I was with my ex husband for 10 years. We divorced and I rebuilt my life from the ground up. Then I met my ex boyfriend, we were together for two years, in the process of building our dream home on the land we bought, when he dumped me. So, I had to rebuild my life again. I was only 28 and I had to rethink, rebuild, restructure my life twice already.
Before I could muster up the strength to start over again, I went dark. I did. I started to spiral and think, maybe I am the reason these relationships aren’t working. Maybe I’m not: pretty enough, smart enough, attentive enough. Maybe I work too much, maybe I’m just not cut out for love. Maybe I’m bad in bed. Maybe I’m not as funny as I think I am. Maybe, Maybe, Maybe…You guys, I was a hopeless romantic from day one, and now these were my thoughts. I was overall, a happy successful person. I had an amazing loving family, great friends, a job I liked, and at the time- two successful businesses on top of that job. However, I was looking at myself, my mind and body, like I was the girl who failed in love- twice and that failure was all I could see.
Then I started to work my way out of that funk. Honestly, Pinterest quotes were a big help. I have a whole board of quotes and it’s interesting to look back at them and see the days I was feeling good, the days I was sad, the days I was angry, the days that I just said a big F you to my exes. Seriously, there are some like burn down your house and sink your car to the bottom of the lake kind of quotes in there. Slowly though, through reading quotes and blogs and listening to music, I started to heal and see myself as myself again.
Then I had a wedding client ask if I did boudoir. I told her honestly, no, but I’d love to offering you a session if you’re willing to be a test subject since I’ve never done this before. Slowly, more and more clients came through the boudoir door, and through that process I got to help women realize that they are beautiful and sexy and help them feel confident in their skin regardless of what they were going through. While preaching self love to all of these other amazing women, that mindset started to seep into my own brain and my helping other women feel like a badass, I started to feel that way too.
Then I got up the courage to do a boudoir session. Like- me on the sexy end, not me behind the camera. The experience itself was empowering and taking that little black leather album home changed me. The pictures gave me confidence in my body. The experience gave me confidence in my mind. It was like all of a sudden I saw myself as this bad ass woman that can show up to a stranger’s studio, put on sexy lingerie and look hot as hell. If I could do that; I could do anything. I still have my first album, yes first, because everyone should do this more than once, and I still look at it from time to time and relive those feelings of badassery.
So now, I offer this service to other women because every woman should have the opportunity to fall in love with themselves again- to realize they are beautiful and powerful and amazing, just as they are at this very moment.
