What If You Stopped Being the "Good" Woman?

WEEK 34 - The Woman You Were Afraid To Become

The woman you've been performing is not the woman you are. And the one you've been hiding? She's the one worth knowing.

By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 6 min

What does it mean to be a good woman?

Think about it honestly. Not the version you'd say out loud in polite company. The version that lives in your body. The one you measure yourself against every single day without even realizing you're doing it.

Good women are agreeable. They're warm and accommodating and easy to be around. They don't ask for too much. They don't cause problems. They show up for everyone without making anyone feel guilty about the cost. They're supportive and selfless and they make the people around them feel comfortable.

Good women don't have too many needs. Don't take up too much space. Don't make things complicated.

Sound familiar?

Now let me ask you something else: how does she feel? That good woman you've been performing for years… does she feel alive? Does she feel like you? Or does she feel like a role you've gotten so good at playing that you've started to forget there was ever a version of you underneath it?

"The good woman is often the most exhausted woman in the room. Because she's been performing a character for so long she's forgotten she wrote herself out of the script."

The "good woman" performance.

Here's what I've noticed after working with women for over a decade:

The women who are the most exhausted aren't the ones with the hardest lives. They're the ones who have been the most relentlessly good. The ones who have been agreeable when they wanted to push back. Pleasant when they wanted to be honest. Accommodating when they wanted to draw a line.

The performance of goodness is one of the most draining things a woman can sustain. Because it requires constant monitoring. Constant self-editing. A continuous internal calculation of: how is this landing? am I being too much? am I making someone uncomfortable? do I still seem likable?

It's f*cking exhausting!!! And it's costing you something real.

Not just your energy. Your identity babe!!! The longer you perform the good woman, the further you get from the actual woman… the one with edges and opinions and desires that don't fit neatly into what everyone around you wants from you.

What the "good woman" gives up.

She gives up her honest reaction to things that bother her. She gives up the boundary she wanted to draw but didn't because she didn't want to seem difficult. She gives up the desire she felt but suppressed because it didn't seem appropriate. She gives up the opinion she had but softened because the room wasn't ready for it.

She gives up pieces of herself. Quietly. Consistently. In ways that feel like small compromises but add up to something much larger.

And eventually (if she's not careful) she gives up the ability to know what she actually thinks and feels and wants at all. Because she's been filtering herself for so long that the signal is barely there anymore.

That's not goodness. That's erasure. And it has been dressed up as virtue for so long that most women can't even see it.

The woman underneath the performance.

She's still there. She has been the whole time.

The version of you that has opinions she doesn't soften. Desires she doesn't apologize for. Boundaries she doesn't need to justify. Energy that takes up the full space she's in without monitoring whether that's okay with everyone.

She's the woman who says what she means the first time. Who wears the thing without wondering if it's too much. Who walks into a room and doesn't immediately start making herself easier to be around.

She might feel dangerous to you. She probably has felt dangerous for a long time. Because you've been told (directly or indirectly, in ways you can name and ways you can't) that she's too much. That she's difficult. That good women don't look like her.

But she's not too much. She's just unfamiliar. And there is a difference.

"The version of you that you've been afraid to become isn't dangerous. She's just the real one. And she has been waiting a very long time for you to stop being so polite about letting her out."

What happens when you stop performing.

I want to tell you what I see in my studio when a woman stops being the good woman for a few hours.

She walks in performing. Most of them do. Apologizing for themselves before I've even picked up a camera. Making jokes about their body. Trying to be easy, likable, low-maintenance… even here, even in a space that exists entirely for her.

And then something shifts.

It usually happens somewhere in the middle of the session. After the hair and makeup. After the first look. After she's seen one image on the back of the camera that didn't match the story she's been telling about herself. Something relaxes. The performance drops. And the real one shows up.

She's different. The way she holds herself changes. The way she looks into the lens changes. There's something in her face that wasn't there in the first frame… a knowing, a presence, a quality that I can only describe as her finally being in the room instead of managing her experience of it.

Those are always the best photos. Not the ones where she's trying hardest. The ones where she stopped trying entirely and just showed up.

That's the woman worth photographing. That's the woman worth being.

Stopping the performance doesn't make you difficult.

