Body Peace

Are you ready to make peace with your body? 

To see yourself and your body with more compassion in photos and in life?

To speak to yourself with more kindness?

To cultivate your own protective & inquisitive inner voice outside of your inner critics voice and perception?

To release body judgement and settle into a more peaceful relationship with your self-image?

To change the lens you see yourself through?

We are so often told to change those parts of ourselves we struggle with, but what if we could find a way to see it with compassion, even neutrality (and by that I mean not even feeling triggered by it anymore). 

Taking self-portraits can be an invitation to take charge of the way we see ourselves. For so many of us, being in front of the camera can be incredibly vulnerable.  Yet when we are the photographer as well as the subject, there is the potential for something incredible to happen.  We find ourselves being the narrator of our own story.

In the original Be Your Own Beloved class we explore how self-portraiture is so much more than an expression of our physicality and invite in personal storytelling and expression.  We explore looking through the lens with kindness and compassion and even within the 30 days of Be Your Own Beloved, truly incredible transformations occur.

What if we took it beyond 1 month and gave ourselves a whole year to spark a new relationship to self-compassion and making peace with our bodies?

What if we dug even deeper into the tool of the lens to help us dismantle the ways that we have been putting unrealistic standards on our body (and our images) and explore meeting the person awaiting us in our images, ready to be seen clearly?

What if we offered ourselves a whole year to let ourselves learn tools for loving our body, without having to change it in order to love it? What if we gifted ourselves with the community and connection to help us rise up with resilience when we’re having a tough body-love day as well as celebrate our successes of finding space for peace and non-judgement?

Here’s what happened for some of the folks in the 2016 program:

• Reclaimed their power back and cultivated a practice of listening in for their inner voice
• Took photos they couldn’t have imagined taking of themselves before class began
• Experienced gentle yet profound shifts away from their inner critical dialouge and experienced this with an ease that helped it feel like they were creating a new normal rather than trying to make a quick fix.
• Show up on their websites using full body images of themselves, headshots they are proud of and are learning to be more visible in their own lives.
• Built a relationship with body neutrality and have found themselves feeling less charged (and sometimes even non-judgemental) about their body in photos and in their life as a whole

What might a year of exploring making peace with how you see yourself through the camera help you stand taller in your life, help you feel more visible and more seen?

How would it help you care less about what other people think and feel more empowered and rooted in how YOU see your body? 

I’d be honoured to go on this journey with you as your guide to using the camera as a tool not only towards making peace with our bodies, but also as a tool to re-connect with ourselves and rediscover our own voice outside of our inner critics voice.

THE CORE PROGRAM INCLUDES:

In the Full Body Peace Program you get to experience:

• 8 Powerful 15 Day E-Courses (and E-Books of the content of each class)
• Our Private Flickr Group to share our photos in with the entire Body Peace Group
• A Private Facebook Group for conversation and inspiration
• 2 One-on-One Mentoring Sessions with Vivienne during the year
• 4 Group Calls (every 3 months) with your Body Peace Cohorts, led by Vivienne
• A Virtual Retreat and Community Gathering to bring our year to a close
• 2 Body Peace E-Books: Your full Body Peace Manual (containing the curriculum for all the classes) & Your Body Peace Reflections E-Book which we work through together in December

 

JOIN BODY PEACE 2017

Investment: $899 CAD (Approx $678 USD)

 

 

There is a second option for those of you who’d like to access the Program Curriculum and Private Flickr Group but would like to opt-out of the Mentoring, Group Calls and extra support and inspiration.

The Body Peace Essentials Option Includes:

• 8 Powerful 15 Day E-Courses (and E-Books of the content of each class)
• A Private Flickr Group to share photos, connect with the Body Peace community and receive support from Vivienne
• A Virtual Retreat and Community Gathering to bring our year to a close
• 2 Body Peace E-Books: Your full Body Peace Manual (containing the curriculum for all the classes) & Your Body Peace Reflections E-Book which we work through together in December
  
  

JOIN BODY PEACE 2017 ESSENTIALS OPTION:

Investment: $599 CAD (Approx $452 USD)

 

 

If you aren’t sure which option is right for you, don’t hesitate to connect with me via email and I’ll help you ponder the best option for you.

Ready to find out more about each class? Here are the details!

