It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I embraced the concept of “falling in love with myself.”

At the time, I was unhappy in my hetero partnership and in the thick of a decades-long struggle with my eating disorder. Earlier that spring I had sought treatment for a bad spell of panic attacks and clinical depression. I hadn’t even considered that I was queer. I was just surviving.

Loving myself was a daily struggle: I felt distrust towards my body, always feeling incomplete instead of whole. Self-love wasn’t in my vocabulary; I didn’t think I had permission to focus on my own needs and desires.

But one summer, everything changed. It happened gradually at first, and then suddenly, before I was even aware of the change going on within.

So for this week’s Woman Crush Wednesday blog, I’m doing something a little bit different. I’d like to give you a peek inside the summer I began falling in love with myself.

This is one of my first ever self-portraits when I began my coming out process a few years ago. I didn’t realize at the time I was coming out, but my creative spirit sure knew, and the rest of me caught up later.

That summer I stopped wearing bras and started wearing bright, happy shades of Wet-n-Wild lipstick- fuchsias and tangerines. I bought my first crop top. I started doing pull-ups and took pride in my new growing biceps. I cursed like a sailor, smoked, and rode my bike everywhere. And I started painting.

To an outsider, I probably didn’t look “that” queer, or strong, or proud. But the shift felt remarkable for me.

For the first time in my decades-long struggle with my eating disorder and self-image, I felt happy in my own skin. I had finally quieted those voices in my head — remnants of an extremely conservative religious upbringing — that told me to not trust my body, not to be sexual, not to regard my Self.

That summer, I stopped caring so much about what others expected from me. I gave myself permission to put my own needs first. To value myself in the same way I valued my photography clients. To turn the camera on myself. To see myself, and to celebrate the beauty and complexity that I saw.

Coming out and falling in love with myself is something I’m still doing, and I’m not sure I want it to end.

I spent so much of my life making myself small, trying not to rock the boat. So making myself more visible now—first to myself, and then to others—takes sustained work. On the bad days, I still stifle my voice and dress “modestly” for fear of rejection—by loved ones and strangers alike.

But when I look at these self-portraits, I immediately access that quiet, still place: when I began living without justifying my actions to anyone—myself included. It feels expansive and full of promise. It feels authentic, joyful and easy.

To all my LGBTQ clients: Thank you. You are brave and beautiful. You inspire me to love authentically. You challenge me to stand up for myself and others, to speak up, to “come out” with my own truth and not just hide behind my camera.

Love has no labels. Whether you are straight, queer, polyamorous, or a relationship anarchist, I want to celebrate your personal expression of love and reflect your own beauty back to you through my art.

Photography is a powerful tool to help you see yourself, own your story, and fall deeper in love with the beautiful soul you see reflected back.

Whether you’re looking to explore your relationship to yourself through boudoir photography, or to your partner through LGBTQ wedding photography, I affirm your desire to grow in your love and express your unique self.

The post Falling in Love with Myself | Woman Crush Wednesday appeared first on Courtney Potter Studio.

They helped me heal in an unexpected way when I was sick and weak, wandering through a Southwest desert.

Here’s the story:

I had just left my ex and devoted the last four months to therapy, support group, and recovery. I was tired of thinking about abuse. I wanted to gorge on inspiration, love, and light.

So I packed my bags and booked a plane ticket out West. I planned on hiking in the saguaro desert by day and drinking in the starlit sky by night.

“This trip helped me heal!” I imagined my future self dreamily declaring.

But I wasn’t prepared for my grief to follow me. I cried constantly at my friend’s house where I was staying; I couldn’t sleep.

Neither of us felt prepared for my fragility. So three days into my trip, she delivered the bitter blow: I needed to find another place to stay.

Ashamed, I booked an Airbnb and immediately moved into a fiber artist’s cottage. Tama’s bookshelves overflowed with volumes on tinctures, weaving, and hiking trails of the Southwest. Her pet rabbit, Lola, scampered around the red and teal house during the day, unfazed by my incessant crying.

Tama is a fiber artist, Nia instructor, and yogi who approached creativity from a holistic perspective. Her home studio overflowed with colorful felt patterns, yoga mats, and all sorts of wearable art. It was my first up-close-and-personal look into an artist’s life, and the healthy mind-body connection her space encouraged struck me. Even my guest room had yoga mats, and she invited me to put them to use as much as I wanted.

My body finally caught up with my grief, and I got sick. Tama brewed teas to reduce my fever and invited me to sit with her on her couch. I told her how I had come to the desert to find joy, and it wasn’t. fucking. working.

Tama encouraged me to engage in gentle, mindful exercise as I healed. Despite having taken dance classes after college, I was a beginner when it came to yoga. When I shared this with Tama, she invited me to dance for her.

Normally, I feel super self-conscious dancing for anyone (Unless I’m in a bustling dance class where I can hide in the back, I prefer the solitude of an empty dance studio). But I had just learned a beautiful dance in my contemporary dance class back in Durham, and I felt the strong urge to share it with Tama. (My dance instructor, Shaleigh Comerford, set the choreo to the heartbreakingly beautiful song, “Song for Zula” by Phosphoresence.)

I credit Tama with making me feel comfortable enough to expose this side of myself. With her prompting, I cast my self-consciousness aside, turned the song on, and felt my creative soul come back to life.