I want to be clear about this because I think it's the fear that keeps most women locked in the role:

Dropping the good woman performance doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you cold, selfish, unkind, or difficult to love.

It makes you real.

And real is magnetic in a way that performed goodness never gets to be. Because people can feel the difference (even when they can't name it) between a woman who is genuinely present and a woman who is managing her presence for your comfort.

The women who are actually memorable, actually magnetic, actually the kind of person people orbit… they're not the most agreeable ones in the room. They're the most real ones. The ones who say what they mean. Who take up space without apologizing for it. Who are fully, specifically, unapologetically themselves.

That's available to you!!! The moment you decide the performance is over.

October at Sheer.

This month we're going somewhere most content doesn't go.

We're talking about the woman you've been afraid to become. Not because she's dark or dangerous or something to be cautious about. But because she is the real you (the fully expressed, completely unfiltered, absolutely done performing version of you) and she deserves to exist outside of the space you've been keeping her in.

A boudoir session is where I've watched that woman show up more reliably than anywhere else I know. Because for a few hours, the good woman gets a day off. Nobody needs her to manage anything. Nobody needs her to be easy or agreeable or pleasant. The only thing being asked of her is to show up as herself.

And when she does?

The camera doesn't lie.

She was never the problem. The performance was. 🖤

The investment is smaller than another year of waiting.

→ If You’re Done Waiting fill out the form below!

Done Apologizing for Becoming Someone Younger Me Wouldn't Recognize

WEEK 33 - Done Apologizing

You were never supposed to stay the same. Growth was always the point. And the woman you've become deserves to stop explaining herself.

By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 6 min

I want you to think about who you were at 22. Or 25. Or 28. Whatever version of yourself feels far enough away to be useful here.

Think about what she wore. What she tolerated. What she was afraid of. Who she was trying to be. How much energy she spent on being liked, being the version of herself that caused the least friction in the room.

Now look at who you are today.

Maybe you dress differently now… bolder, darker, more intentionally yourself. Maybe you've stopped tolerating things that younger you would have quietly absorbed for years. Maybe you speak more directly now, take up more space, care significantly less about whether everyone in the room approves of you.

Maybe you love differently. Want differently. Move through the world differently.

Maybe younger you would look at the woman you've become and not quite recognize her.

Good!!!

That's not something that happened to you. That's something you did. That's not loss. That's arrival. And instead of asking what happened to me… the answer is two words: I happened.

"You weren't supposed to stay the woman you were at 22. She was the beginning. You are what she was becoming."

The pressure to stay the same.

Here's something nobody talks about clearly enough: people are uncomfortable when you change.

Not all people. Not always. But often enough that most women have felt it… the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) pressure from the people around them to remain recognizable. To stay the version of themselves that everyone has already adjusted to. To not suddenly want different things or speak differently or draw different boundaries or become someone who surprises them.

Because when you change, it requires the people around you to change too. To update their understanding of who you are. To make room for a version of you that doesn't fit the mold they've gotten comfortable with.

And that's inconvenient for them.

So the message (delivered in a hundred small ways) is: stay where you were. stay who you were. don't make this complicated.

And a lot of women listen. They shrink back into the familiar shape. They apologize for the ways they've grown. They perform the old version of themselves to keep the peace, while the new version (the real one, the one that's been slowly, quietly becoming for years) waits.

We're done making the new version wait. 🖤

What younger you didn't know yet.

She was doing her best. I want to say that first because this isn't about criticizing her.

But younger you was also carrying things she didn't know she was carrying. Beliefs about who she was supposed to be. Fears about what would happen if she took up too much space. Patterns she'd inherited from the women before her (about what love looks like, what a woman's role is, what she's allowed to want) that she hadn't examined yet because she didn't know she could.

She was people-pleasing in ways she called consideration. She was shrinking in ways she called humility. She was staying quiet in ways she called keeping the peace.

She was doing the best she could with what she had.

And then life happened. And the years happened. And the hard things happened. And somewhere in the middle of all of it (the losses and the pivots and the relationships and the moments you weren't sure you'd survive) you started to see through the patterns. To question the beliefs. To shed the versions of yourself that were never really yours to begin with.

That process is not something to apologize for. It's the whole point.

The woman you've become.

