.png)
The launch of my first campaign. This is a woman’s campaign that is not only close to my heart but a big piece of my heart…
I have named it “Enough”. Enough can be so many things but I want to use this to tell you that you are Enough, Enough of a wife, Enough of a mother but most of all Enough of a woman. You are unique in every single way. You deserve to look and feel beautiful and to spoil and splurge on yourself.
After all, you can not pour from an empty cup, right…?
The very first session I want to share is the Glamour session I did with Yolande. Yolande is my sister (-in-law). We have been friends for a very long time and I have seen her transform from a loving wife and kindhearted friend into a kick-ass mother. Yet, I can promise you she does not think so.
If you have been following me you might remember my post where I said “How do you convince someone that they are good enough when they so wholeheartedly believe the opposite?”, now that is tough. I have always been a very emotional person and someone who wants to fix things for everyone especially the people close to me. I have realized over time that this is not possible, I can’t fix people or the hurt they carry inside but what I can do is show them how beautiful they are.
After Yolande’s session she did not see any of her images till the day of her reveal (this is how I do things now, its not a photoshoot, its an experience from start to end) and boy the look on her face as she paged through her folio box. Staring at each photo as we paged on. Amazement then turned into tears as we both just broke down in tears and held each other.
I asked Yolande to write a testimonial that I can share with future clients just to explain her experience. The testimonial turned into a testimony! One that I believe brought some kind of healing to her by putting pen to paper and letting it out. You can read her testimony below her photos.
Enough said, I think these images speak for themselves…
Yolande’s Story.
Since I can remember I have never felt good enough.
Not pretty enough, not funny enough, not enough of a friend, not enough of a sister, not enough of a daughter, not enough of a wife and especially not enough of a mother.
I have always been extremely critical of myself, always telling myself I should be better. I was never content with who I am and how I do things, I would always find fault with everything I do in life.
I grew up with very strict religious views and although I have always known I am different, I never wanted to let my father down, so I conformed to what was expected of me since it brought me great joy to hear that my father was proud of me.
I have a younger brother who was not so scared to show that he is different and he stood up for what he believed in. I always envied him for that, but I also always saw my father’s disappointment and disapproval and that he got rejected by others just for being himself. So from a very young age I started telling myself that I never want to be different, I want to be accepted. I started aspiring perfection… pretty crazy!
In my teenage years I experienced great disappointment with firstly my hero, my father, leaving our family and secondly losing my mother to suicide. In both cases I blamed myself. If I was a better daughter, they would have chosen to stay. After that my life revolved around keeping people in my life at any cost, and when they didn’t stay, I blamed myself and only broke myself down ever more…
Years and years of heartache, disappointment and rejection upon rejection passed and I have finally realized that my very feeble attempt at trying to please and impress my loved ones was not the answer to feel accepted and loved, because trying to be someone that you think everyone wants you to be can be very draining and unsuccessful.
In the past year I went through so many challenges bringing me to a place where I started to take a deeper look at myself. Who am I and do I love myself?
I am different, sometimes weird, sometimes I have a very strange sense of humour… but I am too scared to show my true self because “what will people think?”…
I realized, I haven’t lost myself at all, I hid myself… covered myself up with what I thought people will accept and I never felt complete because deep inside of me I have always had a burning desire to be myself!
Every challenge, every disappointment, every loss, every rejection… all the pain I had to endure, whether it was fair or not, made me a person that looks at life a little different and I shouldn’t hide that about myself…
My pain and trials taught me humility, forgiveness, compassion, mercy and grace.
I am proud that I have not allowed all my challenges to harden my heart, but in fact it made me love deeper. Yes, it makes me vulnerable and many times I perceive myself as weak, but it is a heart right after God’s own, and I truly believe He created me this way. I would rather trust God to heal me from a broken heart than to love less or give any less of myself to the people around me.
After all that, I have made the conscious decision to be bold. Do things that totally pulls me out of my normal routine of “people pleasing”…
I want to show myself I can find perfection in being imperfect.
I never enjoy taking pictures of myself and even though my sister, Shalane, have always believed in me and told me to believe in myself, I never could… I once again didn’t feel enough…
I turned 31 and decided that my new year will be celebrated with a photoshoot of myself, and I totally relinquished all control over to Shalane and Nicolene, the make-up artist! The freedom and confidence that came with that was indescribable!!!
I want to thank Shalane for this fun and comfortable shoot and for believing in me when I couldn’t!