I can’t stress enough how important it is to take care of yourself. Not just physically, but mentally. To really take a step back from your life and evaluate your happiness and comfort in the body that you call home. So much of my discomfort in my own skin came from the people that I surrounded myself with. So I simply let them go.

Not only did my mentality of my self worth drastically improve, but I suddenly wasn’t concerned with the negativity that was thrown my way. I stood tall and took care of myself. I made sure that I was happy and everything else came into place just as it should. You cannot make anyone else happy if you, yourself, are unhappy.

Life has this way of throwing such difficult times at us when we believe we are at our weakest point. I believe that this happens in order to let us know that there is always a weaker point and we can always make it through somehow. Which is exactly what happened to me. I thought I knew what rock bottom was but I had absolutely no idea. Even now, there could be worse times. I won’t allow myself to believe that nothing could get worse because surely it can. This helps me understand that where there is a worse, there is a better. We can always gain strength from what we perceive as our weakness.

It used to baffle me when an absolutely stunning woman would criticize herself. I couldn’t comprehend how someone with such beauty and grace could hold so much resentment towards her own body and mind. I understand now. That woman was battling invisible wars with herself. Constantly trying to obtain perfection when perfection itself does not exist. No matter how perfect you believe someone is, that person sees a flaw in themselves. We all do. What they believe to be their weakness, we see strength in.

We see a beautiful woman, but she hasn’t seen herself through our very different perspective. She hasn’t seen herself in a place where she’s never sat with negative feelings about herself at two in the morning. That’s my favorite thing about boudoir. It was hard for me to see my beauty in my bathroom mirror. I had cried so many times in that bathroom that it blurred my view of myself. Boudoir allows a woman the opportunity to see herself in a very different way. She’s in a neutral environment.

She looks at herself in the same bathroom mirror with the same lighting every day. She sees herself when she knows she’s going to have a stressful day or when she knows she’s had a bad night. She probably has the same expression on her face, refusing to give her reflection a smile. She simply doesn’t get to see her beauty the same way that we do. She hasn’t seen the way her face lights up when she’s speaking about her dreams and passions.

To me, boudoir is the “better” after a long string of “worsts”. When I thought things would never get better, boudoir was there for me. When I thought that I’d never have the confidence to be myself in a crowded room, boudoir showed me my strength. Well, actually I did that. I was strong enough to pull myself out of any dark place that I’d fall into. I did that by pushing myself out of my comfort zone. Not too far out, but far enough. It’s a truly incredible feeling, the sense of comfort that boudoir gives to me on a daily basis.

Now, I couldn’t even imagine speaking to myself the way that I used to. I was my own worst enemy. I’m now my biggest cheerleader. I owe so much of this newfound power to boudoir, not only for showing me just how beautiful I really am, but for giving me a safe place to feel free. I constantly remind myself that for every rock bottom, there’s a mountain peak. I belong on that mountain peak. We all do. The view is breathtaking from way up here.