Liz Hansen on Save Our Sisters Unplugged Podcast: Nudity Isn't Naughty & Boudoir Empowerment

Is Nudity Naughty? Exploring Empowerment & Boudoir Photography | Liz Hansen Interview

I recently had the absolute pleasure of chatting with the wonderful Norine Fahie on her podcast, Save Our Sisters Unplugged! It was such a fantastic conversation, and I'm so excited to share a bit about it with you all. The episode is titled "Nudity Isn’t Naughty: Boudoir Photography & Empowerment," and we really dove into what that means.

The Save Our Sisters Unplugged Podcast focuses on resilience, healing, and reclaiming life after trauma. 💪🏾 Each episode amplifies women's voices through powerful storytelling, illustrating how pain can be transformed into purpose. 🌸 By sharing raw, inspiring truths, the show encourages listeners to rise, heal, and keep moving forward. 💖

Connecting with Norine was enlightening. She started by asking me a powerful question: "Is nudity really naughty—or is it just misunderstood?" That really set the tone for our discussion, where we explored how women can feel bold, beautiful, and unapologetically confident in their own skin.

As a boudoir photographer and TEDx speaker, I'm passionate about helping women see their own strength and beauty.

Norine Fahie of “Save our Sisters Unplugged Podcast” interviews Liz Hansen of Chicago Boudoir Photography on “Nudity Isn’t Naughty: Boudoir Photography & Empowerment”

Here are some of the main things we talked about:

  • Challenging Perceptions: Why Nudity Isn't Naughty

    • We discussed dismantling the outdated and often harmful idea that nudity is inherently shameful or "naughty." It's all about perspective and reclaiming our bodies.

  • Transformative Power: How Boudoir Photography Shifts Self-Image

    • I shared insights into how the boudoir photography experience can be incredibly transformative, helping women see themselves in a new, empowered light and fostering deep self-love.

  • From Doubt to Power: My Journey

    • I opened up about my own journey from self-doubt to dedicating my work to showing women their true power and magnificence.

If you've ever struggled with self-love, confidence, or just owning your unique magic, I truly think this conversation will resonate with you.

You can watch the full interview above or listen to it on Spotify HERE!

Interview Auto-Generated Transcript:

okay we are live everyone hey there beautiful people

welcome back to Save Our Sisters Unplugged the podcast where we empower inspire and share stories to remind you

that you are never alone in this journey of life if you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel what are you waiting for

subscribe channel so you never miss a new episode and when I go live i am so excited for today's episode

because it's a taboo topic and I'm here for it my guest Liz Hansen is the owner

and photographer at Chicago Budoir Photography a boutique studio that women

to feel confident in their bodies um relationships and lives she opened her

business in 2018 and quickly grew it to be Chicago area's premier boob bar

studio she coaches um photographers to reach their dreams through her online

coaching program Million-Dollar Studio now when Liz is not behind a camera she

is on the TED page convincing audiences that nudity isn't naughty she has also

been featured on national TV and as an educator with the

international before photographers welcome Liz hi thank you

so much for having me it's great to be here oh you're welcome i'm glad that you can be here i'm just loving everything

that you're doing and I'm just so excited for this conversation yeah it's a little it's a little naughty it's a

little taboo

hold on one second there we go

okay can you hear me yeah sure can oh

okay all right so let's dive into everything because I am interested in

this budwois world and I couldn't even I'm I'm so childish sometimes i couldn't even say the word budoir without having

a smile on my face yeah and a lot of people don't know what budoir is but uh budoir is a fancy

French word that means a woman's bedroom but for me budoir photography is taking

sensual photos of women to help them feel empowered and comfortable in their own skin

i love it i love it so let's dive into how you even got there let's talk about

your journey a little bit take us back to like young Liz what was your relationship uh with confidence and

self-image like growing up you know I grew up um in a fairly

conservative household and kind of understood that bodies were shameful and

should be covered and I shouldn't you know I shouldn't play too big in the

sense that I should speak out i should kind of maybe be quiet and keep the

rules right and as I grew older I realized that I did have a voice and

that I had things to say but it took me a while to discover that yeah and I could understand growing up

in a conservative u environment for sure because that definitely plays a role

into how you're going to think about certain things right especially what

goes on in the bedroom yeah i mean sex was definitely off off

limits in the house I grew up in it was never discussed i mean it wasn't we didn't talk about it being bad we just

didn't talk about it at all right right any of those taboo topics around women

menration sex bodies body image we just didn't talk about it and I as a child I

understood that I wasn't supposed to talk about these things and so I didn't ask a lot of questions and I didn't talk

about it yeah we didn't talk about that stuff either um we most of what we've learned

we learned in health class yeah and you know my parents even opted me out of health class really yeah they

called the school and they were like I don't want my child going to that so I didn't even get health class right oh

wow so they didn't So basically they were your teachers then

yeah but silent teachers not saying anything oh okay so they didn't want you

to just learn they wanted to keep you in a bubble yeah I figured stuff out i learned stuff but it wasn't from my

parents oh wow yeah sounds like we grew up in

similar households because um you know aside from health class you know we never talked about any of that stuff um

not that it was taboo but I I don't know i don't know if my parents just didn't know how to have the conversation but

when I started having my own kids I was all about it i mean I had the books I had examples like you know I had visual

aids like I was all about it i wanted them to really get the nitty-gritty get the the good in you know the good

