Author Archives: vivienne

May 19, 2013

A Forest Photo Shoot {Behind the Scenes}

Yesterday I went on a bit of an adventure to meet up with some folks in Washington State to gather, feast and photograph. The intention behind this day being to use some of the photos in an upcoming issue of the amazing magazine Amulet (its a pretty breathtaking magazine isn’t it)!

What I love about gatherings that are also photo shoots is that while on one hand I have a task of photographing the experience, it seems to always end up being a beautiful experience of gathering together, sharing incredible food and exploring a pretty stunning location. Earlier this year I gathered with some folks for this dreamy beach photo shoot. For this one we adventured eastward over snowcap mountains to a beautiful park in the middle of Washington State and found this spot in the woods to shoot.

While of course the DSLR photos are saved for Amulet, I wanted to give you a behind the scenes sneak peek (iPhone style) of this shoot!

May 16, 2013

Feeling the Fear (and doing it anyways)!

On Monday I had the opportunity to do a creativity workshop for the participants of this amazing program: The Self-Care Project.

I immediately said YES when Olive (amazing coach and one of the facilitators) asked me, because as you can probably imagine, that project is so up my alley. I’ve been craving to do more in person workshops so this was a great opportunity to do just that and to talk about self-portraiture as self-care to a group of awesome folks. There have been a few in person teaching opportunities coming my way locally, which has felt really incredible….because this work I’ve been doing for years has been SO online based. For it to cross over to locally AND in-person, not just from me making it happen, but from opportunities coming up is really making me happy.

So back to the workshop…

The day of the event came and along with it MEGA nerves. Now, I’m an introvert but an introvert who loves teaching (maybe its the introverted Leo thing) and feels drawn to do it in person.

It reminded me of when I first started teaching e-courses and how vulnerable it was to put it out into the world. I’m remembering those days and how while it isn’t easy-peasy these days to launch a new class, there isn’t that mega fear there was when I first started.

Here’s the thing I need to remember about that fear. That it is a sign that we are venturing outside our comfort zone, and that is a good thing!

Just like when I’m asking participants in Be Your Own Beloved to come face to face with their inner critic and to tell it:

“I’ve got this. Thanks for trying to alert me to something new and that I’m going outside my comfort zone, but I believe I can handle this, so inner critic…buzz off”

Within the many hours of the day 0f the workshop where I had to say this to my inner critic again and again I realized how much this is a place where there is room to grow, to really show up for myself and I plan to get brave and do it more.

The workshop felt awesome and I loved seeing how once I started, the nerves disappeared and made way for a lovely evening.

I’ve been dreaming of doing some more local Be Your Own Beloved workshops and this class was the spark I needed (yes even with the nerves) to get going on planning it. I’m even dreaming of bringing it to some other Canadian cities and then at some point bring it to the US too.

If you think your city would be one for me to add to the list as I dream up bringing these in person workshops on the road someday, spill the beans!

May 15, 2013

Truth Telling

Each time I’m running Be Your Own Beloved I take part in the class too. I’m so loving how each time I do, even though they might be the same prompts, I experience them differently.

I feel like its important for me to be right there alongside them doing this work as they are bravely engaging in the activities.

But at the same time I also am doing it for myself. Because this self-love journey is so multi-layered. Because these prompts come from my own healing journey and they aren’t meant just to do once and suddenly we see ourselves with love and the inner critic disappears. Because doing these same prompts again I’m amazed at how much new realizations emerge. New layers of the healing.

I try to take my self-portraits with my iPhone as I participate alongside the participants. In this class, more than ever, I really want people to not feel the need to take a ‘perfect’ photo. That it isn’t about having a fancy camera or even knowing how to use it. Its just about showing up in our own photos. Our inner critic can come out in reference to our self-image but also to feeling as though our photograph is ‘enough’.

Yesterday’s photo was one of those ‘digging in deeper’ moments for me. I shared this with the participants in the flickr group:

The truth of today is that I see tiredness in my own eyes, I see me but without a spark.

