Operation Beautiful & Tell Her She's Beautiful

A year ago today, I shared a post about To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA), a non-profit movement "dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. [TWLOHA] exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery" (TWLOHA site).

This year, I would like to share two other great initiatives. Hopefully it provokes some thoughts and inspires you.

Operation Beautiful
The concept behind Operation Beautiful is ingeniously simple. All that's needed is a pen and paper. You write inspiring messages, something paraphrasing along the lines of the recipient being beautiful as they are, and leave them in public places, such as bathrooms, anonymously.

Check out the Operation Beautiful website for more details and some pictures of sample Post-It messages left by others. Just to give you guys some examples -

"Never be afraid to be different. Beauty is unique. I [heart] U."

"Smile :) You're beautiful!"

"BEAUTIFUL. Don't believe differently."

Isn't that wonderful? This is such a great thing to do, and inject some self-esteem back into the youth of today. I'm figuring I'll give it a go, start leaving notes. What about you? I really hope you'll give it a try too. Remember: you are beautiful.


Tell Her She's Beautiful
This other one is creating quite a splash on Facebook, as that's where at started as an Event. Now, officially the event lasts from February 11th to February 14th (today), but it's been seeing such great feedback so far that a group as been created to continue the event year-long. You can find the group here.

Again, the basic concept behind this initiative is to combat the self-consciousness/self-deprecation of this day and age. Also ingeniously simple - "Let's show every girl that they really are beautiful. So tell them, it'll make their day. Girls, you ARE beautiful" (Facebook event).

It's also inspiring to see that this event was started by a guy in grade 12 at a high school in Toronto. There's hope for today's youth. As of this time, the event has well over a million confirmed attendances. Now that is truly awe-inspiring power used for good.

Now go do it. Go tell someone they're beautiful.

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Thanks for reading. Happy Valentine's Day.

Beautiful.

Love Day

Happy Valentine's Day

or

SAD (Singles Awareness Day)

But February Fourteenth is something more than just a commercial holiday. It's a day of expressing love and affection. (& this year, it came after a "Friday the 13th") Teenage emotions can be somewhat of a roller coaster ride at times; today is one of the worst days, especially for those dealing with depression, and the consequences of this, such as self-harm, etc.

TWLOHA (To Write Love On Her Arms) - Check it out if you don't know yet what it is. Depression is a topic that's very close to me personally. So today - although you should do this all the time, but especially today - let someone you love know how you feel. It doesn't take very much time or effort; just let them know that you're there, that you care. It could make a huge difference.

Now get out there and start sharing the love.

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On another note, I'm going watch Slumdog Millionaire tonight. Has anyone else seen it yet? What did you think of it?

Matt Nathanson's Come On, Get Higher is presently stuck in my head.

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