There I am, walking down the street.
Thinking about self-portraits (it consumes my mind a lot) and then it happened.
I looked sideways and there it was in my reflection on a car, then the other way in a store window.
My side profile.
Just the glimpse of it took me from a place of empowerment down a rabbit hole back to what felt like where I began.
The voices of negativity flared back up:
You look pregnant.
Look at your belly.
Don’t look.
They said.
I tried to shake them off as I walked down the street but they lurked over my shoulder, tempting me to look sideways again and then they yell at me to look away.
I couldn’t shake them so when I got home I decided I needed to take my camera and my bike and go out to the forest
and meet my side profile, my way.
So I did. That same belly, but photographed in a way that helped me see it with love.
As I mentioned in a recent post, it has become so common that I like a photo in spite of how my body looks in it but not because of it. Since these two moments I’ve been trying out new tools to more directly work with body-love through self-portraiture.
This is where the brand new class starting October 1st was born, Your Beloved Body and I can’t wait to share these tools with you to help you see your body with more compassion too.
The course is designed for folks who have taken Be Your Own Beloved and are craving more exploration into self-portraiture and are inspired to do work around seeing their bodies with more kindness, just as we are.
So if you’d like to come join Your Beloved Body, click here for more info!
If you are just dipping your toes into self-portraiture, I have a class just for you coming this October too: Beloved Beginnings!
Oh, and a November Session of Be Your Own Beloved (and there is a deal for both Beloved Beginnings & Be Your Own Beloved that ends on Monday)!