In this episode of “Surviving to Thriving: Overcoming My Darkest Moment” I talk with author, podcaster and intimate photographer Jen Rozenbaum. After a miscarriage and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, Jen needed to direct her energy into something creative, so she picked up a camera and taught herself photography. When a client asked for a boudoir photo, Jen really connected with it, and later learned that many women who seek out intimate photos are suffering from infertility or other issues around femininity. These sessions were healing, both for Jen and her clients. And she didn’t know it at the time, but it was all practice for her real darkest moment… a breast cancer diagnosis in 2017. Something she found, ironically, while noticing a shadow on her self-portrait.

Going through surgery and chemo wasn’t the darkest part of her journey, however; it was post-treatment. Jen didn’t trust life and mourned the person she was prior to cancer. She wasn’t that person anymore. There was a lot of shame associated with both her fertility struggles and cancer, worried people may think she had done something to deserve it. She now shares those difficulties openly and authentically via her podcast, and through Instagram self-portraits. She also continues connecting with women through intimate photography, helping them be shamelessly feminine. Learn more about Jen at https://jenrozenbaum.com/ and https://www.shamelesslyfeminine.com/. Follow her photography on Instagram: @jenrozenbaum.