April showers bring May flowers - but apparently it also brings change. Yay. As a relatively adaptable person I get stagnant quite often, which is why I used to be nicknamed Teri-Two-Years, because I could never stick with something past 2 years. A big part of that, though, had less to do with boredom and more to do with intuition. You see, I am the type of person that will go full force into something: job, relationship, experience and for the first year I consider it the honeymoon and the second year I am asking the question “is this what I want to be doing for the rest of my life?” And usually the answer is no, so I move on.
Well, it’s no surprise that I fucking love what I do for a living now: photographing babes and helping them see their worth and value AND running a business is NEVER stagnant (though sometimes I wish it was!), so I’ve been kept busy for the last four years. Instead of realizing I DON’T want to do something (as I did previously with Teri Two Years), I found that I want to do even more! But because of this realization I had to make some changes that were not serving me. One of those was dissolving my associate photographer program at my studio. When I first established it last year, it was in an effort to provide life altering body positive boudoir experiences to those with smaller budgets - but after 10 months, I realized that people didn’t necessarily need help on the cost front (people will pay for what people want), but rather, most people feel they either aren’t WORTH a boudoir session at all OR they don’t have the body and self confidence they feel they need to step into the studio. Because of this realization, I know that my efforts and energy are better spent on the education and mentoring front: building people up, helping them through their body image issues, and creating content that helps them recognize their worth so that one day they may see that they are WORTH a boudoir session, they are WORTH investing in, and they are WORTHY of beautiful images. But the change part was hard for me…no one goes into business with the intention of it failing. No one goes into hiring people with the intention of not keeping them on staff. No one executes ideas with the hope that it will go to shit - so when it does - it hurts a bit. Your ego gets bruised, the humble pie doesn’t taste so great, and you have to strategize to figure out where to go from here.
John Maxwell calls this Failing Forward. Change is necessary for growth and doing the icky stuff and feeling the feels is necessary to become better than you were yesterday. I feel I was maybe more resilient to change as a 20 something year old, because I was able to leave a relationship, move cities, give my two weeks notice, or change paths without a hesitation. Now, I wrap a lot of feelings up into the decision, but ultimately, it was getting quiet out at my mom’s cabin, art journaling the facts of what I want and what wasn’t serving my purpose, and working through the necessary steps to move me to the next level. I kind of feel like the caterpillar struggling against the coccoon waiting to flourish as a butterfly. And just like the larvae stage of the coccoon, I had to deal with some sticky, icky feelings and execute some hard stuff that is necessary when you are “the boss.” But I am still here, still standing, ready to move onto the next step and stage to empower as many women as possible! While I am not 100% certain on what that looks like, I think shedding the coccoon and the bits that aren’t helping me accomplish that goal are the first to go!
Freeing up energy for the practices and projects that serve your mission is integral to getting to where you want, but so is trying to shit to understand that what you think you want is not what you ACTUALLY want. I am glad I took a chance and tried and now I am excited to try something else to see if aligns more clearly with my vision (which I do believe it will!) This was a good lesson for me, in accepting changes, consequences and continuing to take the leap. When I found intimate photography I thought I was done with changing because I found “IT”…but “IT” only led me to the next thing. Nothing is constant, nothing is forever, and nothing is worth keeping if it causes you more stress than joy.
