I’m getting headshots done for work and I’m feeling reminiscent of days gone by, thinking back to the first time.

I was in my early 20s and dabbling in various arts finding my way in life. I found myself acting and I was sent for formal headshots.

The agency rejected them.

“Go back and tell the photographer to do them again,” I was told.

So I did. I returned and recall the middle-aged photographer staring at me and saying, “Nonsense. They are perfect—you are perfect!” he nearly yelled. I stepped back and sighed.

“You aren’t really happy, so go fix your life and come back.” My heart sunk, for he was right. It was straight-up tough medicine and I took it, but I didn’t return—for it would take me 20 some years to find that inner beauty that the camera needed to capture.

My self-esteem and body self-consciousness started in my 20s around the same time I was in my first real relationship.

I struggled big time!

My face is nearly the same as my mother’s, whom I believe was and is the most beautiful woman in the world, and still I suffered with feeling the need to be perfect in the shell I was born into and not seeing the same beauty in my own face.

At the time, I was also in a relationship in which everything was caught on film from moments of sleeping to writing and waking. I felt that there were unrealistic expectations that I couldn’t fulfill in every domain.

It took plenty of time to grow into the woman I am today. Ironically, now middle-aged, I now have the confidence and poise that I lacked in my youth. I now feel more than comfortable in my own skin and have found my own style.

I’m not going to lie. There are times that those pesky, uneasy feelings creep up like when I find myself on the other side of the lens—the subject and not the photographer. I have moments, like most, when I don’t feel my best, but they are rare and far between.

If you can relate to this story, know you aren’t alone. These self-confidence struggles are real and rising. We can come out the other side, though, and healing is always possible. I didn’t find ease in being myself until I experienced hardships, heartache, and hard knocks. It was after some life experience and tears that the light found its way and I was able to shine.

Today, when I’m having a human insecure and flawed moment, I look to nature. I look at the beautiful skeleton flower. This flower looks like a plain, ordinary white flower, until it rains and then it is magically transformed and appears ghost-like and transparent. The flower is like a skeleton and it is magnificent.

If you are struggling right now, look to nature and feel the love all around. Everything that is created is unique and glorious, you see, and light and love transform the ordinary into the extraordinary like the beautiful Diphylleia grai.

Darling ones, you too are flowers!

Bloom!

~