Let me describe her. You tell me if I'm close.

She wears what she wants now… not what's appropriate or acceptable or what won't cause a comment. She's found her signature. Her dark lip or her gold jewelry or her particular way of carrying herself that says I know who I am without saying a word.

She says NO now. Not perfectly, not always without the residual guilt, but more than she used to. She's learned that her no is a complete sentence and that protecting her energy is not selfishness.

She's stopped explaining herself to people who aren't going to understand anyway. Stopped shrinking in conversations to make other people more comfortable. Stopped going to every argument she's invited to.

She wants different things now than she did at 25. Deeper things. More honest things. Things that are actually hers rather than things she was told she should want.

She's been through enough to trust herself — not completely, not without the occasional doubt spiral, but more than before. She has evidence now. Evidence that she can handle hard things. That she is more resilient than she knew. That the things that were supposed to break her didn't.

She is not the woman younger you imagined becoming. She is better. More real. More fully herself than any version that came before.

"She is not who younger you imagined becoming. She is what younger you was quietly working toward… without knowing it yet."

I happened.

I want to sit with those two words for a second because I think they're the most important thing in this blog.

I happened.

Not life happened to me. Not circumstances happened to me. Not other people's choices, other people's needs, other people's ideas of who I should be happened to me.

I happened. My choices. My growth. My willingness to keep becoming even when it was uncomfortable. Even when it required disappointing people. Even when the new version of me didn't fit neatly into the life the old version had built.

The woman you are today is not an accident. She is not a deviation from who you were supposed to be. She is the result of years of living and learning and losing things and finding things and slowly, imperfectly, courageously choosing yourself over and over again even when it didn't feel like courage at the time.

You don't owe anyone an apology for that.

Not for the ways you've changed. Not for the things you've stopped tolerating. Not for the desires that shifted or the boundaries you finally drew or the version of yourself that surprised everyone… including you.

You happened. Own it. 🖤

What this month has been about.

We started September with a simple premise: we're done apologizing.

Done apologizing for taking up space. Done apologizing for our desire. Done apologizing for wanting more than motherhood. And now, done apologizing for becoming someone our younger selves wouldn't recognize.

Because all of it comes down to the same thing: you are a woman in the middle of becoming. Not finished. Not arrived. Not the polished, final version of yourself.

But more fully yourself than you have ever been. And moving (imperfectly) toward more.

That's not something to explain. That's not something to justify. That's not something to make smaller so it's easier for everyone around you to hold.

That's something to celebrate.

What a boudoir session looks like at this point in your story.

Here's what I've noticed after a decade of doing this: The women who walk into Sheer and cry the hardest at their reveals are almost never crying because they look beautiful. They're crying because they see themselves clearly and what they see is not the woman they used to be. It's the woman they've become.

And she's extraordinary.

Not despite everything she's been through. Because of it. The life in her face. The way she holds herself. The particular quality of her presence that only comes from having lived enough to stop performing and start inhabiting.

That's what a boudoir session captures when it's done right. Not just how you look in this moment. Who you've become. The specific, irreplaceable, completely-yours version of you that exists at this exact point in your story.

Younger you couldn't have given me these photos. She wasn't here yet.

You are. And she is worth every single frame. 🖤

The investment is smaller than another year of waiting.

→ If You’re Done Waiting fill out the form below!

We're Done Apologizing for Wanting More Than Motherhood.

WEEK 33 - Done Apologizing

By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 6 min

You can adore your children completely and still want an identity that isn't exclusively "Mom." Those two things were never supposed to be in conflict.

I want to say something that mothers aren't supposed to say.

I love my daughter more than I have words for. She is one of the great loves of my life. Being her mom has changed me in ways I couldn't have predicted and wouldn't trade for anything.

And motherhood was never supposed to be the whole of me.

There. I said it.

Not because I don't love her enough. Not because I'm selfish or ungrateful or less devoted than the mothers who seem to have dissolved completely and happily into the role. But because I am a full human being with desires and ambitions and a relationship with myself that existed before she did… and that relationship deserves to keep existing.

We have been sold a story about what good motherhood looks like. And in that story, the good mother sacrifices. She puts her children first… not sometimes, not most of the time, but always, completely, without remainder. She measures her love by what she gives up. By how small she makes herself. By how thoroughly she disappears into the role.

