Category Archives: Be Your Own Beloved

September 25, 2013

Your Beloved Body Starts October 1st!

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.

belovedbody200 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)!

July 23, 2013

Dear 35

I feel choked up writing to you.

Because as 36 nears, I just feel so grateful for you and while its always hard to see the big picture in the middle of it, you were the year so much changed.

You were the year I found my way home to a place of love in my own body.

You were the year I found what I feel like is my purpose in the world.

You were the year in which I found the way to help people that most lights me up.

You were the year I really started to recognize the woman in the mirror as a friend.

You were the year I walked through some fire to find those good things.

You were the year I learned to stop hiding my own light.

You were the year I started to drop my armour blocking my heart from hurt.

You gave me more than I could have asked for in one year and taught me that it is okay to ask for even more.

You were the year I stopped believing I wasn’t worthy of love, without having someone prove that to me.

You were the year I stopped standing in my own way.

You were the year I fell in love with hiking.

You were the year I learned to radiate.

You were the year I felt truly believed in.

You were the year that changed me.

You were also the year that doesn’t know all the answers, or what is ahead. You weren’t perfect but you were transformative. You were what so many of those years have been working towards and you have helped me lay groundwork for what is ahead. You didn’t get the 2 wishes you called upon when 35 arrived but girl, you sure did work towards them.

36 is almost here and I feel more trust than ever that this year will open up to even more beautiful learning. I don’t expect 36 to be perfect by any means, but I am seeing all the ways that 35 has laid groundwork for your potential. I expect that I really will have to keep showing up for myself and not getting in my own way and if I succeed in that. You could change everything too.

So 35, its our last day together before I move onto the next year and I just want to say thank you and I loved you (even when you hurt).

With my whole heart,

viv

June 10, 2013

Stepping out From Behind the Camera

When I first started taking self-portraits, even before I started going outside to seek out the beauty around me (and within me) it began even closer to home.

Yup, in my bathroom.

It really is an amazing place to take self-portraits isn’t it? It usually has a mirror and it is the one place where people might not question what we’re doing taking time for ourselves there! It was truly the perfect place to begin. All I had to do was hold up the camera and click.

Soon though, I realized that it had become my comfort zone. Not just taking photos in the bathroom but the way that I took photos, where I often held the camera up to my face and peeked out from behind it or held it in front of me.

I liked my comfort zone but I also felt like there was a lot more one could do with self-portraiture and I wanted to try it. For so many of us who are the folks who are often behind the camera (with our families or as a photographer) as we dabble in self-portraiture, we might still want to be behind the camera (literally) when we take self-portraits.

I knew that when I found out how to get out from behind the camera I would be able to take some cool photos, but I had no idea it would be so much more than that.

So I wanted to share a few of the tricks I found for getting out from behind the camera in my self-portraits in case they would be useful to you and share a bit about the unexpected learning that happened when I let myself step into the frame.

Use the Mirror to See Your Viewfinder

So the first step in breaking out of that comfort zone was to stay in the bathroom (or in front of the mirror) but get out from behind the camera. One of the biggest tricks that helped me burst out from behind the comfort zone was actually the mirror itself. Whereas the iPhone I have now has a front facing camera so I can see myself as I take the photo, the simple point and shoot (and my first iPhone) didn’t. In a way it was good as I had to figure out ways to compose my photo without being able to see it as I was no longer looking through the viewfinder.

All I did to get out from behind the camera using the mirror was to actually turn my camera on myself as I faced the mirror….and what happens is that when we look in the mirror we can see the back of the camera! Now I was no longer behind the camera but didn’t have to shoot blindly (though that is fun too). Of course I did need to take lots of photos, but that is part of the fun!

Put Your Camera Down on the Ground (or a Tripod)

The next step in getting out from behind the camera was to get outside! I started to seek out fun spots at ground level to take a self-portrait. Most cameras have a timer, so getting to know it proves to be so useful.

If you are using an iPhone and you haven’t yet discovered the app Gorillacam, please go get it! Gorillacam is amazing. It allows you to use both a front or back facing lens on your iPhone but with a timer. You can also set the timer to begin in a certain number of seconds as well as set it to take a chunk of photos one after another. This is such a great way to get ourselves in front of the lens as we can move in our photos or try different things with out having to pause between each photo!

Getting outside and finding places to take self-portraits is a beautiful adventure. We might use a tripod or find some make-shift places to prop our camera or iphone but it expanded my self-portraiture adventures vastly to start stepping into the frame.

