A New Year Doesn’t Have To Mean a “New You”
New Year’s resolutions are often unrealistic expectations coded as goals to become “better” than who we are now. Here’s how to rethink your resolutions.
As a boudoir photographer, I am constantly hearing from would-be clients that they’d love to do a boudoir session… AFTER they are able to change something about themselves that they don’t like. As we approach the new year, I wanted to address this attitude that we have normalized… that being who we are now is somehow unacceptable, and we are only allowed good things and experiences if we’ve “fixed” or “improved” ourselves into earning them.
One of the most common New Year’s resolutions by far is weight loss. Other resolutions (that SEEM positive but are sneaky in the way they shame us) are vague vows to have more self-esteem or better boundaries, without truly defining what that means to us or having a way to measure our success.
If we feel bad about ourselves one day, did we FAIL at our resolution to have higher self-esteem? What if instead of trying to force ourselves into feeling great 100% of the time, we vowed to speak to ourselves the way we would speak to someone we love? What if we worked more on accepting ourselves or getting curious about who or what told us that we were wrong or bad, and asking if it was really true?
There is a lot of talk about boundaries lately, and don’t get me wrong, boundaries are great. But if you have a lonely moment and text your ex, or say yes to doing a friend a favor that you really don’t want to do, does that mean you blew it on your New Year’s resolution to be a new person who doesn’t every betray themselves?
And dieting? We’ve all promised ourselves to cut out sugar or carbs or fat and exercise however many times per week for however long… when we are starving or want to curl up in a ball instead of get on a treadmill, did we fail to become a newer and better version of ourselves?
I don’t think that we did. I think these resolutions were designed to make us feel bad instead of to actually have better lives. I think that shame and guilt is profitable and causes us to buy into systems that have no intention to help us.
This year, my hope is that those would-be clients – those ladies that really want to give themselves a gift, feel gorgeous, face their anxieties and let themselves have a new experience in front of my camera – will resolve to call in the support they need to make it happen, and actually do it, without feeling obligated to change or fix themselves first.
Because we don’t have to NOT be us. Being ourselves is the greatest gift we can give ourselves and other people. It is a distraction from what is important when we see ourselves as fundamentally defective and flawed.
Want to take one step to embracing who you are, what you love, and having an experience you’ve always wanted but never had? Send me an email and let’s book your boudoir session.