The truth of today is that I really wanted to retake this and not share it.

The truth of today is that I often do reshoot until I get one that I really feel like I can see myself with kindness in but that today I stopped myself from shooting more because I really want to share more of the ones in between, the ones that are outside of my comfort zones and really show up for you amazing #beyourownbeloved participants and not just with happy jumping photos and feeling sassy. So this is the truth of today.

Now, I think sometimes folks might think that because I do this work that taking self-portraits is easy-breazy, that I’m 100% comfortable with taking photos.

But its the opposite. While its not so much outside of my comfort zone to take out the camera and engage in the act of taking self-portraits, the work of seeing myself with kindness is ongoing and ever evolving. I’m definitely feeling the effects of years of doing this work and am seeing myself with much more compassion lately. Yet that doesn’t mean taking selfies is always easy (mind you….I do make sure I have fun amidst the work of self-compassion).

Like yesterday when I took that one and felt drawn to see her with compassion, with her tired eyes and a shot I might have normally retaken.

So I wanted to share this moment with you. The in between. The days when just showing up in front of the camera and telling the truth of the day is more than enough.

May 8, 2013

A New Be Your Own Beloved Workshop: Creating Self-Care Policies!

A few months ago I came to the place in my creative business where I realized I needed some ‘company self-care policies’, to add some pro-active self care into my week. You can read about that realization here. I quickly realized that while I did need them within my business, I needed to create some life self-care policies too!

Since then, I have been filling my journal with thoughts about self-care tools:

how some things feel like self-care and actually drain me
how to figure out what the best way to nurture myself
what self-care tools aren’t working for me and I need to let go of
what are the simple ways I can cultivate more self-care
how to create ‘policies’ and make self-care non-negotiable yet not shame myself if i can’t fulfill that ‘policy’ during the week

Then one day on one of my self-care journalling Monday mornings (totally one of my self-care policies) I realized that all of these spillings, questions and answers where a collection of really useful tools that might be able to help YOU figure out what self-care policies are right for you.

So I decided to create a new course in the Be Your Own Beloved series! It is a 2 week course (14 days in a row) inviting you to discover some new tools to help you create more space in your life for YOU to thrive. In the first week I have 7 different, really unique ways to approach discovering the self-care tools that will help you cultivate more self-care time in your life. This isn’t a one size fits all approach at all. In the second week we put these tools into practice.

Of course, being a Be Your Own Beloved class there is also a self-portrait element, but it is completely beginner friendly. This course is a great sidekick to the original Be Your Own Beloved class but can also be taken on its own! As with the original #beyourownbeloved class we are going to have a beautiful community energy in this class and will be able to share our self-care discoveries and get inspired by one another.

Oh, and it is super affordable too!

Head on over here for more info about Be Your Own Beloved: Creating Self-Care Policies!

May 7, 2013

Freedom in the Forest

On Sunday I went out to the forest on my new vintage bike, to this spot by a creek that I love to take photos at. Not a soul came by the whole time I was there taking photos which absolutely rocked (and is so rare in the city).

I was shooting a photo for this months She is Three Triptych and brought along a scarf to use as a prop! I remembered these photos by the wonderful Brooke Schmidt taken when she participated in one of my courses, and got inspired to try doing some Brooke-inspired throwing around of the scarf!

Oh my goodness…it was actually super challenging!

Seriously, probably over 100 shots to get a few I loved BUT every single shot was fun to take. I hadn’t brought my remote but I’m sure it would it have made it a lot easier (or maybe not, that scarf moved wild and free and I never knew what it was going to do when I threw it up in the air)!

It was also fun to use the Gorillacam app on my iPhone. You can set it to take a whole lot of photos at once so I set it to 30 shots and just danced around and had fun!

Here are some of my favourites outtakes that came out of this adventure and peek over at She is Three today to see the one that got included in this month’s Triptych!