Summer nights were spent at backyard bonfires, sharing music, whispering about boys and performing lip sync battles.

Sleepovers and snow days were what we lived for and I look back fondly on those days. I remember making myself slow down and take mental pictures because I knew those days were numbered. Thai food on the couch binging America's Next Top Model and Gossip Girl could only last so long.

High school was tough, middle school was even harder, but high school was rough. I loved my friends, I thought I had so many. Only to discover after I left Michigan that I only had a few. And that's okay, I'm content with having a smaller circle, I know they care for me unconditionally. But what I realized after I left was that even though we cared for each other, our friendship was based on high school. On the things we loved to do together and not so much or belief systems, political views, family values or even our general interests. As I floated farther and farther from the people that I thought were “my people” I realized that our friendships truly were built on a pile of memories. It works, I mean, we still talk and we still love each other, but we've come to the unspoken agreement that our friendships are much less defined and that's not going to change.

So where does that leave me now? How do I find people who love me for the stage of life I'm in now? That can appreciate me for who I am, what I believe and what I'm interested in, RIGHT NOW?

It's overwhelming, to say the very least, but I believe the process will be fruitful. Circumstances make it hard to make friends outside of the internet, which makes me all the more thankful for the Coil community. This community gets me, not only as a writer, but as a person. You allow me to show up as I am and share my life.

I have a few lovely friends that I am able to see in person on a semi-regular basis, but for the most part, I am reliant on my online community for support and friendship. It obviously helps that I have a husband who is truly my best friend, but it's important to have friendship and community outside of your partner.

We all have emotional needs that we need met. It's important that we have friendships in which we connect, share life, share our passions and can confide in one another. I never knew just how important these needs were until I ventured out on my own and pretty much limited myself from them for a period of time. Until I met Dustin I struggled a lot in the fact that I didn't have anyone to connect with and it's hard to get excited about life when you don't have anyone to share it with. I can honestly say that's when I truly started realizing that I struggled with depression and that it was important that I surrounded myself with people.

But what does that look like? It's obviously different for all of us, but the truth stands that we need human connection and relationships. I'd like to advise you that when you're imagining these friendships and setting up expectations in your head, that you don't focus on a particular type of person or a specific number of people. Social media likes to make us think that we need, women I'm talking to you, a “girl gang”. And that if we don't have one we are somehow less than or not as loved as these other women. I have to warn you that these “girl gangs” are typically wrapped up in MLM's trying to prey on a woman's need to be loved and cherished and surrounded by friends, but a picture doesn't tell the full story. You should never have to change yourself or become someone or do a certain job to earn your “spot” in a “girl gang”. Because as easily as you can snatch up that spot, it can be easily taken away from you. You don't want to wrap yourself up in fake friendships for the sake of a few Instagrammable photos. Life is more than that and you are worth more than that.

So what does it look like to find your people? How do you realistically go about doing that?

Be patient. I hate to say this, because I'm still in this season of waiting, but you have to be patient. You don't want to rush into relationships with people who won't appreciate you or will mistreat or use you. Remember that just because you don't have “your people” right this second, doesn't mean they're not coming.

Be unequivocally yourself. This can also be difficult, but who said making friends would be easy? It's important to show up as yourself from the beginning because that's how you will attract the people that mean the most. You want people who love you for you. It's also an energetic thing. When you put your energy into the world, it will attract people who have the same vibrational energy- these are your people.

Dive into your passions. This often comes up when people ask how they should land a date without going on dating apps/websites. When you dive into your passions and get involved in community events and even online endeavors, you tend to encounter like-minded people. For instance with Coil, I didn't go into this looking for friends, but I found them naturally through a shared passion. We're all here to do the same thing and through that we can connect over commonalities. We're also here with the intention to learn and we have created a lot of space for conversation within that. If you're struggling to find “your people”, maybe stop trying so hard and dwelling on the “lack” and start doing the things you love.

Put yourself out there. I know it's scary, but putting yourself out there is one of the best things that you can do. Even if you get “rejected” at least you attempted a conversation. Eventually you'll find someone that you click with.

Don't settle.. for anyone who drains you, makes you feel less than, or that never initiates spending quality time together or conversations. You also don't want to settle for anyone who will make you feel like you're not enough or that you're too much.