instructions and the good conversations from me i didn't want to have to rely on a on a public school to teach them

everything that they know about life you know i mean absolutely when you refuse

to talk to your children about certain topics then it tells your children that

there's something shameful about it that there's something if we can't even talk about it how terrible must it be right

so I agree when you shut down the conversation when you avoid topics when

you opt your kids out of sexed you're basically giving them the message like this is not okay you can't talk about it

you can't think about it it's too taboo um and to me that's not healthy that's

not the right approach i agree with you i don't think it's very healthy um it's

it's like if it's like you you're telling them that just like you said it is shameful but then you're leaving them

up to creating their own narratives too or going to their knucklehead friends for the information and that could be

worse than you not saying anything at all exactly and kids are curious and

kids are going to find stuff out do you want them to find it out on the playground in the locker room or from you and trusted sources so if you're not

saying anything you're leaving you're leaving a vacuum yeah I agree so was there a moment when your view of beauty

or worth began to shift there were definitely several moments along the way for me something that was

really transformational was doing a budoir photo shoot so more than a decade

ago I decided to sign up for a budoir photo shoot i was already married at this time i had two kids but I had

started kind of this journey of trying to be a little bit more confident a little bit more self-exloration a little

bit more leaning into who I really was and who I wanted to become so I signed

up for a budoir photo shoot and by the way if you've never heard of a budoir photo shoot um budoir like I said is

this fancy French word that means a woman's bedroom but a budoir photo shoot is taking sensual sexy photos in

lingerie or nude to feel empowered to create a gift to create some memories so

I signed up for this and I was absolutely shaken in my boots right like I'm sure Yeah i mean I was very very

nervous i'd never done anything like this before um I'd never stepped out of my comfort zone in this way um I had a

lot of fears about what I would look like how I would be judged by the photographer um it just felt very

exposing i'd never um I mean I'd never been I just never done anything like

this before um but I got through it i had actually a good time during the

boobar photo shoot and afterwards I felt this increased confidence this desire to show up in

bigger ways in my life so I look back at that as this like really important moment for me in my development well I'm

glad that you actually stepped out of your comfort zone and did that because it gives you a behind the lens well in

front of the lens perspective so let's talk about let's talk about when you

started to discover that like so was that the point that led you into the

world of budoir photography or photography in general so at that time I was already a

photographer um I'd been photographing babies families weddings you know kind

of normal normal things event um but after this experience where I signed up

for my own boob bar photo shoot I really felt like this was something I wanted to

offer to other women as well um my experience was so fun so transformative

so important to me that I really felt like every woman needs this experience

every woman deserves to feel confident and empowered every woman deserves to

have a place and a time where she can step outside of her comfort zone and experience this so I decided to open my

own budoir photography studio and I've been running that full-time since 2018 i

photographed more than 2,000 women and just really love it

wow that's a lot of women yeah i mean

I budwoir is my business it's what I do it's what I love to do but I have this broader mission that keeps me going

which is that I really believe that our world needs more women who will stand up

and kind of claim their place in the world i think as women as girls a lot of

times we have been socialized and I know I was to kind of play small to be quiet

to keep the rules back take a back seat to others right but our world needs

women who are willing to step up and you know so that's my broader mission is

this um this sense that our world needs women and needs their voices and I hope

that through my budwoir photography a little bit I'm accomplishing that mission i think you are i think you are

for sure because just like you said you know there's we have been conditioned to dim our light to be muted to sit on the

back seat and I just love how you have taken the reigns of that you want to

really just change that narrative to just really empower women so I know a lot of women may feel vulnerable and

insecure about doing budois shoot maybe they've just had a baby or you know

maybe they're trying to lose weight or maybe they're still on their journey or maybe they're even you know at the end

of their journey they just want to show off so how do you really help them move past some of the uh I'm not sure if I

can do this feelings when they come to your suit yeah i mean I understand this

100% i mean I think it's very natural to feel insecure to feel like you're not

ready to feel like you're not perfect my goal as a budoir photographer is not to

make you look perfect and I'm using air quotes my goal is to not make you look like anyone else my goal is to celebrate

you just as you are right now i think you are beautiful valuable and worthy

today right now just as you are now in a few years you change your life if you lose weight you cut your hair whatever

guess what we'll do another photo shoot because you're valuable worthy and it should be photographed then too i think

every point along the way every point of a woman's journey is beautiful and valuable and worth documenting so

there's no such thing as being ready it's just who you are now is worth you're worth photographing that right

here right now today and let's be honest there is no such thing as perfection

right we all think there's some perfect body perfect hair perfect skin it doesn't

exist we're human right and humans part of our beauty is our irregularity our

the flawed nature of ourselves um that perfectness that you're seeking might be photoshopped and hey I'll photoshop on

your pictures if you want but the little flaws quote unquote that you see about yourself that's what makes you you that

was what makes you unique and I think I can create beauty out of that and it's

just um I just love celebrating women just as they are well listen I looked at

your website and I saw the before and after pictures and I was my mouth dropped i was like "Wow what a

transformation." Yeah there are a couple things we do definitely at the studio to help you

feel comfortable and ready for your photo shoot so first off we provide professional hair and makeup okay so

you're going to come to the studio with no makeup on clean dry hair and we're going to get you camera ready so I have

a beauty team there ready waiting for you we have a lot of experience with all different skin tones hairs textures ages