And we have been quietly destroying ourselves trying to live up to it.

"Your children don't need you to disappear in order to prove that you love them. They need you to show them what a woman looks like when she's fully alive."

The identity that got swallowed.

Before you were somebody's mother, you were somebody. PERIOD.

You had things you loved that had nothing to do with anyone else. Dreams that were yours. A sense of yourself (what you wanted, what lit you up, what kind of life you were building) that existed independently of your role in other people's lives.

And then motherhood arrived. And it asked everything of you. Which is right and beautiful and also (if you're not careful) all-consuming in a way that leaves almost nothing of the original you intact.

It happens slowly. You stop making time for the things that were yours. The career goal gets deferred. The trip gets postponed. The hobby gets quietly abandoned because there's no time and you feel guilty prioritizing it anyway. The friendship gets thinner and thinner until it's mostly just likes on Instagram. The body that used to feel like yours starts to feel like something you're just living in, managing, apologizing for.

And one day you look up and realize: I don't actually know who I am outside of this role.

That's not a sign you're a bad mother. It's a sign you've been a self-erasing one. And the two things are not the same.

What you're allowed to want.

All of it!!! You're allowed to want all of it.

A career that challenges you and means something to you and takes up real space in your life… not just the scraps of time left over after everyone else is taken care of.

A business you're building because it lights you up, not just because it fits around the school schedule.

Travel that is for you… not the family vacation you planned and managed and photographed for everyone else's memories, but a trip where you get to be a person in the world without being responsible for anyone else's experience of it.

Adventure. Aliveness. The feeling of doing something that scares you a little and makes you feel like yourself in a way that carpool and meal planning simply cannot.

Alone time that is genuinely restorative and not just the fifteen minutes between when the kids go to bed and when you fall asleep on the couch.

Romance that actually reaches you… not the kind that happens when everything else is done, but the kind that makes you feel like a woman first and a mother second for an hour.

Friendships that go deep. That aren't just mom friends or work friends or people you see at the same events but people who actually know you (the full, complex, real you) and show up for that person.

Hobbies that are completely pointless and completely yours. That don't produce anything or benefit anyone and exist entirely because they make you feel good.

A body that feels like home instead of a project. Dreams that have nothing to do with your children's futures and everything to do with your own.

You are allowed to want every single one of these things. Not instead of being a devoted mother. In addition to it.

"Wanting a life that belongs to you (in addition to the one you share with your children) is not a failure of love. It's an act of it."

Your children don't need you to disappear.

Here's the thing I most need you to hear… and I need you to actually hear it, not just read past it:

Your children do not need you to disappear in order to prove that you love them.

They don't need you to give up every dream, every ambition, every piece of yourself that exists outside of them. They don't need you to model complete self-erasure as the definition of love. They don't need to grow up watching their mother shrink.

What they need (what they are watching for, whether you realize it or not) is a woman who knows who she is. A woman who has desires and pursues them. A woman who takes care of herself with the same devotion she brings to taking care of everyone else. A woman who shows them, by living it, that you can love people completely without losing yourself in them.

Your daughter is watching how you treat yourself. Your son is learning what women are allowed to want. The most powerful thing you can do for them isn't to disappear into motherhood.

It's to show them what a woman looks like when she's fully alive.

The guilt that lives here.

I want to acknowledge it because pretending it doesn't exist won't help anyone.

The guilt is real. The moment you want something for yourself (really want it, pursue it, make it a priority) something in you flinches. Should I be spending this time with my kids? Is this selfish? What kind of mother am I?

That guilt is not a moral compass. It's a symptom of how thoroughly we've been taught that our desires are in competition with our love for our children.

They're not. They never were. The guilt is lying to you.

A depleted, self-erased mother is not a better mother. She's a woman running on empty who has nothing real left to give. Only going through the motions. Only showing up in body while her spirit checks out from the exhaustion of having nothing left that belongs to her.

You being full (having things that are yours, pursuing things that light you up, maintaining a relationship with yourself that exists independently of your children) makes you a better mother. Not a worse one.

What a boudoir session looks like when you're a mom.

It looks like a Tuesday afternoon when someone else picks up the kids.

