I met Tammy Strait in real life last summer when I was on a family vacation visiting my friend Krista in Idaho. Krista and Tammy are neighbors and one day during our trip Tammy and her 3 sons came over for lunch. It was casual yet hardly superficial. Because though we were meeting face to face, I felt as though I already knew this friend from her blog Grace Uncommon. There she writes about her own process of figuring out this life as she parents her three boys. I want to share Tammy and her book, Pretty: Breaking Free From the Illusions of a Superficial Life, with you. I thought the best way to make an introduction among friends, was to host a conversation, much like Krista did on her back deck. Though I’m not serving lunch today, I am able to connect friends.
Grab a drink and let’s pretend we’re all on my back patio. We’re allowed to pretend now and then right?
Alex: So you are an attorney by training, a mother by occupation these days. What else do I know about you? You’re a runner and based on your Instagram feed, I’d say you like adventure. Tell us about your journey that led to writing Pretty.
Tammy: My whole life I have struggled with perfectionism and worthiness and I could never really figure out why. For as long as I could remember I put my identity in who others said I was and, unfortunately, it was never enough. Many women have a story. A big story. A story of a major loss, experience, abuse or abandonment and I really didn’t. I didn’t have a big story to explain my insecurities, but I had a million little ones. And I thought because I didn’t have a big story I didn’t really have permission to feel what I felt. So many times I felt small. Invisible. Unworthy of belonging. Pretty was really the process of putting together all the little pieces of my life, discovering that who I am is not contained in the rejections or the approvals of the people around me. And that was a hard process. It still is, honestly.
Alex: I agree. I often hear from women, “But my story is so boring. I don’t have anything big or scary that happened to me.” But that’s not the point is it? It IS all of the little stories that make up our big one. Since your topic is pretty, what are some common ways you see women “prettying up” their lives?
Tammy: Oh boy, this isn’t a popular answer…but the reality is these are the ways I find myself prettying up my life. Social media is a huge one. There is no underscoring the fact that life looks very different with the advent of social media. We get to design or filter who we are from the outside view. I talk in Pretty about an ad campaign by Rolling Stone Magazine in the 1980s that underscored the difference between perception and reality. But today, I argue that the campaign looks a little different. Today, perception is reality. As a culture we’ve bought into the illusion that if we can make everything look and seem perfect on the outside, then we can delude ourselves and others into thinking it actually is. From the way we decorate, to the way we dress and the people we socialize with, to the way we parent. Our lives have become filtered by the outside perception because everything feels like a stage and we just a part to play. I think it’s a very difficult time to figure out who we truly are and find the courage to be that.
Alex: I TOTALLY AGREE! (Yes, that’s me raising my voice a little there.) I often say, 15, even 10, years ago, we didn’t know what our neighbor was making for dinner or what end of year award our cousin’s nephew’s brother was getting. But now we see the highlight reels of everyone else’s lives and compare it to our often overwhelming, boring, discouraging realities. How can we be more authentic with one another?
Tammy: I think the word authentic has been so culturally hijacked that, sadly, I’m not even sure what it means anymore. But being authentic, in the truest definition of the word, will never be “pretty.” It will rarely be popular. Or easy. It goes against the grain of everything we’ve been taught and what is comfortable, and goes deeper into what is real. What is true. To me, being authentic in relationship means you have freedom to say the hard things. To share equally the difficulties and the joys. To celebrate one another in success and mourn together in loss. Life is hard and we need people who are just as willing to celebrate us as they are to commiserate with us. For me, that means I invest deeply in a small number of friends that really pour into and sharpen me. They say things that sometimes hurt – but not out of a harsh or critical spirit, but one of love and genuine care. I like to say they fight for you not with you. Authentic relationships fight FOR relationship. For health. For growth and change despite circumstances and hard times. They are willing to work through, and fight for, the best for each other. Honestly, I think these relationships are rare because authenticity is rare. And instead of trying to counterfeit it with a ton of friends, I’ve finally accepted that rare is a good thing.
Alex: There is nothing like a friend who you trust to give the honest truth. Because with that trust you know all she says will be with your best interest in mind. Given all of this, what will women find when they open Pretty?
Tammy:I believe Pretty invites readers into a very personal, but also very universal journey. At one time or another, every one of us struggles with who we are. Are we enough? Is who we are – when the masks are off and the walls are down – is it enough? For many of us we’ve been told that it’s not. Whether by our past or a situation in our present, we struggle to find our identity outside our circumstances. Pretty will invite you to look into the shallow and broken parts of your life without judgment and find that the experiences of rejection, abandonment, brokenness, and fractured relationships are common roads we all travel. That instead of comparing and competing with one another we can be strengthened to find our best. Pretty will encourage and guide you to close the door to shame, failure, regret and bitterness and begin practicing the courage to live with your whole heart.
So there you have it friends. Join us in this conversation. How do you break free from the superficial?
And find more of Tammy’s wisdom at her blog Grace Uncommon and in her book, Pretty: Breaking Free From the Illusions of a Superficial Life found here.
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