The power of a smile! [Announcing the Redesigned BrittaGreenViolet.com]

Earlier this year, I was on a hike with one of my beloved clients Jon when he asked me,

"Hey, why don't you have any photos of you smiling on your website?"

Ummmmm.....

"I do!" I stuttered, but he was right.

Most of the images on my website, lovely though they were, felt pretty moody. Fair enough. My brand and my essence are soulful. I'm going for deep and wide, not light and airy. And yet, he had a point.

As his comment settled I started asking myself, "Why don't I have any smiling photos of myself on my site?"

Where I landed actually felt pretty vulnerable as I admitted to myself that I'm self-conscious about my smile.

There's a school portrait of me as a first grader where you can see my super crooked smile, in all its glory. That crooked smile is still there. And when I submit to the shadow of my vanity I also observe that I have a fairly thin upper lip that sort of disappears when I grin. Clearly my ego feels this feature is not ideal and likes to compare me to all the women with luscious, large lips, and all the humans blessed with easy, incredible, toothy smiles.

Yeesh, it feels tender & silly to even write this down, but hey, there's my truth.

But because I am who I am, I love a challenge, especially if it involves proving myself wrong.

I made a vow that day to get some new photos taken, and to commemorate my 40th birthday this past August, I did just that.

I had two different photoshoots over the summer, one with my soul sister Lindsey and one with a virtual photography named Kelli. Yes, you read that correctly! I learned about Kelli on Instagram when one of my mentors posted an image from a shoot they did together, and I was SO damn impressed not only with the beauty of the image, but with the creative innovation.

Apparently Kelli came up with this method during Covid— what an ingenious solution for a portrait photographer during a pandemic! She had me download an app, then was able to take over my iPhone camera remotely while also talking to me through it.

Mind. Blown.

I'm totally delighted with the images from both photoshoots, and with the help of my fabulous virtual assistant Kate, I spent an afternoon freshening up my website, smiles and all!

I invite you to head over to the homepage and take a look around. My aim is for your visit there to be tactile, pleasure-full, inspiring, and most of all, simplified.

All my free + paid self-study courses are now easier to find, so you can dig into any of my resources you haven't yet explored.

Get into it, then reach out and let me know what you think!

[A side-but-related note:]

Did you know that the power of your own smile can literally change the state of your nervous system?

Several years ago, I learned this truth firsthand while having an anxiety attack. As all the usual signs began to take hold —shortness of breath, pit in the stomach, tightness around the heart— it somehow occurred to me to try on a smile.

From somewhere in the recesses of my body's wisdom, I got the instruction to intentionally bring a soft smile to my lips and keep it there while continuing to breathe.

I followed the nudge, and what do you know?

I was able to move through the episode in record time, and return my nervous system back to homeostasis without any other tools besides my smile and my breath.

To be clear, there are likely times when a simple smile wouldn't be enough to turn around an anxiety attack. But this time, it was.

Isn't it worth trying?

What a simple potent tool that, conveniently, we always have access to.

Thanks for being part of my family.

From my smile to yours!