The experiences I offer women are a powerful embodiment practice and a way to see themselves in a new light. In this episode, I share the exact steps I guide my clients through on their journey leading up to, during their boudoir session, and afterward. I share inspiring stories about my clients, and there are so many deep body image concepts that we touch on during this episode. Enjoy!
To book a discovery call: https://calendly.com/rebeccasigala/boudoir-discovery-call
I would love to hear from you on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasigalaboudoir
The experiences I offer women are a powerful embodiment practice and a way to see themselves in a new light. In this episode, I share the exact steps I guide my clients through on their journey leading up to, during their boudoir session, and afterward. I share inspiring stories about my clients, and there are so many deep body image concepts that we touch on during this episode. Enjoy!
To book a discovery call: https://calendly.com/rebeccasigala/boudoir-discovery-call
I would love to hear from you on Instagram!
https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasigalaboudoir
Hello, gorgeous people. Welcome back to the Body Image Revolution. Today I'm gonna tell you all about the boudoir process and the journey that I guide all of my clients through and get excited because I'm gonna talk about some really beautiful, deep concepts and inspiring stories about my clients who have been part of this process for the past decade. Decade! Oh my gosh. Every time I say that, that my business is almost 10 years old. I just have this feeling of, holy shit, I can't believe I've built this, and I have such a deep sense of gratitude for it. So before I start talking about the experiences that I offer, I want to let everybody know that I'm traveling to New York really soon in just a month and a half. These trips are so fucking cool because you guys have the opportunity to have a boudoir session with me, even if you're not in Israel, and I have the opportunity to connect with and photograph women from literally all over the world. When I travel to America for boudoir, it's not uncommon for people to come in from other places. I've had clients come from LA, Miami, all different states. It's such an honor to be chosen not only as their photographer, but someone that they trust to hold and facilitate this completely vulnerable, healing, and beautiful space. And I'm gonna get into that process in this episode because I really want to share each step of the way with you. This is not just a photo shoot. My clients are not coming for only sexy pictures. It's about so much more than that, and I'm excited to get into all of those details. Anyway, I mentioned this trip because I actually have a few spots left and I only come once or twice a year, and these spots will be filled up very soon. So if you're in New York or anywhere that you can fly to New York, hit me up. I'm bringing one of my amazing and talented hair and makeup artists. We're renting a gorgeous venue for all of the sessions, and I literally can't wait to create magic and beautiful art with all of the women who have already booked and possibly you. I know it's scary, but honestly, that's a really good sign. If it's scary, if it's outside of your comfort zone, it is guaranteed that you will walk away from this experience learning about yourself and growing. And that is the whole point. So if this sounds interesting to you, you can book a free discovery call in the show notes. Seriously, if it sounds interesting, pause this episode right now because time is really of the essence. We're gonna be there in like seven weeks or something like that. Now I'm going to share with you the magic behind my boudoir experiences. I'm going to share with you why women are walking away from this experience saying, this completely changed my life, or, I see myself in a totally different way now, or I feel like I'm more myself than I ever have before. Recently, one of my clients picked up her album from me, and she told me that she was literally the most skeptical of all the skeptics. She had been following me for years, so she had read everything on my blog and all of my posts, and she was intrigued but not convinced of the power of it. She told me that part of her thought that the whole thing was just bullshit. Like it's just pictures. Stop making it something more than it is. How life changing could this actually be? But she decided to go for it anyway. And when she received her gallery, she said that she felt like she was seeing herself for the first time. She was in shock, like completely beside herself. This client is a breast cancer survivor, but even before she lost her uterus and her breasts, she told me that she had never felt like a woman. And when she looked at these, she felt like a woman. This client had her boudoir session in 2022, but eight years earlier, one of my first boudoir clients said the same thing. She said that she had never felt like a woman before seeing these pictures, and they were evidence of her womanhood, her femininity, her strength, and her power. And of course, being a woman means so many different things to different people. So when I say she felt like a woman, that is what that meant to her. There's no overarching definition of what a woman is or should be, at least not in my opinion. When this recent client told me this, I was brought to tears and I felt like it was such a full circle moment because when my first client told me that, that's when I knew that this was my calling. I knew that boudoir photography was so fucking powerful and that I would do everything to keep my business alive and growing because of the impact that it could and that it already had made on the world. Even when people talk shit about me or the Israeli government froze my bank account, multiple times, by the way, and all the times things were just really hard. I came back to that single moment. This single feeling that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing in the world. It's insane. It's actually insane that I found that thing. I used to look at other talented people and wish that I had something like that, that was mine. And now I found it and it