Set realistic expectations. You need to realize that your friendships aren't going to be the way they were in high school or college. You can't expect adults to hang out all of the time or even talk to you everyday. This isn't like the movies or tv shows. We're busy, we have stuff going on and families to attend to. We have projects and goals we're trying to meet. Your people will be the ones who cheer you along, even when you can't show up, will love you where you're at and will be there to hold your hand or to celebrate with you when it comes time. Be realistic in that you should spend time together and talk on a semi-regular basis, but don't put unrealistic expectations on how much time you're spending together.

All in all, you want to look for people who respect where you're at in your walk of life, your lifestyle and your commitments. Regardless of where you're at with friendships right now, realize that you deserve to have friends. You deserve to be in community. Even if you're not surrounded by a gaggle of friends, it doesn't mean that you're not amazing and worth loving and spending time with. I know that seasons of loneliness can be devastatingly hard and it's important that you seek to get out of them for your own mental health, but it's going to be okay. You will find your people.

xoxo – Ry

Wow friends, it's been a long two weeks of working on this project, but I couldn't be more excited!

We're always looking for more ways to track how our content is doing, right? With active Coil users, we all really try to engage with each other often, so it's helpful to step outside of our bubble and see how our content will do with outsiders on other platforms.

Have you been wanting to increase your reach, but you’re not sure quite how to do that?

Well, I’d like to start a test project and if you’d be kind enough, I’d love to have you join me on this process! I want to test the reach of.. Pinterest. It is estimated that 300 million people come to Pinterest every month to “find new things to buy, make and do”. Fun fact, since starting this project and just working on my boards and pinning more, my monthly viewers went from 49 to 405 in a matter of nine days. This was BEFORE I added my Coil pins or any new boards. That’s kinda great for little to no work on my part.

The objective of this experiment/strategy is to drive more traffic to Coil from external sources. I want to give articles more of a shot at being picked up by the search engine algorithms as well as through Pinterest specifically.

Now bear with me, it’s going to be a long process and there are a lot of steps to getting started, but once you’re set up, your reach could easily be tripled or quadrupled just by working on it a few minutes a day or every other day. Obviously this is a test, I’m doing this as ya’ll are because I want to be as authentic with my numbers as possible. I’d like to provide regular updates so we can see what is and what isn’t working. This isn’t an original idea by any means, a lot of business owners use Pinterest to jumpstart their reach for their Instagram, Facebook and personal websites, but no-one seems to have done it for Coil before. If it works for all of those people, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for Coil!

Why is this good for Coil and ultimately you? Coil will see outside clicks & you're bringing more exposure to your work and the platform for literally FREE (for you). Pinterest is one of the best ways to advertise and has one of the most engaged user bases ever recorded. There is a high probability of a click through especially if it's a “help” article or something that provides value. So why is it only free for you? Well, it’s not that users on Pinterest pay money, but they do pay with their data and by viewing advertisements on Pinterest. Pinterest, like every other site, tracks your data unless you turn it off, which I will cover in this article. I do like that I can turn it off, but I don't love that they do it automatically, which is why their algorithm works so well. I'm at the point where personally I don't believe we're going to get rid of data tracking anytime soon, so I take it where I can get it (Coil/Cinnamon) and deal with on the other places for now. I see this as an opportunity to drive more traffic to Coil and Cinnamon in hopes that it will help bring attention to them and eventually push more websites and companies towards adopting Coil's model.

If you’re not overly familiar with Pinterest, it’s a website/app that allows you to find inspiration and get connected to millions of bloggers, posts, recipes and literally anything else you could think of via boards. When you first set up, you choose your interests and they curate pins for you based off of keywords in the pin from the original pinner. You can pin from websites or create a new pin from scratch on Pinterest itself which is what we will be doing. Pinterest has come a long way in the years that it has been around and it’s got one of the best algorithms we’ve ever seen. Your ability to reach thousands of people organically is insanely simple compared to other platforms. It’s a great platform because the people using it are there for inspiration, to read specific articles and to learn specific things. If you show up with that information paired with an aesthetically pleasing graphic, they’re bound to click on it. Pinterest is a visual website so your best bet for clicks is to show up with bold, eye-catching graphics and beautiful photos. It’s also important that you provide value. You can do this through pins and through boards of pins where you’ve gathered a bunch of pins of a certain subject in one place. People can follow these boards or follow your account so it’s important you keep them updated regularly. Pinterest is one of the best places for bloggers to be, so why aren’t we on there yet? Well now we’re going to be.

