Bri had been through a lot of ups and downs by the time she booked her CRAVE Session. She went from a local poster child of CrossFit to an overnight health struggle with Achalasia that made it almost impossible for her to even eat. Her esophagus totally stopped working. Now, her body holds on to every calorie (even though there are so few), and she gains weight just by sleeping. Exercising to exhaustion became impossible because it messes up her esophagus, which just aggravates the Achalasia. After losing a significant amount of weight from CrossFit, the Achlasia caused her to gain it all back.
All of this is to say that she doesn’t like how her body looks. She doesn’t like that she can’t work out the way she used to. She lost all of her CrossFit friends and lives in a very lonely space. She wanted to do this session to be more comfortable with where she is and who she is. She has a hard time not being busy because her negative beliefs about herself creep in. So, she finds that she thinks about herself less when she is giving back to others or just totally distracted from the voices in her head.
She didn’t recognize the person she saw in the mirror anymore and longed to love the skin she was in. Here is what she had to say about her CRAVE Experience.
“CRAVE is really its own experience. It’s a chance for you to get a whole day to yourself, and at the end of it, you get to see yourself the way the world sees you. Oftentimes, we don’t see ourselves the way other people do. I think it also gives us a chance to see ourselves through a more creative lens and and elevated lens. You get done up and put on fancy clothes, but at the end of the day, it’s still you. I sort of expected to see myself in glamour shots. But it wasn’t like that. It was totally me.”
“I was not comfortable with my new body size due to some health challenges. I couldn’t see me anymore. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a different person. I wanted to be comfortable with who I was but still see myself in the pictures. So I worked with the fashion coach, Liz, because I had no idea where to start, and I did not know what would look good on me and my current body type. Having someone take the time to pick out items for me that they thought would look good on me was a huge confidence boost. She picked out items that I never would have tried on my own, but in doing so, I realized that more things are actually flattering on me that I would not have experienced without her help.”
“When I saw the photos in the reveal, it was shocking to me that there was so much of me in the photos. There was nothing that I would have changed. It didn’t look fake, artificial, done up. It’s hard to explain how much I appreciate how real it was. I have them hung up at home now so I can see them when I feel self-conscious.”
“I knew that if I scheduled my session too far out, I would get cold feet and cancel. So, I purposefully booked my CRAVE Session with a quick turnaround time so I couldn’t talk myself out of it. You’re going to spend the money anyway on other things. You might as well spend the money on something you’re going to keep that will boost your self-confidence. I can look at those photos on days when I don’t love how I feel about myself, and I instantly feel better. That, to me, is priceless.”
