NOTE: While everything in this post is true, and I am running a photography business while crashing, I wanted to emphasize that none of this applies to doing photoshoots for my clients. Hardly anything else brings me more joy, energy, inspiration, and excitement than when I’m doing a photoshoot for my lovely people. I may be struggling in other ways, but photography is a bright spot in my life. Having a session on the calendar does not overwhelm me, it energizes me and gets me excited. 🙂

RUNNING A PHOTOGRAPHY BUSINESS WHILE CRASHING:

Is it possible to be a girl who is running a photography business while crashing?

The photography industry is filled with #girlbosses who are crushing it. I used to be one of them, at least so I thought, but I’m not now. And I just got married. Coincidence? Actually, yes. And I think that is a wonderful thing. Let me explain.

Right before I got married, I went through a really tough time. Through a series of situations I don’t need to get into, I completely burned myself out. And I mean I burned myself to a crisp. To the point where I was just surviving until my wedding day when everything would change.

Everything did change when I got married as I thought it would. I married my favorite person on planet earth who treats me way better than I know I deserve. I am such an incredibly happy newlywed.

And in this space where I have less responsibilities, no deadlines, a crazy amount of love, quiet, peace, and space to breathe…….,

I crashed.

Oh MAN I crashed. I have never crashed harder.

Do I laugh or do I cry?! I love it but I hate it!! I have become a completely different person than I used to be. Pre-marriage Kina was a workhorse, a go-getter, a ball of energy with huge ambitions and motivation to match. Post-marriage Kina wakes up audaciously late, does some things, receives lots of love from Ian, drinks some soup, and then crawls back into bed.

At face value, it all looks so cringe. Teenage Kina would be so disappointed in me at the moment. She would probably sigh, shake her head, and quote some verses on diligence. She would sit me down to plan out the month or the year and write some goals down. Most likely she would remind me that if I feel like a task is too large, I should just do it for 2 minutes. She would ask me how much sunshine I’m getting, if I’m drinking enough water, and if I have a morning routine. I probably do need that reminder.

But to be honest, I also needed this season. I needed to have space to fall apart. Before, I was only holding it together, ignoring warning signs and charging full speed ahead at energy that I refused to acknowledge was limited.

I honestly never believed it would catch up to me. Never believed there was actually such a thing as self-induced trauma. Never believed I could work so hard that I would have to rest ten times harder in order to recover.

The first month or so of my marriage, I was so confused. I had expected to be able to bounce right back into being productive and accomplishing goals while keeping the house clean, making 3 meals a day, and working out consistently, obviously.

I felt so guilty. So undeserving of love. Like a miserable failure. I was so ashamed of myself.

Those first several months I was very hard on myself. I tried many different routines to try to get back to normal. I beat myself up if I “slept in” and kept trying to wake up at an “acceptable” time again and again.

But the truth is, I couldn’t function at that level. I crashed every. single. time. When I operated the way I always had, I felt awful. A terrible, terrible feeling for a girl who defined her worth by her productivity.

Then my mom sent me this webinar on trauma and I started melting. It started to click. I cried half way through the first session I watched, and that was the first time I had cried at all in months.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT BREAKTHROUGH:

That night, around 3 a.m., I woke up feeling like something was not right. I tossed and turned miserably for an hour before I woke Ian up. Immediately he could tell I was not OK.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

And then I cried like I had never cried since I was 14. I opened my mouth to tell him what was going on. What came out was not what I expected. My whole body threw out with all the force inside it,

“I wanna be a photographer.”

I had been a photographer since I was 11, and a technically “professional” photographer since I was 16. But I guess, somewhere deep down, I knew that it was time to really pursue this thing. Maybe God knew that pursuing this gift He has given me would bring some freedom, joy, and healing to my life.

My amazing husband immediately replied, “It’s okay, we can be photographers!”