so we're going to do makeup and hair to make you look camera ready that means airbrush makeup to get that flaw

flawless skin look means false lashes you could do a bright red bold lip or

you could go more you know natural and subdued but we're going to get you looking ready for the camera because you

all know as women a little hair and makeup can give you a little boost right it can do wonders and and listen you

come into the studio nervous and unsure and then you just leave there bold and

empowered because as I understand it they get to see the pictures right at the shoot

yeah that's something special that I do at my studio i'm actually not really aware of any other budoir photographers

in my area that do this um I really want women to come in and have a whole

experience so you get your hair and makeup done and then we take the pictures i'm going to tell you exactly

what to do and how to pose you don't have to know how to do this you don't have to practice in front of a mirror i'm going to use studio lights to

highlight your best assets make you look fabulous and then right after the shoot

before you even leave the studio what I'm going to do is show you a slideshow of your pictures and this is a really

really important part of the process because number one I don't want you to go home from the shoot and be like I

don't know how that went did we get anything yeah that one post maybe I looked weird i'm going to think about it

for two weeks and I'm gonna stress about it no I want you to know have immediate gratification and know right here and

now that your pictures look good and then also number two really important piece i want you to see the pictures

without photoshopping here's why i now listen

you have a you have a blemish on your face it's something I'm going to take that off later before we print it in your album but I want you to see the

pictures without Photoshop i want you to see the pictures just as you are here's why i am really confident that I can

create pictures that you will love without Photoshop without a filter i

want you to see you as you are the beautiful queen that you are without all that so I'm gonna show you the pictures

right then and there right after your photo shoot you're going to I I'm really confident that you're going to love the pictures and then later if you want a

little Photoshop on them sure we'll throw it on but I want you to see the pictures just as they are i love that

because we are our worst critics as women and we may look at something and

look at it as a negative like oh I don't like these extra roles I have but when

you pose in a certain way it doesn't even

matter i call it the magic of photography there um the lighting the

posing the way you feel when you're posing for the camera it just I I believe that I can bring out something

in you that you might not know that's there i can see you in a way that you

haven't seen yourself before and that's what I want to show you you are beautiful you are worthy and I want to

show that to you from my point of view yeah I understand that and and I think

that is so important so what do you want every woman to understand about her body

her beauty her power whether she books with you or not i love this question i mean I wish I had

a bullhorn and I could say this to the whole world um which is you are a

magnificent creature you are powerful beyond belief i think a lot of times as

women we just don't understand how much how how much value

we have there is nothing you can do or say that will ever diminish your value

you are of infinite value you are a divine creature from birth to death from

before beyond and nothing can dim that no matter what you've done where you've

been your value is still infinite you can't earn more value and you can't

diminish your value because just by being you you are of infinite value i if

if you can't understand this think about this just for a second the last time you've held a newborn baby in your hand

is there anything more precious than holding a little baby's arm right no we

as a society as families we hold that baby and we love that baby and we cherish that baby has that baby earned

any money no has that baby earned any degrees has that baby lost any weight has that baby paid any bills has that

baby accomplished anything no but yet we understand intrinsically how beautiful

and valuable that baby is right you are still that valuable and intrinsically

fabulous as you've grown you've just maybe forgotten it a little bit because you've thought "Oh I've made these

mistakes or I've done this or I haven't done that or I look this way or I look that way." But I hope you can understand

that you are just as infinitely valuable as you have ever been i love that i love

that i I probably needed to hear that myself my soul needed to hear that i'm on a little bit of a weight loss journey

here and you know after you you become a woman of a certain age you know the

weight doesn't go off as quickly and it and you cannot choose the parts of the

body that you want the weight to go away from it just goes from wherever so I

really love that but that that really resonated with me and it's something I need to continually remind myself as

well listen I'm here in this journey with you doing this work with you i don't have everything figured out but

part of the reason I love to sit with women like you and sit with women in my studio and work with them is because I

feel your value just being here with you and that's important to me as well i

love that so can you share a moment where you had like a client that saw

herself in a different light and it gave you the chills

yeah thanks for asking that i work with so many amazing women women that come

into my studio and listen everyone that comes in I know that they've put a lot of trust in me and that they are there

in a moment of vulnerability right if you're coming in to take nude photos right like this isn't just an everyday

right you're not coming in to buy a pair of shoes right so the fact that you have stepped into my studio and that you've

agreed to do a budar photo shoot to me it's an honor and I know that people put

a lot of trust in me to do something like this so women come to my studio for

a lot of different reasons maybe they're getting married and they want to do a bridal boobar photo shoot maybe they've

been on a fitness journey and they want to celebrate their progress maybe they got divorced and they're on

the other side of that and they're feeling something different about their life now in this next chapter

they are expecting a baby maybe they're on an infertility journey maybe they had

a baby a couple years ago and they're got a new perspective on their body uh

maybe it's a first anniversary gift maybe it's a 30th anniversary gift um maybe they've been diagnosed with breast

cancer maybe they are post uh they're they're a breast cancer warrior and they're postcancer so there are a lot of

reasons why people come into the studio and I remember to tell you a specific story i remember recently a woman came

into the studio and she had lost all the hair on her head and on her body through

something called it's a disease called alipcia i'm familiar yeah so it wasn't chemo but

