Britt Maggs

Self-Love Habits

On Being Real and the Beginning of Blogmus

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I agreed to do this Blogmas thing and I am not going to lie, I am incredibly intimidated. I am not sure what every post will be this month but I know I can’t fake words. I know I can’t write generic posts that aren’t real and aren’t what my heart is truly feeling. I think this year has burned away a lot of my ability and even desire to hide anymore. If you know me you know I have a strong bent towards people pleasing and sugar coating everything. Some people say I am too nice. Sometimes I probably am. This year made it kind of hard to pretend I wasn’t a mess so a lot of my masks and hiding have gone away and in its place is just me. The Brittany who is sometimes mean, often overwhelmed, a little bit awkward and who feels small most of the time. Sometimes I feel small in the bad way like when I look at a to-do list taller than me and cry because it feels impossible. A lot of times I feel small in the good way like when I look up at the sky and see how wide it stretches or how vast our mountains are or I think about all the people and how we are all connected in a way and how my life and my story is about so much more than just me.

I gave up a lot of pretending this year and I notice especially now in how calm the Christmas season feels. I think in the past I got so wrapped up in what Christmas was “supposed” to look like and all the things I had to do to keep up the appearance of “truly” getting into the Christmas spirit. This year, there is an element of authenticity around it all and I am really enjoying that. I hope you have realized that too. That it’s okay if Christmas looks different this year. It’s okay to only focus on what brings you joy. It’s okay if everything isn’t “perfect”. If there is one thing this year has taught me it’s that everything doesn’t have to be “perfect” to be good.

This whole change is partly why I agreed to do this Blogmus challenge. Why I agreed to write every day for the next thirty-one days. Because I barely hit “publish” this year and I think a big part of that are all the posts in my draft section that don’t feel “perfect” enough to share. This challenge is meant to break me of that idea. I will be popping on here every day this month to write something. Some days they may be long and some days they may be short and they probably won’t be perfectly punctuated but they will be real. There may be some helpful lists, some poems, but mostly it will probably just be like this, my thoughts about things that have been on my heart lately. A look back on the year as we get ready to move forward into the new one. I hope you’ll come by and that you’ll be encouraged and blessed.

Merry Blogmas!


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You Are Not Only Your Appearance

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“Beauty without kindness and bravery is just a pretty empty shell, my dear. And you can find plenty of those on the beach. People use them to decorate their rooms. So I hope you aspire to be so much more than just beautiful. I hope you aspire to be so much more than a pretty little thing that decorates the room you walk into.”

– Nikita Gill, Excerpt From “Life Lessons From The Not So Wicked Witch To Dorothy”

Your body. They are always commenting on your body. Even when they’re trying to be positive it’s always about your body.

Maybe because it’s what they can see and touch feels easier to label then all the things inside.

I hope you know that you are not your eyelashes or your waistline. You are not your weight or your skin or your hair. Your outsides are the smallest part of who you are.

You are all your favorite albums and the way you sing loudest on the low notes. You are all the selfies you’ve taken and your favorite food. You are all those night drives and crazy summer days. The heartbreaks and the belly laughs and the running as fast as you can downhill. You are the games you played on your Gameboy, your favorite pokemon and the posters you had in your room. You are your favorite color. You are all the movies you quote. You are the choices you made, both good and bad and reckless and hilarious. You are that time you went and picked up your friend at 2a.m. even though they ignored your advice. You are all the plants you own. Your first dog. That time with the windows rolled down, blasting the music louder than legal and screaming it out into the night. You are your favorite place to think whether that’s the mountains or the ocean or that park bench where no one ever sits but you.

We have plenty of women who know how to do their eyebrows. We need women who know how to stand up and do hard things. The hard things for themselves and each other and their communities.

And sometimes it feels easier to outline our lips then to ask ourselves if we are really happy.

Anyone can learn how to style their hair like you but no one can learn to BE YOU.

No one has lived your exact life and no one has your exact mixture of love and magic.

There are so many tiny things that have made you who you are.
You are so much more than anything they can see.

It is okay for us to take pride in ourselves and to feel like we look good. Just remember that our bodies are all slowly falling apart. So what will we fill the years ahead with that will have an impact, that will last?

You were made to be beautiful, not just to look perfect.

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No Hiding in Marriage

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People tell you marriage is hard. But they always make it sound like its hard because of the other person. No one ever told me that the hardest part would be facing myself. I thought the “hard stuff” would be brushing off the little things and learning how to deal with David driving me crazy. I thought the hard part would be deciding on chores and choosing to love him when I didn’t feel like it.

Turns out what’s hard is for me to love myself in the middle of my mess.

And being married makes you see your own mess really fast. I have always been someone who tends to put worth and value in my ability to have it all together. BUT when you’re living with someone day in and day out there is no hiding the fact that you DO NOT always have it together. ZERO PR management, zero hiding, they can SEE ALL OF YOU.

They see you when you’re crying over something silly and how you get stressed over plans changing last minute. They see your annoying habits, coping mechanisms, and they see how you sometimes can be mean and hurtful. They see all of that, all the stuff you always beat yourself up for and the stuff you kept tucked away from prying eyes. They see the stuff you’re ashamed of. Yet, they still whisper so sweetly, “I love you.”

And I didn’t realize how hard it would be to have someone love me more then I love myself.

Before having someone in my corner constantly I think I thought what others saw was more important then what I could keep hidden. Now that nothing is hidden, it’s really forced me to look at myself in a different way and face what I have to work on in myself. I am also still struggling with the fact that a man as amazing as David signed up to be with an awkward meany pants like me.

Don’ get me wrong, these first few months of marriage have been beautiful and hilarious and SO fun. But yes, they’ve also been hard because they have forced me to grow more than I thought I’d have to. Growth is never comfortable. And I was so surprised to find that it is much easier to love David and cut him breaks on his mess then it is for me to show myself that same kind of grace.

I didn’t realize how tightly I was trying to keep a grip on my life until someone came along and asked to hold my hand.

And I didn’t know that the holding on was also in a way, going to involve letting go. To cling to him has meant letting go of what I was clinging to before. My perfectionism, my independence, my performance, and other people’s opinions and praise. And it has been so, so good for this girl’s soul.

Just like a good workout, what has felt hard and made me out of breath, has brought growth and strength to me and to our relationship. This is one way I know I will need to keep growing, to be okay here in the in-between place. To stumble forward imperfectly but still forward. To be able to rest in the becoming and to know that who I am is enough for David and for God and for today.

 

 

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