Before you dive into this experiment first you should ask yourself, is Pinterest for me?

1. Can you dedicate time regularly to pinning? (5+ min a day)

2. Can you dedicate time to setting up the boards? It'll take a few hours to begin with, but you can break it up.

3. Can you commit to creating your own pins in a program like Canva when you’re creating your cover photos or other graphics?

4. Is your target audience on Pinterest? Believe it or not a lot of people, men and women, use Pinterest, but you have to decide if it’s worth it to you or not. (If you don't believe me on this, skip down to the “Get familiar with your analytics” section and keep going until you reach “Audience Insights”, you'll see screenshots of the current audience type that shows up on my personal page and on Pinterest overall.

5. Do you want to boost your SEO? One note I will have about this project is that pins naturally boost your SEO because your names and links are floating around so your content is more likely to show up in google if you’re pinning in a few different types of ways. This means that people are much more likely to reach you on Coil.

If you've decided that you'd like to join me in this Pinterest experiment, I've created an entire tutorial below. If you don't, I encourage you to keep up with updates I provide on reach and how it's going. This will be a longterm project and I'm excited to see how it goes!

xoxo – Ry

Follow me on to check it out for yourself!

Set up your Business Account.

If you don't have one already, you need to start from scratch and choose a business account. If you already have a Pinterest account and it's a personal account, you need to switch over to a business account.

Set Up Your Profile.

*Pro Tip: Make sure you set this up on a desktop and click the red done button in the top right corner after you fixed the settings on each individual tab. If you don’t it will not save.*

1. Edit Profile Under Settings

- Profile Photo: Keep your picture consistent with Coil & Twitter.

- Display Name: I suggest this is your first name or stage name.

- Username: I suggest this is your handle on Coil & Twitter.

- About Your Profile: Keep this consistent with your Coil bio.

- Email Address: How people can contact you.

- Choose Your Featured Boards: These 5 boards will show up first.

2. Edit Account Settings

- Email Address: How Pinterest contacts you & sends notifications.

- Country

- Contact Name

- Gender

- Business Type: Blogger is your best bet.

- Login Options: Choose how you can log in.

- Messaging Options: Turn on direct messages via Pinterest (this is a great way to answer questions from people interested by Coil).

3. Claim

- Claim your personal website if you have one.

- Claim your Instagram, Etsy, or YouTube accounts if you have them.

4. Privacy and Data

- Uncheck all of the boxes to make sure that your profile shows up in the search engine, but that your PERSONAL data and activity isn’t tracked.

5. Choose Your Header Board

- Leave settings and return to your profile.

- Click on the profile picture in the top right page and return to the profile page.

- Click the pencil on the top right of your header and choose the board you'd like to feature.

- Choose something light, fun and that represents your brand well. I personally chose to use quotes because it’s attractive, something that stays updated regularly and it's encouraging. With this in mind, once I have more pins on my faith, motherhood or marriage boards, I'll switch it to match my brand more. If you are a food blogger, you'd want to make your header board fresh veggies or recipes or something else true to brand.

Set up and curate your boards.

*Pro Tip: Setting up your boards on your computer is easiest.*

1. Choosing your board topics.

If you know your 4-5 core topics this is going to be a heck of a lot easier. If you don’t, well I recommend starting there.

For your boards, you want to find a balance of having enough boards to be noticed, while also not having too many to manage. I recommend sticking to 4-5 core topics and then having micro-niched boards of each of them. EX: I’ll have a “Motherhood” board, but then I may have a board strictly of “Baby Boy Clothes” or “Young Mamas” because those are not only specific things people search for, but they’re specific subsets of motherhood that apply to me. Generalized motherhood pins would go on the main board and then I’d pin about those specific things on the other boards. You want to know that you’re going to be creating content within those micro-niches before creating the board. For instance, I most likely won’t be making any or a lot of content about breastfeeding, so it wouldn’t make sense for it to be an entire board, if I did create one article or video it would go on the main motherhood board. On the flip side, I know I’ll be creating content about finding cute clothes for boys, what it’s like being a boy mom, capsule closets for boys, etc. This will enable me to post on that board and lead people who are looking for boy clothes on Pinterest directly to my content. Create micro-niched content for each of the topics and you should find yourself with 12-20 boards. Your goal is to make your content on Pinterest “bingeable”, so creating boards that coincide with each other well is key.