The next day that we had off work, he took me outside and we did a little photoshoot. We bought a domain and built a website. I started posting again on Instagram. We had no photoshoots planned, but after praying, God started opening doors. Pretty soon we had 10 on the schedule and the word started spreading. Ian decided he wanted to be a videographer, started studying, and we began getting crazy opportunities for that. Our business has grown and is growing. We are actually in the process of moving so we can pursue this job with more freedom and eventually go full time. And maybe it seems like I’m your average competitive hustler.

But I’m not. I’m running a photography business while crashing. Some days the thought of putting my plate away is extremely overwhelming to me. I still get an audacious amount of sleep. I beat myself up for not doing enough and I struggle with simple tasks like knowing what time it is, responding to a text, or using the right word for things.

Why do I share this? Because there are so many voices in the photography industry that can easily make me feel defeated, way behind, and like a failure in my business goals because of where I am at. Some days I wonder what I’m even doing showing up in this industry. I’m running a photography business while crashing. And if I feel that way, I can’t be the only one.

I don’t know what the future holds, although I know I don’t hope to be in this season forever. However, this is where I am now. So I take each day at a time, each step at a time.

I also wanted to share some things that are helping me in case anyone else ever finds themselves in a similar situation to where I am at.

SOME THINGS THAT ARE HELPING ME:

1. Spiritual disciplines like reading the Bible. I’m not saying this because I’m a Christian and this is the right thing to say. The peace and trust that comes from knowing more about God literally helps my nervous system and I can definitely tell.

2. Praying. Casting my burdens on the only One who can carry them. My nervous system, I have learned, can’t always carry all the situations I get myself in.

3. Singing. The vocal cords are on either side of the vagus nerve. Thus, when I sing, I stimulate the vagus nerve and activate the parasympathetic nervous system. (The state of calm you almost always want to be in.) I can tell immediately when I sing that I go into parasympathetic.

4. Sleeping.

I choose to sleep as long as I need to and as long as I am able to. If this is the amount of sleep that I need to function right now, I will embrace it for this season. I don’t let my opinions or other peoples’ opinions of how long is long enough to sleep get in the way of letting myself rest as much as I need to. Sleep is one of God’s gifts to our bodies that helps us to heal from stress and exhaustion. If I need it, I need it. For now, at least.

5. I continually bring myself back from comparing my business/social media presence to other photographers’.

Now when it comes to art, I know I can still produce my best work. But showing up every day, hustling, putting in long hours, having a perfect website or perfect social media presence… it’s not my season. And that’s OK.

6. I know that I don’t have to consume all the freebies.

I sign up for lots of them, to be honest, several a week. But I unsubscribe almost as often. If something is not actually *valuable,* I don’t dig any further. I only have time and energy for the best of the best. This is actually an advantage if you think about it that way, haha. I keep reminding myself that I don’t have to take advantage of every opportunity right now. I have enough to keep up with as it is, and that’s OK. There will still be opportunities when I am, Lord willing, back to normal.

7. I try to have only ONE goal a month.

This month my goal was to start the blog. And so forth.

8. I made a vision board instead of yearly goals.

This works so much better for me because it inspires me with a picture of what could be instead of holding a standard to myself that I have to meet.

9. Castor Oil Packs at night.

It really makes a difference. When I wear the castor oil pack at night, I sleep so much better and wake up calm and happy.

10. Only giving myself the option to believe that I will get over this.

It’s extremely easy to get in a vicious cycle of feeling stuck in a rut and feeling like I don’t have the energy to get myself out of the rut. But I choose not to believe that, and to believe instead that God will help me out of this.

Next steps for me may involve some trauma releases. I don’t want to just stay where I am, I want to get out of this rut. At the same time, I know that the extreme go-getter approach to life I had is how I got here in the first place. So I don’t want to repeat the cycle. 🙂

When I get in a rut, it is easy for me to use the same approach to getting out of it that got me in. If I’m not performing the way I think I should, I try to perform harder to get out of it. Hello vicious cycle. Right here is where that stops. I’m going to rest and nourish and enjoy myself out of this one this time.

I hope this post was not relatable, but if it is, I hope that it was encouraging. 🙂

May God be exalted,

~ Kina