In this heartfelt and deeply authentic episode of the Courageous Destiny podcast, Kristin Crockett sits down with photographer and entrepreneur Serena Hughes for a powerful conversation about identity, resilience, healing, and the beauty of becoming who we truly are. Serena shares her personal journey through adolescence, early motherhood, and the emotional challenges that shaped her life and perspective. Through vulnerability and honesty, she opens up about navigating guilt, shame, self-worth, and the ongoing process of forgiveness.

At the center of the conversation is Serena’s passion for photographing high school seniors and why this stage of life matters so deeply to her. She reflects on how misunderstood and uncertain many teens can feel during this transition from childhood into adulthood and explains how her photography experience is designed to help seniors feel seen, celebrated, confident, and authentic. Rather than simply taking pictures, Serena creates an environment where young people can embrace who they are and honor the unique journey they are walking.

Kristin and Serena also explore the deeper emotional layers many women carry throughout life — the pressure to perform, the stories we tell ourselves, and the healing that begins when we offer ourselves grace instead of judgment. Together, they discuss the importance of self-compassion, owning our stories, and recognizing that our past does not define our future.

This episode is a moving reminder that courage is often found in vulnerability and that healing begins when we stop hiding from our story. Through laughter, reflection, and meaningful conversation, listeners are encouraged to embrace their journey, forgive themselves, and step more fully into the life they were created to live.

✨ Key Takeaways:

• The transition from high school into adulthood is a sacred and transformative season deserving to be honored.

• Photography can be a healing and empowering experience that helps people feel seen and accepted.

• Guilt and shame can keep us disconnected from ourselves until we begin practicing self-forgiveness.

• Authenticity and vulnerability create deeper connection and personal freedom.

• Our stories, even the painful parts, can become sources of strength and purpose.

• Living courageously begins with learning to love and accept ourselves fully.

About Serena Hughes:

Serena Hughes is the owner and photographer behind MyShutterBugPhoto, based in the charming town of Grayslake, Illinois. With over 20 years of photography experience, Serena specializes in High School Senior Photography and is passionate about capturing one of life’s most meaningful milestones. Having experienced this season with her own children, she deeply understands the emotions, excitement, and significance surrounding the transition from adolescence into adulthood.

Known for offering a personalized boutique-style experience, Serena takes time to truly connect with each client before their session, creating a fun, comfortable, and confidence-building environment. Whether photographing seniors, families, or professional headshots, her gift lies in bringing out the authentic personality and uniqueness of every individual she works with. Through her work, Serena helps clients feel seen, celebrated, and confident both in front of the camera and beyond it.

You can connect with Serena at www.myshutterbugphoto.com

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the courageous destiny build a business and life you love podcast.

I am your hostess, Kristen Crockett, and I'm an elite business and life coach.

I help people live their courageous destinies.

And today I have the honor of interviewing Serena Hughes.

She is the owner of my shutterbug photo.

She is an amazing photographer, business owner, mom of four, bonus.

She also has a bonus daughter in law and grandma to three.

And let me tell you, I have been working with Serena now for.

For a while.

And what I love so much about Serena is her great big heart for her family and her great big heart for her clients.

And I love the fact that she courageously tackles her life to create something new for herself in the season.

So, Serena, welcome to my show.

Hi, everyone.

Thank you, Kristin.

Oh, my goodness.

You know, I have to tell you guys, Serena did some amazing photos of my triplets.

So she is the photographer behind my triplet senior portraits.

And why don't we start there?

Serena, what.

What has you liking high school seniors so much?

Well, I think that they get misunderstood really easily because they're going through a really, really tough transitional time in their lives.

And I can relate to them just on a whole different level.

But I think it's because they're on that diving board, you know, that.

That board that takes them from child to adult.

And the year before, they were kind of looking at colleges, but senior year, they're ready to jump off and become their own person.

And I like to capture that moment that mom, dad can remember because we can get those smiles, those smirks and those little faces that we remember when they were too small for a big backpack, going to school that first day.

And then here we are, the last remaining real photo session you're going to do for your kids until their weddings, possibly, or something else in the future.

