Category Archives: Self Love

April 28, 2015

Beyond Arms Reach

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Beyond arm’s reach there is so much more awaiting us than taking a face selfie at that angle we’ve perfected.

Beyond arm’s reach are our hands, free to move their own way, not held in position by holding the camera.

Beyond arms reach is that which we don’t know: the ways we could heal old stories, the potential for taking a of ourselves we really love.

Beyond arm’s reach is outside of the norm of what a selfie is perceived at, with a different perspective (potentially a kind one) awaiting us.

Beyond arm’s reach is that we can’t clutch onto, hold tightly to in fear. It’s letting go and trusting yourself as you open the door to seeing yourself with kind eyes (and trust that indeed, you will).

Beyond arm’s reach is that place beyond that wall we’ve been hitting with selfies, where we get bored or aren’t sure how to see something different day after day.

Beyond arm’s reach is outside of our comfort zone, where change happens.

Beyond arm’s reach is truly a whole other world of selfies we can take, when we step away from that small range of perspectives that our arm’s can reach to.

So how do we go beyond arm’s reach? It’s all about putting down our camera or phone on a bench or the ground or a tripod and stepping into the frame. Or perhaps putting it on a shelf just beyond arm’s reach and taking an arms length style selfie without having to hold onto the camera.

For me and often for participants in the Be Your Own Beloved class, this is the place where we step outside the threshold of our comfort zone of arm’s length selfies and into the empowering world of seeing yourself with a deeper kindness through your camera letting go of the limitation of only being able to see ourselves from that one perspective. For me, its where a deeper level of body image and self-love healing truly began.

Want to try it? I dare you!

Indeed, you need to find your timer, right? iPhone users, you should have a timer built into the camera on your phone, but it only takes one photo at a time. I recommend the Gorillacam app as a tool to take LOTS of photos (it allows you to take bursts of 5/15/30 photos at a time) and Android users you have a built in timer that is great and all other cameras likely have a burst mode with your timer included in your phone. Look around the outside of your camera for a symbol that looks like a clock or check your menu for the self-timer!

Go beyond arm’s reach! There is even a brand new Be Your Own Beloved class focused specifically on the potential of going beyond arm’s length and exploring how it can help us see our body with compassion…starting November 1st. Come join us and explore going beyong arm’s reach!

April 12, 2015

The Selfie Vulnerability Hangover

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Yesterday I had a vulnerability hangover after posting a selfie.

Have you ever heard that term: Vulnerability Hangover? It’s a term coined by Brene Brown that she describes as: “the feeling that sweeps over us after we feel the need to connect… and we share something deeply meaningful. Minutes, hours, or days later, we begin to feel regret sweep over us like a warm wave of nausea.”

I had never pondered the overlap between that term and the feeling I sometimes had after posting a selfie but in that moment, it was clear…I was having a vulnerability hangover.

Sharing our selfies is vulnerable to many of us, especially when we’re going outside of our comfort zones, isn’t it.

So here’s what happened:

I had just gone on a long run from my home to Granville Island along this beautiful seawall we have here in Vancouver. When I got there, I saw a wide open dock and decided to go stretch there as I cooled down from my run.

I’ve been working hard to shrink my body shame (rather than my body size) and have found myself able to comfortably rock running tights, which I was indeed wearing on this day.

After stretching I propped my phone up and used the Gorillcam Timer App to take a bunch of photos on the dock. This one caught my eye. We may have different reasons to choose our photos, sometimes because it feels like the one that is most in our comfort zone and other times because it is outside of our comfort zone…and we are ready to go there.

This was the case with the one you see above. I was able to step outside my old stories and look at her, the woman in the photo, as though she were a dear friend. I’m starting to be able to see this same way in the mirror when looking at my body too. I saw this photo and loved her curvature, the shape of her body against the wide open sky. So I went for it and shared it (and am including a few more here just to, you know, make it even more vulnerable to post this)!

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I felt 100% good about it in that moment.

But about 5 minutes later that wave of nausea hit. Fiercely.

It came in the form of that voice, that inner critic that I’m grateful had taken a hike when I posted it.

“Did you just post a photo of your butt on Instagram?”

“Why in the world did you do that. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“What if people think that is your belly not your butt?”

“Seriously? Why that one?”

And on and on.

Sigh. I thought I had posted this with love and that I wasn’t going to have to deal with my critic this time, but once again there it was.

Even though I had posted it feeling good about it, that sharing felt deeply vulnerable and the voice of my inner critic took the form of wondering what other people might be thinking. Deep down I knew that if they saw the photo with critique despite the fact I posted it with love, that was their story coming up and not mine.

What mattered was that I posted it with self-compassion.

And if I felt it in that moment I posted it, I could find my way back to it.

It so happened that just then, I looked back at the photo and a wonderful woman had written “Love those beautiful curves”. Thank goodness for her…and thank you @wildspiritearth on Instagram. Having you mirror back that same reason why I posted it, the same kindness that in that initial moment of pressing the button to share it, that I had myself. It meant so much.