helps people so deeply. It's a tool for women to accept and ultimately love themselves. Like for real. As my business has evolved over the years, I've learned so much about what needs to happen in these experiences for women to feel safe, to feel comfortable to be themselves, to let their sexiness free, and to feel really, really beautiful. So many women would come back to me and tell me about how healing the space was, how empowering the experience was, and how it changed the way they saw themselves, and that gave them confidence to show up differently in their lives. But there were still a lot of women who were coming to me because they just wanted a regular boudoir session. I started to realize through my experiences and the clients that I had, that I didn't want it to be just meaningful for some of my clients. I wanted it to be meaningful for all of them. And I started to not only market myself in that way, but also over the years, I added important steps to the boudoir experience so that women could truly tap in to their deeper reasons for wanting a boudoir session, because those deeper reasons were always there. Even just recently, I had a call with a woman who told me that she just wanted to get in and out, have a few beautiful pictures taken and quote unquote, look better than she does in real life, which got me thinking. And I asked her, do you feel beautiful as you are right now? And she responded, well, I'm in my mid fifties. I'm getting older. It's not as easy to talk myself out of a parking ticket. And so I said to her, this is not just wanting to have quick pictures taken of yourself. This is really about you wanting to feel beautiful in this moment as you are, because you're starting to feel invisible to the world around you. Like that is really deep and so fucking important. There's always a deeper reason. There's always body image work to be done. Even for the people who don't think they struggle with their body image. Because once we get talking about our relationships with our bodies, we uncover things that we're living with and sometimes this is unconscious, but of course it's still there and it's affecting our everyday lives. And that doesn't mean that we can't have fun with the boudoir experience. My boudoir experiences are fun. They're sexy. It's not like you're just sitting in a room or sitting in therapy. Yes, of course, it's totally therapeutic, but the fun and sexy part is actually part of the reason it's so healing too. Like when was the last time you actually did something that you enjoy just for you, for no other reason except that you wanted to. Even for me, that's hard because so much of what I enjoy is intertwined with my work, and I really have to work on carving out time for play in my life. So let's get into what this process is. I know you've been waiting for this part. The first step is really the discovery call. This is a free call that I offer to anyone who is interested in boudoir, but it's not just a consultation or a sales call. It's often 45 minutes to an hour, and I help my clients get super clear about why they want to do a boudoir session and what they want to get out of it. Because a lot of times women have an idea about why they wanna do it, but they don't realize how deep it actually goes and how much they really need and want this experience in their lives. I coach these potential clients on their fears and hesitations, and there's always fears, as well. Most of my clients tell me, I'm not the kind of woman to do a boudoir session. But honestly, that's all of my clients. So I guess my clients are just not that quote unquote type of woman. Or maybe there just isn't a type. There definitely isn't a type. This is for women who do not normally get photographed, who do not normally tap into their sexuality in this particular way, who are scared, but they see the value of going outside of their comfort zone for personal growth. If it's the right fit, if we figure that out on the call, meaning that the woman I'm talking to wants to move forward and I feel like what I provide is what they're looking for and everything feels aligned, then I move forward with explaining the process, packages, and investment. The goal of the discovery call is to decide whether or not they want to book their boudoir experience, and they often learn so much about themselves and their relationships with their body, in the process of that. I want my clients to feel empowered by their decisions and the decision they make on the call and not having to go back and forth in their minds and not let their fears get the best of them. That decision, that powerful fucking decision to say yes to yourself on the call is the first, and I'd say maybe even the biggest step towards their transformation. It's a proclamation of I am worthy of this, worthy of this investment of time, of money and energy. I'm worthy of being seen. I'm worthy of being documented and cherished. I'm worthy of feeling beautiful in my skin right now. I'm worthy of having pleasurable experiences. I'm worthy of fucking all of it. It's usually a bit of a leap. It's always nerve-wracking. There might be butterflies in your stomach, but like I said, that is the best sign ever. It means you're about to change your life. And your brain doesn't like change, so it's trying to protect you, and that's the fear talking. So after you say yes to your boudoir experience and yourself, I send you a welcome email. In that email, I provide you with a questionnaire to fill out, a beautiful, loving kindness meditation that I created specifically for my clients to help them feel grounded in their bodies and loving towards themselves. I also send you journal prompts, some questions that will ignite more self-awareness in yourself as you embark on this journey. And lastly, I send you a link to book a one-on-one coaching call and consultation with me. That's the next step. That virtual one-on-one session is split up into two parts. The first part is a coaching call. We choose one thing that you want to work on, one goal that you have for this experience. That could be choosing a body insecurity to help shift the way you see it. It could be reigniting your sexual desires and expression. It could be about setting