I know it's like it's one of those things you don't think about it, but all those years you've been doing all these school pictures with the hair standing up on end, the.

The bangs they might have cut by themselves, you know, all the memories of, you know, you send them in their best, and somehow the.

The photos come back and they're not making the right smile.

They're not, you know, but you got to hang them up in the hallway.

You got to look at them.

But that year is so pivotal for these kids because they become their own adults.

And I love capturing that for them just being themselves and for their parents and family.

And I want to.

I want to ask you A question.

Why is this so personal to you?

My senior year in high school looked a little bit different than other people's.

I graduated a few months pregnant, and from that moment on, I was thinking of someone else and putting someone else ahead of myself.

So I really didn't get to fully embrace or enjoy that year.

I wouldn't go back.

I'd have no regrets with it or anything.

But I really like to give this experience to the kids because this is a year that means a lot, and a lot of things can change very quickly and it can change the trajectory of your life.

So I think it's important for everyone.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Would you want to share some of that story?

Sure, sure.

So I think it can make a.

Big difference for people.

And by the way, you guys, I am a little bit nudging a very good friend of mine and client of mine to come out of her shell a little bit in her courageous destiny.

I believe that she is here to be a podcaster.

I believe she is here to step in her power in her own right.

And I have so much incredible faith and love for this woman that she is very courageous.

And I want you to know how much.

So basically what it starts from is that I was.

I struggled in high school and I dealt with a lot of self image issues and I had an eye issue and I finally had a surgery that corrected it, and I kind of came out of my shell and I started to make even more friends, and I started to look for attention in different ways based off of just things that.

The way I was raised and stuff like that.

And, you know, I didn't realize at the time that I was looking for attention in the wrong places.

I just saw myself as someone who was just trying to fit in.

And in my junior year, I fell for someone who was a longtime family friend, you know, and stuff.

And to not make it all about him, I just.

I fell for him.

And he told me, you know, why don't you lose some weight?

And I'd be interested.

And, you know, in that moment, I thought, like, wow, yeah, this is going to be great.

I'm gonna do all these things.

And I lost a bunch of weight and worked on myself.

And, you know, I look back at that moment and I really didn't have the tools or knew that that was a form of manipulation or control or anything.

I mean, I just wanted this person's attention because it was the first time I felt.

I always felt loved.

Yes, yes.

And I always felt loved.

My family has always loved me.

But it was a different kind of attention.

And I think you can fall for things very easily and you're, you're at an age where you're very susceptible to people's attention and people's.

What their wants, their desires are.

So I lost a bunch of weight, changed myself for this person, and I did.

I will be honest though, there was some part of me that when I lost all my weight, I liked the attention I also got from longtime friends and people I was in school with all these years who all of a sudden started inviting me to parties or I, you know, I became, I sat at a different table at lunch, you know, people wanted to go out to lunch with me, you know, and I always had really great friends with a best friend 40 years later, you know, so I always was able to make friends, but these were people that weren't in my normal circle.

And I was all of a sudden liking the feeling of people knowing my name in the parking lot, saying goodbye to me, seeing me in the morning, going places, doing things.

So all of that kind of happened at one time.

And then my senior year, it's kind of funny, we did senior portraits the old school way.

You know, they come to the school, you have a mirror and you put your arm on it and you get these traditional pictures.

But I don't recognize who that person is sometimes when I look back at it because I know what I was going through at the time.

I was in this identity crisis almost.

So I felt I fell very quickly for this person who then I became pregnant.

That I found out at my pediatrician's office, of all places, with the chicken packs.

And that was an interesting thing in itself.

And they sent me to my first ever doctor's appointment for adult women.

And I remember just being completely, just devastated, you know, and also nervous and scared.

And I was being sent all these, these signals like I had.

My body was like an out of body experience when it was going on.

Because here in this one time, this one second, I, I became a mom in my head.

I also was sick with chicken pox and the doctor said that the baby wouldn't make it and that I need to think about either a terminating the pregnancy or trying to go ahead forward with it.

