Category Archives: Self Love

October 20, 2014

Selfies as Spiritual

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Shouldn’t we focus more on our soul than our bodies?

Shouldn’t we be celebrating our inner beauty?

Aren’t we more than just our bodies?

Isn’t it more important to be a good person inside than to celebrate our outer body/beauty?

These are questions or comments I get every once in a while on a photo or blog post, that focusing so much on our bodies doesn’t seem right (to them) and shouldn’t we focus more on the amazing spirit inside that body?

The answer I have is Yes. And No.

Yes inner beauty and our spiritual path (as in exploring our relationship to that which is beyond ourselves) are so vital. Yet I don’t see them as disconnected from the path of learning to love our bodies.

The journey to finding self-love for me and to being my own beloved has been both an internal and external one. Of befriending myself, filling up my own well, sitting with my loneliness, untangling stories of self-hate. It has indeed been about finding my own inner beauty. It has about becoming a person who is in tune with kindness as a core value both towards myself and others.

Yet these things are 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.

Here is the truth I see around me and with so many folks who have come to join me for Be Your Own Beloved. They tell me that they’ve been on a self-love path for a long time but had been avoiding with dealing with that remaining piece of self-hate that hand been lurking in the shadows or in the way they saw themselves in photos. We are looking everywhere else for peace within without thinking of the possibility that external body-love could help us.

Because it’s supposed to be egocentric or vain to want to love our external body, right?

Learning to love your body isn’t vain or egocentric, especially when so many of us are coming from the opposite of ego.

You have the right to choose to love yourself.

Our internal and external selves are connected and if we love our personality, our drive, our mind, but still hate our bodies, we are living in hate. If we are focusing so much on our inner selves but still have hate towards our outer selves, that is yet another spiritual door awaiting us.

While the process of taking selfies is indeed about how we relate to our body in a photo, the photo is the tool for us to learn to love our bodies in our everyday lives too. It isn’t just about getting a new Facebook photo (though that is always a plus). It is about using the camera as a doorway to a more peaceful, compassionate relationship to ourselves and our self-image.

Which includes how we see our bodies from the outside be it a sideways glance in a store window and the reaction we have about seeing ourselves, or how we see our bodies each morning when we look in the mirror. Or, of course, how we see ourselves in a photo. Our relationship to self-image is a place where many of us have the potential to shift our relationship from a place of critique to kindness.

It often feels that using selfies as a tool for healing our body image isn’t as much about the photo we get itself as the journey we go on to get it and the way we choose to relate to the photo itself. It has felt like a deeply spiritual journey, far more connected to purpose than vanity.

But to me it is inherently related to our bodies.

To say we aren’t our bodies or we want to focus on our inner beauty leaves our body shame waiting for us, still hanging out waiting to be heard.

So to answer those questions of inner vs external beauty I wonder if we could reframe it:

What if our bodies and that our inner beauty can be strengthened by healing our relationship with our outer beauty. We have this deep & rich potential place of self-learning that feels deeply spiritual, with our body as our guide.

What if re-learning to love your external body when you have lived in a place of self-critique or dare I say self-hate could be a doorway to deep love, the same kind you might be looking for in meditation or as you create your altars.

What if we do indeed focus on exploring our inner beauty but stay open to seeing it as not disconnected or more important than the potential for compassionate and unconditional love for the body you are in.

I know it’s a scary process for a lot of us to step into. But what if selfies could be that unexpected tool that brings you to a greater place of peace with our self both internally & externally?

I know this isn’t the standard perception of what ‘selfie’ is but I know when we’ve tried everything else on our path of healing, sometimes we need to seek out tools in unexpected places. And if you aren’t sure where to begin on that path, you might want to come join me for the November Session of Be Your Own Beloved and I’ll help you take those first steps to heal that rift between your inner relationship to self & your external perceptions of your body.

October 14, 2014

Why I Dance in my Selfies

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I put the camera down

Press the timer

And I move.

At first I had to invite myself to. It was a way for me to shake off nervousness and get grounded in my body to take that photo.

These days it happens automatically. I set the timer & the playfulness begins.

