Bridgett Burrick Brown (00:07.64) Hello, welcome back. This is Beyond Beauty Project, the podcast. I am your host, Bridget Burrick Brown, and today is volume two of Beyond with B. I am B, just in case you didn't know that. And here we go. Volume two, where I talk to myself about myself. Does anybody else think this is weird? We're gonna do it, so you ready? Are you ready? So today is called Dear Body, I Am Sorry. If you've been following along with the Beyond Beauty Project, you know we have a series, a collection called Dear Body. We post these cute little graphics of bodies with a little saying. This came from a very healing. practice that I started when I was dealing with some deep, deep body dysmorphia and just being really disconnected from my body. I started journaling DearBody letters, love letters to my body. So since then it has expanded into workshops and coming soon, Drumroll is a DearBody collection. which will be a series of stickers. We have beautiful bodies of all sizes and shapes and colors and a beautiful journey, journal, sorry, and a beautiful journal that will have dear body prompts for you to help you, to help you get inspired. So I wanna start today's me talking to myself about myself. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, I wanna start today. just sharing a little bit about my journey of journaling because it's been such an important part of my life that I, I don't know, maybe it'll inspire you to want a journal if that feels good to you. but I started journaling when I was seven. Okay. So I'm going to show you, first of all, I mean, look at these things. Look at how cute these things are. These are my little journals. If you're listening and not watching. Bridgett Burrick Brown (02:29.184) It's my journals. They're one of them is all ripped up. It's literally from, let's see what year this is. Can I see what year it is? No. But it's one of those journals that have like the little lock and key. They're just so cute. I need to read. I need to read what? Who did what to me? Somebody did something to me in these, I'm sure. Let me see if I can find something funny. I'm sure I have crushes on people. Ooh, fourth grade. This is fourth grade. Today was just like any other day. But when we were playing four square, Jenny and JJ were ignoring me. Oh my God, okay. To be continued. Jenny and JJ. I don't know who JJ is. But so I don't know, found this I found this escape in journaling where I could, it was a place I could go and I could write my feelings, my emotions, and I knew they wouldn't be judged. I felt like I had a lot of emotions growing up and I was like, I just needed to understand them. it was, journaling was a way that helped me do that. It became almost this security blanket to navigate high school and people I dated and friends, friend, you know, dynamics. And it was always the place I went to when I was confused because I think when you're feeling confused, taking this moment to pause and reflect and go inward and not sort of just go. you know, asking other people like, what do you think about this? It's, I love that too. I love like having a friend you trust or a partner you trust or a therapist, but having something that can make you really stop and look inward, I think is such an important gift to give to yourself. Bridgett Burrick Brown (04:43.628) Hmm Bridgett Burrick Brown (04:47.982) So yeah, so I started carrying a journal everywhere with me. My journals went to when I traveled, they traveled the streets of New York to Rome, to Paris, to South Africa, to Australia, to Germany, wherever I was going. I always had a journal in my bag because if I had a moment on set or when I was on an airplane, I have a journal. And I didn't begin to write these Dear Body, letters to myself till a little bit later, so we'll get to that. But I want to now tell you just a little bit because this is a lead-in to the Dear Body letters. I want to share a little bit just about my relationship with my body image over the years. As you know, I grew up, well, if you listen to volume one, know, I grew up with my mother who had multiple sclerosis and I would say that this is without me asking her because she's not here anymore. But my guess would be that even before she got her disease, I think she probably didn't have the best relationship with her body. And then, you know, as the disease sort of like overtook her body and, you know, that was really hard for her. You know, I witnessed that, but I also I feel like we do sort of pass down insecurities that our parents had, right? So I wasn't overly worried about my body, though, just, you know, but then I went into the modeling world. I mean, do we need to talk about that? No. Like, as you can imagine, it was just very hypercritical of your appearance, of your body, the size of your body, how your body looked, how your skin looked, how your hair looked, everything. It was exhausting. So I, in the earlier years, I really got affected by that. I think it was a shock to my system. I was around, it was almost like, I always say this, was like, Bridgett Burrick Brown (07:15.47) Because I was living with models, eating with models, sleeping with models, working with models, like I did everything with models and young models. I was 19, we were young. A lot of us were walking around with disordered eating or full on eating disorders. So we were like in this like science experiment. Like I always think of it as like a Petri dish with just like all these different you know, versions of it and It is impossible for it not to affect you. It really is. So I definitely developed some disordered eating. Thankfully, I never went into a full on eating disorder, but I struggled. It was the late 90s, so was the waif. heroin chic era and although I was naturally thin, I was not