Be Your Own Beloved » Be Your Own Beloved – Vivienne McMaster

Looking ourselves in the eyes…

It has been one of my favourite types of self-portraits for a while now. As I look into the camera it feels like it is capturing a really alive and engaged moment. Yet I also can’t help think that a future me will look in her eyes some day (just like I look at older photos like this) and remember where she was, remember what she didn’t yet know and remember what was not yet lost or gained.

In these last couple months of Be Your Own Beloved and Be Your Own Light it has been so fun to share this tool and I’ve got to say it has been one of my absolute favourite days of each course when we get to look into our own cameras and into our own eyes.

I encourage people to really take this photo for themselves, but I can’t help but notice the ways that doing this for ourselves creates connection and community.

Yesterday we did that activity for Be Your Own Light and yet again, it floored me, seeing all of those powerful lit up eyes of the participants.

It is so simple yet so powerful to look ourselves in the eyes with kindness and to see the spark in our own eyes.

I feel like it also allows us to be seen in a way that is really powerful (and yes, maybe scary at first). Being able to look someone in the eyes (yes, even ourselves) is so powerful. The photo creates a moment of connection.

With ourselves.

With one another.

Looking on Instagram (photos are tagged #beyourownlight on Instagram if you want to take a peek) and the flickr group this morning as the photos are still pouring in from yesterdays activity I am (yet again) tearing up in the cafe where I’m working. Being able to look the participants in the eye and to see all of these photos side by side is just amazing. I’m looking each participant in the eyes and send them love (even if it wasn’t in words). I somehow feel like they will receive it on the other end, cause the universe is just like that. It is filling me up with gratitude and love for the brave beautiful people who have gifted themselves with this adventure to see themselves with love.

Yes.

Because we are all worthy of that kind of connection with ourselves and the love the ripples outward and is reflected back at us when we gift ourselves with these acts of ‘showing up’ for ourselves.

{if you feel inspired to look yourselves in the eyes in a photo today, please tag it with #beyourownbeloved on Instagram

or link to it in todays comments as I’d love to see it}

intotheframe800

She grabs shame by the scruff.

Yet speaks to it kindly.

Telling it that it is not welcome here.

And it is time to leave.

It listens.

She walks with confidence, learned slowly but

Now impenetrable,

Not egotistic,

Just a knowing of what she is worth.

She is still soft. She always was.

Naivity combined with street smarts.

Whimsy that can’t be stepped on.

Her softness was never lost.

She doesn’t keep her truth quiet.

As complicated and intricate as it is

She has finally found the words

To speak it.

She has taken all the words and sideways glances

That she once took as truth and rewove

Them into a learning that life as she knows it

wouldn’t have happened without them.

Perhaps she won’t stop being angry, maybe she will.

But her anger reminds her of the importance of

self-love, self-care

And defining your own worth.

She is not yet who I am.

Or perhaps she is but that I just can’t yet see.

So I’ll keep on turning the camera on myself.

Inviting her into the frame.

***

This appeared this morning in response to a photo prompt I gave the Re-Writing the Story class yesterday. I’m experiencing this class differently than I’ve ever experiences one of my classes before….needing to take my own advice that I’m giving to the participants. I’m also so moved by their bravery, the way that they show up in their images and words in this class. So grateful that I get to cheer on and witness people showing up for themselves, taking control of their self-image through the camera and in turn, I get to dig even deeper into my own process of showing up for myself.

The Re-Writing the Story class is no longer offered but was a pre-cursor to the Be Your Own Beloved E-Course which explores a similar theme of creating new stories of how we see ourselves.

Category Archives: Be Your Own Beloved

Looking Ourselves in the Eye

Inviting her into the Frame