she looked kind of like she'd been through chemo right all the hair gone and um you know this was devastating for

her it had changed how she felt about her body about her outlook on life her social life her dating life it was just

you know you don't realize how much your hair like affects your looks and and your confidence

and she wanted to do two different sessions so basically we did one session

where uh the hair makeup artist drew on her eyebrows she wore a wig and she

tried to look kind of like her pre-alapia self and those pictures were beautiful but then right after that we

did a second look which was her alopecia look no wig no eyebrows and the reason

why she wanted to do that was she wanted to see the beauty in both versions of herself right and that was really

powerful and really amazing because honestly both versions were beautiful and valuable she just needed to see it

and document it i love that and I'm so happy for I I love that for her i love

that for her because having alopecia it is something that you know

the feelings that you feel you internalize because yes you can be um put in class as a a cancer patient

because some of the symptoms are the same physically and um having that

self-love and that empowerment to see both versions in in two different stages

essentially of your life you know that must have been amazing for her yeah and it was very brave too she hadn't been um

she hadn't been out and about in the world without her wig on so this was kind of her debut trying to say I'm

that's what kind of what she wanted she wanted to find a place of acceptance where she could be out and about without her wig as well she's like "Hey I like

the wig sometimes but I want to feel confident without it too." You know so this photo shoot was sort of the first

time she was really accepting her bald head and celebrating it rather than hiding it and so she did that in my

studio in a safe space where she knew she could be herself and she felt like after that budoir photo shoot experience

that maybe she could be out and about in the world without hair as well so it it was giving her a space to explore that

look that was safe and then hope I hope that she took that out into the world as

well i'm I'm so happy that you were actually able to provide that safe space because a lot of people don't understand

how much safety means to us as women in order for us to share anything about

ourselves we have there has to be a certain level of trust and for her to trust you with that and with that

look it gave her kind of like helped her to give herself permission to just be where you're at in this moment and

season of your life and just accept you are just accept yourself where you're at

for who you are in this moment because sometimes those wicks can be hot

yeah I agree with everything you've said and I I think even so I think she of

course she loved the pictures and she will take the pictures home and look at them but had we not even created the

pictures had she just come to the studio and we' created the pictures but she never saw them that in and of itself

would have also been powerful if that makes sense yeah no we're doing is creating that experience and that space

for people to experience something and then the pictures are a nice bonus

yeah did she cry when she saw the pictures of herself she did there are a lot of tears in the bud studio happy yes

um and the great thing is like I said because of that same day reveal seeing the the same day it got to be for her a

one an an experience that was all together the this experience of the hair

the experience of the no hair and the pictures with the hair and the pictures with the no hair were all one complete

experience i think it helped her kind of knit together these different views of herself the hair and the no hair i think

sometimes we compartmentalize a lot right we say "This is my work life this is my mom life this is my wife life this

is my whatever life right but when you're able to kind of knit all that

together and feel like internally whole I think there's some real power in that

i think so too i think so too and I'm just happy that you see it you see the

need for it and you provide the platform for women to actually just be free in it

i love that i love that for us so you had your own budwoir experience

and you're helping women along the journey how has helping these women um changed you not just professionally but

personally as well yeah that's a really interesting question i've been doing budoir now for

about 10 years um and I I really feel like it is a privilege

to get to know so many women in different stages of their lives so um

you know in my regular life I don't always meet people who have breast cancer or in my regular life I don't

always sit with someone who's going through a divorce um I don't always know

maybe that you've lost a pregnancy like I you know I might not you might not share that with me but in the budoir

studio I people share a lot of intimate details with me about their lives and what they're doing and I sometimes say

I'm like part photographer part therapist I mean I'm obviously not trained therapist but there's a lot that

happens in the studio that feels very intimate in a way that um you know in our regular

day-to-day life when you're just in the pickup line at school or that you don't always share those things right so I

have felt like in I I I have had a window open to me and learned a few

things number one everyone's got hard stuff in their life every single person

is fighting a battle that you don't know anything about people are walking around with a smile

on their face they're living in a beautiful house they have beautiful children and you just might not know

what they are really going through um I think I didn't realize the ex I mean you

kind of know that but you don't know know that until you hear every single woman that walks in my door they tell me

they tell me some of the things that they have powered through that they have endured that has happened to them and it is incredible the strength uh that

women you know the things that they are able to to do so that has really

affected me to kind of realize like you just have no idea what people are

carrying you don't understand the burdens that people um you know the things that people are

up against in their lives so I have I believe you know developed a greater

sense of empathy and compassion for people and just giving people the benefit of the doubt and saying I don't

know what you're what you know what's going on in your life but it it's probably heavy right now for you um

another thing I've learned is that sexy is not a size right we have all been

conditioned to think you know I got to be a size four i got to fix this tiny little thing or I'm not beautiful listen

I have had women of all sizes and shapes all colors all ages and sexy is an

attitude not a size that's right sexy has very little to do with the

measurements sexy has very little to do with your pants size sexy has hardly

anything to do with your height or your age and it has everything to do with your ability to have a good attitude and

to show up and be there in the moment i have had some really really quote

unquote conventionally beautiful women come in who won't open up to the experience they won't let me they won't

give me permission to let them kind of really dig in and do the budoir as much as I'd want to

and I have had women who quote unquote think they're not beautiful or they don't fit into the conventional beauty

mode just absolutely slay because they show up they've got a great attitude and

they know how to tap into that sensual part of them no I can get beautiful pictures of anybody but the the real

success I think comes when you just let loose and be in the moment and let me

see let yourself your true self shine that's what sacrifice is it's not a pant

size let them unleash their inner vixen exactly

i've seen on your website um and like you said women of all ages

women of I mean when I when I looked at those before and after pictures like I

said my mouth was open and I was like that's not that person

then I started to see myself like "Well how would I pose for this photo shoot?"