99% of the time when I go out on a photo walk, I don’t have a specific goal in mind. Sure I might have something in mind but truth be told, the photo walk seems to always have its own direction it wants to take me in, always embracing the unpredictable. That 1% of course is when I need a super specific photo for a class!

All of these photos you see on the website are taken as I’m living what I’m teaching here, as I’m trying out activities or just trying to shift my own energy of that day.

In so many of my photos, I’m dancing.

It’s been that way for years and I think from the outside I bet it looks playful, joyful and even like a woman who feels at home in her body. While it wasn’t at first, it has led me there and I wanted to share a bit about why I dance in photos.

At times I have this voice in my head as I’m just about to press ‘Post’ on Instagram and share another movement photo that says “Is this really accessible for people, all these dancing photos?” “Do you really want to post another one”.

But here’s the truth.

I don’t take or show them for any purpose of showing off.

I take & share them because this is where the deepest healing of my self-image has happened.

When I move.

Someday I’ll share my full story of the depths of where I began with my negative self-image (its spilling into my manuscript) but a big part of my journey before taking self-portraits had me feeling like I needed to contain myself. To sit on my hands. To stop moving. To control how I existed in the world. To be contained & still.

And for whatever reason it may have manifested in our lives, I have a feeling I’m not alone in having felt deeply disconnected from my own body for much of my life. Is that familiar to you at all?

So when I realized that taking self-portraits was a place where I could relearn how to be in my own body, it was all about the movement.

It is the one sacred place where I’ve found I can reclaim that sense of autonomy of how I move in the world, where I have found a freedom that has allowed me to feel more at home in my body. It may look like fun, and indeed it is. But it has a deeper purpose for me than one viewing the photo might think. That can be such a powerful piece of taking selfies, the place where they can embody powerful stories of healing for us, even if the viewer sees something different.

Interestingly enough, photographs only capture that one second of the movement and package it into stillness again in a way, but somehow it doesn’t diminish the freedom that I felt in the moment. Because the experience of the freedom & healing that happens is in the lived experience of it, not just the outcome. The photographs are an invitation to return back there.

To keep moving.

To revisit that place of healing we can create when we make space to move our own way.

So this….this is why I dance.

Have you explored moving as you take a selfie just for fun or even as a tool for healing disconnection from our bodies?

October 13, 2014

Bring a Friend & Join Beloved Beginnings!

From now until Friday if you sign up for Beloved Beginnings (which is already super affordable self-paced class) you can bring a friend for FREE! Yes…its a 2 for 1 sale.

Maybe there is someone you’d like to encourage to a Be Your Own Beloved class by doing it together?

Or you’d like to take it with someone in your family?

Or would like to gift the spot to a friend?

OR get an even better deal by splitting the cost!

I also wanted to do this offer right now in case you were pondering doing the November Session of Be Your Own Beloved but might be feeling a bit nervous to jump in and go for it! This is a gentle 10 day version of the class that can be a great warm up for the November class and a way to ease yourself into seeing yourself with kindness through your camera.

Just let me know the email address of the person you’d like to join you when you sign up! Class starts right after I receive your registration.

The offer ends Friday and you can register here!

September 20, 2014

Reclaiming our Power in Front of the Camera

Their camera is aimed at me.

Be it a total stranger, a family member or a portrait photograher, the same thing happens for me. I feel awkward and outside of my skin. I feel like I need to pose. So I stay as still as I can and wait for it to be over.

But when my camera is aimed at myself it is different.

I set it down and while I push the timer button or get ready to press my remote, I take a second to do a little silly dance to shake out the nerves. I adjust my clothing and then move in a way that feels like me. I press the button and settle into the experience. I may close my eyes and move or look right into the camera.

I am in my own body, not outside of myself.

I am in control, not out of control.

I am the narrator, not just the subject.

I am embodied, at home and enjoying the experience.

And the photo shows it.

So does the one that someone else has taken. I can see my stress, thoughts of ‘What are they going to do with this photo’ and I didn’t take a moment at all to check in with my body and I can see it in my body language. Sound familiar?