Yet sometimes there isn’t someone mirroring back kindness towards us. Or we may judge ourselves by how many comments we get or how many people like it and let that speak of the value of the photo rather than our own feeling about it. That nausea or panic might feel so overwhelming that we decide to delete it. I confess I’ve done that before. We get so caught up in all the stories of what other people are thinking after we take and share a photo.

People tell me they think they are doing this selfie-love thing wrong because they are having this reaction but really…this is the work of learning to see ourselves with kindness in our camera.

It is building that resilience in all the stages of the photo: taking it, looking at it, sharing it and even the ‘vulnerability hangovers’ that happen after we’ve shared it. Our resilience is needed in all of it.

It’s building that new story that we get to decide how we see ourselves and returning to that each and every time we have those doubts.

It’s not always easy. While over the years I’ve been building that resilience and I have these moments far less often (which OMG is such a relief). But they still happen. Especially as we keep pushing further and further outside our comfort zones.

So Brene Brown’s term ‘vulnerability hangover’ came into my head in that moment of anxiety yesterday when that negative voice came up I was able to say in my head:

“Hey wait…I don’t usually post photos of myself from behind and this is new territory for me. But I saw my curvature with love in that photo and that is the new story I want to live in, not the old ones that not only don’t serve me but are also deeply unkind”

I repeated it to myself especially the words as though it was a mantra until it started to feel like it was soaking in and calming me.

It helped. And knowing it was in fact a ‘vulnerability hangover’ in reaction to that moment of sharing something outside my comfort zone. I think the more we find those terms or ways to wake ourselves up in these moments the easier it is to be resilient in them!

Sometimes it’s hard to pull ourselves out of all things we’re imagining other people thinking about our photo, but there’s only one truth we have control of…our own.

I had chosen to see myself through a lens of love when I posted it, and that is the truth I want to believe in.

How about you? Have you had a selfie vulnerability hangover (I bet most of us have). How did you get past it?

February 7, 2015

Your Selfie is Enough

It’s true! Your selfies are enough because you are enough. If you’d like more support on your selfie or and self-love journey come join me for Be Your Own Beloved. Class starts in a few days!

December 30, 2014

A Look Back at 2014 in Self-Portraits

Each year I like to make a point of pausing at the end of the year to look back at the visual story of the year that my self-portrait practice has created.

Wanna try it? It can even be as simple as taking 2 minutes to look back at your Instagram or Flickr Feed (where ever you share most of your photos) or use this as a prompt for your own blog post and ponder things like:

Which ones feel like they tell the story of your year?

Which ones embody the ways you have grown/healed/changed throughout the year?

Which photos jump out at you?

What about this year feel important to be a part of the narrative you want to tell about this year (cause remember…we get to be the narrators of our own story)?

It always feels powerful to gather the photos together. Which ones feel important? Which just make me smile? Which ones do I even leave out and why?

I suppose I really do these posts for me (which is why I wanted to invite you to offer yourself the same) but I also hope that they’ll be of inspiration to pull out your camera more next year and be in the visual story of your own life!

You can check out the 2012 post here.

And the 2013 post here!

I confess 2014 began intensely. My beloved Grammy passed away in late January and my heart was broken. Self-care had to be at the forefront as grief took hold and I really wasn’t sure how the year would go. Thankfully, as the year progressed it gave way to lots of adventures, time with family and of course, a whole lot of teaching and self-portrait taking. Looking back on these photos I see the stories woven in the spaces between these photos, the ones that you have to have lived it to know.

I see a woman who has been truly lucky to go on some mighty fun adventures this year to the Bay Area, Nashville and who also really began to take advantage of the beauty that my own city holds and get out exploring it more! I also see a woman who returned again and again to taking photo walks as a way to offer myself care and compassion, especially in a year like this one where it felt more vital than ever. I also can’t help but notice how the way I dress has changed. I felt less afraid to show my body this year (though my body didn’t change…I did) and there are more bare arms and more short wearing in these than I could have imagined!

I see peace making, adventuring, grieving, healing, walking, wandering, light catching and a whole lot of dancing!

So here is a look back at 2014 in self-portraits (all taken with my DSLR)!

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Especially if you have started taking selfies this year…what about gifting yourself with doing a post like this? Look back on each month of the year and pick your favourites or pick your top 12 of the year as a whole?

Why not gift yourself with this time even if you just look back on your year and acknowledge what happened, what has changed and how far you’ve come with stepping into the story of your life through your camera?

Or if you’re wondering how to make 2015 a year where you get your camera out more and step into your visual story…join me for the Be Your Own Beloved E-Course or if an E-Book is more your style, check out the Beloved Camera E-Book!

December 27, 2014

20 Posts to Inspire your Self-Love Path!

As 2014 comes to a close, I like to gather up all the posts I shared here at Be Your Own Beloved over the year that explore the core message I share here: Seeing Yourself with Compassion which of course includes body acceptance, healing our relationship to our self-image, cultivating self-love and self-care and talking openly about my own experience of healing my relationship to my own body image and self-esteem (in hopes it will be helpful for you on your path).

