After decades spent photographing celebrities, athletes, CEOs and artists, Valley resident Phyllis Lane learned that the most revealing moments usually happen when people stop performing.
“Image is what we project,” she says. “Authenticity is what remains when there’s nothing left to prove.”
That insight is at the heart of her new book, Living the Flow. Rather than offering a formula for fixing your life, the book helps readers recognize where they are forcing, resisting or losing themselves in pursuit of who they think they should be.
“I didn’t write this book because I figured life out,” Phyllis says. “I wrote it because life kept asking me to let go of who I thought I needed to be.”
As relationships, business and dreams changed, what she discovered was that surrender is not giving up. It is releasing the belief that everything can, or should, be controlled.
Living in flow does not mean everything is going well. It means meeting life as it is, including the delayed flight, difficult conversation, unexpected change or relationship that is not what you hoped it would be.
Resistance asks, “Why is this happening?”
Presence asks, “Now that this is here, how do I meet it?”
The book also explores a question many people wrestle with: When should we keep pushing, and when is it time to let go?
Phyllis believes the answer often lies in the energy behind the effort.
“Persistence comes from love. Force comes from fear. Am I creating from inspiration or proving my worth?”
Her years behind the camera helped shape these lessons. Photographing high-profile people revealed that success does not eliminate insecurity, fame does not guarantee fulfillment and nearly everyone carries the same private questions: Am I enough? Am I on the right path? Am I living authentically?
Beneath the titles and public images, she found a universal desire not simply to be admired, but to be seen.
It is a fitting message for a Style Issue because Phyllis believes true style has very little to do with what someone wears.
“Style isn’t what you wear. It’s how you move through the world,” she says. “It’s kindness without performance. Confidence without comparison. Simplicity without needing attention.”
That is ultimately what Living the Flow offers readers: permission to loosen their grip, trust themselves, and stop treating life as a constant effort to become someone better.
“You don’t have to become someone else to experience peace,” Phyllis says. “You simply have to stop abandoning yourself.”
Photography taught her how to see. Life taught her how to be. Her new book asks readers to do both, not by reinventing themselves, but by returning to who they were before they believed they had something to prove.
IG @phyllislane