It looks like walking into a studio and spending the first ten minutes just exhaling… because for the first time in weeks, nothing is being asked of you. Nobody needs anything. The only thing happening in this room is you.

It looks like hair and makeup and looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking… oh. There she is!!!

The woman underneath the mom. The one who has desires and a body that belongs to her and a face that is more than just tired. The one who has been so thoroughly buried under the role that seeing her feels almost like meeting someone you used to know.

Women who are mothers book sessions at Sheer for a lot of different reasons. But the thread that runs through almost all of them is this: they want to remember who they are outside of the role. They want evidence that she still exists.

She does. She always did.

You are a mother. And you are so much more than that.

Both things are true. Both things deserve to take up space. 🖤

The investment is smaller than another year of waiting.

→ If You’re Done Waiting fill out the form below!

We're Done Apologizing for Wanting Sex (or Not Wanting It)

WEEK 33 - Done Apologizing

By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 6 min

Your desire doesn't need a permission slip. And neither does your lack of it. Both are yours. Both are valid. Both deserve to stop being whispered about.

Let's talk about the thing women don't talk about.

Not in polite company. Not at school pickup or book club or the family dinner table. Not in the way that's honest and direct and doesn't immediately come with a disclaimer attached.

Women wanting sex.

Not in a theoretical, abstract, isn't-that-nice kind of way. Actually wanting it. Craving it. Thinking about it. Initiating it. Feeling frustrated when it's not there. Feeling disconnected when it's been too long. Feeling (and this is the part that gets really quiet) like that part of themselves has been so thoroughly buried under motherhood and exhaustion and the daily performance of being everything to everyone that they can't even remember the last time they felt genuinely, unapologetically turned on.

We have been taught to be sexy. Desirable. Appealing to look at. We've been taught to perform sensuality for other people's consumption while simultaneously keeping our own desire small, manageable, quiet. We're supposed to be wanted… but not to want. Desired… but not desirous. Available… but not hungry.

That double standard is f*cking exhausting! And we're done with it.

"We've been taught to be sexy for everyone else while keeping our own desire small and quiet. Your desire is not a performance. It belongs to you."

The desire nobody admits to.

Here's what I hear… not said out loud, usually, but between the lines of a hundred conversations I've had with women in my studio and in my community:

She wants more than she's getting. More intimacy. More presence. More of the kind of connection that makes her feel like a woman and not just a function. More sex or more of the kind of sex that actually feels good to her, that prioritizes her experience, that doesn't make her feel like an afterthought in her own bed.

And she's not saying it. Because wanting more feels needy. Demanding. Like she's putting pressure on her partner. Like she should be grateful for what she has. Like good wives don't talk about this.

So she goes quiet. And the distance grows. And she starts to wonder if that part of her (the part that wants and craves and feels) is just something she's supposed to outgrow.

She's not supposed to outgrow it. She's been taught to suppress it. Those are not the same thing.

What nobody tells you about desire after kids.

Somewhere between the epidural and the elementary school years, a lot of women lose the thread of their own sexuality. Not because they stopped being sexual beings, but because every single thing about early motherhood is designed to make you forget you ever were one.

Your body becomes functional. A feeding machine, a comfort object, a vehicle for keeping tiny humans alive. The identity of "mother" moves in and takes up so much space that "woman" (the version of you that has desires and fantasies and a relationship with your own body that has nothing to do with anyone else's needs) gets crowded out.

And then the kids get older. And the exhaustion shifts. And somewhere in the middle of a random Tuesday you realize: I don't even know what I want anymore. Not just sexually. In general. I've been so far inside everyone else's experience that I've lost the map to my own.

Getting that map back isn't indulgent. It isn't selfish. It isn't something to be embarrassed about or to figure out alone in silence.

It's necessary. For you. For your relationship. For the version of yourself that exists outside of every role you play.

And also… not wanting it is valid too.

Because this conversation has two sides and I'm not going to pretend it doesn't.

Some women aren't suppressing desire. They genuinely don't feel it right now and they've been made to feel broken, frigid, inadequate, or like they're failing their relationship because of it.

"I'm too tired" isn't always an excuse. Sometimes it's the truest thing a woman can say. Sometimes the body that has been touched and needed and demanded of all day long by children and work and the thousand invisible tasks of running a household simply does not have anything left to give. That's not a character flaw. That's depletion.

