I being nice enough? Like, do they like me? And I kind of, it like made me go down this rabbit hole of that. So around 19, I was working full time. was paying for, helping pay for my college. And I thought, hmm, maybe I should model. Maybe I can make like an extra $100 a month. I don't know. So I found like the best photographer in Detroit. We took pictures. We sent my, I was working at big boy headquarters, know, Bob's big way with the burger. I was working there and Bridgett Burrick Brown (09:00.366) I was the vice, okay, I was the secretary for the vice president of purchasing. And so we take pictures, he's like, oh, you could totally do this. And like travel, I was like, cool, travel. Like I hadn't even been on a plane. we send, like we put them in envelopes, like there's no like, we're not emailing and stuff, and send it out to like a bunch of agencies all over the world. And I walk into work one day, And my boss's assistant basically hands me a stack of faxes and he's like, I guess you're not gonna be working here much longer. And I'm like, shit. And there are faxes from all over, like agencies from all over the world. So yeah, so I ended up going to Miami and then I went to Paris and then I spent about 20 years in the industry. In the beginning, it was... a lot of partying, lots of partying in Miami. And just like figuring it out, you know, it was so weird. I think one of the first things I was told is like, you have to lose weights, like your thighs are too big. And I came from this, you know, dancing gymnastics background. So I just, it always felt very uncomfortable to me. when I would walk in the agency and people were like looking me up and down or telling me I should cut my hair or you know that I needed to lose weight and I started to like probably like I needed to lose a little bit of weight for working in the industry at that time. Like I started in the late 90s right so it's like the wave era but Bridgett Burrick Brown (10:52.367) being told these things started this journey of like disordered eating that I had never had before because it was really the first time I thought, oh gosh, there's something like something's wrong with my body, you know? And then I had moved back home and I was like, I'm not modeling anymore. We're gonna go back to school. I think it was around 25. And I... got certified to be a personal trainer and I started reading like a lot around like just mind, body, holistic nutrition. I was getting really interested in that because I didn't know if I would go back to modeling, but I knew if I would, I needed to do it a healthier way, right? So I ended up going back about two years later. I didn't stay away for very long. And I went back to New York and I vowed to work. I just said, I remember saying to my booker and to myself, like, I am going to work where my body fits naturally. Like no more pushing her, shoving her, manipulating her to be something that she doesn't wanna be. And I think I also at that time said like I wouldn't do any more kind of like body work, like bathing suit or lingerie just cause it would trigger. I knew like I had to take care of my mental health. So yeah, so I went back and I had a long career and it was good. I really liked it. I feel like, I never. Bridgett Burrick Brown (12:40.878) I still didn't like all of the other things that I said, the like walking in the agency, getting looked up and down, you know, are you going to cut your hair? All those kinds of things. But I kind of got used to it, I guess. Bridgett Burrick Brown (13:15.182) You know, I was often referred to as healthy on set and I was a size four. I was like a large size four, I guess. But not always. Sometimes I was like, I'm just gonna play with my hair. I'm just gonna play with my hair while I'm talking to you guys. It's the thing about when you can see yourself, you know? So yeah, I think... Bridgett Burrick Brown (13:41.25) You know, I liked when I could go to work and I worked with certain clients that just, I just loved, like I can think of a few of them. And I would say a lot of the time I felt a lot of pressure to, and I felt a lot like I wasn't good enough, like I wasn't just quite good enough to. I don't know, just to like be myself early. I'm very grateful for my career. I know that I talk about a lot of the maybe negative parts about it. And I try to like add in how grateful I am and how grateful I am for my agency and my bookers, especially on like the last leg of my journey with it because I had a great relationship with them and I worked consistently and it was great. So cut to a time in my life where I lost a lot in a short period of time. I had just met Jason Brown, who is my husband and the love of my life. And it was like, I just felt like life was really good. I was healthy. I was happy. I was working and my brother, my mom was already pretty sick at this point. Like her multiple sclerosis had really What is the word? It had. Bridgett Burrick Brown (15:41.646) I don't know, she was sick. my mother's multiple sclerosis was pretty far advanced at this point. She was pretty sick. She was bedridden pretty much. I mean, she couldn't get up on her own. So I guess that is considered bedridden and she could sit in her chair for a little bit, but she was like very slouched over. And so my brother, my older brother, who I told you in the beginning was sort of like my dad, our second dad. He... ended up moving back home at some point and he really helped take care of her because my dad was still working up until the last couple of years. So he got sick with brain cancer and that's sort of when things just started snowballing. I could tell for a little while he wasn't, there was just, I don't know, I had this intuitive feeling. like, something's not right. And I remember the like few months leading up to when I got the phone call that he was going in for emergency brain surgery. I couldn't sleep. was like, Jay would come out and I'd just be on the couch and I'm like, I can't sleep. I just like think something's wrong with him. I think something's wrong with Steve. I don't know what it is. But so my twin brother, I believe if I'm getting this correctly, he can. He can confirm this because he remembers everything. He, I believe was, so he was in the UFC. So he was going in for a huge fight. I think he was going in for a huge fight. My dad calls me and says, Steve is going in for emergency brain surgery. They just got his CAT scan back and there's a tumor on his brainstem. And that's why he's falling. So he's having these falling episodes. And he's like, whatever you do, don't tell Brad. You know, he's like going in for this big fight. I'm almost positive. Brad, can you confirm that? So yeah, so he had that. And then a little while after my mom had to have the surgery for this like pump that kind of kept her out of the fetal position and she did not respond well to that surgery. It was just horrible. Bridgett Burrick Brown (18:07.156) she went into end stage MS. So Jay and I had already been planning our wedding. We were planning to have it in Michigan. So my mom could be there. like the reality was that it was probably, I guess, because my brother could be there. We did our vows the day before our wedding. My cousin Terry Joe was she like officiated it sort of. wasn't, she's not an officiant or whatever, I forget what they're called. yeah, so my brother was really sick at the wedding and he, my mom passed away. We got married in September, my mom passed away in November. Then he passed away that following August. And then my dad passed away when I was six months pregnant with my daughter. And that happens, it all happened within like two years. So it was just, it was just a really hard time. And I had Scarlett about a month after I had Scarlett, one of my best friends passed away. I remember my girlfriend, Jenny. calling me and I was like, had just put Scarlett down for a nap and like, you know, you're like a new mom and it's like, oh, nap time. And she was like, hey, can you talk for a second? I'm like, yeah, I just put Scarlett down. She's like, are you sitting down? And I'm like, what? And she's like, I just, I just need you to, like, I need you to sit down. So I sat down and then she told me. So yeah, I went through postpartum or I lost my whole family and a best friend or a combo. don't know. We don't really know. And I would just walk around the city and just not want to go home and think like, what the heck just happened? So a little while after, Jay and I... Bridgett Burrick Brown (20:23.15) We're like, okay, we just lost so much family. Let's have another baby. Let's give Scarlett another baby. I lost, then I went through a series of miscarriages. I promise this gets better. This is a long, sad story right now, people, stick with me. Okay, so, uh-oh, my dog's barking. Bridgett Burrick Brown (20:49.806) Hold on one second. I'm gonna tell my friend one second. Hold on. Bridgett Burrick Brown (21:20.654) Okay, I lost, so we lost the first baby around five months and then I had another miscarriage around nine weeks and then we... Bridgett Burrick Brown (21:41.452) on the phone. Bridgett Burrick Brown (22:05.24) Okay, so then we got pregnant with identical twin girls and I was like, okay, God has a plan. I'm a twin. Two of my best friends at the time were pregnant with twins, identical twins too. And we lost them at five and a half months and I was just. I mean, oh yeah, that was hard. so I... You know, I had, thankfully I had a little mascara to get me out of bed every day. I started adopting. Well, my dad used to always say little by little, I really, that's when I really adopted that statement. And I would just say like little by little, like one foot in front of the other. And I don't know, that was the time that I started getting really, really in tune with myself and in tune with my body. My body and my mental health was... Bridgett Burrick Brown (23:25.428) in the toilet. It was not good. And I, you know, I had spent a lot of time in the modeling industry and I could manipulate and control my body to an extent. Nobody can control their bodies completely, right? And I just had lost full control, you know, and my body had been through so much. It was just craving to, for me to just love it and nurture it and just, just give it. some care. So I thought, okay, you know what, I'm going to go back to work. We're not having any more babies. We tried. We're good. Like my body can't handle much more. My mental health couldn't handle much more. And I went back to my agency that I was with for a long time and they told me that I needed to lose weight. And it just, I don't know, it just crushed me. I was 41. I don't blame them at all. I actually, I get it. Like we were in an industry where he had to be a certain size and I was on the straight board, but it was also things were changing and I didn't understand why. I don't know. I couldn't be a 41 year old woman who had been through things. Where was the representation? Where was the humanity? And I walked away a few days later, I like slept on it and I just said, you know what, I'm going to create a project and I'm going to help women and girls with confidence. I don't know what the heck that means yet, but I'm going to do it. I, yeah, I walked away a few days later and I started the Beyond Beauty Project that we have now. So. Bridgett Burrick Brown (25:22.286) Yeah, I started a podcast, which I'm doing now, started season one, and it just has morphed into this beautiful worldwide project that, God, I've been talking about being scrappy and resilient and bootlegging and it all. just I remember when I told my husband, I'm going to do a podcast, he's like, Okay, you don't really know how to turn on your computer, but no, and I'm like, I'm kind of techie now people. know. I know some of you may not believe that, but it's kind of wild. So. Bridgett Burrick Brown (26:16.311) I about that. Bridgett Burrick Brown (26:33.42) Eh, we'll just cut that part out. Bridgett Burrick Brown (26:55.662) Yeah, so I started just journaling and writing and I would write a lot on just share. I would just share on social media about my mental health and then I would go into like beauty products and then I would, you know, I'd go back and forth. But it's really developed into this beautiful project about redefining who we are past appearances, whether it's beauty, success, wellness, all of the outer kind of you know, masks that we put on and getting really in tune with ourselves. And that's what I did. Like through the breaking, I always say like the beauty and breaking is that you can rebuild however you want. And I would ask myself every day, like, what do you want to do? Like if you're going to be here, like, what do you want to do? Who do you want to be? How do you want your life to be? And I started just getting super, super in tune with my body minded spirit, my intuition, and I just have followed that the whole time. And it's been really cool. So that's kind of my story. We are doing stuff over here. It's so fun. I have all these workshops that I'm facilitating and. keynotes and we're up in the podcast. We're going to have a membership out soon. yeah, I'm just so excited. keep continuing my education. I've added on from my holistic health certification. I've added on my body image and my eating disorder cert. And I just, love like interviewing people where can read their book and learn from them and ask them questions. And You know, I want to, I love working with the younger girls because I have a daughter and I just wish I knew some of these things earlier. So that's that. There we go. Third season one. What else do you guys want to know? Bridgett Burrick Brown (29:40.012) Yeah, so thank you for listening and thank you for being here. Thank you for being here on this journey with us and just being interested and curious and yeah. Love you. Love to you. Bye.