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.
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We discussed dismantling the outdated and often harmful idea that nudity is inherently shameful or "naughty."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