I know this isn’t just my own experience. Except I think it is easy to think that because it is so vulnerable to be in front of someone else’s camera, that aiming our own camera at ourselves would be even more scary.

The more I’ve been using self-portraiture as tool for healing, the more I find that I can remember to take a second while they are getting ready to take the photo to just notice my feet on the ground and take a deep breath. Often that is enough to change the experience of being photographed and put me at ease again.

The difference between the two does feel like it is about power.

That somehow when someone else is holding the camera we hand our power over to them.

Yet that is the same reason why taking the camera into our own hands and taking a photo can be so empowering. It is a reclamation of personal power.

I see it so often in Be Your Own Beloved when the participants get to that one activity which for them flips that switch and they realize they are indeed in control of how they see themselves. I can see that embodiment and reclamation of personal power start to appear in their photos. They stand taller, they get braver and I start to see more of them appear in their photos, without apology.

Now, I do want to share that most portrait photographers I know…you can absolutely see in their photos that they put the client at ease, that they are deeply aware of this power and create a space where the client feels deeply safe.

I guess the thing I want to really share is that we can also create that experience for ourselves too. We can create that sacred space with our own camera too.

I want this for you, for me, for all of us.

Let’s transform the experience of being photographed from a place of fear or discomfort to a place of playfulness and openness, starting by doing this for ourselves!

We’re going to be exploring this in How to Rock a Selfie Photo Shoot starts soon, October 6th! The next session of Be Your Own Beloved starts November 1st! If you have any questions about which class would be the best fit for you, don’t hesitate to use the contact form and connect with me!

September 17, 2014

A Selfie Photo Shoot!

After launching the brand new class How To Rock a Selfie Photo Shoot yesterday I wanted to share a bit about how and why this came about!

As you know, taking selfies is practice for me that has helped me see myself with kindness and been a tool for body-image healing.

Alongside that, I’m also running a business, right? I need images to use for my classes and while I get a plethora of them participating in Be Your Own Beloved each time as well as going on my weekly photo walks, it felt exciting and inspiring to set a little time out every once in a while to do a Selfie Photo Shoot!

I love getting to help people have photos for their blog or business launches, so why not offer that to myself too, giving myself the experience that I offer my portrait clients. And it is much more simple than you might think.

As I’ve been teaching Be Your Own Beloved, I’ve been thinking about these photo shoots and how they are really a gift we can give ourselves. Because while getting a portrait session done is truly a gift we can give ourselves, it doesn’t ONLY happen when we pass the camera over to someone else.

We can do this for ourselves too.

I wanted to share one of these selfie photo shoots with you! This one happened last summer and I had been asked by the awesome Susan Tuttle to contribute some images to her new book as well as taking some photos for some upcoming projects.

So I went on an adventure to make it happen. I headed out to a small yet quiet path along a creek about a 20 minute bike ride from my house (yes indeed, this is meant to be fun so why not take the bike)!

I brought my tripod, DSLR as well as my iPhone.

I set it up the tripod and started getting playful in front of the camera using some of the activities I’ll be sharing with you in this class.

And then came home having so many photos that I could use for Susan’s book as well as my upcoming courses (like for the Beloved Beginnings class I launched soon after that).

I even ended up using one for an online dating profile! I’m pretty private about that part of my life at this point but I did want to step out of my comfort zone and share that in case that is something that you’d really love to have portraits for. I know I used not having photos as a reason not to do this for a while even though of course I have TONS of photos of myself. But I had concluded that I needed to have photos taken by someone else. Yup, I do that too…use ‘not having photos of myself’ as a reason not to say YES to parts of this beautiful life.

You don’t even need a reason (like a launch or an article) to do these photo shoots! You’ll simply have these photos ready for the next time you need a great photo of yourself and you can say YES without hesitation!

I hope this gave you a glimpse into the fun we’re going to have in the How to Rock a Selfie Photo Shoot class too…I can’t wait to get started and when you sign up I’ll be sending you an activity to get you started before class begins!

Come join in on the Selfie Photo Shoot fun!