Inviting in our Beginners Mind

For 8 years now I’ve been going to the same dance class almost every Tuesday led by my wonderful teacher Jana. Each time she reminds us how the hardest part if often just showing up and that she’s so glad we are there. She also reminds us that in Nia (the kind of dance class it is) we use our beginners mind. We show up each time, not thinking we need to achieve perfection or even know what the next dance step is, even if we’ve done the routine before.

We show up with our beginners mind, meeting the moment and connecting with our body open to the sensations, the emotions, the wonder of the moment.

It takes the pressure off of our shoulders to get it right. Letting go of those expectations and just letting my body move has been a pivotal part of healing how I feel in my body.

If you’ve taken a class with me before, I’m sure you know exactly how this has all influenced both the way I take photos and teach about them. Every single time I pick up the camera I try to meet it with a beginners mind.

With curiosity. With wide open expectations.

I pretty rarely plan out a photo though I may have a starting point or general idea. But what happens in the process is all spontaneity, all exploring what the potential of the moment is and well, all magic.

Even 10 years into my own photo journey that’s how it feels every time I see the world through a camera. Like magic.

And that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know the left brain information to learn the how and why about photography, but I try and approach that with a beginners mind too, with curiosity.

I wanted to share about this because before I got into photography and especially exploring self-portraiture as a tool for self-compassion. I thought photography was intimidating and overwhelming. I thought I had to know everything about my camera in order to take a great photo. I thought that it was my technical skills that would help me see myself with kindness through the camera. But I was wrong.

It was being willing to approach it with a beginners mind.

Being willing to approach ourselves with a beginners mind.

I credit that beginners mind with the fact that I’m still so smitten with seeing the world through the camera and imagine that I will feel that way the rest of my life. I also credit it with helping me heal how I see myself. Because when we allow ourselves to set down expectations of what our photo or ourselves in a photo ‘should’ look like, that’s where we truly get to meet ourselves and the world around us with the wonder that the camera so beautifully translates.

Over these past 5 years of teaching the online photography classes it is honestly the biggest roadblock I see people put in their own way. That pressure to know exactly what our photo will look like before we take it and then achieve that photo. It’s getting so caught up in our left brain that we block out our right brain wonder or don’t even give ourselves a chance to experiment with it.

This also relates to when we’re talking about our relationship to how we see our bodies in photos, doesn’t it. We probably all have a rock solid opinion of how we see ourselves, likely based on some outtakes of ourselves we’ve seen and old stories about ourselves. But that is kind of the opposite of using our beginners mind.

What if, for ourselves too, we met ourselves with the playfulness and curiosity that we would if we were seeing ourselves for the first time?

What if we were willing to begin again and again each time we find ourselves caught up in those old stories?

What if we were open to what lies beyond our pre-concieved notion of how we look in a self-portrait and were willing to take LOTS of photos (including outtakes) in the process of learning to se ourselves with compassion.

That’s what’s at the heart of this work at Be Your Own Beloved. It always has been even though I haven’t quite put it into words to share with you in this way before. It’s especially on my mind this week as I’m teaching the Beloved Beginnings class with an amazing community of folks.

The Beloved Beginnings class is always available as a self-paced class but if you’d like to join in on a community class, the 30 day class is always taught in community so you can experience the support of both myself and your amazing peers in this class. Come join the Be Your Own Beloved starting July 1st!

Both of these classes were created with folks who aren’t necessarily comfortable in front of the camera and are wanting to make space to explore selfies as a tool for self-compassion. And they all have this energy of playfulness and using our beginners mind at heart!