When I sat down to write this I had no clue that I wrote 20 posts on the subject this year! Click on the ones that resonate most with you and I hope that they’ll help inspire you on your own self-love & selfie path!

I truly can’t wait for 2015 and what I have in store for you here on the blog and with the E-Courses (with something new up my sleeve)! Presently there are 2 classes open for registration…The Cultivating Self-Care E-Course and the much loved Be Your Own Beloved class (exploring self-love through self-portraiture)!

So we go…20 posts exploring self-love & self-compassion for you to enjoy!

Our inner critics rise up when we’re leaving our comfort zone, don’t they…which indeed happens on a path to heal our relationship to our bodies. This post is all about how our inner critics reflect our actions. When we stay small, they feel no need to attack us but when we rise up and make change (like seeing ourself with kindness rather than critique) they rise up too.

When we’re on a mission to heal our self-image (and in life in general), it can be easy to get in the constant cycle of working towards our goal that we don’t realize how far we’ve come!

This one is actually a series of posts called Making Peace with Our Smiles and you can find links to all 5 of the activities on this page! You can try the activities any time and use the hashtag #beyourownbeloved to join the community of folks exploring the prompts!

It’s time to stop being our own bully! Seriously…it’s time. Cause so many of us speak to ourselves in a way we wouldn’t even fathom speaking to someone else (which is of course, the idea behind this website and e-courses)!

This post came in response to the comment I know lots of us must get when talking about learning to love our bodies…that “we aren’t our bodies” or “shouldn’t we focus more on ours spirit?”. From my experience, disconnecting the self-love journey from how we exist in our bodies hasn’t served me. It is happening within a body. About a body. To disconnect the self-love journey from my body is to discount a whole deep well of potential healing.

How does movement and dance help us feel more embodied? This post explores that and explains why I dance in so many of my selfies (hint…its all for the healing)!

Are you missing from the visual story of your life? This post explores how choosing to let ourselves be in photos can be deeply healing and also feel like we are finding our voice in telling the story of our lives.

Reclaim your power and be the narrator of your own story! This is a big part of exploring selfies as self-love as it is a tool for us to reclaim our sense of personal power and step into being the narrator of how we see our bodies and the story we tell ourselves about our lives. We get to choose the kind of story we want to live!

Making Peace with my body in a bikini! Oh my gosh…I still can’t believe I shared this post but I’m glad I did. There are lots of amazing plus size gals rockin’ bikini’s this year (now that thankfully, companies are making that kind of bathing suit in our size). For me, wearing it felt great but when I paused to take a photo, old stories rose up! But that’s what happens when we go outside of our comfort zones, isn’t it!

How do we know when we’ve found our way home to ourselves? There has been a song lyric that has felt like a guide for me that says “When the voice that is talking is never your own. Then who’s going to tell you that you’ve finally come home” by Ferron. Cultivating our own voice is such a big part of healing how we feel about our bodies. This post digs into that journey!

Inspired by a talk at Creative Mornings by the awesome Kim Werker, this post explores the idea of the story we tell ourselves about failure, especially the story we tell ourselves about failing at being photogenic!

The post Making Peace with my Belly explores the good/bad, love/hate cycle I’ve been on in relation to how I feel about my belly and how I want to get off of that roller coaster and feel at peace with it!

Selfies get flack for being self-centred and for being a way that people seek attention. But so many of us aren’t taking our selfies for anyone else, but for ourselves. This post shares a story of how I got caught up in wanting people to like my selfie one day and how it became a reminder that how when we can ground ourselves in how we feel about ourselves, other people’s perception of us feels like it holds less weight (and we find we aren’t seeking others approval)!

A question I often get at in person workshop when digging into self-love through self-portraiture is…”But how do I take a flattering photo” and this post explores another way to view ‘flattering’ that invites in more self-compassion!

What do we do when the critique is coming not from ourselves, but from people in our lives? This post shares some tips for dealing with not just our inner critics but our outer critics too. I explore it in the context of sharing our selfies but it definitely applies to other experiences of people commenting on our bodies or our choices!

Do photos ever catch you off guard and your inner critic rises up? I had an experience of that and am sharing some tips for what to do when that happens!

If you’ve been wondering how this whole self-love through selfies thing works…this is for you! Cause really…it’s not just about the photo. The photo (and the camera) are tools, just like you might seek self-compassion in yoga or meditation! It isn’t just about the end result either, but about the journey we take in getting there!

I don’t know about you, but when my inner critic shows up it usually tells me that I’m doing it wrong (you know, whatever I’m trying to do be it cook or run or dance). So if your inner critic rises up when you’re taking a selfie and tells you you are doing it wrong…this is for you.

When we say “When I’m thin I’ll…” or “When I make _______ change I’ll….” and we imagine a life for ourselves other than the one we are living. This post digs into the idea of living that ‘parallel life’ (inspired by one of my favourite authors, Geneen Roth).

And last, but definitely not least…Her Body Was not Wrong. And neither is yours!