Compassionate Conversations

The Compassionate Conversation E-Course invites to  spark a dialogue with yourself through the camera, which is at the heart of the work we’re doing throughout this year. We make room for the questions that arise and break the silence of our relationship to our own compassionate inner voice and work towards cultivating a more non-violent communication with ourselves. It’s a powerful way to spark this year as a whole and to reconnect with ourselves.

Class runs January 1st-15th, 2017

Cultivating our Inner Voice

For many of us, the voice that arises when we see photos of ourselves is based in our inner critic but that doesn’t mean it’s right. A pivotal part of the work this year is welcoming in another voice outside of our inner critic. This E-Course invites us into the process of listening for and cultivating our inner voice. By doing this we build resilience and are able to offer ourselves an alternative to our inner critic’s perception. It’s a pivotal and powerful part of this process!

Class runs February 1st-15th, 2017

Selfie Compassion

The selfie compassion class is a powerful journey into self-compassion. We shake up the idea that this body peace journey is something we have to ‘get right’ or do perfectly. We dig into what self-compassion really means (hint…you can’t get it wrong). We work on cultivating a practice of self-compassion and forgiveness and open up to seeing ourselves in a new way.

 

Class runs March 1-15th, 2017

Our Body Stories

In this program we’re listening to our bodies stories and honouring them. We’ll deepen our well of self-compassion including the places we don’t yet see ourselves with kindness.  As well, we’re going to begin to deconstruct the ‘story’ element of the way we see our bodies and will start to choose the story we want to define our body love by.

Class Runs May 1st-15th, 2017

Claiming Space

A big part of learning to love our body is to let it be seen, by ourselves! Yet we’re programmed to try take up less space, to make ourselves smaller, to not be TOO MUCH. We’re claiming space and asking ourselves why we think it’s selfish to take selfies and claim time and space in our lives for this powerful self-care tool.

Class runs June 1st-15th, 2017

 

Empowered Visibility

A way that selfies help us heal is by letting ourselves be seen, through our own voice and lens. In this program we’re exploring the ways we can come out of hiding. We’ll also explore our relationship to invisibility and visibility and claim space to be visible in our own lives and photos. We’re going to get brave and bare our arms, tell our truths and explore the ways we feel seen by ourselves and others as well as our comfort zones and the ways we yearn to be seen.

Class runs July 1st-15th, 2017

Photo Resilience

Self-compassion isn’t some place we get to and everything is perfect. It’s an ongoing process of celebrating the love that we do find and honouring the ebb and flow of this kind of learning. To build resilience for supporting ourselves on the tough days and getting back up when we fall. We’ll dig into creating our own tools for self-compassion and body-compassion resilience. Indeed, these activities might push us outside of our comfort zone, but they’ll also help us get back up!

Class runs September 1-15th, 2017

Embody

In this program we’re going to invite our whole selves into the frame. For many people this can be the most vulnerable type of selfie we take so we’re giving it the focus. We’ll be tying in claiming space in our photos, movement and letting ourselves step proudly, boldly and fully into the frame. It will be a powerful way for us to claim space and to let our stories be heard.

Class runs November 1-15th, 2017

We are all inherently worthy of returning to a compassionate relationship with how we see and feel in our bodies.

Yet so many of us find photos to be a place where we are critical of ourselves, where we feel shame or embarrassment if someone posts a photo of us. It is BECAUSE we feel this vulnerability that photos can be a place of reclamation, of healing.

This program invites you to let that healing emerge as you create a practice of seeing yourself with kindness through the camera.

Let’s reclaim our power back from all the other voices that tell us how we should be, what we should look like. Especially from that voice that tells us that everything will be different if we are different, if we are better.

Our bodies are not inherently wrong because of the shape they form into. Our bodies don’t need to change in order to be loved by us. Our perception of them does.

THIS PROGRAM WAS CREATED FOR FOLKS WHO:

• Are tired of seeing photos of themselves and reacting with shame or self-hate and are ready to transform that relationship.
• Folks who are eager to put the ideas they’ve heard around Body Acceptanc into action in a creative, playful and empowering way
• Want to learn to drop those ‘I’ll love myself when I…” stories and learn to cultivate more self-compassion through the lens right now and throughout the coming year.
• Have sparked their self-love journey through the Be Your Own Beloved class or their own relationship to selfie self-love. Or you’ve been wanting to take the class and spark this journey but would like to take it slower than 1 month and give yourself the space to slowly shift towards love.
• Are seeking continued support in helping them show up in front of the camera as an act of self-care and reclaiming of the way they see themselves.
• Have a basic camera they are comfortable using which can absolutely include a phone. This isn’t about having fancy gear and we can choose to see ourselves with kindness through any lens.
  