2. Set up your boards.

When setting up your boards you’ll choose..

- A board cover (a pin on the board, you can go back and do this once you've pinned).

- The name of the board.

- The description of the board.

- A category for the board.

- Bonus: If you want you can choose a specific date that the board launches and/or ends.

You'll see on the bottom row that this is also where you can merge a board with another one, make it private, archive it, delete it or even invite someone else to collaborate on the board.

3. If you already have boards, clean them up.

It's important that your boards are reflective of your current opinions, stances, and interests. I also encourage you to have a few personal boards, but the point is to keep them aesthetically pleasing and on brand, so if your brand has nothing to do with food, maybe use your personal Pinterest account to pin all of your favorite recipes or pin them to a “Secret” board. Make sure to delete old pins with broken links or anything that might contradict your brand. Remember that you’re going to be intertwining the pins of your work with pins of other people’s work, so make sure that anything you keep aligns with or compliments your creations. Also keep in mind that you don’t want chunks of the board to be all other people’s work and then all of your work, it’s going to be mixed up. Once you clean up a board, leave it until you’re ready to start pinning your work and then you’ll rotate your pins and other pins for a mixed and balanced board.

4. Arrange your boards.

On the desktop you can easily rearrange your boards and pins on the actual boards by dragging and dropping. You can rearrange on your main home page, the sub sections of a board and the actual pins on the boards.

Homepage Boards

On the homepage, make sure that you've chosen “Drag and drop” from the dropdown and then you'll be able to drag and drop and rearrange your boards.

Sub-Boards

You can add sub-boards to your main board to keep things organized. In this case, I like to keep my boards in alphabetical order. If you click on the board, in this case DIY, you'll see all of my sub-boards. To rearrange these, I click the settings button (1) and then choose “Select Pins to move or delete” (2). You can then drag and drop and move the boards where you'd like them to go.

Pins

You can rearrange your pins on the boards which is great if you pin all of your Coil pins from your backlog at once. Like I mentioned earlier, it doesn't look good if you have all of your pins in one section, it's more likely someone will scroll right by that section. Instead, once you've pinned all of them, you can rearrange the pins so that they're interweaved with pins from other creators that you've pinned to that board. If you click on the board, in this case the board “DIY” and then the sub-board “Hacks”, you'll see all of my pins. To rearrange these, I click the settings button (1) and then choose “Select Pins to move or delete” (2). You can then drag and drop and move the pins where you'd like them to go.

Get familiar with your analytics.

1. Overview

Under analytics – “Overview” – you can easily see what boards and which pins are performing the best. This will help you to see what pictures are performing the best, what text is doing the best and what you should keep doing and what you should not continue doing.

Impressions, Total Audience, Engagements & Engaged Audience

Top Boards & Impressions Per Board

Impressions Per Pin

2. Audience Insights

Under analytics – “Audience Insights” – you can quickly see who is on the platform, where they’re at and what they’re interested in. Pinterest allows you to see what your specific audience is interested in and your demographic that you’re attracting as well as the overall Pinterest user's data. It also has a tab where you can compare the audiences. This is extremely helpful in identifying if you’re on track with meeting and attracting your target audience.

Below are examples of all three types of audience insights starting with my personal insights. Mine are the dark blue and Pinterest's are neon purple. These were my insights at the beginning of this experiment on June 30th.

Riley Q's Audience Insights – Categories & Interests

Riley Q's Audience Insights – Age & Gender

Riley Q's Audience Insights – Location

Riley Q's Audience Insights – Device Type of User

All Pinterest Users Audience Insights – Categories & Interests

All Pinterest Users Audience Insights – Age & Gender

All Pinterest Users Audience Insights – Location & Device Type

Riley Q compared to Pinterest's audience Categories & Interests

For the sake of space I won't include any other screenshots but the “Compare” tab follows the same pattern also showing comparison of age, gender, location & device type as you scroll down.

