Before and After – Attorney Nancy Greene

You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are
And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart
No scars to your beautiful, we’re stars and we’re beautiful –

“Scars to Your Beautiful” by Alessia Cara

The human mind is a remarkable and lazy thing. Our brain will skip words while we’re reading and substitute in what it thinks should be there rather than what is there. We see what we expect to see. This phenomenon is so well known that it even as a name.

And most of us, see… well, us every day. But we don’t really see ourselves. We notice the flaws – the Roman nose, the neck that runs right into the chin, the Italian Thunder Thighs, the extra inch of height we wish we had, or the 30 pounds we wish didn’t have, We forget that because of those very things, and other other parts we ignore, we are unique and that makes us beautiful.

I’ve spent the last year on a journey. In June, 2016, my opposing counsel for over three years hit “reply all” rather than “reply” to an email. The end result was I saw his message speculating that I was “sitting buck naked” and his opinion of that state [(“gross”)]. I wanted to vomit. Literally. I was humiliated. My skin flushed, my stomach rolled, black spots swam in front of my eyes. When I called him on it, he apologized for sending it to me. Now, he did acknowledge that he’d been unprofessional, but nothing could remove the taint and the hurt that email caused. And by necessity as a trial lawyer, I have pretty thick skin.

But… that kick in the butt got me off my… ahm… butt. After all, I’d been wanting to lose weight and get into a shape other than round (okay, oval-ish) for years. I just hadn’t made it a priority. Well, I did. I lost thirty pounds over the next 9 months. So much so, that there was an appreciable difference between my professional marketing photos, taken in January 2016, and September 2016, when I shot the second set of my legal tip videos. In May 2017, I posted the new head shots to rave reviews. Things like “gorgeous,” “stunning” and “amazing.” My first instinct was to say it wasn’t me but my makeup artist (the Beauty Boss Briana Dia), stylist (J. Bolin), photographer (Jin Kim) and my producer (Kym Yancey), but something happened when I looked at that photo. I realized that it was me and I was really seeing me. Not through the people posting’s eyes but through mine. Sure, the Roman nose, and all the bits I disparaged over the years were still there. But I was beautiful. I am beautiful. And so are you.

I firmly believe that we should invest in ourselves and hire a stylist, makeup artist and professional photographer to remind ourselves of how beautiful and amazing we really are. Now, I know not everyone has the money to do this on a big scale. But little changes mean a lot.

So, give me a shout out if you want to talk or even for more information about my journey.

ngreene@landcarroll.com