From Sideways Critique to Sideways Compassion

sideways

Sometimes, in a sideways glance in a store window it reappears…that critical voice with oh so much to tell me about what it thinks.

It feels like my weak spot, the way my inner critic knows it can pounce on me. The place I have yet to really dig into self-compassion work.

For a while I figured if I avoid looking in the window it might not attack but then again, by not engaging with it I’m not necessarily healing what I need and wanted to. But it didn’t release me from the critic. Instead it felt like I was just choosing fear.

But I’m finding that those places where our critics knows it has a way in can become the way in to change that relationship too. Getting angry at our critic or avoiding it doesn’t help us change. But creating a dialogue with it (and one I can use the next time it happens) does help.

So I’ve been looking sideways in the mirror or the store window, ready with kinder words than I’m used to finding there. Ready to tell my inner critic that I hear it, but I’m writing a new story of how I see myself…sideways.

Slowly but surely it feels like the critic is becoming aware that I’m sending beams of love sideways and it might not be the blind spot it used to be.

For one of this weeks activities in the Be Your Own Beloved class we’re claiming space. It’s one that most definitely pushes folks outside of their comfort zone as so many of us, consciously or unconsciously make ourselves small.

In a session of Be Your Own Beloved earlier this year (I like to participate alongside the folks in the class) I was also focused in on my belly as the part of me I wanted to make peace with and shared this image where I invited my belly into the frame rather than cropping it out.

This time, I knew I wanted to take a selfie from the one perspective I rarely do, the one that feels most vulnerable. The body profile shot.

The belly in particular is one of my most vulnerable parts to notice in a photograph (and yup, where my critic arises in that context too). But the sideways love I’d been working on needed to happen through the camera for me.

So I went for it, vulnerability and all. I got a number of them and as I decided which one to share I had to pause and notice how much I wanted to share the ones that made me look a bit smaller (as a slight turn or movement can make us look quite different in a photo despite it being taken at the same time). This time I didn’t want to choose that comfort zone so I shared the one above on Instagram.

Making peace with my belly is still a work in progress (as self-compassion is anyways, it’s not somewhere we succeed and get to never to struggle again…it’s ebb and flow) but by inviting myself into the frame and sending myself love…sideways…the change is happening.

I know this is what changes those critical moments, that the more I create a new compassionate visual dialogue between myself and my body, that voice gets stronger & sings louder than the critical voice.

For those of you who have been wanting to step into using the tool of photography as a doorway to self-compassion, the next session of Be Your Own Beloved is open for registration. No photo experience or comfort level with taking selfies necessary…in fact I created it for those folks who don’t feel comfortable in front of the camera yet.  The class will help you make that change! 

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