3. Trends

Under analytics – “Trends” – you can conveniently see which categories, topics and pins are trending.

You can type in a keyword, in this example “baby”, and see if that type of pin is trending or not. This will help you to put out content when it will best be received.

You can also type in various topics and see how they’re trending in comparison to one another. This is will allow you to choose the topics you’re promoting wisely and maybe use a different keyword than you would have originally thought to use.

Below I've chosen additional terms from the suggested drop down in the first screenshot, but you can also type in other options. Below you can see how they compare.

Every time you type in a new key word on the overall comparison chart it will bring up more data. If you scroll down below the chart you can see related terms (1) that may be better options as well as popular pins (2) in each of those categories so you can see what is doing well aesthetically. Note that you can change the country you’re looking at in the top right hand corner.

Designing Pins

1. Design multiple Pins for your posts.

- You’re going to want to create multiple graphics for the same article/video for Pinterest. This way you can pin multiple times, sometimes even on multiple boards. The goal is to pin 2-3 pins per post if you can. And before you stress out, this isn’t a big deal, it’s just posting the graphic with the title and website. Low stress.

- The best size for pins is 1000 x 1500 pixels.

- If you already have a graphic or an infographic in your post, that’s a perfect thing to pin and attach the link. If you don’t have one but have a really great quote out of the article, that’s a perfect thing to create a graphic of and pin. Keeping Pinterest in mind when you’re creating your content will help you in the long run.

- A third type of pin is a graphic of the headline of your article or video. If someone is searching for the answer to a question that you answer in your content, they’re likely to click on it, especially if the pin itself is attractive. When you’re putting any text on your pins, you want it to be minimal, big bold and to the point. Obviously infographics are a bit different, but any “headline” type of post needs to be catchy. Notice that all three examples below would appeal to different people and different eyes. The first is an example of a bold headline/a variation of the actual article's header cover. The second & third example are examples of photos that would attract the type of person that would read the article.

In this set of examples you'll see a variation of the cover photo, except this time I added a quote from the article to intrigue a potential reader. The second example is of a picture that would catch the interest of the reader. The third example is of art work that I created that isn't in the article, but relates strongly to the post and would attract a different type of reader. This third example is special because it stands alone from the article and because it's art it's likely to be re-pinned. But it'll still have the article's link attached to it which will help.

2. Brand your Pins.

When it comest to branding your pins, you obviously want to utilize colors and fonts that you already use, but you can take it three ways.

+ You can take the “Jenna Kutcher” approach and make all of your pins uniform with a template. This way people eventually realize it’s you when they see your pin.

+ You can go crazy and just do bold branding, bold colors, images, and fonts, whatever fits based on the post itself.

+ You can go half and half. Switch it up between uniform and sharing the actual graphics you have in the post itself.

3. Consider other types of Pins.

Video pins are doing really well right now and you can easily make pins videos in Canva with just a click of a button.

Video Pin Tutorial:

- Once you've created your pin, click animate and choose the animation style.

- Click Download, choose the page you want, and choose to download it as a GIF (easily embeddable on Coil) or as an MP4 (what Pinterest accepts).

- When you’re putting any text on your pins, you want it to be minimal, big bold and to the point. Obviously infographics are a bit different, but any “headline” type of post needs to be catchy.

Pinning

1. Create your custom Pins.

- On the navigation bar, click the dropdown under “Create” and then choose “Create Pin”.

- Drag and drop or upload your photo (under 32MB) or MP4 (video under 2GB).

- Add the title of your pin, usually the title of the article or your catchy headline.

- Add a short description of what your pin is about. You want this to be short, to the point, and get the attention of your potential reader. Whether this is a quote from the article, the first line of the article or a quick summary of the article, you want the description to the seal the deal (aka: the link click).

- Add the destination link (the link to your article, video or post).

-Choose the board(s) (2) you want the pin on from the top right dropdown (1) or create a new board right from that tab.

- Choose to publish immediately or at a later time via the checkbox.

- Click publish.