And all these things were being thrown at me at one time and trying to figure out how I was going to finish high school and do all the things, you know.

So it was a lot at one time.

So sits with me to this day.

I could feel those emotions.

And I.

First of all, first of all, thank you so much for sharing that story.

I know it's a very vulnerable story to share, but I think that it, it's so.

It so shows like when you take photos and how you capture seniors so amazing.

It's because you can really put yourself back into those shoes and, you know, create the kind of photography you would have wanted or the way that you might have wanted to celebrate yourself in some way and maybe the way you'd want to celebrate yourself now as this version of you, you know, versus that, that former version.

There's a song I have actually been listening to by Miley Cyrus.

It's like an old Hannah Matana song, which is younger you.

It's like, hey, you, hey, younger you.

And it's.

It's really a good song and reminds me a lot of your story and why I thought it would be so powerful for you to share because how many people out.

Are out there that had something happen when they were.

When they were young?

I remember.

I remember my niece, years ago, she.

She was.

It wasn't.

She wasn't a teenage pregnancy, but she got pregnant very young.

And I remember she was going to move forward and she knew that her, her, you know, her baby.

Her baby's father.

I was going to say baby daddy.

I'm like, I don't want to say that.

Say that.

Be more eloquent than that.

But her baby's father, you know, was going to ask her to marry.

Was probably going to ask her to marry him.

And.

And she was a little.

She was like, pretty scared about that.

And I said, well, let me ask you this.

If guilt were a hat and you took it off, would you marry him if guilt wasn't even in the picture?

And she said, no, there's no way I would marry him.

And I think that that is such a big.

People don't understand they have their choice on whether or not to let guilt stay, stop them or slow them down.

I remember having this conversation with you a while back where it was like, guilt is the lowest vibration on the planet next to shame.

And were you able to transform or when were you able to transform that this happened to you into this was exactly what needed to happen.

I'm so grateful for this experience.

When did that transition happen?

Really?

Recently when I was turning 50, right before my birthday.

I've been.

I've been honored to be a part of a bunch of women's groups and all these great networking groups that I get to be a part of and new friendships and things and my coaching with you.

I have always carried this extra weight of guilt.

And I didn't know where it was coming from.

I kind of assumed it was coming from, you know, it's so easy to go back and be like, oh, I had this happen to me and I'm this.

And so like, you feel yourself boxing yourself into certain categories throughout your life, you know, as you age, and it kind of all hit at one time.

It's like I'm been a mom for 31 years, you know, and my youngest is about to graduate high school, and it kind of all hit at one time.

It's like watching her become a senior, realizing it's my last one and my whole life is about to change.

And I know I'm needed, but like, you get that feeling of, you know, who's going to need me or, you know, that mom hat gets taken off and you're like, who's this?

Who's Serena?

Who's this person looking back, back at me?

I'm so used to being a wife, a mom, you know, now grandma and all these things, and they're all wonderful.

But I was sitting with a lot of pain and I didn't know where it was coming from.

And I thought this whole time it was just unresolved, you know, trauma or something.

You know, it's a.

It's very.

It's very easy to go on any kind of platform and hear about where everything takes, you know.

And then I was talking with you and we had talked about.

I had heard somebody talk about guilt and shame, and you had mentioned it, and something about that hit me.

And a speaker you had at one of your events, and she was talking about forgiveness and how you have to forgive people that have harmed you, you know, and stuff like that.

That's for you.

And this whole time I was sitting there going, gosh, you know, something doesn't feel right about that.

And I just couldn't sit with it.

I just.

Something was off.

Then I realized that it was me.

I need to forgive myself.

And when I said that to myself, my long drive home, I just couldn't stop crying because I was like, gosh, I really have been really hard on myself my whole life.

But if you saw pictures of me as a child, I mean, I was free roaming with necklaces and clip on earrings and half clothed, running around thinking I was like, you know, I was it.

Like I was the Queen of the 70s, you know, and.

But then you'd see pictures along my, you know, as it.

As I aged and as I went through high school, you could see the.

