What if for 7 days you let yourself be seen, to resist the urge to hide behind the lens and bravely become the focus of it?
To start witnessing your life in photos with you in it?
To see yourself with compassion.
To see yourself with curiosity.
To see yourself from a new perspective.
To see yourself outside of the old stories of your inner critic and make room for a new voice.
Are you ready to see yourself?
Perhaps you’re always the one holding the camera?
Or you’re convinced you’re not “photogenic” so you’re never in photos.
Or if you are, you conveniently place yourself behind someone else so you’re not visible.
Maybe you’ve known it’s time to be in photos again for a while but just aren’t sure how to leap that chasm you’ve created or find when you try your inner critic just awaits you.
This class is called SEE Yourself as so much of our relationship to photos is defined by others. What others might think about our photo. What others have said that influenced our relationship to our body and self-worth. This isn’t about the world seeing you (though it will have ripple effects). This is about you seeing yourself without prioritizing those outside perceptions and letting yourself feel seen, feel witnessed, feel supported, feel recognized, by yourself first and foremost.
Yes, this is a selfie class. But the selfie is truly just the medium to reconnect with ourselves. To look at the person looking back at you in the lens and start welcome them rather than resist them. To get curious about how those old stories about your relationship to photo might be wrong and what new stories might await.
The activities in this class are playful yet all you need is a phone to take part. In fact I encourage you to use a phone camera for this class so you don’t put technical challenges in your own way!
I'm presently having a Bring a Friend Sale on this class so you can both register for the price of 1! All you need to do is enter both your email and your friends email addresses in the link you receive to sign up for the class after you sign up.
I’m Vivienne McMaster, your guide in the Be Your Own Beloved E-Courses. I deeply believe in the camera as an ally on our body acceptance journey and have been teaching online classes, in person workshops and taking self-portraits rooted in this philosophy for the past 10+ years.
I teach these classes because I grew up with a deeply critical relationship with my body, one I thought I could never resolve. Until in my late 20’s I started exploring photography and realized it’s unexpected potential for shifting my critical relationship into a compassionate one. I continue to practice what I preach as I now teach these tools that helped me make peace with my body image.
I'm a Certified Coach and Body Trust Provider alongside being a Body Acceptance Photographer.
How is this different from the 30 Day Be Your Own Beloved E-Course?
See Yourself is very similar to Be Your Own Beloved but is a 7 day version or could be considered a warm-up class to the 30 Day Beloved class. The activities are different and don’t overlap so you won’t be repeating content if you take the 30 day class later.
This class is also more gentle. In the full 30 day class we dig into Body Acceptance more as the month goes by. The focus of this 7 day class is really just to get YOU in the photo so I wanted to keep it gentle and ease you into the practice of seeing yourself through the lens. I know it’s a vulnerable thing to start seeing yourself in photos so it’s not necessarily ‘easy’ no matter what!
Is there a community group?
This class is self-paced so it can start anytime and is self paced so there is no community group. If that's what you're looking for, you should definitely join in for the next session of Be Your Own Beloved instead. But what's powerful about doing a class without a group is that you can really do it for yourself first and foremost! Then share if you feel drawn to. You might share on Instagram or sign up with a friend and text your photos to one another each day to have an accountability buddy! Or you're welcome to share your favourite photo from each day with me via email (or share one for each day at the end of class)!
It says the prices are in CAD. What would that be in my currency?
Indeed, I’m Canadian, so the prices in Canadian currency but when you put the class into your cart, paypal will let you know what it will be in your currency before purchasing the class. You can check here to get a sense of what it would be though it may be a slightly different rate via paypal. If you have any further questions about this don’t hesitate to click the contact form and connect with me!
Is this class the same as the Beloved Beginnings Class you used to offer?
While this class was designed as a replacement for that beginner class, the activities are totally different so it’s not a repeat of that class at all! There are two activities that were originally in the Be Your Own Beloved class (that were calling to be included) but unless you took the Beloved class years ago it might be familiar but even then…I bet they will be good to revisit!