boundaries or carving time out for your self-care, or literally anything that you want to work on. I will coach the hell out of you and will come to a conclusion about how you want to proceed and implement the coaching. That means you might have a practice that you'll do every day or every week leading up to the session. It's not just a space to vent or talk about things. I really want you to get the most out of the coaching time we have together. So focus and implementation are really important. I'll tell you a little bit about one of my clients and her coaching call. This particular client decided to have this experience majorly because she struggled a bit with her body image and she was getting married soon. This client is religious and she was not intimate with her partner until their wedding night, and she was really nervous about him seeing her the first time and what he would think and how she would feel, and all of that. As a woman who is living in a larger body, she couldn't imagine that he'd actually be able to love and be attracted to her body. During the coaching session that we had, she revealed to me that her thought was that her fiance loved her despite her body, and obviously it must be her personality and her good traits that made him fall in love with her and be attracted to her on some level. So when she said that, I just straight up asked her, what if he was attracted to you because of your body? What if he loves the way you look? That was huge for her because she had never even entertained that idea, which is so normal because of fucking diet culture and the media and all the things her family and friends have said about her body over the years. So together we started to gather evidence about how this could be possible, and what kind of mindset she could step into to believe that her body was attractive and sexy, exactly how it is. And then she had an incredible boudoir session. It was actually on one of my trips to New York, and recently she messaged me that her husband said that I was right. That he did love her body, her curves, and thought she was fucking hot from the very beginning. Even though he always believed that she was able to step into that confidence during her shoot, on her wedding night, and going forward in her life and have these intimate and open conversations with him, which are so important and healing. How amazing is that? Okay, now I'll go back to the second part of the virtual coaching call and consultation. After we do a half hour of coaching, we'll go into how you artistically envision your shoot. Do you want your images to be sexy and sultry or soft and feminine? Do you want them to be moody or light and airy? Do you want them to be black and white or color? Do you want a combination of everything? Is there a part of your sexuality that you want to express in the session? Maybe there's parts of you that you normally hide that you want to bring out and shine through these images. How can I help you show up authentically as yourself. That is what we talk about and explore together, and we also talk about lingerie, about how you want your hair and makeup, which types of shots and poses that you like most. It's really fun and also an amazing way for you to explore what's sexy for you without any other voices chiming in, not society, not your best friend, not even your partner. Like, who are you and how do you want to express yourself? I want you to look back on these images 10, 30, 50 years from now and feel like, oh my God, that is me. I want them to feel timeless and life-affirming. I don't want it to feel like you just dressed up or put on a costume or draped yourself in armor so that you didn't have to show who you really are. This is an opportunity for you to strip down both physically and emotionally and show up as you are. What that looks like is different for every woman, and I want to make sure that we're collaborating, so that I can cater to you and what you love most. Of course, I generally stay within my photography style, but there are so many ways to alter the wardrobe, the lighting, the poses, backgrounds, so that it is truly an artistic and sexual expression of who you are. Okay, so, so far in this process, you've meditated, you've written meaningful journal prompts, you had a one-on-one coaching call and consultation with me, and then I send you a detailed preparation guide. It offers you ideas of what to think about and do two to three months beforehand, a month beforehand, the night before, the morning of, what to pack. Literally everything. I've thought of everything because I've had 10 years to think about it. And there's also additional journal prompts for you in the preparation guide that will help you improve your awareness and relationship with your body. None of these things are mandatory. It's not like it's homework. I know that sometimes people have never meditated before or never journaled, or they've done it and they really didn't like it, and that's totally okay. What I usually tell my clients in that situation is try it out. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. But many times, meditation and journaling in this specific context, like for this specific goal, is easier than just doing it randomly or because it's quote unquote good for you. I'm also available for my clients between their coaching call and their portrait session via WhatsApp. I'm your coach and I'm here for you. If something comes up in relation to the boudoir experience and you need a place to share or be coached a bit, you can always message me and I'll respond as soon as I can. I'm also available if you need help making your final decisions about lingerie and all of that fun stuff. I know that this experience is something that you've never done before and I want you to feel supported every single step of the way. Then we may or may not have one check-in on Zoom before your session for about 15 minutes. That's just if something new has come up or you wanna talk about something specifically, or just to make sure that we're on the same page energetically as we go into the next part of your experience. And then, it's the big day. I see boudoir sessions as such a powerful embodiment practice. A way for you to get out