The Transformation of the person who lost themselves a little bit and, and then throughout the years, you know, just not stepping forward and not stepping into the light and just taking chances and always being afraid of things.

But that forgiveness was really tough to start working on.

And I'm still working on it.

It's not like a, oh, I did that, you know, check mark.

It's.

Well, it's a, it's a.

So many people think that once they have a breakthrough in something that it's over.

I can't tell you how many people I've coached over the years that have gone through really, really substantial childhood therapy, for example, and have gone through therapy and they're surprised that it still keeps them from taking certain actions.

Right.

It keeps them from some freedom of taking actions.

And what I love to, what I love to share in courageous destiny is there's a way that we can embrace those things about ourselves, Notice them through awareness.

Go, oh, okay.

It's still there.

At least I know what it is.

It's not some secret vampire keeping me away.

I know where it is and, and I don't need to let it stop me anymore.

If I choose sometimes I will.

But I also now have choice.

I have choice because I see it.

And I think that you have been able to see this part of you in a whole new way and that's empowered you to have choice.

And forgiveness is absolutely a process.

It's a process that creates new, you need to create new habit with it.

So say if you forgive somebody but you've been mad at them for, we'll just say for argument's sake, over 90 days, right?

You've created a habit of being angry with somebody.

Okay, so now you've got, in this case, maybe you have a 30 plus year habit of being angry with somebody that's got some serious hardwiring in our brain.

So it's going to come up, you know, when we go to build this new relationship with ourselves and we go to like take a look inward and, and start to generate new emotions, new new habits for ourselves, all of those things, we are working against some of our already existing habits.

And if you know that going in, it's like, okay, well, I'll just keep practicing.

And if you practice for, I don't know, they say, some people say 21 days, some people say 90 days.

I think 90 days to me is a pretty good practice period in my own experience where I feel like my default starts changing.

So instead of feeling anger or resentment at that point, if I'm giving up Guilt or shame, or I'm.

Or I'm forgiving myself, I'm going to go right to the forgiveness part of it.

I start to default over time, and that's the coolest thing ever.

When you realize that you're like, I'm no longer defaulting to the anger and I can keep going.

And this thing might have stopped me, you know, dead in my tracks, or stop me from taking on this opportunity, or in your case, stopped you from maybe doing your podcast or maybe doing, you know, publishing your podcast or speaking in front of a group of women and sharing your story.

It might have stopped you.

But now we see a bigger door open and a bigger door open and a bigger door open where you can start walking through that more and more.

Well, and I want to be authentic to my clients as well.

My slogan is just be you.

I want them to feel comfortable and have their best photo that they've ever had of themselves and best portrait and best feeling in front of the lens.

And I want them to have this authentic experience with me, this fun, memorable experience.

And as I was sitting there about, you know, near my birthday, realizing, you know, I'm telling everybody else to be so comfortable in their own skin.

And I do love myself and I'm very grateful for what I have, and I know I'm lucky in so many ways, but I. I never really was happy with myself until I started to let go of some of these chains and things I went through.

And the guilt and shame, when you mentioned it being the lowest vibration that hit me because I have lived, you know, and everyone has a different where they came from, you know, they have a different origin story, they have a different thing.

But you can have guilt and shame over religion.

You can have guilt and shame over this, that, the other thing.

And I realize now, going back all those years, I didn't have confidence in myself.

I did not have high self esteem when this was all going on.

My dad told me, you don't have to get married, you know, we can help you with the baby, you know, And I didn't listen because I was like, nope, you know, I have to do this.

There's steps that you have to do.

There was shame that I was dealing with because I knew I went and did something and got myself into some trouble, you know, And I never let that go.

I just kept beating myself up and then allowed myself to get further down the line and into a scenario that became dangerous.

And I think what's interesting, to a point, I'd like to bring up to Our listeners today is when you really think about it, if it was a friend of yours that went through the same thing, would you not be the biggest support of that person?

Of course I would be.

Yeah, you wouldn't have even thought twice.

And I think this is a perspective shift that we could easily use in our lives when we're, when we are not forgiving ourselves on something.

Is if I wouldn't give, I at least deserve.