And sometimes it's deeper than tiredness. Sometimes desire has gone quiet because something else went quiet first… trust, safety, emotional intimacy, the feeling of being seen as a full person rather than a partner-shaped function. You cannot separate a woman's sexuality from her emotional experience. They are not different systems.

Not wanting sex right now doesn't mean you never will again. It doesn't mean something is permanently broken. It means you're human, and depleted, and possibly in need of something that has nothing to do with sex at all… connection, rest, to feel like yourself again, to feel desired rather than just needed.

Both are true. Both are valid. Both deserve to be said out loud instead of managed in silence.

"'I'm too tired' is sometimes an excuse. And sometimes it's the most honest thing a woman can say about what it costs to give everything to everyone all day long."

The things we don't say out loud.

Let me say some of them. On behalf of the women who have thought them and never found a safe place to put them:

• I want more than we're currently having.

• I want to feel desired… not just loved, not just appreciated, but actually, physically desired.

• I have fantasies and I'm embarrassed by them and I don't know what that says about me.

• I want to initiate and I'm terrified of rejection so I don't.

• I want my partner to pursue me the way they used to.

• I miss feeling like a sexual being and I don't know how to find my way back to that.

• I don't want it right now and I feel guilty about that every single day.

• I want to understand my own body better and I don't even know where to start.

None of these thoughts make you a bad wife. A bad mom. A shallow or needy or dirty or broken person. They make you a woman who is paying attention to herself. Who knows that something is off, or missing, or needs tending to.

That awareness isn't the problem. Suffering through it in silence and alone is.

Your desire doesn't need a permission slip.

Here's the thing I most want you to take from this:

Whatever you feel about sex right now (wanting more of it, wanting less of it, wanting to feel desired, wanting to reconnect with your own body, wanting to understand why the want has gone quiet) that feeling is valid. It belongs to you. It doesn't need to be justified or minimized or hidden or managed for anyone else's comfort.

You are allowed to want things. You are allowed to say them. You are allowed to take up space in your own sexuality the same way you're learning to take up space everywhere else.

Desire isn't something that happens to you when conditions are right. It's something you tend to. Something you make room for. Something that comes back when you stop pretending it doesn't exist.

Where boudoir lives in all of this.

A session at Sheer isn't about sex. I want to be clear about that.

But it is absolutely about desire. About reconnecting with the part of yourself that is sensual, embodied, present in your own skin. About spending a few hours where you are not a function (not a mom, not a partner, not a caretaker) but a woman who exists in her body and allows herself to feel good in it.

That reconnection matters. Because when you feel disconnected from your own sensuality (from your own body, your own pleasure, your own desire) everything else goes a little gray. The intimacy in your relationship flattens. The aliveness in your daily life dims. The part of you that feels fully expressed goes quiet.

A session doesn't fix a relationship. It doesn't solve whatever has made desire go quiet. But it does something that a lot of women describe as the beginning: it gives you evidence that she's still there. The sensual, embodied, fully alive version of you that got buried under everything else.

She didn't leave. She's just been waiting for you to make some room.

Your desire doesn't need a permission slip. But if you've been waiting for a sign… this is it. 🖤

→ If You’re Done Waiting fill out the form below!

We're Done Apologizing for Taking Up Space.

WEEK 32 - Done Apologizing

By Jennifer Dirksen · Sheer Photography, Youngstown OH · Est. read time: 5 min

You don't have to be smaller, quieter, easier, or less to deserve to be here. You never did.

When was the last time you apologized for something that wasn't your fault?

Not a real apology. Not the kind that comes from genuine accountability and actually means something. The other kind. The reflexive, automatic, almost unconscious kind that women do dozens of times a day without even noticing.

Sorry, can I squeeze past you. Sorry, this might be a stupid question. Sorry, I know you're busy. Sorry for bringing this up. Sorry for taking so long. Sorry for being here.

We apologize for existing in spaces. For having needs. For taking up room (physical room, conversational room, emotional room) that we have every right to occupy. We've been doing it so long it doesn't even register as apologizing anymore. It just feels like being polite. Being considerate. Being the kind of woman who doesn't make things difficult.