Let go of Control (in order to find it)

The big realization that came from this process was that by hiding behind the camera in my self-portraits I was wanting to retain control and to see what was happening as I was taking the photo. The big and unexpected discovery that happened when I let go of the control of seeing my self-portrait as I was shooting it was that by letting go of that type of control I actually made room for a different sense of being in my power in taking photos.

I think at first self-portraits can feel really vulnerable and we might think of all the photos we might have seen of ourselves taken by someone else where we felt out of control (or didn’t want to be photographed). I know that is the way I often feel when someone else takes my photo. But with self-portraiture, especially when we let go of visual control from behind the lens and we step fully into our photo, we might find a sense of freedom and at the same time a new sense of control.

When we are in the photo, our hand are now free and we get to be in our bodies. I know when someone takes a photo of me I tend to not feel in my body but I was amazed to discover that when I was in front of the camera (while still being the photographer) I was in control of it all. By stepping into the frame I got to find my way into being in my body. Often this is a little dance I do before the timer starts to just feel rooted or often it is that I can create some movement in the photo itself. When we free our hands from the camera we invite our body to move and create a space where we get to be the subject of a photo, but our way.

It felt like freedom to me yet at the same time I felt even more in control of my self-image than when I hid behind the camera!

Of course there are truly no right or wrong ways to take a self-portrait so sometimes I still like to take a self-portrait with my camera in the photo but I no longer feel like I’m hiding behind it! Do you perhaps have a similar comfort zone of having your camera in the photo with you or not letting go of looking through the viewfinder when you are taking self-portraits? Comfort zones are awesome and my goodness in the process of self-portraiture we sure do need to find them, but I hope if you are craving to step out from behind the camera in your self-portraits that these ideas will be useful to you!

June 6, 2013

Books to Inspire your Be Your Own Beloved Journey!

I’ve got my nose in a book these days.

In fact lately I can be found walking down the sidewalk reading at the same time (you know a book is really good if you can’t even put it down when you walk, right)!

The books inspiring me these days are all about finding our way to self-love and finding peace with our body and our inner critic….essentially books to inspire me (and you) on our journey to being our own beloved.

The book that has me all consumed this week is Coal to Diamonds, a memoir by Beth Ditto and co-written by one of my favourite memoirists Michelle Tea. Here’s one of my favourite paragraphs in the book to give you a glimpse of it!

This is just the beginning of a body-positive book kick that I’m starting, perhaps even making this the summer of reading body-positive books. If you haven’t heard the term body-positive before…it refers to learning to love your body here and now (not focusing on our happiness or self-love being something that will happen only if we change ourselves).

So much of the reading of body-positive or healthy-at-every-size reading I’ve done has been online and to be honest I hadn’t realized how many of the creators of these same websites I had been reading had incredible books out there.

The next book to be devoured from cover to cover was Two Whole Cakes by Leslie Kinzel and oh my gosh this paragraph changed my life forever (and the book is SO good).

While my body-positive approach is subtle within the Be Your Own Beloved classes, it is one of my core values. I want you to know that you don’t need to save self-portraiture until you are a certain size or until you make some sort of change you are seeking. In fact it is most useful now, to start seeing yourself with kindness today…we truly don’t need to wait for anything before we start seeing ourselves with love….it is actually indeed available to us in this very moment if we show up in it and choose to.

Part of my intention to read more body-positive books is to keep doing my work, to deepen my own feeling of worthiness and being at home in my own body. So I thought I’d share with you some of the books on my summer reading list! One thing helping this book adventure too is…the library! In Vancouver we have this amazing iPhone App for the library where you can use it to put books on hold and I’m going wild with it. Even if your library doesn’t have an App, it might have some of these books (so you don’t even need to spend money to get reading)!

So maybe body-positive books feel like something you’d like to explore so I wanted to share some of my favourites with you. Do you have some big reading plans for the summer (fiction? non-fiction? your own theme for summer reading?) or some body-positive books I haven’t listed that you loved? Do tell!

Oh, and if you’re in for some adventuring into self-love through self-portraiture, I have a new session of Be Your Own Beloved coming this August!

1. Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance by Rosie Molinary.
2.Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight by Linda Bacon
3. The Unapologetic Fat Girl’s Guide to Exercise and Other Incendiary Acts
4. Two Whole Cakes: How to Stop Dieting and Learn to Love Your Body by Leslie Kinzel
5. Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir by Beth Ditto
6. Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body by Kate Harding and Marianne Story.

