I don’t know about you guys, but I had Ciara’s new album “Beauty Marks” playing on repeat over the weekend. My boudoir photographer heart fell in love because it is EVERYTHING. The entire album is filled with self love truth bombs and in the spirit of my upcoming boudoir event, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite lines with you guys.

I think we all deserve to feel safe, loved and beautiful, but as Ciara says, it all starts with loving ourselves. It’s safe to say this album will be playing for my July 14 Boudoir Event. If you’ll be there, share other songs, lyrics, poems that have inspired your own self love. You might just hear/see them at the event!

01. “The best thing I could ever do for me is love myself.”

This is the first thing Ciara says on the album and I immediately stopped everything I was doing when I heard it. She could have ended there and I would have been just as blown away.

02. “I’m a groundbreaking woman.”

Forget about what the rest of the world expects you to be. Find your own path.

03. “You show me that my scars are beauty marks.”

I mean, don’t we all want to find someone who loves every perfectly imperfect inch of our skin?

04. “My children, I’m trying to teach them to love themselves. But I can’t expect it if I haven’t accepted myself.”

So many of my post-natal boudoir clients have touched on this during their sessions. There is a lesson in accepting yourself and your body is big for everyone, but seems to become even more real after children.

05. “And I don’t have to cover anything, I share it all.”

This is how I want every one of my boudoir clients to feel. You don’t need to hide or take cover. Every piece of you and your story is beautiful.

06. “I look in the mirror and I see all my flaws, but you see light in all I do. Now I’m realizing that the ugliness I saw, they’re all pretty things to you.”

My favorite song from the album is the last track that inspired the entire album. I’d quote the whole song if I could, but this is my favorite set of lyrics. As women, we are always so quick to point out our own flaws, but these flaws are invisible to the people who love us. There’s something truly beautiful and freeing in knowing that we are loved exactly as we are.