Activity: Take a Break

Sometimes loving means knowing enough about yourself to know when you need to take a break. Loving is can seem so complicated at times. You feel like you have to give so much of yourself, when really if you're running on Empty, you won't be able to love well. Doing this course everyday can even feel like a lot to do if you're overwhelmed! Our culture tends to give us the sense that if we're not busy, we're somehow failing. We're always go-go-go, but that can be really unhealthy if you're not taking time to recharge yourself!

So today, I want you to take a break. Fill your tank. Do what you need to do to recharge. If you feel recharged by being with people, go out with friends! If you feel refreshed by spending time alone, curl up with a good book, or go outside and spend the afternoon in the park. Recharging looks different for everyone. I know for me, I get mega-drained being around a ton of people, but having a good solid amount of time where I can just be alone is very refreshing for me.

Working at camp last summer was very exhausting for me because I was constantly around a ton of people and excitement. A few weeks into camp I had a total meltdown and I realized that if I wasn't filling my tank and taking time to recharge, I wouldn't be able to fully engage during the times when I was needed. After that, I took whatever little bits of time I could to just be alone and re-energize myself. It was still difficult being around that much activity and so many people constantly, but I was better able to be fully present. There won't be another post today, so don't be tempted to check back later on. Just spend today recharging and doing what you need to do to fill your "love tank." If today is already all booked up, pick another day this week where you'll be better able to spend the day recharging.

Activity: Don't Wear Makeup

For some ladies, make-up is optional or we just don't find the need for it. For others, they couldn't even imagine leaving the house without it! My relationship with make-up is kind of odd as I find that I'm a mixture of both. All through high school I rarely wore makeup. Mostly because I was far too interested in sleeping to get up earlier than necessary in order to apply make up. But I also had this idea in my head that if I wore make-up and a boy started liking me, it could be because he liked how I looked with make-up, and if he saw me without the makeup, he wouldn't think I was as beautiful. So instead, I opted to wear no make-up and figured if a boy liked me, he would like how I look naturally, without any enhancement.

Nowadays my thoughts on makeup are a bit different. I see make-up as a part of my personal style-- the way I choose to express who I am through my outfit, hairstyle, make-up, and so on. I still wear very little make-up and my routine is usually no more than 5 minutes, if that. So, I suppose I'm still the lazy girl who still would rather sleep than look perfectly primped, but I enjoy putting some effort into the way I look as a means of expressing who I am.

However, I know not everyone has the same relationship with make-up. I was talking to one of the high school girls I mentored at camp last summer and her relationship with make-up was far different. She wore make-up to cover herself up, as a sort of veil to hide behind. She didn't believe she was beautiful, and feared that if she didn't have the make-up on, she would be ugly. It was heartbreaking to see such a beautiful young girl believe that she was ugly underneath the make-up.

Today I want you to think about your relationship with make-up. If you feel comfortable, don't wear makeup tomorrow. If you're used to wearing make-up, it can be really weird to go out without it, as if you're walking around without being fully dressed! If you think about it, though, do you really notice if someone is wearing make-up or not? So often we're so hyper aware of how others are viewing us, but in actuality everyone is usually too preoccupied with worrying about how others are viewing them to really notice something like the fact that you're not wearing make-up.

Activity: Treat Yourself

We've been doing a lot of introspection and thinking and writing during this course, so today just take a day to do something special for yourself. It's Saturday and hopefully you don't have work or school, so get out and do something special for just you. Do something that makes you feel beautiful. Sometimes we don't value ourselves enough to feel like we're worthy of being treated. Of course, doing something that makes you feel beautiful will be different for each of us. Going to the spa might do it for some, while being out in nature or being active will do it for others. Think about what activity makes you feel special, and go do it for yourself! We oftentimes wait for others to make us feel special or beautiful, but that's not always available. It's important that you can feel special and beautiful on your own! Here's some ideas for some fun stuff to do today (or some time this week, if you can't do it today!).

• Go on a hike
• Get a mani pedi
• Get a tasty treat! (macaroons, brownies, froyo, etc)
• Buy yourself flowers
• Take yourself out to a fancy dinner (or order pizza and watch your favorite show at home!)
• Buy that dress you've been eyeing for a while
• Go to the beach (for those of you in warmer climates)
• Take yourself out to coffee and read your favorite book.
• Sit in the park and soak in the sounds of birds and kids running around
• Go on a run or something that gets your blood and endorphins flowing
• Take a candle lit bubble bath (I haven't done this in so long!)
• Go dancing, or take a dance class!
• Get some fancy, sexy new underwear
• Go for a drive and see where you end up

For more ideas, you can check out this awesome list by Gala Darling, or you could also pick one of the DIY's posted earlier today!

