BEING
If I said to you, "Come here." You'd walk toward me. If I said it with a camera in front of my face, you'd seize up a little. "Walk? Walk how - where do my hands go - which way should I look?"
As you walked, you'd think about how both the lens and I saw you. You'd probably tense up your jaw and stiffen your back.
It happens with every person I photograph, to some degree. You become aware of every limb and muscle in your body and lose all recollection of how to operate them. You overthink it. (We all do.)
Last week I photographed someone - first time in two months. Mataya is a client from last fall who became a muse. We met up outdoors and spent 90 sunset minutes 6+ feet apart. And as she warmed up in front of the camera and became more comfortable, I found myself using a phrase I've never used during a session before:
"Breathe. Close your eyes. Just exist."
Turns out, that was all she needed.
And I didn't realize until the following day that I was talking to myself the whole time.
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I. BURNOUT
This week marks 7 years of Mitzi Starkweather Photography as a business. Seven years! Things kicked into high gear when I launched Luxe Portraits 4 years ago. And the last two years have been... a lot. Good, and bad.
It's hard to pinpoint when I got burnt out. If you're not familiar with the term "burnout," a quick google explains it as “a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands."
Whether you’re self-employed or not, you might be able to relate. Our internet connected world The burnout comes not just from the client workload - but everything behind the scenes: marketing plans, social media engagement, the comparison that comes with hours of scrolling through feeds of others in your field. It comes from the weight that IF the phone didn't ring this week, what could you be doing differently, or better? The burnout comes because no matter what your body is doing, your brain is always thinking about work. And add a dinging, buzzing device 6 inches from your face 24 hours a day to add a layer of urgency to every waking (or sleeping) moment. For driven, ambitious, problem-solvers like me, burnout is the outcome of a career-identity whose boundaries remain unacknowledged or ignored for too many weeks, months, or years. If anything, the culture around us promotes burnout.
I don't know when exactly I reached burnout but I do know I pressed "publish" on my last blog post 10 months ago. (This is from a lifelong writer who filled a journal each month as a teenager and majored in English literature because she enjoyed writing essays.) And I didn't forget to write. I'd try. But meaningful words are the result of meaningful thoughts and reflection, and for many months I allowed myself no time or energy for either.
It was mid-November of last year, and Jordan and I were two hours into a heated conversation in a Chicago AMC lounge. I'd realized we had to go home the following day, and I didn't want to go back to work.
I knew I didn't hate my job. I didn't want to quit. I never have. After all, why would someone go to all the effort and risk of running their own business if the benefits didn’t outweigh the risks? I couldn't imagine myself doing anything else. No, the job itself was not the problem.
"It sounds like you're burnt out," Jordan replied.
Jordan is not only my life, love, and business partner, but he is my sounding board for everything in our business. So it's no surprise that his follow up question was,
"When's our last scheduled shoot of the year?"
December 14th.
"And when's our next scheduled shoot in January?"
January 16th.
"Okay," he said. "What if I told you that on Decemeber 15, you are fired for a month?"
And this is the moment I remember so clearly, when my brain didn't know how to respond but my body and soul knew without a doubt: I threw both arms in the air, smiled, exhaled, and fell back into my lounge chair.
"That right there," Jordan said, "is all we need to answer that question."
I am thankful that he advocated for me in that moment. I am thankful that he took on so many details in the months that followed, and that he truly held me accountable to rest, do things that restored me, and NOT WORK during my month off. (Which was SO UNBELIEVABLY DIFFICULT for me.) I'm thankful that he helped me give myself permission to take a retreat anywhere I wanted. So I went to Portland for five days in January. My goal was to rest, write, think, and just exist. My favorite part of that trip was sitting in front of my picture window in the cozy hotel drinking coffee each morning and sipping wine at dusk. I would just sit, breathe, sip, and look out a window. If there's an antidote to burnout, it is for one to just, be.
II. WITH MYSELF
I spent time not by myself, but WITH myself. One day I even bought myself a necklace because I thought, you buy jewelry for women you care about. And I really re-framed the shame I’d felt: “You are not a failure for having gotten burnt out. You are allowing yourself time to heal, and that’s the best you can do.”
But I'd learned during the Chicago trip that burnout doesn't have a timeline. It's not a flu that you recover from in 48 hours. It doesn’t care about your schedule. When are you healed? When you feel healed. When do you know it's time to create again? When you want to create again. When have you stopped drowning? When you can breathe again.
Looking back, I see all the small decisions that led to this season of burnout. Nearly two years earlier, I'd stopped repairing the fences in many areas of my life. As these carefully placed boundaries started to fall, I was simply too reactive and exhausted to put them back up. The domino effect made smaller changes even harder to make.