So how do you get people let's say a woman comes in and yes she's already

booked you so now she's committed but then she's like "You know what i'm not

sure about this." How do you coax her into just being calm and just

comfortable in her skin yeah that's my main job right it's not

it's not the lighting it's not the camera it's not the backdrop like my main job is helping people feel comfortable right so and you're right

people are are very nervous of course to do something like this is stepping out of your comfort zone i have had women

sitting in their car in the parking lot outside of my studio call the studio number and say "I'm not getting out of

my car i can't do this." Oh my gosh yeah they they booked the shoot they've driven over there and then they just

can't quite come into the studio so I say to them on the phone "No problem just come to the studio we'll do your

hair and makeup and not take the photos let's just get your hair and makeup done then you can leave no problem then I get him in hair makeup

and then I say "Let's just take just one picture of you in a blazer

don't have to wear the lingerie." And then we start having some fun and then I say "All right let's do one just in a

tank top why not let's just see how grooming them." And then we just I mean

here's the thing i would obviously never take pictures of someone that shows more skin than they're comfortable i I'm

never talking to do something that you don't want to do consent is key however a lot of people need a guide to help

them warm up and get into the the budoir mode and I am I consider my role to be

that trusted guide to help you do that i often have women say to me "I wish I'd

shown more skin." I never have someone call and say "I wish I'd shown less." In

in in 10 years of doing this I've never had someone say "I wish I showed less you you you you photographed too much

skin." But I have had people say "I was there i should have just gone for it i

should have done more." So I keep that in mind and I tell people that and I will say "Listen I'll take the photos

you don't like them we'll delete them like no big deal this is digital photography." Yeah you don't like them I

put them in the trash can immediately no one sees them they are gone forever permanently deleted but if we don't take

them you don't ever get to see them so let's just give it a try it's just you and me here no one will ever have to see

them if you don't like them we delete them so the stakes are low the stakes feel high when you're sitting in the

parking lot freaking out but honestly the stakes are not as high as you think they are yeah i I don't think I would be

in the parking lot i would probably come in like fabulous well of course you would Narin of course

you would you would you'd be ready to go and been thinking about it for a long time some women are not nervous and

that's great too um but the majority of women so I photograph um you have to be 21 or older of course so

but most women who come to my studio are 30 plus they are women who are have been

through a little bit of life you know um they're they're not just um starting out

so sometimes I think as we get a little older we get more nervous to do something like this or maybe we were

raised in a different kind of um environment that gave us a little bit more inhibitions i don't know but um no

matter who you are or how old you are I would love to have you in the studio yeah and I think you know a lot of the

apprehension with women is is the judgment you know it's the judgment behind it all you know um oh you're

posing naked i'm like well it's tastefully you know it's not just you're

just putting it all out there like you know Playboy magazine or anything you know it's tastefully done and it's not

everything all at once it's you know like I've seen it's maybe a little butt but the lighting the way it

hits it's like you have to It's like art it's it's like art i think the human

body is a work of art right and I think it's deserves to be celebrated and not

ashamed like I don't think there is any part of the human body that is

wrong or a mistake or um that can't be celebrated right so now are some parts

meant for certain eyes only like sure but that doesn't mean it can't be

beautiful and artistic right like I'm not advocating you going to work tomorrow without clothes on let's be clear there's you know but I do believe

that art is powerful and the human body is beautiful and can be shown as a work

of art i mean think back to you know Michelangelo's David um think back to

like some of our the earliest works of art were um you know nude nude um are

classic our tradition there is a lot of human history has shown the human body

to be a beautiful wonderful thing to be celebrated and there are only I think

you know we happen to be born into like a century that there is some shame

around the human body right like our the Puritan like tradition that has kind of

taught us that like the body is not to be enjoyed or viewed like I think we're

in the minority actually in the trans celebrate Yeah i think most of human history the

the human body has been seen as like a reflection of divinity and goodness and

I think it's fantastic to celebrate the body i think so too so let's shift gears

for a little bit tell me a little bit about your podcast and what do you talk about yeah I have a podcast called Live

with Liz um and I interview women who are making a difference um so I like to

elevate voices of women who are in their own way empowered themselves and

empowering other women so um recently I've had some women on let's see I've had a divorce lawyer come in and talk

about what every woman needs to know about divorce i've had a anxiety and trauma therapist come and talk about

managing our emotions i've also had um a reality star on last week my interview

was with Madison Myers she's on Married at First Sight which was um shot in Chicago this season and have talk about

what it meant to be on a reality TV show so I just love to hear women from all

walks of life and what they're doing and how they are living their lives and empowering other women and I've been

watching that Married at First Size Chicago now if I remember correctly was she the

was she the one that was being naughty she was a little bit naughty on that season yes

she blonde yeah she has with the guy she started with let's just say that no she

does not uh you know but it was interesting talking to her about that and the choices she made on the show and

