Posts by Valerie Friedlander

Unlearning internalized beauty standards and redefining beauty for myself continues to be a big work for me. As a young person, one of the ways several of the kids in my class (especially the girls) bullied me was with the label “fat.” I pointed out that the boys who were my size or larger were…

Finding the best bra for you can make a huge difference in how you feel about your body. Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder than it should be because most stores will size you based on what they carry. That means that the majority of women who wear bras are wearing the wrong size bra for…

Building Confidence through boudoir photography is about empowering how you view your body. Empowerment is about choice and tapping into your possibilities. Women are bombarded with unrealistic body ideals, which makes it hard not to internalize the idea that we are flawed. Then, our choice is limited to what products to buy to try to…

No, you’re not crazy. You’re living in a period of rapid change in a society full of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Almost all of my clients recently have brought up concerns around dramatically increased levels of anxiety and anger. They know navigating the pandemic is a factor but it unnerves them how often they don’t feel…

Red flags in online coaching are important to notice, especially because they can often play on the very patterns you are looking for support to change. Coaching can be extremely helpful when you want to create something different in your life. Working with a coach can help you build a business that fits you, develop…

So, you want to start a podcast or maybe you’re thinking of turning a side-hustle into a business. Both are big commitments, which means there are several similarities between the two. (And if you want to do both, even better!) Marketing initiatives use stories of starting a successful business, successful podcast all the time. If…

Calling out BS in online business is critical to creating space for innovation in the way we balance work and life. Women often step into building an online business in order to create more freedom in their life. However, they are then bombarded with all sorts of should and a lot of how tos that…

Making decisions I can trust is at the root of the idea of having clarity and feeling confident. Clarity and confidence are the two things most of my clients come to me saying they want. They’ve started doubting themselves because they’re not doing the things they say they want to do or they’ve checked all…

How do I get out of my own way and into aligned action is a common frustration that leads people to sign up for coaching with me. My client in this session is an empathic introvert with strong intuition that she struggles to follow for herself. Her hope in signing up for a session was…

Allowing space to imperfectly love your body and yourself is so important but yet not something most of us do. Our society tends to be very focused on hard work and results, which feeds an attachment to outcome. We are sold over and over the idea that something else has to happen before we can…