7.Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion by Virgie Tovar

8. Learning to Love Yourself, Revised & Updated: Finding Your Self-Worth by Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse

June 5, 2013

The Day I Learned to Dream Big

I remember the day that I learned to dream big.

I wasn’t naturally a big dreamer. In fact I had concluded that mediocrity was where I was destined to go in my life (you know, that part of your 20’s where you just can’t see past where you are). I was at a point in my life where I was barely coming out of the depression that I was struggling with in my late 20’s. I was just at that point in my life where I was starting to take photos with my very basic camera phone (of the era of 6 years ago…remember those) and truly just a month or two after I had taken my first photo in which I felt that spark that photography was something I wanted to explore.

I had been a postpartum doula for a couple years and I loved the work. The moment I learned to dream big was when the call came telling me who my next client was.

That call, on the side of the road waiting for the bus to come was the moment the glass ceiling of possibility was shattered.

My next client was someone well known, very much so. She was also someone who’s work I had been a big fan of since I was in my early teens.

Yup, here’s the point where you might be like ‘What Viv? You aren’t going to tell us who? Alas, I’m not gonna tell you who she is cause it is really not the point of the story and I have wanted to share this moment with you but want to do it in a way where I am respecting her privacy….but lets just say you have definitely heard of her.

She was also one of the first musicians I ever bought an album of (it was actually the era of tapes).

I thought of that girl going to the mall and getting that tape and how much my sister and I listened to it and let our voices soar with it.

Then a decade later, waiting at a bus stop, hearing that same woman’s name as my upcoming client.

Now, here’s the thing. This moment didn’t burst the glass ceiling of my expectations because I had the opportunity to work with someone famous. It wasn’t as though this was going to be the highlight of my life. It wasn’t about them even. It was that this was the moment when I realized that I truly didn’t know what life held for me and that it might be far, way far, beyond my bubble of expectations.

Because this was so outside the realm of the small bubble of the life I thought I would live. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would get to work with this incredible woman who’s music had been serenading me my whole life.

It was that moment when I heard the universe loud and clear. Don’t put your life in a box, because nothing is impossible and you can’t predict the amazing things that could happen to you if you open up to possibility.

I had worked with one very well known person before (I just can’t stand the word celebrity when referring to these incredible down to earth women) and loved being able to work with these women in the post-partum time of their lives and giving them the same support as I would any other client. It was beautiful to just get to relate to them not as fan to artist, but to support them as women and mothers and get to see their sweet, humble, kind selves that they truly are.

Working with her was wonderful, she was kind and so down to earth. The day of my last shift with her was the night I turned 30. As I brought her sweet baby into her room for her middle of the night feed she wished me a happy birthday and it felt like a blessing as I was at the precipice of letting go of a truly rough decade of my life and left me hopeful for the one ahead.

The next day, the day after my birthday, a flower truck pulled up to my house and a man got out with the biggest bouquet of flowers I had ever seen. It was for me. From her and her family wishing me a happy birthday.

Getting the call months before that I was going to work with her opened me up to the possibility that I didn’t know what life held for me and then to get these flowers, grand, bold and full of abundance filling my house with beauty felt like a YES.

Yes.

You don’t know what life holds for you.

Yes.

You can’t predict what is ahead, only to be open to the possibility of it.

To stop holding up a NO to my own life.

Now of course, this moment didn’t instantaneously change the old patterns of dreaming small, but it woke me up and was a catalyst in making changes and not holding my life hostage from goodness and possibility. From my experience, waking up to dreaming big is actually a lot of work. It is a lot of showing up for ourselves and doing things that feel absolutely scary. Then once you go for one big dream, there is always another one, an even bigger one, awaiting us. So in a way, not thinking big for myself was self-protective…as it is hard scary work to dream big. But so worth the risk.

I still have the roses from the bouquet that I dried to remind me of that moment.

To remind me of the unknown beauty of life that is yet to unfold.

Even almost 6 years later I hold that moment close when I stopped believing my own stories of mediocrity and stopped believing that I wasn’t worthy of a beautiful life

And started to let life unfold.

There is still so much to unfold in my life (and yours) and I’m holding on to the trust that we don’t know what is going to happen and that it could be even better than we could imagine.

Have you ever had a moment when something happened that was so far out of the realm of the unexpected that you had to stop and listen and wake up to the possibility of what could be?