What if you were able to see yourself in images and meet yourself with neutrality and really SEE yourself in the image rather than focus in on one part of your body or jump right to critique?

What if you were able to relate to your body with an energy of neutrality?

What would happen?

Body Neutrality is an approach within the body acceptance world seeking to explore relating to our bodies not as seeing our bodies as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but instead, just simply our bodies.

In my own relationship to my body and healing how I saw myself through the lens, at first I thought that the result of doing this body compassion work must be that I’d experience the opposite of my self-hate, right? That I’d have an equally powerful LOVE for myself. So I’d take a photo I loved and feel like I was ‘succeeding’ in this only to feel shaken if I saw a photo I was critical of. It kept me on this rollercoaster of love vs hate of praise vs criticism.

It was then I realized (alongside hearing this term Neutrality used in other spheres of body acceptance community) that LOVE wasn’t the goal. It wasn’t the feeling of ‘high’ when I felt good about my body that was the goal. That wasn’t sustainable and kept me on the rollercoaster.

I wanted off the rollercoaster altogether.

I wanted Neutrality.

Here’s where I tell you that neutrality has been kind of anti-climactic! It doesn’t have that feeling of praise or LOVE but rather is the absence of the critique.

It’s getting off the rollercoaster. It’s feeling like you’re on solid ground with your relationship to your body. It’s noticing when you’re drawn to get on that rollercoaster of body love/hate again and using the tools I share in this class to help you get grounded and rooted in yourself again.

And you know what else awaits us when we get off the rollercoaster of hate vs love? Life awaits us. A life where we aren’t consumed by critical thoughts.

Unlearning patterned behaviour like this is hard and even once we spark our journey of body neutrality through the lens, we won’t completely ditch that way of seeing ourselves within 10 days. But what we will do is learn practices and tools that we can invite into our lives beyond the end of class and continue to build that relationship of body neutrality through the lens and in our lives as a whole!

IN THIS CLASS WE EXPLORE:

• Explore getting off the rollercoaster of seeing our body as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and seeing our body in photos through a lens of Neutrality
• The concept of Body Neutrality and how the camera can help us in that journey
• Get re-accustomed to the feeling of non-judgment
• Tools for stepping out of the good vs bad relationship with our photos and our body

WE DO SO THROUGH:

• 10 Days of self-reflective self-portrait activities
• Exploring a diverse range of how we can emerge into our visual story, especially with this class as we’re breaking out of the selfie box. We go beyond arm’s length selfies yet at the same time all are accessible and can be done with a basic smartphone or camera.

YOU RECEIVE:

• A Pre-Class Exploration to help awaken the notion of Body Neutrality and how it may already exist in your life (without you realizing it) and ways to start noticing where we can open the door to it.
• 10 days of empowering selfie activities in your inbox each weekday while class is in session (with weekend break in between).
• An inspiring E-Book to explore beyond the end of class
• A private Flickr Group to share our photos in.

Cost:

Cost: $79 CAD (Approx $67 USD)

DATE:

November 5-16th, 2018

 

Register for Body Neutrality:

Join in for the Body Neutrality Class here:

If your email address for class is different than the one you have listed in PayPal please let me know via the contact form!

 

 

 

QUESTIONS:

What kinds of selfies will we be taking?

We’ll take a variety of selfies that go beyond just arm’s length photos like shadow, mirror photos or selfie of parts of ourselves. This isn’t a ‘How to Take Selfies’ (though the Selfie Starter Guidebook does cover a lot of that) class but for each prompt I’ll offer you tips, suggestions and inspiration for your selfie-taking and will be available if technical or creative questions arise!

What if I love the sound of the class, but am worried I’m not ‘ready’ for the class yet. Any suggestions? 

Exploring selfies is a vulnerable thing and it’s so common that I get messages from folks after they sign up saying that they are both incredibly nervous but excited. If that’s you…you’re ready. This isn’t a beginner class, but you also don’t need to have selfie experience (I’ll give you lots of suggestions) or already experience body neutrality (as that’s the work we’re sparking in this class) but it’s also more in-depth that my more beginner friendly classes and encourages lots of critical thinking! If you’re not sure if it’s a fit for you, don’t hesitate to email me via the contact form!

That said, if you haven’t taken a class with me yet, you might want to start with the Selfie Starter Guide (an E-Book) or the Beloved Beginnings class (a self-paced E-Course).  There is a session of Be Your Own Beloved running in the new year and if you haven’t taken it yet, I do encourage you to start there. Be Your Own Beloved is a 30-day class and different from the other 2 options in that I get to be your sidekick in the journey, comment on your photos and support you through it…much like I do in this class! But all of those are great places to begin the journey if you’re not feeling ready for Body Neutrality quite yet or if you haven’t taken a class with me before.

How much time do I need each day for the class?

The prompts are designed to take about 5 minutes to read and then about 5-10 minutes to take a selfie. I’ll remind you regularly that these aren’t about taking fancy selfies that you need to take hours for. It’s about showing up for ourselves in front of the lens and going for it.

My inner critic doesn’t show up when I take selfies and I love capturing photos of myself. Can I still take the class?

If you take selfies with ease and never have your inner critic show up and curate what you share…awesome! But in that case, this class probably isn’t for you and you may find yourself thriving more in a more artistic based self-portraiture class or another program. This one really is for folks who struggle with taking selfies and resist being in images (which by the way…is where most of us fall)!

Should I take Be Your Own Beloved first? 

Taking Be Your Own Beloved or Beloved Beginnings first is recommended but not mandatory.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me via the contact form if you have any questions or are wondering it is a good fit for you.

I took Be Your Own Beloved but didn’t do all the activities. Should I take this class?

YES! Absolutely. If you have taken one of the other classes but perhaps didn’t finish all the activities, let’s invite that to be a place of self-compassion. This isn’t about having done ALL the activities first but instead having offered ourselves some space for exploring selfies with kindness either through a class or on our own. Whether it be one photo or a hundred. This class actually isn’t for folks who have no problem taking selfies, it’s more so for those of us who find ourselves facing our inner critic when we do. It’s about letting ourselves have more tools to meet our inner critic there and invite in kindness.