Taking Time Out: Reflection and Recalibration
When I first met Clare, I felt as though I had known her for a lifetime. And once I knew Clare, I felt that I probably had once upon a time!
Starting my Personal Brand Photography business in 2020 was exciting for me as it was an area that held a great deal of interest and fascination for me. Over many years, I had helped fledgling businesses and entrepreneurs to actually think about what their brand stood for through an almost psychological profiling that brought great joy and satisfaction to me and my clients. Having always been a bit ‘woo’ too, into my astrology, my cards and generally being known as the family witch, I decided to focus on attracting like-minded souls to work with. And then along came Clare.
During our personal branding voyage of discovery together, I unearthed her brand personality and the colours, vibrations, tone and energy that makes Clare’s brand uniquely hers and applied that to her image style. The brand workbook that I shared with Clare to complete together with our conversations before the photoshoot itself, really did help to bring all these elements together beautifully. How she communicates without using words and lets her brand personality shine out from her images and then how she attracts the right kind of client were all crystal clear in the images we created together. In fact, I actually shot a lot of the photographs through a crystal which is where the fragments of light energy can be seen!
What I wasn’t expecting, was how the whole experience would profoundly affect me and allow ME take a good look at what I was doing, why I was doing it and where I was going to take it all…
I had stupidly allowed social media to really put me under pressure to post and the new Instagram algorithm was stressing me out as I couldn’t understand why my messaging had begun to lose impact, reach and response. I felt it was my fault, that I must have been doing something incredibly wrong, that I wasn’t good enough… I simply am not the kind of woman who enjoys making Tik-Tok videos, dancing on camera and pointing all over the place to capture my audience’s imagination. I’m a serious-minded, deep thinking, very sensitive creative that doesn’t want to be in the spotlight!
And so I stopped posting. The sense of relief that I felt was wonderful! And after taking some time away from the social media spotlight, three months in fact, I re-balanced my intentions and my purpose with my business and my life in general. And I really do think that this had so much to do with my time spent in the company of Clare.
Sometimes, it takes a great big pot-hole on our life path, to trip us over, make us stop and think. I now do things on my terms and have learnt to say no, especially when it comes to either ‘people pleasing’ or simply that I don’t feel are right for me. I’ve learnt that I can’t control everything and that I must simply trust what is to be and what is not to be… And I really do believe that I have Clare to thank for this!
You can find Clare’s Instagram HERE. Don’t forget to check out the amazing workshops that she holds and perhaps, experience a little bit of Clare’s magic for yourself. I wholeheartedly recommend her.