naturally real, wavy thin. I had came from a full dance competitive dance background. So I had muscles and so that started getting, it was really the first time I thought deeply like something's wrong. Something's wrong with my body. Why can't it? Why isn't it naturally thin like hers? Why can't I be more disciplined like her? Why do I wanna eat desserts? Why can't I not eat dessert like her? Why can't I work out more? It's the perfect setup for thinking something's wrong with your body, that your body's not good enough, that you're not good enough. Bridgett Burrick Brown (09:09.388) I had this moment, thankfully around 25, when I walked away from the industry and I really kind of level-set it myself. And I decided if I was going to go back to work that I would make some boundaries for myself. So like one of the boundaries was I wouldn't do any body stuff. Like I wouldn't do bathing suits or lingerie. It was too triggering for me. I didn't want to do it. And I just kind of... started accepting that my body was like a 4'6". I was more like a 4' but... And I worked in the industry for a long time after that, a long, long time. But I was really able to control it, manipulate it, know, fix it, fix it when it wasn't quite perfect enough and... I knew how to do it. I remember I had this boyfriend and we like woke up in the morning. I was off to the gym and he said, I've never met somebody that He said something like, I never met somebody. that understands their body and can have their body as perfect as you do. And I think I'm butchering it because, well, I guess I'm thinking like, well, I didn't have a perfect body. So to even say that, but I remember thinking like, Bridgett Burrick Brown (10:46.958) Do I, huh? Yeah, I guess I do. But I also took it as like a badge of honor, like, yeah, okay, going to the gym, you know? So I was very, very disciplined and I knew exactly how to control it, what to do for it. Cut to a few years later and that is when I went through these, like a series of losses really fast. I lost a lot of family members. that went right into like all these pregnancies and I had my daughter and then I had, I lost a baby at four and a half months like quickly after like, think I was pregnant when Scarlett was around a year-ish. I could be butchering that. I'm the worst at times. But anyways, they were back to back. So I lost that baby. Then I lost a baby at nine weeks, nine, 10 weeks. And then, Quickly after that, I lost identical twin girls at five and a half months. I was a disaster. I was a little bit of a disaster. My mental health was a disaster. I was having full on postpartum, even though I didn't have a baby. I was still mourning all the losses of my family. And that was the moment I tried to go back to modeling and I was told that I needed to lose some weight. And I tried. And I just, I just couldn't get there. By the way, I was like a size six, so it's kind of ridiculous. Just a little, just a little sidebar for you guys. But, Bridgett Burrick Brown (12:38.51) I don't know, just... This was the moment. that I had full on body dysmorphia. I mean, I would look in the mirror and I couldn't actually see myself. And I know if you're listening and if you've had body dysmorphia, you can understand what this means. Or you understand the feeling you've experienced it because if you haven't, it's really wild. It's really wild. I I always explain it like you're looking at a fun house mirror. It's It's like, it's distorted and I felt like my body really, I felt really disconnected from my body. I felt like my body had failed me. I thought it was broken. It couldn't fit into my jeans. Like why couldn't it fit into my jeans, you know? And I just felt like something was wrong with it. I'm like something's wrong with body. Like I need to go to a doctor. They're gonna tell me, you know? And after a little while, really after that comment from the agency, I stepped away from the industry because I needed to, I just knew I needed to heal myself without judgment. And I needed to surrender. That was the moment when I really, I really paused. I surrendered. I said I have to do something in a different way. I was unable to control my body. I was unable to fix my body, manipulate my body, make it smaller, shove it in my jeans. My body was having none of that. Bridgett Burrick Brown (14:43.182) So it was this moment I surrendered and I just started moving inward again, realizing that I had to listen to my body. Bridgett Burrick Brown (15:11.95) I had to stop, I had to pause, and through journaling, I started realizing that I didn't have acceptance for my body. I didn't have true love for my body. I didn't have an unconditional love for my body. And... At that time in particular, I needed to give myself a lot of compassion. It needed a lot of space. It needed a lot of grace. It needed a lot of understanding for what it had done, what it had gone through, what it had survived. So... Bridgett Burrick Brown (16:10.632) One day I opened my journal up and I just wrote, dear body, I'm sorry. And it started a journey of writing dear body letters to my body almost daily. I started to really cultivate a relationship with my body because I was never taught how to have a real relationship with my body. We're not taught how to have real relationships with our bodies, right? We're taught to objectify them, to tear them apart, to fix them, to filter them, to alter them, and we can be incredibly mean to them. So these love letters that I started writing to myself, just became incredibly healing for me and it allowed me to develop this new relationship with my body, one that's grounded in love and respect and understanding. I developed a new language for my body, one anchored in compassion, and I started really learning about my body. I started learning