of your head and into your body. This is so key to feeling beautiful and sexy. When we're feeling ourselves, we're not nitpicking or thinking about the way our clothing is laying on our bodies or what other people are thinking about us. We're in our bodies. We feel free. We surrender to the moment, and life is in flow. I make sure to set up your day and the physical and emotional space for that to happen for you. When you arrive, the makeup and hair stylist, who is usually the same person, is all set up and waiting for you. You'll sit down in the part of my studio that's designated for glam and we'll start the hair and makeup. I'll come and sit and schmooze with you for a good portion of the time. We put on music. I often offer coffee or snacks, and it honestly feels like just a bunch of girls having a fun morning together. It's hard to imagine that before it's there because there are so many nerves going into the day, but once you see my studio and feel the vibe, you'll get it. It's not scary or intimidating. It's beautiful, serene. It's private and we have so much fun together. If we're doing the session outside of Israel, this all remains the same, except instead of coming to my studio, you'd come to a space that I rented specifically for boudoir sessions. I do also offer on location sessions in Israel if that's what my clients prefer, and it fits into their vision for the pictures. So that could mean it's in their home or outdoors or something like that. Once your hair and makeup is done, we take a moment. Sometimes we'll meditate, if you're into meditation, of course. We definitely take a deep breath. Take a bathroom break, take a sip of water, whatever you need to transition into being photographed. I'll ask you to show me everything you've brought in terms of lingerie and accessories, and we decide together which one you'd like to be photographed in first. Then I make sure the right music is on. Perhaps it's a playlist that you brought, or just a type of music that you're really into, and then we begin. I don't have a formula for how I photograph women. I'm not a boudoir factory and no two women are the same. So as I feel your energy and tap into our shared artistic vision for your session. I decide where to have you stand or sit or lie, and I naturally pose you from head to toe. When I say naturally pose, I mean that I will never pose you in a way that looks unnatural for you. If I try something and it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I won't even take a picture of you if I'm feeling something is off. Part of the reason for that is that I often shoot on film and the way that I shoot is intentional and slowed down. It's not fast-paced. It's not like that lights, camera, action vibe, and I think that process has really lent to the healing and embodied experience that I want for my clients. Throughout the session we usually chat. Sometimes I do get really in the zone and quiet down, but we'll always have music to take up that space, and I gently direct and pose you with my words, and sometimes, with your permission, I'll physically move you into a pose or I'll show you exactly how to do it with my own body. During the session, I'm also making sure that your hair is in the right place and that the lingerie is falling just right. This is where my perfectionism has served me. I usually say that I'm a recovering perfectionist, but I don't know if I'll ever fully get there when it comes to my art. But it's not perfectionism in the societal diet culture way. Like in a way that I think bodies should fall into a certain type to be beautiful or that I'm trying to make people look thinner or whatever. I literally see beauty in every single body, and in my own, and that's the power of the body image work that I've done. And the amazing thing is that through my photography, I get to show you the way that I see things. I get to show you your body in the most beautiful light, and it's honestly the way that I'm viewing it. It's hard to describe before your actual session, but you will not feel judged because I'm not judging you. This is the place for you to be your authentic self and to be deeply seen. I'm here to be the witness, and I'm going to be your biggest cheerleader. I'll give you compliments, encouragement, and recognition for showing up for yourself. Because honestly, this is the definition of showing the fuck up for yourself. One of my clients stopped in the middle of her boudoir session. This was last year, and she said to me, I've done so much work, so much therapy, taken tons of medication and this, this experience right now is worth so much more than that. Other clients have walked out of the boudoir session and told me that they don't know how, but they've already changed through the experience. And literally almost everyone walks out on a high. Maybe feeling giddy, excited, and so fucking proud of themselves for doing something that they never thought they'd do or something that was just outside of their comfort zones. Sometimes the high lasts for hours or days or even weeks. I'm in the process right now of creating a workbook for after boudoir sessions to help my clients have an awareness of the emotions they experienced and integrate the transformational aspects into their lives. I'm really excited about that and honestly, just love constantly refining this experience. If you've had a boudoir experience with me two years ago, it's not the same as it is today. It's constantly evolving as I evolve, and that just makes me so happy. Okay, so the next step is that the photos are developed and edited by my team, and that process takes about six to eight weeks, and then you'll receive your final edited gallery. When you receive your password protected gallery, I usually suggest that you light a candle, put on some music, and set the ambiance to see your images for the first time. Often my clients will share their first reactions and emotions with me. Most of the time the reactions are anywhere from, I can't believe this is me, like in a really good way, or, oh my God, I'm absolutely in love with them, to happy tears and lots of compassion and healing. I do often prep my clients for seeing some pictures of themselves that they're not totally in