But here's what it actually is: practice. Daily, repeated, deeply grooved practice in making yourself smaller so everyone around you stays comfortable.

And we're f*ing done!!! 🖤

"Every time you apologize for existing in a space you have every right to occupy, you practice smallness. And you get very, very good at it."

You don't have to earn the right to be visible.

This is the one I want you to really hear because I think it's where most women get stuck.

We've been taught that visibility is something you earn. That you get to take up space when you've done enough, achieved enough, lost enough weight, become enough of whatever the “current standard” is. That the right to be seen, heard, photographed, celebrated, acknowledged is conditional. Something you work toward. Something you justify with your accomplishments or your appearance or your usefulness to the people around you.

It's not.

You don't earn the right to be visible. You have it. You were born with it. It was never contingent on your size or your productivity or how palatable you make yourself for other people's comfort.

The woman who walks into a room and owns it isn't more deserving of space than you are. She's just stopped waiting for permission to occupy it.

The ways we shrink without realizing it.

It's not always dramatic. Most of the time it's so small you'd miss it if you weren't looking:

You have something to say in a meeting and you wait. And wait. And by the time you work up the nerve the conversation has moved on and you tell yourself it wasn't that important anyway.

You're in a photo and you immediately move to the back. Or you angle yourself. Or you ask to see it first and decide before anyone else gets to whether you're allowed to exist in it.

You have a need in your marriage (for more attention, more affection, more presence) and you don't say it. Because you don't want to be demanding. Because you don't want to make him feel bad. Because somewhere along the way you decided your needs were an inconvenience.

You wear the safe outfit. The one that doesn't draw attention. The one that won't cause a comment. The one that says please don't notice me instead of this is who I am!

You apologize before you speak. You soften the thing you mean. You make yourself easier to digest.

None of these moments feel like a big deal on their own. But they add up. And over years they become a posture… a whole way of moving through the world that says: I am here but I am trying very hard not to bother anyone with it.

Taking up space in your marriage.

I want to talk about this one specifically because I think it's where women shrink the most and talk about it the least.

You are allowed to take up space in your own marriage. You are allowed to have needs that are inconvenient. You are allowed to ask for more (more romance, more presence, more effort, more of the partnership you actually want) without framing it as an accusation or softening it into something so gentle it loses its meaning.

You are allowed to be a lot!!! To feel deeply. To need things. To want things. To say this isn't working for me without apologizing for having a standard.

Your needs in your relationship are not a burden. They are information. And you deserve a relationship where saying them out loud doesn't feel like you're asking for too much.

Being photographed without apologizing for yourself.

This one is personal for me. Because I have watched hundreds of women walk into my studio and immediately start apologizing.

Sorry, I know I'm not in the best shape right now. Sorry, my skin has been terrible. Sorry, I should have lost more weight before doing this.

And every single time I want to stop them and say: you walked through that door. You showed up. You did the thing you've been talking yourself out of for months or years. There is nothing to apologize for babe!!!

Being photographed is an act of taking up space. It's saying: I exist. I am here. My body, my face, my presence in this moment is worth capturing. And for women who have spent years making themselves invisible (in photos, in rooms, in their own lives) it can feel almost radical.

It's not radical. It's just yours. You're allowed to be in the picture. You're allowed to take up the whole frame. You're allowed to look at yourself and find something worth seeing.

Wear the damn dress.

Not the dress that's safe. Not the dress that won't cause a comment or draw attention or make you feel like you're trying too hard.

The dress that makes you feel like yourself. The one that's been hanging in your closet waiting for a good enough reason. The one you bought and then second-guessed and then kept anyway because some part of you wasn't ready to give up on it.

Wear it on a Tuesday. Wear it to dinner. Wear it to the grocery store. Wear it because you wanted to and that's enough of a reason.

You don't have to justify taking up space in your own wardrobe any more than you have to justify taking up space in a room. The dress fits you right now. You are allowed to wear it right now.

Not after. Not when. Not once you've earned it.

Now babe!!!

This month we stop apologizing.

September at Sheer is about one thing: reclaiming the space you've been giving away.

Not loudly. Not aggressively. Not at the expense of anyone else. Just… steadily…. deliberately… without the apology attached.