what it needed, how it wanted to be. I started learning when it was tired, when it was hungry. I learned that my body survived, that it does things for me without telling it to. I remembered that I have an abled body and that I have legs that work, something that I used to be so appreciative when I was younger. I remember thinking when my mom's legs didn't work anymore, I remember really being grateful at a young age, like, I am so grateful that my legs work, that my legs dance. So I started remembering all of these things. It made me grateful for all of the things that I get to experience because I have a body. I got to hold my daughter, kiss my husband, dance with my friends. Bridgett Burrick Brown (18:34.542) And I realized that bodies are supposed to change. And that was where the compassion and the grace came in because my body was different. It was never going to be where it was before. You know, all the pregnancies and all those losses. Bridgett Burrick Brown (19:00.302) I started honoring my body for the things that it had been through. I'll say that again. And I started honoring my body for all the things that had been through. So my journaling would expand. Some mornings it would be, dear body, I'm sorry, but then it would be, dear body, I honor you for, or dear body, I cherish you because, and this Practice has... just expanded my view of this sort of body mind connection too, because we can think of journaling just as like a mental, emotional sort of practice, but our bodies and our minds are so connected that through these your body letters, would sort of sometimes, cause I would just go, then I would start with a prompt, which will be in the journals when you get them. I'd start with a prompt like, dear body, I cherish you for, but then I would just sort of do stream of, my God. Hold on. Bridgett Burrick Brown (20:21.23) Well, I'm back. you know, because I would start maybe with, body, cherish you for, then I would just write so I would realize how much was connected from, you know, emotions affecting my body or something going on with my body physically connected to something going on in my mental health. So, yeah, I just learned so much about taking an intentional moment or moments to write these letters. So I've expanded it now to some meditations that I do for myself. One, I did it actually this morning before I got out of bed because it's like we want to jump out of bed and grab our phone and make our coffee and wake up the children. And I just lay there for a second and I'll put like a hand on my heart and I'll put a hand on my belly. And I'll just take a couple deep breaths. If you want, can do this with me. Bridgett Burrick Brown (21:39.032) And I just say... Thank you, body. Bridgett Burrick Brown (21:48.398) Thank you so much for showing up for me today. Bridgett Burrick Brown (21:55.852) I am so grateful for you. Bridgett Burrick Brown (22:02.316) I promise to take really good care of you today. Bridgett Burrick Brown (22:09.964) I love you. Bridgett Burrick Brown (22:13.998) Thank you so much. So that's just an example of a quick little meditation that I do most mornings, but it's just so grounding. And there's something about touching your heart and your belly for me in particular, because it's like my heart is love, your belly is sort of like your power center. It's also the place of my body that I'm probably like the most insecure about. So it's like, just giving it that extra like rub and love, you know? So I have decided to turn this personal practice into something that I can share with all of you guys. So drum roll. I'm just kidding. I'm just, now I'm just entertaining myself, you guys. So. Bridgett Burrick Brown (23:11.352) Dear Body Journals are coming to you soon, okay? But no, they're really, really sweet. I'm so excited for them. I think you're gonna love them. They're very simple. They just have little prompts at the top just to help you, but you can think of your own too. We have a ton on our Instagram page too if you don't like the ones in our journal, but I'm just hoping that it's this tool for healing and empowerment for you, this tool that either strengthens or starts this really deep connection with your body. This place where you can write a new language to your body. or a new language for your body, I guess I should say. And I think there's a positive ripple effect when we engage in these type of like self-compassionate journaling and reflecting because it starts to, you know, it starts to affect our psyches and our bodies. And that also ripples into the people in our world's or maybe our children, right? And I always say I'm healing myself for my daughter. So I hope you enjoy them. I'll keep you updated. And also next, I really want to do Dear Mind because I think that, God, it's like as someone who has like I have ADHD and pretty sure have dyslexia and I've struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life. It's like, The other day I was like, we need a dear mind because I was judging my mental health so horribly. And I stopped and I just said, like, dear mind, like, I love you and I accept you. And it made me realize that I needed to cultivate this relationship with my mind and really accept my mind exactly the way she is. So I've already started that a little bit. Bridgett Burrick Brown (25:23.576) just personally, so that'll be next. to finish up here, I heard a quote recently that said, refuse to be in a bad relationship with yourself. So I want to encourage you to refuse to be in a bad relationship with your body. with your minds, with your spirit, cherish them, cherish her, and give them some love and attention and focus that you give so many other people. Thank you so much. I'll see you next time. Thank you for listening. I feel so grateful that you're here. Bye.