Category Archives: Self Love

February 26, 2013

Radiate

So, its been a week now since I landed back here in Vancouver after an amazing adventure on the Oregon Coast.

In the week since I’ve been home I think I’ve written about 10 draft posts, none of which felt right to press publish on. I’ve been to enough gatherings and retreats before that I know one often needs a week or so to simply digest the experience and let all that happened soak in. I have also been putting a lot of thought into how to share this incredible experience…in a way that doesn’t invite people to have feelings of being left out, but rather to share a bit about this experience in a way that I hope makes you want to start connecting and cultivating creative community for yourself.

Because we are all deserving and oh so worthy of being encircled by creative comrades.

I was gathered there with some fellow creative entrepreneurs. We came from a variety of mediums (product designers, painters, coaches and photographers) and many of us didn’t know each other before the weekend, gathered together by our connectress Kelly Rae.

I’ve journaled so much about this experience on the coast since I’ve been home. Of feelings of possibility and hope, of dreaming big. I came home from this gathering feeling widely inspired and more clear than ever about my purpose and my passion.

There are a few stories I’d love to share with you about this gathering (more to come).

Photo by Andrea Scher

One of the most powerful parts of the gathering for me was the idea of the ‘Radiate Sessions’. Kelly Rae brought forth this idea as something we could offer each other during the weekend. The idea being that for that each person would have a chance to be the focus of a Radiate Session and for that time we would all focus our support and listening on that one person.

It is really actually a simple idea, but how often do we really get the chance to do this? For so many of us creative types our brainstorming is in our head or in our journals. But for this half hour, we had 9 other creatives listening intently, ready to offer us guidance or support (or whatever we needed).

It was incredibly powerful to have that space to ask for support and encouragement. I was surrounded by incredible women, most of whom are a few years ahead of me on their creative business journey. I ended my session feeling SO believed in. SO standing in my personal power. SO filled up with possibility and hope.

It was amazing.

The thing is, we can do this for each other. All of us. Anywhere, anytime. In person or on skype too.

Separate from this event I’m also a part of a different lovely collection of women (from a variety of mediums as well) who gather twice a month on skype and create this space for one another where we each take 20 minutes and focus on that one person, offering them support, feedback and encouragement (or whatever they need that week).

We have been doing these calls all fall and it is absolutely transformative to have this space to listen as well as be heard.

“We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been – a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.” –Starhawk

So this is one of the stories I was craving to share with you as it has been really transformative for me this year….both at this gathering and with my online collective.

Ever since I’ve been home I’ve been talking to friends about it. So many of us have a business idea, a creative passion or a project we are working on and the idea of being encircled by people you trust to give you encouragement is a pretty powerful force. I’m so hoping to do this activity with creative friends in Vancouver as well as my online creative cohorts.

So, if you are craving community…it is really powerful to make that happen for ourselves, online or in person. Retreats like the Be Present Retreats have also been an amazing way to find creative community in person (and there are some amazing retreats coming this spring). Or you can create your own gathering and get inspired to do that by checking out Kelly Rae’s post filled with great ideas for creating a gathering. I really wanted to mention the online experience too as it truly has been transformative and is something that we can create just by reaching out to a few folks we’d like to get to know better!

Create a gathering, gift yourself with the experience of a retreat or email a few creative comrades and start a support circle!

Lets let ourselves be encircled, be radiated, be supported!

February 25, 2013

Being Your Own Friend

A photo from 2007 from the post I felt drawn to go back and send some love to.

Today in Be Your Own Beloved we’re doing an activity that feels really powerful to me and while normally I keep the content of courses private (as thats the fun of being in the class and getting each day’s secret mission in your inbox) today my intuition is telling me that it might be useful to others too. That this one needs to be shared.

Something really magical happens in these e-courses that we do in community.

We rise up and support each other.

We see the best in one another.

We listen to each others tender stories and hold space for them.

So today in class, I’m asking the participants to notice the way that they have been offering such incredible kindness towards one another and then gifting that kindness to themselves.

I often feel like taking a self-portrait can be like sending a message to our future selves. That even though sometimes we might not see our amazingness in the moment, when we look back at them we see much clearer. That we are creating these breadcrumbs on the map of our story that we can look back on and look in our own eyes.

Another way in which I feel like we can visit our past selves and give them love is of course blogging! When I think about how long I’ve been blogging (a decade) and how showing up in those posts along the way felt good in the moment, but now…all these years later…it gives me such a beautiful roadmap of how I got to today and that todays post might be meaningful to a future me.

So I have a dare for you today fellow bloggers.