love with right away, or it might be hard to face initially. That's also totally normal and okay to feel that way. I am a hundred percent there for my clients who have those feelings, and I'm happy to coach them through it. Almost always, when my clients go back to them a few days later, their opinion has already shifted. It can be overwhelming for some people to see themselves photographed in this way, and it's completely okay for it to take some time. I also want my clients to realize that while the pictures are a huge part of the experience, they're not everything. The entirety of the experience from beginning to end is a growthful one, and that growth is guaranteed. We can't control the outcome of the images or our feelings about them, but letting go, surrendering to that idea, and being whole with whatever happens is healing in and of itself. I have lots of confidence in myself as a photographer, and I know that I'm gonna get absolutely gorgeous fine art images of you that you will love, but if we shift the goal of the experience to be about how much we learn and grow instead of what the pictures will look like, everything will be elevated. Your session, your presence, your self-concept, and even ironically enough, the pictures. Embodiment and surrender are sexy, and that will show. After you view your gallery, you'll have a couple of weeks to choose your images. I have different packages, and if you didn't choose the package with an album, you'll then receive your digital images. If you did choose a package with a keepsake album, which is actually what most of my clients decide to do, then you'll select your favorites, which is up to a certain amount that's included in your package, or more if you wanna buy more, and then I design your album. I get it approved by you, send it to the printer and it's delivered by courier to your door. If you're in Israel, of course. If not, then I will mail it out to you in America, or wherever you are in the world. Having the keepsake album is something that my clients will message me about for years and tell me that they look at all the time, or maybe just on days that they need a pick me up. And it always reminds them, first of all, that they're a badass bitch who did a boudoir session. And secondly, it reminds them of their beauty, their strength, and the power that resides within them all the time. We're all human and sometimes we need a reminder of that, and it's so beautiful that these images can serve as tangible evidence of that, for so many women. That my loves is the boudoir experience. Sometimes I wonder if I should still call it boudoir because it's really a healing journey, a self-discovery, an awakening, an acceptance of who you are. The word boudoir doesn't truly encapsulate what we're doing together. So I'm really glad that you took the time to listen to this episode so that you can understand a little bit more about what this could look like for you and what it could signify in your life. These are some of my clients that came to me just in the past year. I had a client who said goodbye to her breasts, before her double mastectomy. I had a client who went through chemotherapy and did her boudoir session without any body hair. I had clients who were exploring their bisexuality. I had another client who just got divorced and was learning about her sexual desires again. There was a woman who was healing from sexual abuse. I also had a client who is a non-binary human who is disabled, queer, and was ready to see their body in a new light. I had a client who was ultra-orthodox, for most of her adult life, and she lost parts of herself in that world. And through the boudoir experience among, of course, many other things that she was doing, she's finding herself again. I worked with a woman who survived an abusive marriage. And then there was a woman who just wanted to love her body more and give a gift to her fiance right before their wedding day. I had a woman who wanted to take her business to the next level and step into a feminine embodied CEO mindset. I had a couple who wanted to heal their relationships with their bodies, both of them, and connect to each other on a deeper level. I had a client who was pregnant for the first time and wanted beautiful documentation of it. There were women who struggled with eating disorders, who suffer with chronic pain, who are 24 7 caretakers and never have time for themselves. Women who simply want to feel sexy again. And all of them who just desire to be celebrated and seen and appreciated for the fucking goddesses that they are. That's just a handful of the 90 to a hundred woman that I photographed in the past year. This isn't something that I need to convince women to do. It's something that thousands and thousands of women already want. If you're listening to this and you have that feeling in your chest or your stomach or wherever you hold big emotions. That feeling that is afraid, but excited, and intuitively knows that this experience is one that you desire, one that you need. Then that's amazing. I'm here. I'm taking new clients. I have sessions available later this spring in Israel, and a couple of sessions when I come to New York in early May. This is literally the opportunity of a lifetime and I do not say that lightly. I want to hear about you, about your story, about who you are becoming. So like I said, feel free to book a discovery call in the show notes, or just email me and we can start chatting. My advice would be to lean into the fear, the discomfort, the butterflies, and freaking decide right now that you are worthy. Also, just a side note, if you're listening to this, you are listening for a reason. Without a doubt. It's not random that you fell upon my podcast or that you actually listened until the very end, or that some of the stuff is really resonating with you. There is something deeper here for you, and I'm so fucking excited, and curious, and happy that there is a place where you can explore what that deeper level is and where it can go for you. I love you all. You are beautiful. You are worthy. You are you. And that is the best thing you can be. The world truly needs you to be you. Thank you for tuning in to the 13th episode. I'll see you all soon.