Lea | The Self Love Journey | Lehigh Valley Boudoir Photographer | PA Boudoir Photographer | Luxe Boudoir
When Lea entered the studio I quickly realized she was a person whose energy is contagious. As she told me her story, I knew that it had to be told and asked Lea if she would be willing to share her story with all of you.
I hope that it inspires and encourages you, as it did to me.
She writes:
So here it is, the good, the bad and the ugly of my love story. Yes, I said love story, this is a story of how I am learning to love me! I haven’t liked and certainly didn’t love myself in a very long time. I can honestly say I am still learning who I am again but determined to do so!
Somewhere along the lines I allowed someone else's insecurities to become mine. I allowed someone else's words and actions to change me. I allowed someone else to make me feel I wasn’t enough in any aspect of my life and I believed all the lies he fed me and built them up in my head from there. You see, I was in love with a narcissist and over time he broke my soul and changed every fiber of my being. The crazy thing is you don’t even really realize it's happening until you find yourself shattered and standing in the middle of the rubble that was once your life.
I didn’t realize just how much he changed me. I didn’t realize how broken I was. I didn’t realize that the person staring back at me in the mirror was a shell of the person I once was. I didn’t realize because it happens over time one little comment or action or hurt at a time.
But the thing is, I loved him, I was devoted to my family and I was going to beat the odds and stay married because that was what I always wanted. So, I stayed and ignored all the signs of my slow death, the death of the marriage and the family as I knew it. I created a person in my head that didn’t really exist and a life that I am still not sure ever existed because all these years can’t be for nothing, right!?! I knew what was coming but held fast to the hope that after 23 years he wouldn’t do this to me or to our family. I held tight to the idea that this wasn’t happening even as I stared at the the screen of my phone showing him at a hotel after tracking him when he didn’t come home for dinner. I managed to hold tight to the idea that it wasn’t happening even through the night that night as I lay in our bed alone when I let him know that his sick joke better have been worth it. Sadly, it went a joke. Sadly that was the day that I found out that the life I thought I had never existed and neither did the man I loved anymore. It was also the day that I realized that he believed all the lies he told me about myself too. He also convinced himself I was all the things that he said I was so that it would make it ok to have an affair and shatter the very life we had worked to create.
This is a soul crushing realization to know that YOUR person has had an affair. That they didn’t respect you at all. That they picked someone else over you. So see, I wasn't good enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t thin enough, I wasn’t sexy enough, I wasn't nice enough, I wasn’t, I wasn’t, I wasn’t…the list goes on and on. You take this horrible thing and make it even harder because you make the affair your fault because you are told over and over it is all your fault…so you believe it. You find yourself alone and broken and not even sure how to go on. There were days when I didn’t want to go on…but I had no choice because I had two boys staring at me and I can’t let them know I am not ok. All I can say is thank God I had them staring a me because otherwise things would be drastically different.
Because I had these two amazing boys and an incredible support system I picked myself up off the floor and began to dust the rubble of the life I once held dear off of me and put one foot in front of the other. I found a small spark of determination in myself, a determination to make sure that all of this horribleness wouldn’t be for nothing. That I would be the be happy again and whole again. So I began the incredibly hard process of finding myself again. This has not been an easy road. The last two years have been the hardest in my life, and I have been through some really hard stuff, but trying to rebuild yourself after being made to feel like you didn’t matter, like you weren’t enough and like you didn’t deserve anything better for so long and believing it, seems like a herculean task. The continued craziness that “he” has brought into my life over the last two years, trust me when I say “I can’t make this shit up!”, has brought more hardship and set backs along the way as well. But the thing is after a while you start to realize that this isn’t your fault.
Yes! You read that right. This isn’t my fault. I know this now. I didn’t make him do what he did. This isn’t a reflection on me, this is his actions, his behaviors and his alone. No, things weren’t great but he chose this path for himself and took me down with it. These are his insecurities that he has in himself, they weren’t mine until I allowed him to make them mine. These are his actions and behaviors that I allowed him to make mine. My fault lies only in the fact that I didn’t hold tighter to my belief in myself. With time I made the choice to not allow his sickness continue to be mine. No these realizations aren’t easy to come to and it doesn’t just make all of this go away but when you realize this isn’t your fault there is a sense of peace in that. This wasn’t my fault...
I have learned over the last two years that with a tiny spark you can grow it to a blazing inferno, you just have to believe in yourself. See how far you have come and acknowledge just how amazing that is. I am not the completely broken soul I once was because I had a tiny spark of determination to be the blazing inferno. I am very much a work in progress still. These thoughts and insecurities don’t just disappear over night. It took years to get to your bottom and it will take time to get back up, just believe you can. Live a life that honors all that you are and do things that prove to yourself just how badass you can be.
My quest to see myself as a strong, beautiful, worthy badass lead me to Stephanie. I felt compelled to see myself as all of those things, all the things he made me feel I wasn’t. This path pushed me out of my comfort zone but sometimes we have to see ourselves in a different light or lens in this case. When we can see ourselves as beautiful, confident and badass it helps to break the chains of the lies you have believed about yourself. It helps to fan the inferno in your soul to be that badass and stop believing the lies about yourself. My experience that day made me feel like a completely different person. I felt comfortable in my own skin, I felt sexy, I felt confident and I felt badass. And if I can feel that for a day, I can feel that for a lifetime. Its all up to me…
My experience that day showed me I am a beautiful badass and I can’t thank Stephanie and Kayte enough for helping me see myself with new eyes.
So moral of the story, don’t lose sight of your soul. And always, always believe you can, no matter how hard it is. Fight for your happiness, Fight to love yourself…you are worth it.
Love,
Me
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