Self-Love

Self-love.

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I wanted to say something about it this week. What with Valentine’s Day and all that. I wanted to have wise, words about how to get there, stay there. I wanted to write a poem or riff off of a great quote, or elaborate on meaningful lyrics about it. But as I sat with the blank page, the words didn’t  come.

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What I will say is that it’s hard. Our culture of perfection and comparison and media and social media doesn’t help. I’ll say that somehow, it seems like it slowly gets better over time. It seems like it’s one of the upsides of getting older. Maybe you come home to yourself slowly in some way, and you land knowing that you are enough and that you have all that you ever needed. Maybe enough wounds heal over time. Maybe you realize you’ve always been bright, capable, smart and beautiful, it’s just that you didn’t see it before the way you can start to see it now.

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I think I love photography sometimes because you don’t need words. It’s just an image, that hopefully if done well, conveys something that words can’t. I’ve been digging in my archives of photos I took awhile back for a book I wrote and a big project I did. So this week, for my theme on “self love”, I offer these.

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Wishing you a week ahead where you are proud of what you see in the mirror, you adore her a good bit, and yes, you even love her.

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For more images and inspo for self love, find me on Instagram this week at @lifelensandlove.

+++ Gina D. Graham is a therapist and portrait photographer who celebrates the natural and raw beauty of all girls and women in an empowered way. Gina lives in the suburbs of Chicago and also wrote a book about body image in our culture called Body Beautiful; How Changing The Conversation About our Bodies Has the Power to Change the World. You can find it on amazon.