  

 

The Be Your Own Beloved classes are known for having a really unique and powerful community to them, described by a recent participant as a ‘culture of kindness’. People show up and support one another with the same kindness they’d like to receive and are learning to offer themselves. Participants come back to the original Be Your Own Beloved class and take the class again for that accountability, that support that helps lift them up and offer themselves more bravery in choosing compassion over critique than they could do alone.

This is one of the primary reasons I initially wanted to make a year long program, so we can have that continued support and a safe space to share the ebb and flow of learning to see and treat ourselves with compassion through the camera and in our lives in general. The community in Body Peace, even without the classes, is worth every penny of this program.

Here are some of the participants experiences of our Beloved community: 

I’m Vivienne McMaster and for the last decade, I’ve been asking myself those questions and creating a body of work that will help you find your own answers. I’ve been teaching self-compassion based self-portraiture classes for the past 5 years and created this program for you with a focus on exploring body neutrality and making peace with how we see ourselves.

Self-portraits have been a pivotal part of finding a peaceful relationship with my own body and I’m excited to  provide a space for compassionate community and help you show up in creating your own peaceful relationship with yourself through the camera.

Come join us! While the program doesn’t start until January 1st, 2017, I have a pre-class exploration for you to do leading up to the start of the year that will be a resource we’ll continue using throughout the year to support our journey (hint…it’s all about gathering images that help us feel seen).

Click here to join the Full Program or join the Essentials Option above!

Do I have to have taken Be Your Own Beloved?

You don’t have to be a Be Your Own Beloved alumni to join in, nor do you need to be a selfie expert or even comfortable with selfies yet. We’ve got time to let that unfold during the year. It’s a good plan to have taken a class of some sort from me or to have explored an E-Book in depth so you’re familiar with my approach (which is playful and fun but also gently encourages you outside your comfort zone) especially since this is a longer program. The program was initially created with alumni in mind but we had lots of folks who are new to Be Your Own Beloved in last years session and they did indeed thrive, so it isn’t pivotal to have taken the original class.

Of course, feel free to connect with me via the contact form if you’re wondering if its the right fit for you.

Can I join in for 1 class this year? 

In 2016 I did have the option of taking programs individually but this year the classes included in the program are only available for participants. The classes are more in depth, a deeper dive into body acceptance and while folks got great benefit from doing it individually, this year we’re focusing in on the year as a whole and the gentle yet powerful transformation this program can bring as you explore it as a whole.

What if I’m in the Year Long Program and can’t join in for one of the 15 day programs?

The benefit of having a year long program is that there is time! Say you plan a trip for one of those 15 day stretches, no worries. The classes are spaced out to have time in between to keep digging into it. Folks in the year long program with be doing them during those 15 days as well as at their own pace during the 4-6 weeks before the next program begins.

Why is the program listed in Canadian Dollars?

The class is listed in Canadian Dollars because well, I’m Canadian! I make sure to list the approximate US Dollar beside it because I know a lot of folks who join in are in the United States. I also know that we have folks joining in from around the world. Last years program had a number of folks joining us from Australia and the UK and the Be Your Own Beloved class is in general have had folks joining in from France, Germany, Brazil, Japan, New Zealand and so many more places around the world. So there is not one ideal currency to charge, so it makes the most sense to me to charge my own currency.

Lots of us may be used to paying in different currencies, but if you’re not…don’t worry, it’s super easy. In fact Paypal will actually just do the work for you and let you know what the price will be in your currency. Plus, if you’re from the US, this actually works in your benefit right now as you can see from the approximate US Dollars listed beside the CAD. And if it feels like a roadblock to joining for you to pay a different currency, don’t hesitate to send me a message and I can send you paypal invoice in US Dollars instead (but do try the paypal button first, it’s really way easier than you’d think).

Could I do a payment plan?

I’m more than happy to set up payment plan for you on an individual basis. Click the contact form to connect with me!

Will you offer this next year?

It would be my dream to offer this every year! That said, this is the second year running Body Peace and at this point, I don’t 100% yet know if it will be offered every single year. If you’re drawn to take part this year, come join us! Or if it’s feeling like a big jump and you haven’t taken Be Your Own Beloved yet, I recommend starting there!

 

Click here to join the Full Program or join the Essentials Option above!