You stop shrinking in conversations. You stop moving to the back of the photo. You stop softening the thing you mean until it means nothing. You stop making yourself smaller so everyone around you stays comfortable.

You take up the space. All of it. The physical space, the conversational space, the emotional space, the space in your own marriage and your own wardrobe and your own life.

And you stop apologizing for being there.

A boudoir session is one of the most deliberate acts of taking up space I know. It's showing up and saying: I am here. I am worth seeing. I am not going to make myself smaller so this is easier for anyone.

That's the energy we're building all month. And it starts right now. 🖤

The investment is smaller than another year of waiting.

→ If You’re Done Waiting fill out the form below!

How to Keep Your Confidence When Life Gets Stressful

(Especially when you’re a mom, a wife and the keeper of everyone’s schedule)

Listen… if your confidence has been feeling a little wobbly lately, I need you to know something right out of the gate:

It’s not because you’re weak.
It’s because you’re carrying more than most people ever will.

Between school drop offs, work, laundry that somehow multiplies overnight, mental load Olympics, being everyone’s emotional support human and keeping a whole household alive…
Of course you feel stretched thin.

And now it’s the week before Thanksgiving…the time of year when women magically become event planners, head chefs, decorators, therapist, and chaos managers on top of their normal full-time roles. No wonder your confidence feels like it’s running on fumes.

But here’s the part no one says out loud:

Your confidence doesn’t disappear. It just gets buried under everything you’re juggling.

And we’re about to dig her back out.

1. Drop the “Good Girl” Pressure

You don’t need to be perfect.
You don’t need to have the Pinterest Thanksgiving.
You don’t need to keep everyone happy.

You just need to be YOU…the woman who shows up, tries her best and deserves to breathe for just five minutes.

Confidence grows when you stop apologizing for not being Superwoman.

2. Your Body Isn’t the Problem…Your Stress Is

When life gets heavy, your body reacts.
You get tired. You get bloated. You get drained.

None of that means you’re “less sexy.” It means you’re HUMAN. Some of the sexiest photos I’ve ever taken have been of women who walked in stressed as hell but still showed up for themselves.

Confidence isn’t about feeling perfect…it’s about deciding you’re worth showing up for even when you don’t.

3. Do One Thing This Week That Makes You Feel Like YOU Again

Not the mom version.
Not the wife version.
Not the “responsible adult” version.

YOU.

Maybe it’s a long shower, a walk alone, a fresh pair of lashes, blasting music in the car or finally saying “no” to something without guilt.

Tiny choices stack up. Tiny moments build confidence faster than perfection ever could.

4. Give Yourself Permission to Want More

Yes, you’re grateful.
Yes, you love your family.
Yes, you love being who everyone needs.

But you’re also a whole ass woman with desires, edges, fire, personality, sexuality and energy that deserves attention.

Confidence doesn’t grow in the shadows…it grows when you let yourself take up space again.

5. Do Something Bold Just for You

Here’s the truth: You don’t get your spark back by waiting for life to calm down.

You get it back by doing something that lights you up… even when you’re terrified.
Even when life is messy. Even when you feel “not ready.”

And this week…before the holiday chaos fully kicks in…is actually the best time to claim something for yourself!

Black Friday Starts NOW (and it’s your sign to choose YOU)

This is the biggest sale I do all year and it’s designed for the woman who’s tired of feeling invisible and ready to feel powerful, sexy, confident and alive again.

⭐ Black Friday Special Includes:

• FREE session fee (yep… 100% on me)

• 90-minute luxury boudoir session for 2025 or 2026

• PLUS a second 90-minute session in 2027

• Professional hair + makeup

• Full posing guidance

• Image reveal appointment

• Exclusive product discounts

• Only $49 to lock in your date

You get TWO full sessions for less than the cost of dinner out.
And you’re securing a whole experience that’s designed to bring your confidence back from the dead.

If you’ve been waiting for a sign… this is it.

A Final Note (Read This Slowly):

You’re allowed to take up space.
You’re allowed to feel sexy again.
You’re allowed to crave confidence and pleasure and identity outside your roles.
You’re allowed to do something wild, bold, fun and selfish…especially now!

Life is stressful. But your spark is still there. Let’s bring her back!