4 Ways to Love Your Looks

Vogue. Cosmo. Glamour. For whatever reason, we continue to pick up copies at our local grocery stores, knowing full well that once we get home, that small little voice inside our head is going to say, “YOU will never look that good. You need to lose weight here, here, and here.” With every turn of a page, a mental diagram straight out of the plastic surgeon’s office screams in our head, drawing invisible, ugly little surgical lines all over our bodies that only we can see… “If I could just cut a little off here, grow a little here, THEN I’ll be confident,” we think.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Are we gluttons for punishment? Why don’t we say enough is enough & stop buying into the lies of these magazines? Those images aren’t even real. Nearly everyone knows it’s just Photoshop, but incase you are one of the ones who didn’t, I’ve included a before & after example of a Photoshopped Lady Gaga. If you ask me, she looked better before.

I keep hearing ladies say, “I’ll do a shoot once I lose weight or once I get a boob job,” and I get it. I wish that my butt was smaller, but I’m too busy & lazy to work out, and I like food (currently eating a donut as I write this post).

I’m also going to say something that’s a little counter-cultural right now; I don’t think there’s anything wrong with trying to achieve a certain goal body shape. I don’t really believe in either narrative that’s out there right now: A) You must be a size 2 to be beautiful (curves are lovely, too!!), or B) It’s ok to be obese & at risk for a heart attack so long as you love yourself. I’m smack dab in the middle on the body-image/self-love issue. What I believe in, is being healthy. There is definitely a time & place to pursue those goals. So long as one isn’t obsessed, I’m ok with the pursuit of healthy.

That being said, there is never going to be a you that is perfect enough for photos. If you wait until your body is perfect, it’s never going to happen because you will never actually BE perfect. There will always be something to improve. I’ve photographed every size – from a size 0 to unknown size curvy – and every woman has complained about something she doesn’t love about herself. The 0 feels too thin, the curvy woman feels too curvy. The reality is, if you don’t love who you are at your core, you’re never going to love yourself no matter your size. Loving yourself has to come from the inside, not your outside.

So how do you feel good about yourself on the inside when you’re constantly being bombarded with contradictory messages about the outside? I’m not a counselor, just an ordinary woman like you, but here’s my top 4 ideas for how to love yourself based on personal experience:

1. Keep a media consumption journal for a week & note how you feel. For example, on Day 1 write “I watched the Bachelor today. Afterwards, I felt like my life is horribly boring because I’m not dating 30 men at once, woe is me (hey, I like that show too, but also can’t help but make fun of myself for watching it 😀 ).” Day 2, “I picked up an issue of Glamour today…man, I wish I looked like Taylor Swift. Why am I not as pretty as her?!! I wish I was as pretty as her, she is just perfect.” Day 3, “Today I watched Hell’s Kitchen. Afterwards, I realized my day wasn’t so bad, because at least my boss doesn’t yell at me like that Gordon Ramsey guy!” After a week, go back, read everything, & cut whatever produced nothing but negative thoughts. I know this will seem drastic to some of you. But trust me, it works. Back in the day, I watched a couple episodes of some rich kid show on MTV and noticed myself growing increasingly sad because I wasn’t also a high schooler who got to travel around on a million dollar yacht buying expensive clothes everyday. So I stopped watching it, and the desire to live like that went away. I’ve also done extended Facebook breaks from time to time because watching everyone else’s relationships unfold sometimes causes me to grow discontent about my singleness. While I’m back on FB now, I’ve found that breaks are cleansing, therapeutic, and give one the strength to not fall into the comparison trap.
2. Do something that makes you feel good about yourself. Work out. Eat right. Go to the park. Walk your dog. Whatever it is, get out and be active. Staying home will just make you feel more disgusting.
3. Realize that this is more than a physical battle, it’s also a spiritual one. Whenever I feel down, I put on some uplifting music and pray. You need to do whatever it takes to cleanse negative energy from your life. Play music. Do  yoga. Meditate. Do whatever it is that fits your own spiritual beliefs!
4. Book a boudoir shoot. Like seriously. Just do it now, the way you are now, curves or no curves because there is something magical about having someone else see your beauty & capture that on film. You NEED something to combat those magazine images you see all the time. You need to be able to pick up a print or an album full of nothing but beautiful photos of you, to remember that you ARE beautiful, even if you’re not perfect. I grew up thinking I was ugly until I had a shoot. And many of my clients have had the same experience. Check out this testimonial that was posted in my women’s-only Facebook group a month ago by Lisa, a woman who had a shoot with me a couple years ago: Below is a video of the shoot she’s referring to. Boudoir shoots (or, empowering portraits as many of us in this industry like to call them), will help you improve your body image. And I encourage you to invest in one at least once in your lifetime!! 🙂