I mean, I deserve, you know, I deserve to be top of my list, right?

But at a bare minimum, I deserve to give myself the same honor and respect and treatment and fairness that I would give a friend.

Right.

And if I wouldn't judge a friend for that, then maybe I have, I can interrupt, you know, some of my automatic thoughts to go, maybe I deserve some grace here.

Grace is one of my favorite, favorite words.

It's so necessary in a courageous destiny because we're going through and breaking through so many chains.

And sometimes we break through and then other times we stop ourselves to look around and go, oh my gosh, what are we doing?

You know, and.

But it's so necessary.

So I'm listening to your story and I know you've done some really great work on guilt and shame.

And I just want to let everybody know that you have the ability to start to give yourself grace and to start to turn some of these stories around.

And when you do, what does that feel like and what becomes available?

Well, it's been really empowering to share and to get it out there and realize how many other people walking along our path have gone through something so similar or have been feeling the same feelings.

And I think for so long you stay closed up and you don't share because it makes people feel uncomfortable.

I've really noticed that it makes other people feel uncomfortable the more you start sharing or people might, you know, sit in it and realize, like, wait, I can relate to, you know, this and this part of her story or this part.

You know, I think it's really important when you're breaking those chains.

And also I have daughters, I have a daughter in law, I have grandkids, I have sons.

I have people around me that also need to realize that you can't have shame and guilt over things that go on.

You gotta let that stuff go.

I mean, otherwise it just sits with you, it eats at you and it just, it's so heavy.

Once you release some of that, it just feels amazing.

And I have a lot of work to go, but like, I'm not gonna, we all do.

I Hope you do something.

I have to laugh because I do run into people that are like I am 100, authentic and genuine.

And I think, how the heck do you know that we have so many.

We, our brain processes 11 million bits per second and we have access to 40 to 50 of those bits.

How do you know?

How do you know?

And like it's a job.

It's a job to really tune into you, to be able to make sure that you're not doing just something for somebody else or generating your life for somebody else.

It can happen like that.

You can do it for a spouse, you can do it for family, you can do it for a mom and dad.

You can, you know, there's so a boss social media now.

Like we are constantly getting input as to what we should or shouldn't be doing all the time.

So to be ourselves does take an amount of cur.

Or amount for.

For sure a lot of courage, but also I think a lot of consciousness to purposefully look, to purposefully see where we are slowing ourselves down.

Well, in life lifes, I mean, every single day it's changes on a dime.

So you know, you can have all these tools and all these things ready to go and then something uproots, something shifts and you're right there again, you know.

But thanks to a lot of what we've talked about even is nothing you're doing is concrete or permanent, things are going to constantly, you know, sway you or make you feel these things or you know, even with guilt and shame, like what you've taught me, you know, letting go of a bunch of it is great and it feels amazing.

But there, those feelings can always pop back up and it's how you, how you face them, you know?

Yes.

Just even that tiny bit of knowing.

I've noticed in the last couple weeks when I feel something coming on where I feel that feeling and now knowing that it really does nothing to help me, it does nothing for me.

Yeah, it's useless.

But to know it, I now can try to swat it away and be like, okay, I don't have time in the day to deal with that.

That's not a feeling I want to feel today.

So, you know, choice, right?

It's choice.

And so you, you get wind of it.

It's like all of a sudden you feel that feeling.

For me, I, I really do know what guilt feels like in my body.

And guilt is insidious.

So if our egos really want us to feel guilt, sometimes it can morph where you feel that guilt, it can move it to your head, it can move it to your shoulders, it can move it.

It's.

It's insidious.

So to be able to do some scans about that every now and again and just kind of take a look around and go, is this.

Is this.

Am I guilty of something?

Am I starting to feel shameful?

And when you do, you can kind of take a look.

And if you want, in those moments, you can start to shift perspectives.

Do I need this right now?

Can I feel something else right now?

And you can pivot to a new emotion, a new thought process.

You can think of something joyful in your life.

You can turn on some music and dance around, and like, I'm getting.

I'm gonna shake it off, you know, just like that Taylor Swift song, Shake it Off.