um I think it's you know I just love hearing people's stories i love hearing what makes them tick i love hearing

about the hard things and the good things i have like just this infinite interest in hearing about other people

so I love stories even even though she has kind of a controversial you know

experience on that show I still want to hear why she did what she did i mean when you feel it you feel it you know

sometimes I' I've been watching since the first season and so sometimes when you get these matches I've even watched

the um Australian version like I watch it all i love social experiments and I

saw that before everybody else saw that and I was like h yeah i mean the

interesting thing about that show okay so you you go to the altar and you marry a stranger right and then you have to

see if it works or not well within like one day it was pretty clear that this

was not going to work out with the guy she got set up with and I mean talking to her it's pretty

clear that they weren't even really in a relationship in the sense that they weren't emotionally connected they

weren't physically connected they weren't romantically they weren't romantically interested in each other so

yes she stepped out and started dating another guy and yes that was framed as cheating on the show but in my opinion

she wasn't really cheating in the sense that she wasn't really in a relationship with that other guy if that makes sense

even though they were married i know it's a convolution oh well but he was a stranger to her essentially you know so

how can you cheat on someone that you're not in a relationship with you know yeah i think everyone has their has their own

definition of what they think cheating is um I guess if we go into the sense of were you with someone else while you

were legally married it would be essentially cheating correct however

with these experiments I think I think sometimes the experts get

it wrong but I still would think that it's still a win just take the win because you still

made a match it was just a mismatch because I would have also thought that the husband that she was paired with

would have been better off with the wife that he was paired with because they seemed a little more aligned so I think

it was just really crossed it was like a little like spouse swap

and you know listen love if you find love on a reality TV show like more power to you i'm not going to go on one

but like I'm glad she found love in the end i am too i'm I'm glad i'm I love

love and I'm a hopeless romantic and you know I always like to see how people react to certain situations and that's

definitely a pressure cooker of a situation to be in you know I take marriage I take marriage very seriously

so I couldn't be in the anxiety that I would have just to not know who my

person is the like the inner Gemini the takeover spirit would come over me and I

just I would just have so much anxiety i would probably get married with hives all over my face because I I would just

be so nervous and anxious to just figure out who this person is and all of the whatifs and the things that can go wrong

so yeah I don't think marrying an a stranger at the altar is for me either you want to know something funny about

that show though my husband so I've been married almost 20 years my husband loves that show i don't know how I convinced

him to watch it but once I did he was hooked we watched every minute of the last season and he was like on Reddit

looking for behind the scenes information and he wanted to debrief and talk about each episode this I' Yeah

it's funny that this I love it I love it so and not only do you have

that podcast you spoke on the TEDex stage and you were really trying to

encourage folks that hey nudity doesn't have to be naughty can you share a

little bit about the heart of that message yeah so I believe that going and

having a nude experience of some kind is a powerful thing and everyone should do it what do I mean by a nude experience

okay i mean taking nude photos at a budoir studio i mean posing nude for an

art class to sketch you i mean going to one of those um places that is a Korean

spa where everyone is naked together in the room um I mean maybe going skinny

dipping at a secluded lake okay why do I say this now first off it needs to be consensual okay I'm not advocating for

you like I said showing up at work naked but I think getting in touch

yes so consensual safe nude experiences here's why i think it allows you to get

in touch with sort of the most basic part of you which is your body it's

strip strip away some things find out who you are overcome some of that taboo

some of that shame that you may have learned earlier in your life that your body was bad that it wasn't worthy that

it wasn't the right size that it wasn't the right this that whatever you are perfect just as you are your body is a

vehicle that allows you to do fabulous things it's your home for your soul while you're here on Earth right and it

deserves to be celebrated and loved and documented and experienced

and that's why I gave a TEDex talk about that that I just think this is a powerful exercise if you've never done a

nude experience I just encourage you to try one out i was hoping the audience would have somebody would have gotten up

and had their nude experience right there at your talk you know I tried to

let them so I wanted as part of my uh talk to do a little strip tease i mean I

wasn't going to go but they were like "No please don't do it." So at one point I during the talk I act

like I'm going to take off my jacket but then I put it back on that was as much as they would let me do

can you imagine all of the complaints they would have gotten or I mean hey it may not have been complaints it might

have been like hey yeah you might have set the stage for another TEDex talk again consensual right so if they hadn't

signed up for it has to be consensual so I understand but you know I think we're really squeamish about the body and I

don't I think so too um and I would love to just see a little movement on that in

our cultural awareness that like a body is a body we've all got one and it's not like oh she showed her shoulders or you

know I know like you know you know exactly what I'm talking about right i

know i know so how do you challenge the misconceptions around nudity especially

when it comes to budoir you know I don't really spend a lot of

time with people who hate what I do i'll say that so my job is not to convince

people that what I'm doing is valuable or beautiful it's to attract the people

who already are interested so I put out my message there of you know your body

is beautiful worth documenting worth celebrating and if you don't agree with me that's fine the I even have some

people in my life in my own family who think what I do is kind of naughty and not okay and that's all right you know

what I mean um I'm here to provide this service and this space and this moment

for women who want to experience it and the people who don't aren't going to

come and that's okay i I think early on in my career I was kind of like "Oh I'm

going to convince people i'm gonna I'm going to change minds." And I've kind of come around to just thinking "No I'm