My time with Tama was an initiation: from victimhood to survivorship, from feeling chained to my grief to learning how to gently coexist with it. Tama was an angel, mother, and muse all at once. She taught me how to hold space for my pain.

On my last day, Tama gave me her dog-eared copy of Women Who Run with The Wolves, a book I had snagged off her shelf and started reading in between coughing fits. It would later become my spiritual roadmap—the ticket out of my “stuckness” into soulful living. I’ve read it cover to cover twice now and sent copies to friends during their own life crises.

Tama’s warmth and graciousness towards me, a stranger in her house, helped me heal.

Who is a stranger you’ve encountered that forever altered your path? How did they hold space for your pain or fear?

The post How a Stranger and a Rabbit Helped Me Heal | Woman Crush Wednesday appeared first on Courtney Potter Studio.

I was 12, and I had just lived through the worst year of my life, watching my childhood friends obsess over boys and boobs when all I wanted to do was crochet and write short stories about my Barbies.

I felt like something in me was deeply broken for not finding pleasure in what my peers pursued. So I learned to change myself. I traded in my passions for perfection. I replaced thriving with striving.

But obsessions don’t feed our souls the way deep creative play does.

My middle school counselor, Tracey, was the first woman I met who delighted in the real me. She taught me all about the concept of embracing your authentic self.

She was young and energetic with a rebellious streak, and I felt cooler from the fact that she LIKED spending time with me. I would escape the gaggle of girlish cliques and burping boys to eat lunch on the floor of her office, just the two of us.

Her small, windowless room somehow exuded so much warmth, and I learned to ground myself there. I made Tracey listen to my favorite Radiohead songs- which I found utterly profound in the way that artsy middle school students do— and often cried with her about my longing for the deep soul fulfillment I felt I lacked. 

On my saddest days, Tracey let me stay past the lunch bell. I would sob in my self-flagellating way about how messed up I am. She’d  look at me with her firm, kind eyes and tell me that my sensitivity was a gift—that I was deep, sharp as a tack, and able to see through the bullshit of middle school. She’d end our time together saying, “Miss Courtney, you’re pretty cool,” and write me a pass to my next class.

Tracey taught me to embrace the pot of gold in my toughest personality traits. To this day, whenever I feel like I’m “too sensitive” or “too much,” I hear her wise and gracious voice, encouraging me to be my wild, wrestling, unleashed self.

Who is one of the first voices that you remember from childhood that still pops into your head? What did you learn from them about embracing your authentic self?

Each Wednesday on my Instagram and blog, I’ll share a post about the women in my life who have most deeply influenced my path as a creative. I plan on doing this until I run out of names….which means I’ll be doing this indefinitely. Because there are that many queens who have changed me.

Wanna learn more?

Follow me on Instagram, or sign up for mailing list to receive my weekly newsletter which will feature this new series.

How do you feel about this idea? Who are your women role models? How did they help you with embracing yourself authentic self? Who do you hope to see featured in my new series? Sound off in the comments below!

The post Embracing Your Authentic Self | What My First Mentor Taught Me | Woman Crush Wednesday appeared first on Courtney Potter Studio.

So I sat down and journaled about this. And ended up writing ten pages.

When I looked down at my list, what struck me most is this: all my influencers are women. Every. Single. One. 

From personal mentors to strangers at the grocery store. Even the fictional stories that have touched me the most starred girls and goddesses, saints and sorceresses, women and witches.

It’s not insignificant that all of my creative influencers are women.

My journey towards developing my worldview, chasing my calling as a creator, and shaping my personal brand has been decades long. It began when I was unruly and wild, six years old with messy hair and huge pink glasses that wouldn’t stay up on my teeny nose.

I spoke my longing the only way I knew how- through art. I would draw pictures of castles and orphan girls while stately white men white men in stiff suits delivered sermons that went way over my head.

Women weren’t given a voice in my community, so I created them from scratch to fill the void.

In my conservative childhood circle, women couldn’t preach or teach. Even the books we studied were written exclusively by men. Every now and then my pastors preached about influential women. But even then, those women served as supporting characters to the real male heroes of the stories.

I learned from an early age to hide my voice and submit to the louder, conventionally smarter men in my life. I felt mistrusting of my own feelings and starving for a worldview that encompassed my experience. I was searching for the Divine Feminine.

So how did I get from those stiff church pews to here: sprawled on my sun-soaked bed in my crop top and cuttoffs, effortlessly listing dozens of badass women who have nurtured my voice? And who are these women? What are their creations? What are their stories? How did they get there?

These questions feel so important to me that I’ve decided to devote every Wednesday to a woman influencer in my life.

Every last Wednesday on my Instagram and blog, I’ll share a post about the women in my life who have most deeply influenced my path as a creative. I plan on doing this until I run out of names….which means I’ll be doing this indefinitely. Because there are that many queens who have changed me.

Wanna learn more?

Follow me on Instagram, or sign up for mailing list to receive my weekly newsletter which will feature this new series.

How do you feel about this idea? Who are your women role models? Who do you hope to see featured in my new series? Sound off in the comments below!

The post All My Creative Influencers are Women | Woman Crush Wednesday appeared first on Courtney Potter Studio.