Into Your Own
What empowers you? How do you choose to empower others?
These are questions that I have been asking myself lately. How do I want to be remembered and what for? This past month has provided a lot of answers to a lot of questions, largely due to life itself and how it is constantly changing to prepare us for our next evolution. I'm learning to appreciate the steps that I take daily, the motions that get me closer to the vision that exists in my head. I'm learning to cherish the mistakes and find the lessons that exist in them, knowing that nothing can be undone, only adapted to fit the plan that we start with. Looking in the mirror more and watching my journey transpire before my eyes, I'm really coming into my own.
What's funny is that this time period of me coming into my own, overstanding my place, directly reflects what I aim to provide with my images. We live in a time where we are no longer satisfied with the norms of society, where we are looking to break free of the boxes that past generations so comfortably fit into. Take nudity, for example, the body was once seen to be used in a singular instance but we have grown a greater understanding of skin. And it can be argued that this is largely due to the lack of true, genuine self-love. We see the made-up, packaged versions of humans that Hollywood & the entertainment industry feed us on a consistent basis and wonder why we do not live up to this image. The truth is, no one ever looks like the ads we see but yet, we still chase the fake.
Our obsession with perfection is at an all-time high and with it, comes a higher level of insecurity. What we lose in this heightened state of insecurity is our ability to filter out what's authentic. And in our chase to eliminate flaws, we create a deeper hole that can never be filled. Where our focus should be, is teaching embrace; embracing the love and appreciation in our imperfections because they are what make us who we are. This is what empowerment should look like, allowing others to find their true beauty and not some fake sense of it that society pushes on us.
At the end of the day, we are all trying to heal : from projections of self-hate, to the lack of natural looking people in media, to the self-consciousness that we all deal with at some point. What we need to normalize is the acceptance of the process that it takes to heal. In order to process trauma, it has to be stripped down. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and become at peace with the truth, that the reflection we see is, in fact, us, and we have to accept it. This is what I now aim to portray, the stripping down of what we think we should be & provide the platform to accept that reflection. For some, this stripping down will be literally, it will include the acceptance of the body and how it is viewed. But others will strip down in a figurative sense, where they reveal themselves to themselves. I will be dropping more details of this new journey soon but for now, enjoy my sitting with Cierra @CiRossy.
