Jezebel Unwritten

Sometimes you have an idea and sometimes an idea walks in. We are in our 3rd year of our Brand Ambassador program and have not only created a program we are very proud of, but created a tribe of women that will forever have each others backs. Just today they were begging me to save the FB group we have just for them.

One of them came in for her session and brought body markers with her with the hope that we’d be able to use them “for something”.

You’ve all seen the body positive videos and photo projects with negative words written on women’s bodies. Often the words are names they’ve been called but also things like “victim” over “survivor” or even better “warrior”.

I wanted to change that.  The world already tells us we are not enough, fuck if I’m about to promote that in anyway. So we devised what will forever be called Jezebel Unwritten. And we’re making it an annual thing for all our Brand Ambassadors.

Everyone that showed would get full access to all images taken of them either in groups or individually, lunch, sisterhood and the opportunity to really break some fucking stigma….all for free!  The only price of admission was your vulnerability.

We asked each of our Ambassadors to spend 10 minutes listening and writing down their inner thoughts. The first 5 minutes was spent letting your mean girl have the floor. Let her say whatever nastiness she wants. Let her have her moment. She had a lot to say. Here are some snippets:

There’s not a lot of originality here as you can see. Mean girls always go for the “you’re fat!” comment. It’s a cheap shot, but very effective. It was so fascinating to see that so many of the mean girl thoughts were so similar woman to woman regardless of how VASTLY different these women are in body shape and age.

Then the nice girl had time on the floor. I think most women would feel like this part would be hard. That you’d find little to nice to say about yourself, but these women have all been through sessions with us and were able to dig into their self-esteem reserves that we helped them create and this is where the magic happened:

You can see and feel their personalities in their words here. It’s so much more than “you’re a nice person.” We all stood outside in a circle in only our bras and panties and in each woman’s hand was one anonymous mean girl card and one anonymous nice girl card. We took turns reading them each aloud.

I have to tell you hearing your written words, especially your terrible written words come out of someone else’s mouth that should NEVER say things like that about themselves is a sobering experience. It stops you dead in your tracks. It makes you think different thoughts and love yourself deeper and harder and truer than ever before. Because hearing those words read by another made them feel real and nothing could be further from the truth.

As painful and mean as the mean girls were that day, the nice girl came out in full force. We all cried and we all were shaking and we all laughed and hugged and rejoiced over the amazing women we are.

Then we each grabbed a marker and wrote the best words we could find to describe each other on each others bodies. And we photographed it because photos are one of the longest lasting ways humans can record their lives. These are not just our memories but also our legacies. 

“Unlabeled” by Isabelle played loudly as the words flowed out of the markers. It’s such a powerful song and I urge you to go check it out and definitely buy it. I did the second I heard it.

The purpose of this project was to not just break stigma and normalize bodies and the stories that go with them, that definitely matters, but also to prove that seeing and embracing the positive in others and yourself is just as powerful as examining and releasing the negative.

We are all made of the light, the dark and stardust dreams in between.

Please enjoy Jezebel Unwritten.

XOXO,
Sara, Tiffany & Kaitlyn