Category Archives: Be Your Own Beloved

May 30, 2013

What Message Would You Leave?

I so love coming across messages as I go about my day.

They might be carved into the sidewalk like the ones near my house saying things like: Love, Love Yourself or Why Not?

They might be painted or written with a sharpie, at risk of being painted over or cleaned off. Perhaps not as permanent but there at the exact time we need to see it.

Or sometimes they are very impermanent, written in the sand and will be gone when the tide comes back in or perhaps in chalk on a sidewalk.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, especially the permanent ones.

If I could leave a message, one for people to see for decades to come as they walked down the street…what would that message be? And would I get up the gusto in the moment to actually do it?

I have a feeling I’m pondering this so when the day comes that I come across that drying pavement I’ll just go for it….and why wait?

Why not grab some chalk and write it on the sidewalk today.

It might be no surprise that I would want to write ‘Be Your Own Beloved’ somewhere but am also craving to put more ‘Love Yourself’ out there or ‘You are Enough’ or even ‘Its going to be okay’.

But I wanted to ask you this today. What message would you leave?

What would you want people to read and ponder?

Or even help them get through the day.

What message feels like the one you are meant to share?

So tell me, what message would you spread?

And why not do it today?

For some extra love note leaving inspiration I’ve gotta also send you over to visit the amazing Andrea Jenkins aka HulaSeventy. She so inspired me to do more of these random acts of kindness and leave messages for someone who might need it.

She shares this idea to use stickers and some amazing polaroids of some love notes she helped create.

This story of her family leaving love notes around the city and this one of leaving 50 suns around Portland in the grey season.

The options are kind of endless aren’t they.

Chalk, paint, stickers, notes, posters, marker.

Permanent, impermanent.

How can we not resist but spread the love?

May 28, 2013

Vanity and Self-Portraiture

Let’s talk about vanity!

Now, I’ve been wanting to write this post for a long time as this is probably one of the biggest ways that self-portraiture gets pigeon-holed, as an act of vanity.

I so deeply feel that when people assume taking selfies is ONLY about vanity, we actually disempower ourselves (or one another) from the act of telling the story of our lives through images. I think we also make the idea of seeing ourselves as in these images and feeling good about what we see as wrong.

This has been one of the core values I’ve been building these courses around, taking vanity out of the conversation and focusing in on storytelling, on just picking up the camera and showing up for ourselves.

But is vanity wrong?

I feel like self-portraiture invites us to explore our relationship to our self-image and yes, vanity.

Truthfully, I don’t feel like I can say that ‘No, self-portraiture has nothing to do with vanity’ because I only have my own experience of it.

We all likely have different experiences of it.

For a teenager trying to figure out their identity, taking self-portraits (yes, even of the facebook/myspace profile variety) might be an incredible tool to dive into finding self-confidence and figuring out who they are.

For those experiencing invisibility through gender stereotypes, the whitewashing of media and advertisements and for those who’s bodies don’t fit the mold of what is typically seen as ‘beautiful’ the act of taking self-portraits can be a downright radical act.

For me, having felt invisible for much of my life and not beautiful, taking self-portraits in which the goal is to see my own beauty and even dabble in vanity has been deeply healing.

For a person who has always been seen as typically ‘beautiful’ the act of taking self-portraits might be about telling the story of who she is beyond her beauty.

Is seeing ourselves and liking what we see (especially if that is a new experience) wrong? Is it any less the experience of storytelling if we are telling the story of self-hate turning into self-love and reclaiming a bit of vanity?

So truthfully, I don’t think it is as simple as saying that self-portraiture isn’t about vanity.

But I don’t think the act of self-portraiture is vain.

I do feel like self-portraiture invites us to explore our relationship to seeing ourselves with in a positive way, to see ourselves kindness and that involves liking what we see. To reclaim vanity or to throw it to the wind, whatever our story and our relationship to our self-image needs to shift towards a place of self-love.

I think self-portraiture can be a radical tool to see ourselves with love. That’s what I know.

Whether it is through embracing vanity, getting dressed up and seeing ourselves as beautiful because society (or people in our lives) don’t tell us that and we need to find it for ourselves. Whether it is ditching vanity and focusing on the story in the photo or whether it is focusing on the every day moments or the artistry because that is what calls you. I feel like all of these ways of taking self-portraits are deeply worthy. You are deeply worthy of taking self-portraits for any darn reason you’d like!

What matters is that we chose to pick up the camera and give ourselves the chance to feel worthy, to feel like enough, to see ourselves truthfully in the moment, to even feel beautiful or to feel more than beautiful, to feel in control, to feel empowered…to make space for whatever experience needs to unfold.

There is no wrong or right reason to take a self-portrait in my mind, yes even for the sake of vanity.

What matters is that we give ourselves the chance to be seen with kindness, by ourselves.

So bring it on, any way you like!

If you’d like support on your path to see yourself with kindness, come join me for the upcoming session of Be Your Own Beloved. Class starts November 1st!

May 27, 2013

Cultivating Self-Care

I’m so excited to share this new Be Your Own Beloved class all about creating self-care policies with you! While we dabble in using photography as a tool to document self-care in this class, it is really a class about YOU and diving into what ways you can cultivate more self-care in your life.

Now, this class isn’t about self-care as being just bubble baths and treating yourself to massages…that is, unless that is what you need the most.

It isn’t trying to fit a mould of what self-care should be. It is about listening to what we each really need and honouring that need.

I have gathered up some somewhat outside-the-box approaches to pondering self-care in a way you may have never approached it before. In this class we will ask ourselves lots of questions, spilling our own answers into our journals and through our cameras as we find our own individual answers to what we need more of to take care of ourselves in our lives.

I’ve been using these tools over the past few years to hone in on creating more self-care in my own life and I’m excited to share them with you. Like all my classes, this one isn’t about telling you how to take better care of yourself….it isn’t a list of rules for you to follow to make everything okay. It is about empowering you with tools to find your own voice through, the voice that will guide you to create more self-care in your own life.

It is about helping you help yourself thrive and make more space in your life to fill up your own well.

Class runs June 1st to 14th and while this is the only group session I am planning to run this year (so if you love the community aspect of courses, this is the one for you) this class will be available as a self-paced class too.

Come join us and make June the month where you make space for yourself to thrive.

I thought I’d share a few of the ways I’ve been making space for more self-care in my life (photo-style of course):

What are some of the ways you are cultivating more self-care in your life these days?

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.