I truly hope you found this tutorial helpful! Stay tuned for Pinterest updates. As always, if you'd like to discuss or if you have any questions reach out to me on Twitter – @riley_quin or email me riley@rileyq.com.

I used to be so insecure about literally EVERYTHING. Over the years I've had major ones come and go, but there's always something.

Whether it's my body weight, how I look in clothes, acne, hair, my personality, my relationships, my friendships, my ability to perform and do well, money- I've always got something I'm insecure about.

Lately it's how I come off to people and if people truly like me or not. Even admitting that makes me super sub-conscious because am I coming off super needy? Will people not like me because they think I'm too insecure? 😅 See, a vicious cycle.

It's kind of funny because looking back, I can remember each season of my life based off of what I was insecure about at the time. I only know this because when I'm insecure about something I make EVERYTHING about that one thing. I talk about it 24/7, think about it, ask all of my friends their opinions (again, another insecurity “being wrong” about how I'm feeling), and well, you get the picture. These insecurities often turn into anxiety and sometimes even throw me into a depressive state. It's just another aspect of my mental health journey that I will pretty much always battle.

That being said, I have found a few affirmations for getting over some of my insecurities. A lot of it has to do with mindset and shrinking your circle of “care”. Basically, not letting all of the little things get to you.

I am not the center of the universe.

My value does not lie in how I look, what I can do, or who I am, but rather in who created me.

I don't owe anyone anything, but people do like when I show up as I am.

I love affirmations as much as the next person, they're helpful reminders but I also appreciate tangible steps that I can take to actively shift my mindset. For these steps I'm going to use the example of body weight and acne. These are two areas that I really worked on to get to the point where I wasn't actively insecure about them. Granted, I am pregnant right now and there's literally nothing I can do about either of them, but I did work on it before I got pregnant and got to a healthy place that I believe has helped me maintain a healthy mindset during pregnancy. None of the things I'm going to mention are “easy” fixes, but rather things that I do on a regular basis to re-train the way that I think about myself.

Moderate who you're following on social media.

When it came to how I looked in my clothes, I was very self-conscious. When Instagram is showing you size 0's all day long and you're a 14, it can be intimidating. Some body styles are just different than others, but we celebrate and idolize one over the other. It's not that I cannot appreciate those size 0 women for who they are, but to encourage myself I unfollowed a lot of them because I needed to see more women who were my size, who weren't trying to sell me fat-burning coffee every 2 seconds so I could “look like them”. I also started following more people (all shapes/sizes/genders) who never talked about weight and fashion and who focused more in on real life. Because honestly, we focus our value way too much on what we wear, the things we own and how we look. It's easy for me not to get wrapped up in wanting to be the “size 0 woman” when really, her size has nothing to do with her. I don't know her and I shouldn't attribute her value and who she is based off of her size. She's not more valuable than I am because of what section she shops in, but the more I focus in on that, the more I over analyze myself. So sometimes, that means unfollowing because it's the healthiest move for me to make. You are what you eat (consume) and so if you're consuming unhealthy negativity and “change, change, change” messages all day long, you're going to absorb that and become that.

Maintain healthy relationships

I'm not going to pretend that we don't all want to be liked, because we do, it's just human nature. I'm also not going to pretend that it's not important to be liked, because that's an outdated cliche that frankly doesn't do any of us any good. Healthy brains require healthy relationships. It's important that we strive to be a part of functioning society and that we maintain friendships, which usually require being liked. Obviously this doesn't mean that you change yourself for others, because that's not healthy, but it does mean that you hold yourself to certain standards so that you're truly happy with who you are. Find people who care about you for who you are and who don't make you check certain boxes to be in their circle. What you wear, what you look like, what you do for work, or what your family looks like- none of that should matter to people who are healthy and genuine.

Focus less on yourself and more on others.

Yikes. I know this is a tough one, but hear me out. The more we focus in on ourselves, the more we lose perspective. Like that first affirmation said, the world does not revolve around us. It can be easy when we get upset or really in our heads about something to forget that the thing we're insecure about isn't actually that big of a deal and nobody probably actually cares about it, except for us. When we focus more on the people around us and how we can show up for them, it puts us in a better position. It puts us in a posture of serving and when we're serving others, we aren't overly inclined to think about how we look while we're doing it. This is a beautiful way to phase out your insecurities and humble yourself to those around you.