It's easy to forget that saying yes to things you don't really value makes you say no to the things you really think are important. At one point I'd enjoyed things like a glass of wine or a year-end shopping trip to buy things that would improve my life. But eventually I just needed the dopamine drip -- I came to rely on it. And when my energy felt considerably depleted, I'd attempt to suck it out of others via validation. When I felt disempowered, I tried to get my power from others - especially my partner. When you are in a state of disempowerment you will create negative situations to try to get those around you to fix them and build you back up. And as I found to be true, those negative situations and quests for validation didn't work, because no one can give my power to me. I am ultimately responsible for myself.
I must decide that I'm worth the life I want to live. And while that sounds really vague it's really quite simple:
I must decide that I am worth getting enough sleep each night.
I must decide that I am worth feeding my body the food that makes it feel best.
I must decide that I am worth being paid a living wage.
I must decide that I will be treated with respect in my relationships.
I must accept the responsibility that as a business owner I control my time, energy, and schedule.
I must decide that I am responsible for my mental and physical health, and therefore accountable for the ramifications when I ignore my health and begin to suffer.
When I came back to work in January of this year I had a full calendar and an even fuller heart. I was excited again. I attempted to write about my experience then, but the piece wasn't satisfactory to me. And now, in May, I know why.
III. GROWING
Even after I returned to work in January, I was still healing. If December was bed rest, May is light exercise. But I've come a long way, and I have a new perspective. The weeks off during COVID lockdown gifted more lessons I needed to learn. After discovering my pregnancy the first week of March, cancelling our Paris trip the following week, and then deciding to Stay Home until further notice, the grief set in. Like when you find out a loved one has died and the next morning you wake up, remember, and feel it in your stomach. All you want to do is hold their hand.
While I celebrated the news of a new life growing inside me, I also grieved the loss of my old life. In the same week I lost in-person contact with friends, family members, and clients (and our family’s sole income source). The restaurants, theaters, boutiques, and markets in Joplin that feel like a second home -- suddenly gone. I also grieved (for lack of a better term) “unmotherhood." When I am able to go to these places and see these people again, my life will be very different. I sat alone at my first prenatal doctor appointment while my husband was required to wait in the car. I grieved the possibility of not having a 30th birthday party. I realized traveling, when it can happen again, will be very different. My life will change forever come November, and like every major change it is accompanied by both grief and joy. I will welcome that baby into a world that I myself won't be familiar with.
I tried so hard to find comfort in the idea that just "be"ing and grieving and feeling and resting and growing a human inside of me was enough. But I grew more and more anxious, and on a random morning in April I saw my discomfort for what it was: guilt. My old value of "being productive" (our national religion, by the way) had crept back in and convinced me of things I'd really only believe if I still saw my productivity/career/profitability as my identity. I yearned for that old illusion of control.
But because of COVID, I couldn't go out and distract myself. Because of a lack of paycheck, I couldn't online shop to cover up the pain for an hour. Because of the baby growing in my body, I couldn't reach for a bottle of wine and sip it til I "felt better." I decided to dive in and feel it. I wrote in my journal on April 11,
"Yes the good is sprouting up like the April flowers and the bad is pouring like rain, but at least it means we're growing."
And throughout the month of April, I just existed. Not really in a zombie-like state, but certainly in a less guilt-consumed one. I cooked and journalled and laughed and pulled out my camera when I felt like it. One day I drove through town and photographed my favorite places. The afternoon storm had birthed the most beautiful evening light -- sharp sun and heavy clouds -- and I noticed them because I'd been sitting looking out the living room window. I saw a spot downtown with graffiti I'd probably walked past a hundred times but never noticed:
"IT'S OKAY TO BE" it said. "To be what?" I thought. Something below had been painted over, and this change had created something new.
"Oh... To be."
Moments like this, of simply being present and allowing myself to feel and express must have added up over the next few weeks. These moments were like medicine. And now it's early May and I write my experience because it seems like the natural thing to do in my moments after breakfast this morning. I guess that through it all, I've been growing.
As I looked through the one thousand images of Mataya the other day, they showed me what I needed to see. Life and beauty, yes, and that the most beautiful thing of all is letting go. When you hold onto something good too tight you can just squeeze the life right out of it. While my decisions guide my life, relationships, and livelihood, the outcome has never been in my hands. It's terrifying - and freeing.
To me, to “be” is not to exist in a blank void, or even to merely survive. To “be” is to observe and feel and see and listen. I want to be content in the stillness, without needing noise and achievement and false pride to convince me I am worthy of life. I am worthy of life because I have been given it.
We have a wild rosebush in our front yard. I do not call it "unproductive" in the winter. Now, in May, I marvel at the way it's blossomed. When I meet my child in November, I will not tell them they took too long to grow. I will simply be glad they exist, safely in my arms.
-Mitzi
Thank you for seven amazing years. We are now booking for June 10 - October 1, when we go on maternity leave. Please contact Mitzi here with inquiries.