I'm gonna shake this off right now.

And you can do something to go someplace else in your thoughts and then in your.

If that is the lowest vibration emotion on the planet, guilt and shame.

If you do shake it off, you're increasing your vibration in those moments, your frequency in those moments, and your energy in those moments, which means you're going to be happier.

You're going to be choosing something different.

You're going to get different results that align more with the positive vibe instead.

Of the lower vibe, you know, and that positive vibe thing, that is huge.

It's pivotal.

So for so long, I regretted things, or, you know, you're not supposed to have regrets, so you don't ever want to admit that out loud, you know, and you sit there and you're like, oh, is this a regret?

I have never once regretted being a mom at the age I was.

Yeah, my son is amazing.

Right.

It shaped me.

I'm a young grandma, so it's been kind of fun, too.

You know, my husband and I know get to enjoy grandparents, you know, being grandparents a little bit younger.

But it's weird when you go back and you realize that, like, from such a young age, you, you know, life was about someone else right away, you know, someone else ahead of you.

And so it puts you on that thing.

And I don't have regrets about who I was back then.

I do wish that sometimes I could be.

I could have been a better mom maybe, you know, instead of.

We kind of raised each other, my son and I.

We kind of were like, you know, I was learning things as I went, and so is he.

But he has turned out to be great.

And he's amazing dad, you know, husband and father, and then all my other kids that came that I was Blessed with and the lights that I have.

I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be the person I was if I had not gone through, you know, going through becoming a mom so young and then going into a abusive relationship and then getting out and doing all these things and making a life better for us.

I don't think I could appreciate things quite as much as I do because of what I went through and through coaching with you and through all these groups and sitting in all these groups with these wonderful women and learning and sharing stories.

You really feel the power in that.

Well, I am so grateful that you shared your story with me today on our podcast.

I have two questions left for you.

Are you ready?

Yes.

What is the most courageous thing you've ever done?

Probably getting up and sharing my story.

Yeah.

A week and a half ago, for the first time in front of a group of people, it was.

I remember when we first started working together, just going to a networking event was.

I'm not great at that.

I'm getting better.

You are?

Yes.

Putting myself out there, that was huge.

And it's.

It meant a lot.

I'm so glad you did that.

And then I've got one more question for you.

What is the most courageous thing you have left on your bucket list?

I am putting together a book of sorts.

Wow.

And so I really.

It's huge.

It's kind of hard putting yourself out there and getting all these things together.

But I'm really proud of myself, and I'm learning as I go, and I'm trying to put together a.

Leaving something like a legacy for my kids.

Food is.

It's our love language.

My husband and I, and our kids always want to come back for more, and they want recipes.

And instead of just doing a recipe book, I wanted to put together something that could be, you know, in honor of them and dedicated to them.

So I'm working on that.

Oh, I've got chills.

All right, well, get ready for that in your year.

To your courageous destiny here.

We'll be working on that, and you guys all have to look out for that.

I. I want to let you know that if you want to book Serena for.

For senior portraits, she also does amazing.

Tell us a little bit about who you're looking for to work with.

I'm looking for high school seniors, so that would be parents of juniors right now whose kids are gonna be seniors next year.

I'm also looking for families that wanna capture those memories and also headshots and to put your best face forward.

So I'M here to help you get.

Get ready for that best shot that you can't help but share because you enjoy it.

So.

And you do a lot of groups of people, too.

So somebody's listening to this.

And you've got high school seniors, you know, somebody with high school seniors, you know, somebody who has a business and they're looking to a reef, do a refresh of their company on social media, any of those kinds of things.

Serena is an amazing, amazing, wonderful photographer.

You can also look at some of my headshots.

She's definitely done a few for and we just adore her.

I'm.

I'm so blessed to have you in courageous destiny as a friend and as somebody who's really helped me out with a lot of my own photography.

So, Serena, do you have anything else you would like to share with the listeners today?

No, I'm just appreciative of being here and just stepping into that new, courageous life.

So thank you very much, Kristen.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

Okay, everyone, until next time, live courageously.