Remove the obstacle.

In the case of my skin, I stopped wearing makeup except for special events. I'm serious. Even now when my pregnancy acne is in full swing, I don't wear makeup. I realized that I cared too much about how I looked when I didn't wear makeup and so I needed to retrain myself. I also realized that I hated putting on makeup, it didn't bring me joy and the only reason I did it was so that people would like my face. Which is really funny when you say that out loud. Like who cares if someone doesn't like my face? It's attached to me. 😂 I know this is easier said than done for a lot of people, but after awhile of embracing my messy buns and bumpy face, I stopped caring. Now I don't even think twice when I go out without it. In fact I usually show up to coffee dates and think “wow, where'd they get the energy to look like they're on the way to a photoshoot?”. It's just not my priority anymore because makeup isn't what makes me feel good, or feel secure, I feel good and secure because I know who I am in God and I truly like myself. That being said, I love putting makeup on once in awhile for family get togethers, church or for a date night, but it's not my first priority and I'm so much happier because of that.

Work on the insecurity.

Obviously I'd like you to stop focusing on the insecurities you're facing, but sometimes they just don't go away and it's actually way more unhealthy to complete dismiss them, because they're still underlying. They sub-consciously dictate choices that we make and put us under the illusion that we're living our fullest life when really we're not. In the case of my weight, I was unhappy with how I looked. I cringed putting on clothes, I cried whenever I sized up again or something was getting too tight. I ate more to make myself feel better and I treated food as a drug instead of as fuel. It got to the point where I knew I wasn't going to be able to get pregnant if I didn't make some changes and I was tired of being sick and tired. I hopped on a meal plan that worked with my body chemistry, I found workouts that I actually enjoyed doing and I forced myself into better habits. It was really hard and really uncomfortable but I hit my first goal of 22 lbs down in half the time I thought it would take and I only stopped because I got pregnant that very month and I needed to take care of my body for the baby in a different way. But in that case, I chose to take my insecurity and not let it get the best of me. I decided that I wasn't going to be the victim anymore and I was going to make what I wanted to happen, happen. I hold onto that sentiment and those goals I had in place for after I've had baby boy. I estimate by next spring after I'm a few months postpartum I'll be able to get back into the swing of things again and I don't actually dread it this time. I look forward to seeing what my body can do and I believe my pregnancy has gone as well as it has because of the way I changed my mindset about my body and the powerhouse that it is.

If you haven't figured it out by now, your mindset is vitally important. You have to prioritize taking care of your mental health so that you can take care of the rest of yourself and enjoy your life. Your insecurities are very real, but you don't have to carry them around anymore. You can work through them and overcome them, one day at a time. You can learn to love yourself. And when those insecurities and lies slip back in, you can remind yourself of who you are, how far you've come and you can get back on the wagon.

I appreciate all of you and I hope that these steps and affirmations will help you work through whatever insecurity you're dealing with right now.

xoxo – Ry

It's a boy! Baby boy is doing great, all of his organs are measuring great and are just where they're supposed to be. This post was going to look much different in my head, there was supposed to be a video, but the lady who did my ultrasound was super rude and wouldn't let us even grab a video of him moving. So here we are without a video. But here's a few pictures we grabbed yesterday.

And here's baby boy how he's actually hanging out, upside down, spine to my belly.

We're extremely excited to welcome him in November and as much as I want to tell you, we are going to save the name for when he's born. 😘

Thank you for all of the love and prayers yesterday. I was extremely anxious going into the appointment yesterday and it was a stressful day emotionally which is why I wasn't present at all. But I am going to catch up on the last few days of content this afternoon. I've missed ya'll! For those who have been praying for us, we have another appointment in 4 weeks to double check the heart growth and then an echo at 24 weeks as well to do an in-depth check with a specialist. For those who don't know, Dustin was born with VSD (a heart defect) and our baby has 5-10% chance of having it as well, so we have to be super thorough in making sure that everything is developing how it's supposed to be. So far things look good, but we'll know more in a few weeks!

Thanks again for all of your love and support, I know baby boy is so loved already and I can't wait to introduce him to you in just a few months.

xoxo – Ry