here to offer what I have to offer you can take it or leave it and it's okay." Pretty much me yeah I'm with you on that

you know not everything you do people going to like and you know it's like no matter what you do in life there are

always going to be people out there that is going to have something to say whether it's good or it's bad you could

be doing the Lord's work and they will still find something to say about it so

you just have to do you and and just um be in your own peace so to speak yes and

budoir is kind of polarizing right it's not like um it's not boring and it's not

neutral right so like if I say I'm a budoir photographer there's almost

always a reaction if I go to a networking event or something people go "Oh you do what?" You know what I mean you always get the raised eyebrow yeah

so I I ex my business and my life kind of exists in a space where I know that

it's like kind of a touch point it's kind of a taboo it's kind of naughty right so I'm prepared for that and I try

to manage my message for the audience so for example if I'm at a PTA meeting I

don't just stand up and be like "Hey guys nudity is so great." you know like I understand the context and I'll just

say "Oh I take pictures of women it's kind of like glamour shots." You know I'll I'll kind of tone down my message

but if I'm talking to you and I'm talking about what I really believe in I can be more upfront about what I do but

I I I never want to put someone in a position where they feel uncomfortable and so I am aware that what I do is in

that space of taboo kind of you know um I I do sometimes have to

kind of manage my message based on the audience and that's okay and that's understandable be you know of course

considering what your business is you know so I had a question for you and I

and and I just giggled myself completely out of the question um What is the wildest woodwash shoot

that you've ever done okay I do have some good stories um one

thing is that like I like to encourage women if they want to bring a little prop or an accessory with them to their

photo shoot they can so something to personalize it and a lot of women bring really fun things so um I've had women

bring in like a lightsaber because they really love Star Wars or they bring in

an apron because they love to bake and they want to incorporate that in or uh a

set of boxing gloves because they have taken up boxing and they want to show how fierce they are i love all of this

occasionally though I've had a few like interesting requests so I did have someone ask me if they could bring in

their pet rat and I had to be like "No no live animals." So and definitely not

a rat no live animals yeah I know some of rats you know um I also don't allow

smoking in the studio and sometimes people want to to do something like that and I just Yeah have to say no to that

um smoke art yeah and listen smoke itself is beautiful but I don't allow

tobacco products in the studio um you know so I do sometimes get some sort of

interesting requests like that um I've had a lot of beautiful tattoos a lot of

beautiful body art come in um but I've also had a lot of requests for tattoos to be photoshopped out you know like "Oh

that's my ex let's take that one off you know." That's pretty funny yeah

so mostly stuff like that i I don't Anything that you want to bring like let's say I can think of any random

thing like let's say you want to bring in a pen because you're a writer we could do budoir with a pen like let's say you want to bring in a microphone

because you're a podcaster we could do budwoir with a a a microphone let's say you want to bring in a stethoscope

because you just graduated from nursing school we could do that like whatever it is that you want to bring in to celebrate you and your life right now we

can incorporate it i love it i love it what about if I wanted to bring my husband in now listen that's couples

budoir and that's really fun it's not a service that I offer but I'm happy to refer you to some other

um it's a little bit of a different art form because you're dealing with two people instead of one um but I think

it's really fun and you should totally sign up for it i I don't know if I could convince my husband to sign up for it

that's also part of the part of the assignment you'd have to convince him

but listen that's one yeah there's some really beautiful really tasteful couples budwoir out there and um it's just not a

service that I currently offer in the same way that I don't do um groups of any kind i only ever have one person in

the studio at one time and that's because I really want the reason I I've created my business to really focus on

the woman i want her to have this experience for her i want her to come in

and have I want her to remember this for the rest of her life so she'll be at my studio for a few hours but I want her to

be the queen for the day i want to focus on her and her story and really capture her unique beauty just her i you know I

feel like as women so often we're like in relationship with other people like I'm so and so's wife I'm so and so's mom

i'm so and so's employee i'm so and so's boss right and fine we wear a lot of hats but for one day at the Budwire

Studio I want this to be just about you i want you to be the star of the day i

want you to have your preferences i want to listen to you and your story so I don't want this to be about you and your

husband even though that's cool and you should do that what I am trying to create is this one carved out moment

where it's just you and your fabulousness i 100% agree i 100% agree we put

everyone before ourselves this is our moment to shine exactly i love it i read

a thing recently that really resonated with me which was this that and and this is stereotyp I I know this doesn't apply

to everyone that's kind of a stereotype but that for men primarily their spiritual journey and their emotional

journey involves kind of coming putting other people first and becoming and being a

little bit more humble being a a servant leader whereas for women for females our

spiritual journey is to elevate ourselves and to not put ourselves below each you see the difference there for

men they need to learn to come down and for women we need to learn to come up and I know this is not true for all men

and for all women but this the masculine energy and the feminine energy it just really resonated with me that a lot of

women need to learn how to stand on their own feet rise up and claim their

own power there's this like we don't need to take in the message as much to

sacrifice ourselves and to do things for other people we do that naturally a lot we already give so much what our

spiritual work sometimes needs to be is doing something for ourselves recognizing our own power when I heard

that it just it really resonated with me because I have spent a lot of my

life tamping myself down giving to others putting my needs and wants last

not always a bad thing but there is a moment to claim your own power as well i

love it i love it well as we close Miss Liz I want you to finish this sentence

for me every woman deserves to

feel powerful oh now that's powerful

that's powerful and here's why i think a lot of women feel powerless i can't change this i'm a

victim i don't know what to do i don't know where to turn i don't know how to find happiness

i can't change this i was born this way and I would love for women to turn that

on its head and say I can choose i can choose my path i have the knowledge and

wisdom within me to make decisions i don't have to listen to this

or that voice that's telling me not I'm not enough because I'm powerful within myself

period i love it i love it wouldn't change one thing about that sentence so

now what does it mean to you now to stand in front of the world and say nudity doesn't have to be naughty

yeah I stand by it i stand by it i think um I think there are a lot of people I

mean just saying the word nudity people are like oh no I know like myself signed me up for that i mean I stood up on that

