The Evolution of My Business

The Evolution of Realizing Beauty

You may have noticed a lot of changes on Realizing Beauty over the past several months. I thought it was time I shared with you the new direction I’ve been headed in. When I started my blog back in April 2011, as Perilously Pale, it was to share my passion for niche and luxury beauty products. I was working a regular 9-5 and had started falling in love with hard to find, for me at least, makeup. I relied on blogs and beauty forums to learn about products and find swatches and reviews to help me make my shopping decisions as I was making all of my purchases online. I lived in Canada in a rural area and there were no high-end department stores near me or even a Sephora within an hour and a half away. I also fell hard for niche brands like Rouge Bunny Rouge and Le Metier de Beaute. Brands that were only available to me online. Over time I realized that since I was taking a gamble making these purchases online I should share my own swatches and reviews to aid others in the same situation I was. Back in 2011, there were very few fair skinned bloggers so that made it feel especially important to me to share my experiences. I loved the community I had found online and I wanted to become a bigger part of it. Beauty was my passion and my hobby.

The birth of Perilously Pale was the natural embracing of my passion and gifts at the time.

From one of my first blog posts from April 2011. Eek!

Fast forward to only 9 months later and I was out of the 9-5 world focusing on my blogging and makeup artistry full time. I’d always had a natural talent with makeup that I loved to share but living in a rural area I never really considered pursuing it as a career. I didn’t want to live in the city and work on TV or movie sets or anything like that. When I discovered bridal and boudoir beauty it was the perfect direction for my passion for making women feel more beautiful with natural and flattering makeup applications. As years went on my makeup artistry business grew as did my blog. I began making the trip to Toronto quite often for media events for bloggers and it all felt very exciting. I felt so grateful to be finding success in something that I loved so much and met so many incredible new friends.

Miss my girls!

But as time went on the blogging industry stopped feeling so much like a community and started becoming something that didn’t feel as natural to me. It became all about “influencers”. It started becoming less and less raw and real and more and more staged. It was all about the perfect social media shots of perfected and edited beauty in staged environments. I loved being a blogger but I didn’t have any interest at all in being an “influencer”. Please don’t misunderstand, I am not bashing social media influencers at all, I am just stating that it was SO NOT ME.

I became more and more disenchanted with my blogging life. I just didn’t have any interest in even trying to push myself as an influencer. The beauty blog part of Realizing Beauty won’t be going anywhere for a while at least. I still LOVE makeup and I love helping women feel more beautiful and discover amazing new products but I honestly don’t spend any time on beauty blogs or forums anymore, or even following brands and bloggers on social media. It’s not where my focus has been the past couple years. And as I became more and more interested in something deeper, and finding more meaning in my life and what I was doing in my business, I continued to branch out into new areas.

I had spent my entire life, at least what I can remember of it, feeling depressed, insecure, alone, and lost. I always felt that I wasn’t good enough or worthy of good things or good relationships. I was critical of everything I did and said and that voice was always in my head beating me up and making me question every decision I ever made or failed to make. I always underperformed and allowed self-sabotage to prevent me from living up to my potential. As meek and kind as I was I also let out anger and frustration on the people I loved most. I got through most days just hoping the day would be over so I could go to bed and forget it all yet be kept awake with racing fears, worries, and regrets. I’d have thoughts of how much easier it would be if I just drove off into that tree while at the same time being so terrified of death and that there might be absolutely nothing left, no point to this existence of mine at all, that I could never truly consider ending anything.

I didn’t want to be on medication and never really stuck with anything long enough to know if it would work. I couldn’t find a therapist that wasn’t telling me things I didn’t already know. That could give me any real answers. I was the victim. My life had been shit and I’d just been dealt shit and then I felt even shittier about being depressed about my shit life because I knew there were people out there who had endured so much more than I had. What right did I even have to be depressed? That made me loathe myself even more.

And then one day, almost 3 years ago, with several health problems causing me grief and not wanting to be reliant on medications, I started paying more attention to my body. I wanted to lose weight and I also wanted to figure out what foods were triggering so many problems in my body. Being more consciously aware of how my body was responding to things made me have to be more conscious of my thoughts as well. Wanting desperately to eat something, eating it and then being aware of how did I feel after. How did my body feel? How enjoyable was that? Was the discomfort I was feeling in my body and the disappointment I’m feeling knowing I indulged in something unhealthy actual worth it? Was that even enjoyable?

I was practicing mindfulness when it came to my eating and it opened up a whole new world to me. Being mindful of my actions and my thoughts and what was real and what was just bullshit I was inflicting on myself. I started being more aware of my mind chatter and the effect it had and started working on shifting it. I started reading more and more books, always wanting to learn and discover more. I started meditating, journaling, playing around with affirmations and mirror work. My new obsession became figuring myself the hell out and doing everything I could to love her and grow with her. After decades of repressing my feelings, it was no easy feat! I discovered I had the power to choose a different way to live.

In the interest of keeping this a readable length, I’m not going to go into every detail but I completely changed my life. I chose to discover, learn about, and love myself. I chose love over fear. I chose to find happiness in every day rather than wallowing in the shit. I choose every damn day. And the more layers of conformity and fear and self-imposed limitations I shed, the more awakened I became to just how powerful I am, how powerful we all are, in creating our own realities and our own happiness. The more I discovered that I am, and always have been, loved and supported by the Universe, God, Spirit, whatever you want to call it. The more connected I feel to everyone and everything in this beautiful existence we are living in. The more confident I am in knowing there is so much more to this life than most people will even allow themselves to consider. We weren’t all put on this Earth to falter and suffer and struggle until we die. I mean think about it? If you want to be as rational as rational can be, does that even make sense? That the miracle of us existing on this incredible planet that sustains us in this vast Universe is just a pointless attempt to survive while looking our best, impressing others, and owning the nicest stuff? THAT is ridiculous. Spending your whole life afraid of looking fat, or stupid, or heaven forbid failing at something and never giving yourself a chance to grow and LIVE and experience something more. That my friend is ridiculous. There is so much amazingness this life has to offer you and the only thing standing in your way is you. Not your circumstances, your past, or other people. YOU. Having to take responsibility for everything you have and are experiencing in your life might sound painful and a little scary but it is also incredibly powerful.

OK, I’ve seriously gone off on a tangent here but basically, I’m wanting to share with you some of the reasons behind the changes that have been happening on Realizing Beauty and will continue to happen. I am and will continue to be at least for a little while, a makeup artist and beauty blogger. My main focus, however, moving forward is helping women in their own personal and spiritual advancement journey. I empower women to believe in themselves and find more joy, passion, and purpose in their lives. Through intuitive guidance and coaching, I give women the tools and support to discover and fall in love with their authentic selves, and free themselves of what is holding them back from pursuing what they desire.

Things continue to evolve and change for me every day. The more layers I shed and continue to step into my own truth and my own power the more ah-has and beautiful shifts continue to happen. Three months from now my focus may completely turn on its head again. If a year ago you told me I would be channeling messages, giving oracle and tarot card readings, and intuitively coaching others I would have said you were high. I was only beginning to experience this new level of confidence in myself let alone a confidence in my connection to the Universe. I don’t expect to ever have it all “figured out” because I don’t ever plan to be “done” growing and expanding. We don’t just wake up one morning and have all the answers and call it a day. I mean really? What would be the fun in that! I can’t begin to know what is in store for me but I know that I am surrendered to allowing my soul to guide me and follow what feels good. To serve in the best way I am able to at this time and continue to shine my light in the world by continuing to work on becoming the best version of myself I can be.