If you want to share what you did to treat yourself, or what you plan to do, share it on the forum! I also added a topic where you can share your personal beauty story, so if you feel comfortable sharing some of your beauty story from the journal activity a few days ago, please do!

Activity: Don't look in the mirror

Tomorrow, I want you guys to try not to look in a mirror all day. It's so crazy how much of a habitual thing it is to just, you know, glance in the mirror now and then, or catch your reflection in a window, just to make sure everything is in it's right place, or to make sure nothing's in your teeth. But we often don't realize how hard it is to not look in the mirror. To not care about our appearances. I'm not saying that caring about your appearance is a bad thing, what we look like and how we care for ourselves does communicate a lot to other people, but we also tend to put too much importance on those things. We obsess over wrinkles or "flaws" which are probably only noticeable to us as their so minute. If we could train ourselves to avoid spending that time looking in the mirror, obsessing over things that don't actually matter, I bet we'd be a lot happier. I don't know if I could advocate cutting mirrors out of your life for good (hi, I'd like to know when my hair is doing crazy things. Okay, that's like every day...), but bringing mirror time down to the minimum time necessary can only be a healthy thing. Think of it like one of those technology-fasts where you unplug from the digital world and reconnect with reality. Technology isn't always a bad thing, but it can definitely start to take over your life and give you a false sense of what's important and what's not. Same thing goes for mirrors. So today, or sometime this week if today is not an ideal mirrorless day, take a day and fast from your mirror (and your car mirror, and bathroom mirrors, and tinted windows...).

Activity: Do something in your growth zone

This week, pick something (or multiple somethings) feasible on your list of things in your growth zone and go do it! If you can't think of something to do, just think of the things that you are avoiding doing. Often, you're avoiding those things because they lie outside your comfort zone. Go to that fitness class at the gym, make the phone call you've been avoiding, talk to that person you see at the coffee shop all the time who seems really interesting. Or, you can think of something you've always wanted to do, but just never have. I get a lot of comments on my blog from people who say, "I could never pull that off" or, "I wish I had the confidence to rock that!" Well, maybe today is the day to give it a go! Wear something you wouldn't normally wear, but have always wanted to! Grab that piece out of your closet that you bought because you love it, but have never felt confident enough to wear it. It can be something little or something big, but challenge yourself today to get out of your comfort zone and into your growth zone! Often, starting small with something like wearing something new and different, or ordering something other than your "usual" can spark that drive inside you to get out of your comfort zone in other, more significant, areas of your life.

photo via picolsphoto

Make your E-course Journal!

For this E-course you'll need to have a journal! We'll have a lot of journaling activities, and you'll probably want to write down thoughts you have as we go through the course. Of course, you'll want a journal which matches your own individual personality, so here's an easy and quick DIY to make your Lovely*Brave journal unique!

What you'll need:

A journal

Fabric

Tacky Glue

A glue gun

Scissors

To start off, measure your fabric into rectangles about an inch and a half bigger than the area you want to cover, so you can wrap it around to the inside. I used vintage bedsheets, so the edge was already hemmed, but if you want to hem one edge of your fabric (for the edge that'll be exposed on the cover) you can easily hem that up with a sewing machine or hem tape if you don't have a sewing machine.

The hemmed edge of your fabric will be going along the spine side of your cover. To really secure this edge, take a bead of hot glue and glue the edge down. Once that edge is glued down, spread your entire cover with tacky glue. I smoothed out the glue with my finger once I applied it so it wouldn't create bumps under the fabric.

Now lay the fabric over the glue, starting from the edge you've already glued and moving towards the corners to make sure you don't get any wrinkles or bubbles in the fabric.

You should have about an inch and a half of fabric to over lap into the inside of your cover now. First, measure how far into the corner your fabric will fold and then put tacky glue there to glue down the two corners, as shown.

Once your corners are glued down, you can glue in the three flaps. I folded the raw edge under to keep it a bit neater, but this optional. Measure how far in your flaps will fold and then put tacky glue where the flap will go. Before folding the flaps onto the glue, you can add a bead of hot glue around the edges if you want to make sure the edges are super secure, but this is also optional.

Now, you can repeat the process for the back cover! If you'd like, you can do a simple embroidery to jazz up the front. I embroidered "Lovely*Brave" on a scrap of fabric, cut it out and glued it to the front of my journal!

You can also go through the pages and start making them look fun! I like to go through my pages and customize them first, so then as I'm working I can just fill in the empty spaces with thoughts and other doodles and such. It can also be cool glue in little envelopes to keep important keepsakes. Do whatever you want to make it yours.

If you want to share your Lovely*Brave journal with everyone else, head over to the forum and show it off!