Hello my wonderful #LRPBoudieBeauties! It is a new year and with that I am getting back to blogging regularly. If you have been following me on social media, then I am sure you have seen alot of MAJOR changes taking place at LRP! Before we get into all of that I want to just let the vulnerability rain through my fingers while I type and share my story…or the parts of it I am confident enough to share publicly at this point.
2019 was an incredibly hard year for me. I went through a divorce, and while I played the role well, it was extremely difficult to see the family I built being ripped apart. I spent half of 2019 living in my studio because I didn’t really feel like I had anywhere else to go. I had an apartment across the street my ex husband tried to move into and I took the lease over from him so we would have more separation, but with the severe ptsd that I have, it was really hard for me to make that move until sometime around September. Luckily I was able to use this space to help support a friend in need who was leaving her own toxic situation, so I have learned to forgive myself for being afraid to just start over. Learned to forgive myself for needing to take my time healing.
On top of the divorce I began going to an absolutely sensational therapist to begin doing trauma work for some of the horrific things that happened to me in my youth. The uncovering of blacked out memories has been re-traumatizing all over again. But boy has it been a wild ride learning that so much of my fear and anxiety was based solely around this main awful trauma that happened to me as a child. I began to recognize patterns in thought and behavior that stemmed all from this one thing. I have spent the better part of 2019 on a mission to normalize mental health and to be a safe place to turn for any woman that needs someone to listen. I keep thinking about what my life could have been like through my teen years and 20’s had I had the support system of friends that I do now that have encouraged me to talk openly and bravely about what has happened to me in in my life and the many traumas that added up to where I am today.
I spent the early part of 2019 in a state of wallow and self pitty, angry at anyone who didn’t understand the pain I was experiencing. It took me a lot of work to understand that mental health is just simply still a taboo subject that some people will never be ok to talk about and that that is not a reflection on me. My job is to do MY work on MYSELF…NOT THEIR WORK ON ME! But here is the thing…I am doing the work.. The hard work of self reflection and self acceptance. I am open and vulnerable about the things I could have done differently and have accepted the parts of myself that are still a work in progress.
Here is the thing about Self Love….real love is unconditional.
You cannot love only parts of yourself and ignore the rest. I have to remind myself every fucking day that I am worthy of my own love. That I am not responsible for the terrible things that have been done to be in the past and in the present by people I trusted. I really believe when I finally started to be ok with even the ugliest parts of myself, was when I was able to open my heart to my incredible boyfriend who has been such an integral part of my journey to healing and the most incredible rock and support for me. I am one of the lucky ones. I am lucky because I learned to surround myself with people who saw the best in me when I barely could. I am lucky becasue my clients don’t run from my honesty about how imperfect of a person I am, but lean into this experience more knowing that I understand them too.
…now about this shoot…..
January 31, 2019.
I did not want to spend my new years eve partying….I wanted to spend it burning 2019 to the fucking ground….and then getting to start fresh.
I called Beth the night before to tell her that my heart was in desperate need of creation in the form of destruction….so 11am the next morning she showed up at the studio with her bag of makeup and curling iron and we styled her and got to work.
We wrote down everything awful we were going through on tiny slips of paper and then burned them and covered Beth in the ashes of this burnt trauma….
The rest I will allow to be visually told through the images.
I am a pheonix.
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With the burning of trauma comes new beginnings.
I hope you will join us at our Valentine’s Day Event on February 7th at our studio to see the new and improved store. A shop where women of any size, age, or ethnicity can find something for themselves to feel sexy in.
PS: These wings and Pheonix sessions are available for any session, but you must email me at least 1 week before your session so we can properly prepare.