Love Yourself Always

Love yourself! Love yourself! Love yourself! I’m sure some of you are thinking “easier said than done”… and trust me, I’ve been there. We all have our days when we just aren’t feeling good about ourselves. It is natural…but remember how fantastic you are. Think about all of the fantastic things our body does for us every day. Think about all of the fantastic things our mind does for us every day! Are you ready to go on this journey of self love with me? Yes, I’m still on this journey and I will be for the rest of my life. We all want to be confident right?! Of course we do…and I want that for each and every one of you.

I talk a lot about self love but I want to start digging deeper into the journey associated with reaching that point. To fully love yourself you have to be able to analyze what things influence how you view yourself. Loving yourself goes deeper than just how you see yourself when you look in the mirror. When a person loves themselves, they value who they are as a person...they value their soul, their mind, their body, their appearance and everything about themselves. As a person begins to value all of these things about themselves, they also become more selective about the types of people they allow to be a part of their life. Everything around a person conditions their perception; how they see themselves and the world around them. Being around negative energy will influence what type of energy you give off. While positive energy is insanely powerful, it’s crazy how fast negative energy can cast a dark shadow over an individuals mindset. When you surround yourself with negativity, it is inevitable you’ll eventually become more negative…possibly without even noticing. If you surround yourself with positivity, it is inevitable that you will become more positive and feel overall better about yourself. I love to use the example of the glass half full and glass half empty comparison. Two people saying what some consider to be the same thing are actually really saying two very different things based on their perception. Having a positive mindset and perspective can really change your whole life and increase your productivity in the process! Don’t get me wrong…some days we all get a little negative. Maybe it’s been a rough week and everything is piling up making it hard to handle additional minor inconveniences. I get it. Trust me I do. I’m talking natural energy on a regular day. Positivity goes a long way.

I worked with a client a few weeks back and she told me a little bit about her story. Her why for doing a boudoir shoot was that she recently left a toxic and emotionally abusive relationship. She explained how her ex would put her down and tell her that she needed to lose weight and stop eating...hearing these things made my heart hurt for this BEAUTIFUL woman. I saw this woman walk over to me and I thought to myself "wow, she could literally be a published model", but she walked over to me and explained that she recently hadn’t been that confident but was finally taking her life and her mental health back. I am so proud of her for taking that leap. I did check with this person to verify it was okay for me to share pieces of her story anonymously to hopefully help others struggling in their current situations and she was ALL for it. I hope if you're reading this blog and you're recognizing that some of these things apply to you, that you are able to see your worth. Understand how much you deserve (which is a TON) and don't settle for anything less.

I share a lot of things that I have experienced with the hope that I can help someone else struggling with something that I have once struggled with. Vulnerability is absolutely essential to building trust in relationships and it also helps others relate to you. I try to always be as vulnerable and transparent as I can. You never know when someone is silently struggling and I want everyone to know I am here.

I, too, have been in relationships exactly like the one mentioned above and that completely kills your self esteem. Years of being told that you’re essentially worthless can really do a number on a person and their self esteem…but I am living proof that you CAN get out of that funk. You can change how you view yourself. 5 years ago if someone would have told me that I would own my own business and be happily married all while mothering 3 children, I would have laughed in disbelief. Back then I was lucky to muster up the energy to do anything outside of being a mother. I became a hobbyist in photography 8 years ago and I knew how much I loved it but I didn’t think I would ever do anything further with it. I didn’t think that I COULD. I was always told what I couldn’t do and what I was incapable of that I stopped believing in myself. I lost my sparkle. I actually became very negative and I did not treat others very well because of how unhappy I was…don’t get me wrong, this is no excuse but leaving a relationship that most definitely was NOT the best for me, actually made me a better person. I am a more dedicated mother because I realize I CAN do anything I set my mind to. I am a more empathetic person because I can see more than one side to a situation and picture how I might feel if it were me. I am all around a better person because of the things I have been through. These things have helped me grow and mature in a very short period of time. Those that knew me 6 years ago would definitely attest to how different I am today and it is all thanks to the difficult times that I have gone through. I am grateful for the hardships I have experienced because they make me even more thankful for how amazing my life is today. These things helped me learn who I am and how strong I am on a deeper level. I will never let anyone dim my shine again; I know my worth and that I am MORE THAN capable. I don’t mention all of this to emphasize a less than healthy period of time in my life…I mention it because it is a huge part of my journey of learning to love myself. I had to hit rock bottom to realize what I will NEVER allow myself to have to go through again. Valuing myself has completely changed my life and allowed me to open doors that I thought would always remained locked. I always stopped and asked myself why I wasn’t good enough and why I wasn’t capable of doing the things that I loved. One day reality hit me like a ton of bricks and I realized that it wasn't about what I deserved or about me not being good enough...it really wasn’t about me at all…it was the fact that I allowed another person to mistreat me and didn't think I deserved better than to stay in that situation. Now I’m not one to play the victim…I’m not a victim. I was equally as terrible in that relationship because we were simply not meant to be. It was a toxic spiral of doing each other wrong. I wasn’t a good person in that environment. I was the worst version of myself. I’m proud to say I am no longer in that place and I feel like I am the best version of myself that I’ve been up to this point in my life. My advice to every single person is that if your relationship feels like work...if it is making you anxious...if it is hurting you...if it is making you question your worth...if it makes you feel miserable…if it makes you treat others awful...it is NOT for you. I spent years unhappy and not even realizing how unhappy I was until I was no longer in that situation. I got into the pattern of being used to it and it lasted far too long. If you are consistently put down by those around you and you are struggling to see your value, there is a strong chance that it is direct reflection of the treatment you're receiving. These tips don’t just apply to romantic relationships; they also apply to friendships, family relationships and really any relationships one might be a part of. If people are consistently mistreating you, they do not deserve a place in your life. You deserve better.

Choosing to value myself and love myself has not only influenced how I see the way that I look, it has also influenced how I see my abilities. I used to undervalue myself when it came to everything that I did. I never saw myself as talented regardless of what I was doing. I undervalued my photography. While I love to be able to serve people that can’t afford a large bill when they go and have their photos taken, I also have learned to value myself and the time that I put into my work. My work doesn’t start at the photoshoot and end at the photoshoot. I spend countless hours online chatting with clients and potential clients. I spend hours planning shoots and coming up with fun new ideas. I spend hours editing. I spend hours shooting. I spend a lot of money on equipment, software, advertising, props….the list of expenditures could go on for another paragraph. I realized that my time is worth something. I offer packages that accommodate almost any budget but those packages have been adjusted to account for the time that it takes me to create what is included in each package. Valuing myself has gone a long way past being able to tolerate what I see in the mirror…It has made me realize that my work is worth something and for that I couldn’t be more grateful!

One thing I have learned is that when a person is confident about themselves they naturally have a different perspective on things. If you walk into a situation second guessing yourself, you most likely are going to be more reserved than if you walk in knowing you’re going to ROCK whatever it is you’re doing. Confidence goes further than how we look…it’s how we carry ourselves…how we acknowledge our abilities…our demeanor. Confidence goes a LONG way. I wish endless self love and confidence on all of those around me. I am here to hype you up!

If you’ve stuck around this long, thank you for being a part of my journey with me. I am a safe place even just for those that need a friend to talk to. If you can relate to anything in this blog and you’d like to chat, please reach out! You don’t have to hire me to confide in me. I am here to help regardless of if you need some absolutely fire photos. I love getting to know others and helping others in any way that I can with their journey to self love! Remember that you ARE worth it. You can do anything that you set your mind to!