TEDex stage and I said you know like hey you should go out and be naked and people were like I mean there were

people who were having like reactions in the audience to what I said and just even suggesting the idea that you should

do something nude is kind of like a subversive idea right like I think a lot of people can't even

get their heads around it so I mean I stand by it give it a try start in start small like for example if you always

cover up when you change in the gym locker room try just being cool and

putting on your bathing suit or your gym clothes without feeling like you have to hide your body right start small um book

one of those hotel rooms that has a pool or a hot tub inside you don't even have to have a partner go and just walk

around naked and feel the beauty of your own body look at your own naked body in a mirror yeah and say nice things to it

privacy of your own home right i'm not saying you have to go out on a mountaintop naked and take photos just

start small say beautiful things to your body about how much you appreciate what your body

does for you and the things it allows you to do look at parts of your body that you've always criticized

and put your hand on that part of your body and say "I'm sorry i've always been cruel to you i'm going to do better i

appreciate you." Right start there and see where it takes you

i love that i love that because I I started I recently started just

appreciating her for who she is and whatever all my child birth scars and

everything that I've got going on like I'm like listen it is what it is this body has life you know and it's been

through life so let's just love her where she's at how she looks if I love it I love it if I don't love it I can

change it you know everything is up to the person to decide how they want to live their life and how they want to

view themselves so I love all of that so I am quite sure that everything you said

today our listeners is going to carry with them after this episode so where can they find you on your social media

handles the podcast the website all of it yeah so my website's

chicagobbudwoir.com um I see it scrolling on the um screen right now but if you're listening budoir is a little

hard to spell it's bud dir.com and if you go there you can find

a link to a couple things that you might find interesting one is a Facebook group that I run it's uh 10,000 local women

and I post in there every day empowering thoughts thoughtprovoking questions and

it's a really uplifting community i would love to have you join it's free it's on Facebook and then I also have a

page on there if you go to my website you'll see it as well um just it says free stuff and I've got some ebooks some

empowering cards you can print off um a text club you can join while where I'll

text you an empowering thought once a day for 30 days a lot of free stuff on there just would love to have you check

out and see what what interests you i love it i love that well thank you so

much Liz i listen I've learned so much about the bwaire world you know it's not

as taboo or as scary as or as provocative as people may think it is

it's it's more of an art you know and it's more of a self-love self-care

yeah well thank you so much for having me i love the work that you're doing to lift women up and keep up all the work

you're doing as well well thank you so much for saying that i think we are both aligned in trying to uplift and empower

women to basically live their best lives for them for them not anyone else

because we we need to really start putting ourselves first honestly it's time it's 2025 the I'm dubbing it the year of the

woman you know even though you know it seems to be going

otherwise so you know we want women to really be empowered and and just be safe in their own skin and feel great and be

able to just speak out when they're not and reach out and help another woman you know help help each other feel strong

but put our own mask on first we can't pour from an empty cup so we have to be safe and secure within ourselves if

we're going to go ahead and help the next lady so thank you so much for coming on i appreciate it um I thank

everyone that was on listening i hope that you guys have gathered something from it um Miss Liz's uh

uh website is on the bottom of the screen i also put it in the chat if you can just click that link it'll take you

straight there and for those of you that are in the Pure Illinois area you can also click the link for an upcoming um

mother and daughter session that Save Our Sisters has coming uh it is a

networking kind of event but it is basically to just heal and and um heal

replenish and just savor the bonds between mothers and daughters i know a lot of mothers and daughters oh man we

we go through it we go through it there are times where we love them and then

times we want to strangle them but it's all in how we really just embrace the

role as a mother and how we really just translate how we should be as mothers to

our daughters and of course daughters to our own mothers so just trying to

strengthen those bonds trying to talk about some things um we're going to have lunch of course so that's going to be

great so it's going to be on May 10th from 12:00 to 3:00 p.m the theme is she

is a queen so we're going to treat everyone like queens if you're available

May 10th which that might be a busy weekend for you but if you want to make the drive down we'll be more than happy

to have you since I don't get a lot of um I don't get a lot of interviewers that are in my state yeah well I

appreciate the invite yeah so the Eventbrite link is in the

comments as well so you know if you have some time on your hands and if you're not doing anything or if you just want

to kickstart your Mother's Day weekend come see about us we're going to be at the public library it's just open and

you know for everyone to come out and bring your daughters we want to encourage mothers and daughters to come

together so if you can swing it if your schedule's aligned please come out and have a little bit of lunch with us so

any last words before we close just thanks for having me on this was a great conversation i appreciate it all

right well thank you so much for gracing my stage and blessing my audience so we

will talk soon peace and blessings

Liz HansenComment