When Najma and I first met on Zoom, I smiled. Sitting across from me was this sweet, genuine, effortlessly cool woman, and the second we started talking, it just flowed. It felt like an instant connection.
I usually try not to envision a shoot before someone officially books, but with Najma, I couldn’t help it. Her eyes, her presence, her awesome piercings and tattoos... I was already picturing the beautiful art we’d create together. And yes, we definitely delivered. As you read, don’t forget to scroll to the bottom. The last image is my absolute favorite. It says so much about her journey without needing any words.
And then, just a few minutes into the call, the conversation shifted. She brought up the war and said quietly, “I actually lost my partner a few weeks ago. He was serving in Gaza.”
I felt the tears come up right away. It caught me off guard and reminded me how real and layered these conversations can be.
I asked about him.
The way she lit up when she talked about him... even through the heartbreak, you could feel the light and joy. He was always doing something wild, making people laugh, helping others.
“He was just absolutely the most amazing person. And I know everyone says that, but he genuinely had the most amazing heart. Every day I find out more and more things he did before I even met him. Things he just did quietly, without ever mentioning, because it was so natural to him.”
As we kept talking, she shared that a boudoir session was something she had always wanted to do, but there was always a reason not to. Now, she felt called to do all of those things. To say yes to life. She told me she could hear his voice in the quiet moments, whispering to her, “Go for it.”
In those weeks after his death, Najma felt like she was in a daze. She had started her degree right before he died, and afterward, it felt like she was just supposed to just keep going. Most days, she was moving through the motions, on autopilot, disconnected from her body and her vitality.
Najma wanted a way back home to herself. What she didn’t know was that this would be the beginning of something even deeper…
Najma said, “When you started explaining your process, and I was like, oh G-d, wait. That’s actually what I wanted. I thought I just wanted the photos, and yeah, they’re going to be amazing, but there was so much more underneath. All these fears started coming up. Being seen, what I’d wear, how I’d feel. And in that conversation, I realized… oh. That’s what this is really about.”
It was really beautiful to witness Najma as she dove into the experience. Through the calls, the journaling, and the light framework I created to help women deepen their relationships with their bodies, something powerful opened up for her. It became a portal. Into not just loving her body, but feeling safe to exist in it, maybe even for the first time in her life.
She told me, “I’ve never in my life finished a journal, and I’m almost at the end of the first one.” It wasn’t just about the journaling itself. It was about taking the time to pause, to breathe, and to listen. She said, “Now I can take time to just sit and be without feeling guilty about it. Last week I took myself to Tel Aviv and sat on the beach for hours just watching the sunset. I don’t think I’ve ever known how to just exist before. Everything is always so fast paced. This gave me permission to slow down and actually feel it.”
What started as small rituals and practices slowly turned into something deeper. At first, she was checking things off a list, trying to do it all “right.” But then, she said, “After a week or two, I realized what I was actually feeling. It gave me the ability to practice something and then all of a sudden, I felt the feeling I had been looking for. I could just be.”
From there, she started carrying that energy into every other part of her life.
Leading up to the shoot, Najma shared how much of her daily life involved presenting herself a certain way. “The process was like taking off the mask,” she said. “I’m so used to curating how I look, my jewelry, my earrings, the way I dress. Especially in Israel, where looking more alternative gets you a lot of stares. Every time I leave the house, there’s this awareness of how I’m being seen. But with this, it wasn’t about being seen by others. It wasn’t about performing or presenting…
…this was for me. I didn’t need to put anything on or try to be anything else. I just wanted to see myself, really see myself, without all the extra layers. And that felt like radical self-acceptance.”
And it was amazing… every call with you, I gained more clarity about myself.”
Right before the session, there was a lot going on for Najma. Work, school, life. Grief showing up in unexpected moments. Things felt full and a little chaotic.
And honestly, that makes so much sense. I always tell my clients that there’s nothing you can do to mess this up. You don’t have to show up as your “best self” or have everything figured out. This isn’t about proving anything. It’s about being exactly where you are. It’s about making space for all the parts of you, even the ones that feel messy or not quite how you imagined.
There’s just so much power in letting go of the old stories about who we were “supposed” to be and stepping into who we really are. This boudoir experience is truly a reclaiming of self.
When reflecting back on those first moments, Najma said, “I got to the studio and everything was quiet and calm, and I was like, okay, I’m here. I made it. And everything’s fine.”
Najma told me the hair and makeup was a meaningful part of the process for her. It wasn’t something she had done since high school prom, which made it feel even more special. We had so much fun chatting, listening to music, laughing, and having beautiful, honest conversations as she got ready.
As I began photographing her, I felt that familiar pressure rise in my body. But then I remembered why Najma was here. Not to check something off a list. Not to perform. But to really be.
I block off plenty of time for my boudoir sessions so we never have to rush. So why was I rushing? I took a breath and reminded myself… I could slow down. I could just be there with her, exactly as we intended.
And once I let out that exhale, something shifted.
It felt like we entered another dimension. I got to witness this goddess, fully in her body, in her power. It was awe-inspiring…
When Najma saw her photos for the first time, she said it was just insane, “I remember sitting and looking, and I was like, oh my G-d, wait... this is me. That’s what I look like? That’s how people see me?”
She told me that for so long, especially through the disconnection from her body, she hadn’t had a clear image of herself. “In my head, I’m just this amorphous blob. I’m a consciousness in an existence.” Seeing herself in stillness, without movement, without distractions, felt completely different than looking in a mirror. “It was just such a pure way of being able to look at yourself.”
She described the black-and-white portraits, many of them nude, as raw and grounding. There was no styling to hide behind, no performance. Just her. Present. Real.
Even in choosing her final photos, Najma stayed connected to the intention. It wasn’t something to rush through or check off. “I had to remind myself, everything’s still going to be here. Nothing’s running away. Slow down, take a breath. That’s what this whole process taught me.”
She said that while the shoot was powerful, it wasn’t the final destination. “Somehow the photo shoot is what brought me here. But it wasn’t really about the photos. It was part of something bigger. A way to put everything we’d been talking about into practice and start finding my way back to myself.”
At the end of one of our final calls, I asked Najma where she feels she is now, after everything.
She took a breath and said, “Bittersweet. That’s the word that keeps coming up.”
She spoke about the strange duality she lives with now. The pain of losing her partner and the clarity it gave her. “In this really messed up way, losing him showed me who I am. What I actually want. What I really value. Not what I’m supposed to value, not what feels like a priority because of guilt or pressure, but what actually matters to me.”
She shared how she’s still struggles at times, but how she’s letting herself feel it all. Not pushing the grief away. Not pretending it’s fine. Just allowing it to exist. “I’m learning how to live again,” she said. “To hold both. The joy and the pain. The part of me that’s trying to move forward, and the part that still aches.”
Najma described the experience as a time capsule. A moment that holds the fullness of everything she was moving through. “It all feels tied together. The shoot, the grief, everything else that was going on. And I can look back and remember, yes, I held all of that. Together, all of the bad, all of the good, they can exist in the same space, and they can feed off of one another. I don’t need to fight it.”
It’s hard to put into words what it meant to walk beside her through this process. The way she carries it all with honesty and compassion. Not by pushing the grief away, but by allowing it to live alongside the beauty and her incredible journey of self-love.
This journey is one Najma has chosen to continue in my signature coaching program, The New Sexy Mastermind, and supporting her through this beautiful evolution is an honor.
The boudoir experience alone left a deep imprint on my heart… and I can only imagine the magic that’s still to come.
Hair and Makeup by Rhonda Lev
Kodak Film // Processed and Scanned by Panda Labs