The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Failure & Being in Photos!

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a Creative Mornings talk by Kim Werker, Author of the about to be released book Make It Mighty Ugly: Exercises & Advice for Getting Creative Even When It Ain’t Pretty.

If you haven’t heard of Creative Mornings before, I highly recommend checking that out.  It just might be taking place in a city near you.  It is a monthly event, each month with the same subject being talked about by speakers from cities around the globe.  If you don’t have one near you, you can also check out all of the speakers videos online each month.

What a great topic…failure.  It is something we hear more and more about these days as a part of many peoples road to success involves a whole lot of failure and resilience.  Often it is our failures that end up turning us towards the directions we are most meant to take in life.

The approach Kim took was different and I’m so glad she did.  Kim’s talk went outside of the usual dialogue about failure and focused on the stories we tell ourselves about our failure.  She used the example of one of the stories she had about failure being that she thought that she was the kind of girl who couldn’t make thinks look like what she thought they would in her mind and led us through how that story really influenced the trajectory of her life.

Oh how I relate to that one.  As a member of a family with some seriously amazing painting talent (my grandfather is an amazing painter) I have a story that I can’t draw/paint realistic things.  Have I really truly ever given myself the chance to explore working with oil paints and painting something realistic? Actually, no.   I have a story that I can’t do it, without even really giving myself the chance to.  These are the kinds of stories that Kim was getting us to explore.

Where have we decided we were a failure at something without even really giving ourselves a chance to be proven wrong about that?

I highly recommend pressing play and checking out the video of her talk.

It got me thinking about the experience people have in the Be Your Own Beloved class and how almost everyone who joins in for the class has (or has had at some point in their lives) some sort of story that they are failing at taking being ‘photographable’ or being able to see a photo of themselves and like what they see.

Because we think:

We aren’t photogenic

We don’t take a good picture.

We aren’t beautiful.

The camera doesn’t like us.

Wow.

So many of us have these stories that are deep set about how we have failed at being the kind of person who looks beautiful in a photograph.

And no wonder we think that.  Especially if we don’t see bodies like our own represented in the imagery of pop culture & media or in perceived perceptions of what is ‘beautiful’.

It got me thinking about how it affects our experience of being in photos when we have this story of failure in our mind to begin with?

What would it be like if that story was no longer there?

While most people don’t join the class expecting to change that, it does happen.  Often very quickly into the class, it is one story that they break open.  They soon see they aren’t failing at taking a photo of themselves they like.  They aren’t failing at being photogenic.  They aren’t failing at taking selfies.  They just need to step out of the story of being a failure at it in order to make room for that new story.

So I wanted to not only share Kim’s talk with you but to ask you this:

What would happen if you picked up your camera today, turned it on yourself and stepped out of the story of being someone who is not photogenic?  

If you feel inspired to take a selfie today inspired by this idea, please don’t hesitate to use the hashtag #beyourownbeloved (and you are truly welcome to use it on any selfie…it is a way I can find you and cheer you on as you explore seeing yourself with kindness through your camera)!

Or if that feels like a BIG challenge, it is indeed something we work through in Be Your Own Beloved and I’d love to support you on your path to step out of that story of failure!

I’d love to hear what other take aways you get from watching Kim’s talk! What are some of the stories you have told yourself about failure in your life?