Your dare is this:

Go back in your archives. 1 month, year, 2 years, 10 years…really however long you feel drawn to. Perhaps to a post that felt really vulnerable. Or maybe one that left you not feeling seen, or one that people didn’t comment on. Or maybe the post that felt like it was the point where you had a big realization or shift.

Then leave yourself a comment and gift yourself with the kindness that you would offer others. Tell her what you now know these years/months later. Tell her she’ll be okay or that you love her or that you are proud of her…whatever you feel drawn to do in the moment. Maybe you could go back to the first post you ever wrote or perhaps there will be a post that will come to mind.

Do this just for you (but if you feel drawn to share your experience of it, i’d love to know how it was….feel free to leave a comment or you could use the course hashtag #beyourownbeloved on twitter to share your experience of the activity).

Lets go gift ourselves with the kindness that we so freely offer others.

February 20, 2013

Dancing into Life

I wandered down to the beach on my own.

Camera in hand, on a beach I know well.

I’ve probably taken hundreds of pictures there before.

The tide was rising and there was no where to put down my camera, so I just settled into the feeling of feet on wet sand, sinking in.

Living in the moment.

Until there it was.

A perfect sized, dry rock was suddenly awaiting me, as though it had saved me a dry spot for my camera to rest.

A bit of respite, an invitation to take a few photos and see this place in a different light. See myself in a different light.

So I put it on the ground and just went for it on this busy beach. Just danced in the moment.

Of all the photos I took this weekend away on the Oregon Coast with an incredible collection of compassionate, open hearted creatives, it is this one that I feel is the one I needed to take. That I need to look at.

To remind me of the feeling of dancing into my own life, armed with a heart full of hopefulness.

February 14, 2013

14 Days of Self-Love ~ Day Fourteen: Finding our Place in the Family of Things by Rachel Cole

Thank you so much for joining me every day here for the 14 Days of Self-Love! We’re going to bring this series to a close with a post by the wonderful Rachel Cole! This feels like the perfect piece to end the series with and I hope it resonates with you as much as it does for me and that it inspires you to find your place in the ‘family of things’ too. If you’d like to peek back at the previous posts in the series, you can find them all on this page!

Photo credit: Andrea Scher

Finding my way home to a place of self-love has largely been about finding my place in, as poet Mary Oliver says, “the family of things.”

I used to believe that I was unlovable. I used to think that I was not only broken, but more broken than most everyone else. I used to believe that my hungers were to not to be trusted. I used to be in a long-distance relationship with my own flesh.

In the pit of despair, grasping for anything that might be a salve for my pain, I began to awaken.

With the help of a truly excellent therapist, my own fierce dedication, the courage to surrender, and lots and lots of reading…I came to see and feel myself differently.

I came to see and feel that all of life is sacred and that this must include me and every cell in my being. If I am sacred, it stands to reason that I am worthy of love.

I came to believe that all of life is one, big divine ocean with each of us as a distinctive wave. We are made up of the same divine energy and matter but are each as unique as a snowflake. I believe we are tasked with becoming the fullest expression of our “wave” as possible.

For me to be the fullest expression of my wave, I have to be tended to, nurtured, loved, and
most importantly fed. Anything else pulls me out of engagement with life.

The Buddha says, “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more
deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.”

Believing this and embodying it sounds simple, perhaps overly simple as I write this. It’s not and you know that.

Self-love at this level, self-love of the awakening kind, came for me when my heart was exhausted from being told the greatest lie there is: that I was separate from it all.

Instead it turns out, it was about finding the truth of my place in “the family of things.”

Rachel Cole is a certified life coach, celebrated retreat host, instigator of ease, and hunger-satisfier. Based in the San Francisco Bay area, she spent years steeped in the vibrant Bay Area food community while earning her MA in Holistic Health Education. Rachel is on a mission to help women identify, understand and feed their true hungers. Through her varied endeavors, Rachel continues to be an inimitable inspiration for each of us to feast on our lives.

February 12, 2013

14 Days of Self-Love ~ Day Thirteen: Can you brave the spiral of self-love? By Kyeli Smith

Oh my goodness…I love that as we’re winding down the 14 Days of Self-Love we get to watch this powerful video from Kyeli of PaceandKyeli.com! Prepare to be wildly inspired (and you might just find yourself wanting to get up and dance)!

Idealistic storyteller photographer HSP witch, living a wild crazy beautiful life – and helping others do the same! I live in a magical house on wheels, wear fantastic stripy socks, and take pictures of everything. And I’m the sweeter half of PaceAndKyeli.com. (;