1000 Voices Speak For Compassion, Guest Blogs and Featured Spotlights, Kerry's Causes, Spotlight Saturday, The Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge

Mug In A Box

Hope I can do my part to help break down myths and stereotypes. Hope I can do a good job, to help share our message of acceptance and understanding.

Bold Blind Beauty

A New Twist On A Message In A Bottle

I'm standing on the platform overlooking Pittsburgh holding a mug that says "My Friend Is Bold Blind & Beautiful". In the background is PPG Place sometimes referred to as the glass castle. Mug says “My Friend Is Bold Blind & Beautiful” PPG Place is in the background

I’m so ridiculously excited I don’t know what to do with myself. Finally, and I’m ashamed to admit for the first time ever, I went to Mt. Washington to experience one of the most scenic views of Pittsburgh.

Since this was my first time visiting this location in person I couldn’t get over how high we were. As we approached the platform I felt a little light headed but soldiered onward because I was on a mission!

While atop Grandview Lookout my son took pictures of me holding an Abigail Style mug which features Abigail, the white cane icon and mascot of Bold Blind Beauty. These pictures represent the beginning of Abigail’s journey around the world to spread her message of changing perceptions while encouraging unity.

Mug is sitting on top of the box in which it will be shipped. Here’s the Box!

Clickable live map that shows the Mt. Washington location and website Clickable live map that shows the…

View original post 237 more words

Standard
1000 Voices Speak For Compassion, Blogging, Feminism, Guest Blogs and Featured Spotlights, Kerry's Causes, Memoir Monday

The Trouble With Being Real, #BeReal, #1000Speak

I usually do a

#1000Speak

topic reveal here, on my blog, a few days to a week before the 20th of every month. I didn’t do one for July.

Perhaps that’s because it is summertime and there’s a lot going on. It’s possible I forgot. Or, maybe, just maybe I couldn’t narrow down a topic.

This month’s subject is “acceptance” and I struggle to accept a lot of things, including myself, on a daily basis.

I am scared to let down my guard with people and in my own head. I don’t know what I deserve. I don’t know how to fully accept and embrace who I am, in this given moment in time.

It’s been a movement lately:

#BeReal,

In a world so quick to judge, just #BeReal,

and

The Village Needs To #BeReal

I am on the periphery of the physical stuff this is referring to. I don’t take selfies and I am not even on Instagram or Snapchat.

I include a photo when and where I can, here, but I don’t know how to embrace and accept myself, in these ways, when I can’t even see myself.

this photo is of brian, dad and you on the stairs in front of the apple.
img_5869-2015-07-20-00-01.jpg

I am not alone on this line of thinking. Here another visually impaired woman says it better, in one short blog post, than I probably will here:

A Thousand Words Are Worth More Than One Picture

I know acceptance must be a deeper thing than the physical and the visual. I guess I have an advantage, not to be distracted by the rest of it. I guess, but I don’t feel let off the hook – not really.

I am all about being real, as the hash tag prods. I don’t like anything I sense to be shallow or fake. I get very uncomfortable around such pretences and I tend to grow critical. I don’t like that I am so, but I guess we all are, in a way.

I want us all to be our authentic selves, but I can hardly not start with me.

I know I am genuine and all that, but how to accept who, what, and where I am, at this current moment, is the hardest of the hard tasks I ask myself to complete. Yes, I expect that I should complete it, but I know it’s the ultimate work-in-progress.

A lot of the blogging world can be unreal. It is a bunch of humans, but they are hiding behind their computers, fiercely typing away. Then, images are sent out into the world. Back to the blog to try and #BeReal for anyone who happens to read.

Any real connections that are made are usually far beyond me, but not always.

I don’t get distracted by the perfect beach photos plastered all over social media, of celebrities posing for the camera because it’s their job. I don’t know how to look like any spiffed-up version of myself. I don’t even know, from day to day, what I look like in my bathroom mirror.

I don’t wear makeup, not trying to impress anybody. I don’t wear it, because I am not afraid of stepping out in public with blotches and circles under my eyes. Or perhaps, I don’t know but that I should be afraid.

I don’t simply capture moments in time where all’s well. I come here to be as real as real can be. I wish I had more freedom in the rest of the world to do the same.

I wish I weren’t so paralyzed by fear and concern. I don’t accept this status, as it is. I won’t accept anything like what I have accepted in the past. I will be real with myself and anyone else who thinks they can handle it.

I think I can be me, whatever that is, and then I will attract what I put out into the universe.

Words are my most valuable tool in a world of photoshopped images. I can be real with words. I can write about the parts of myself I find hardest to accept and those I know full well are my greatest assets.

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference.

–Serenity Prayer

Standard