Confident Like Her | Ethereal Boudoir Session | Vancouver Portrait Studio

Women so often separate themselves from the notion of confidence, treating it as though it’s black and white - either they have it, or they don’t. I’ve heard women say, about doing their own boudoir session, “I’m not confident enough to do that.”

We tell ourselves stories of how easy life must be for “her”, the woman who walks with her chin a little higher, shoulder blades a little closer, has the “perfect” body - I wish I was like her. We crave the glances of those wandering eyes as she walks into the room. Not because we want the attention she commands, but we want that magical, electric energy she possesses. We think she doesn’t face her own challenges, her own battles of self-worth and self-esteem.

She must be from another planet; I can’t walk like that, glide like that.

I see my friends do this. I see them want to be like “her”. I hear them wish they could wear what she wears, love like she loves, charm the world like she does. “If only”, they think.

If only-

If only they saw what I saw. If only they saw how the way their nose scrunches when they laugh that makes me smile, how their bright eyed excitement is contagious, how their arms have been a home away from home for me. How could they not think that they deserved to walk into a room the way “she” does? How could they not be as confident as her?  If only they saw just how magical their presence is, they’d see that “she” and them are one in the same.  

We allow ourselves to think these thoughts that make us shrink; instead of being inspired by “her” way of being, we hide - “I’ll never be that”.

We rarely stop to think about what her story is, what it took for her to walk that walk, and what she keeps hidden, all to herself.

I can’t help but wonder when my eye is drawn to the confident woman entering a room how she got there. What made her speak a little louder, doubt a little less? Does she always feel that way, so self-assured, or are their moments where she too, falters, like me?

We’re born with that “look at me” attitude; I see it with little girls playing. I see it in home videos of myself as I run around the room with a boa over my shoulders demanding that the living room is my stage.

But somewhere along the way we lose that. So when I see a woman who seems to have found her way back home, I wonder how.

Her confidence must have sprouted. Maybe through the pain of rejection, maybe through disappointment, maybe through seeing that despite the failures, she was still loved, and she still found love for herself. Maybe, after all was said and done, she chose to forgive, instead of punish herself.

She walks like she is unstoppable- and she is unstoppable; she’s learned that, she’s seen that.

Every time she’s been knocked down, her stride has gotten a little stronger. Every time she’s been spoken over, she’s learned to speak a little louder. Through being dismissed, through being interrupted, through being thought of as invisible, she learned how to be seen, how to take up space and do it graciously.

You too are capable of walking into a room with that much power, you too are capable of taking up space with your chin held high. I hope you know that you have it in you to be whatever kind of woman you want to be. “If only”, you think…you are.