Category Archives: Self Love

August 27, 2014

If the Idea of Be Your Own Beloved Terrifies You.

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If the idea of picking up your camera and taking a selfie feels SO outside of your comfort zone that you don’t even know where to begin.

Be Your Own Beloved is for you.

If you see all sorts of confident selfies on Instagram and wonder if they struggle at all like you do.

Be Your Own Beloved is for you.

If you struggle to be in any photos at all, be it someone else taking the photo or you.

Be Your Own Beloved is for you.

If you haven’t been in photos in a very long time because you fear what you’ll see.

Be Your Own Beloved is for you.

Or if you are a photographer and know how to rock the camera, but resist turning the camera on yourself.

Be Your Own Beloved is for you.

I think it might be a common misperception that in order to take a class like Be Your Own Beloved you have to already know how to rock a selfie, right?

Or that it is for people who already feel confident in front of the camera and in their photos in general.

Not so much.

Now, that isn’t to say that there aren’t folks in the class who do know how to rock a selfie already! Of course there are and they totally thrive in the class, but it isn’t only for those who already feel comfortable taking selfies. It is especially for those of you for whom it is outside of your comfort zone.

Why? Because when I first started taking self-portraits years ago, I was deeply paralyzed by the stories I had soaked into the skin about the worthiness of my body in the world, let alone in a photo. I was filled with self-hate and by no means did I think taking a self-portrait was going to help that. I just wanted to be in my own visual story and see what unfolded.

It unfolded all these years later to this place where taking selfies is an every day part of my continual healing of body image and my relationship to myself and I know I can make it look really ‘easy’ to take a selfie. It isn’t always easy, but it has been the unexpected path to finding a peaceful relationship with my own body and how I saw it.

And I created this class to provide people with the tools to do the same for themselves.

So if this terrifies you, that is a good thing. It means there is something potentially transformative awaiting you, if you want to say YES to it.

I thought I’d share a little behind the scenes story of how Be Your Own Beloved came to be that might give you a bit of insight into why you don’t need to have ever taken a selfie before to take the class.

Years before I started teaching Be Your Own Beloved I was teaching a different self-portraiture class called You are Your Own Muse. There was a similar energy to it, that you get to define how you see yourself, yet at the time ‘selfies’ as a norm was still emerging and this class was way more focused on the technical side and artistic side of taking self-portraits. I would definitely sneak in the self-love element but it wasn’t at all the sole focus. I LOVED that class and had such a blast teaching it and seeing all the incredible photos the participants created.

Yet after offering a number of sessions I started really clearly noticing that the content of this class helped those who were already rockin’ the self-portrait before they even found the class thrive. There seemed to be lots of people who were quietly taking the class and not participating and it got me wondering if the class was really serving them. Like with any class (even Be Your Own Beloved) there will always be a certain percentage of people who don’t participate and I don’t take it personally, yet I couldn’t get them out of my mind.

So I sat with these questions for a while:

Who were those women who were quietly on the periphery of my class and what did they need?

Who do I most want to serve with these classes?

What do I most want to be teaching?

Who is the woman that I most want to help take self-portraits?

How could I make a class to serve her?

This was a turning point and that is when Be Your Own Beloved began.

Of course I’m not going to be able to provide everyone with what they need, but I felt like this class not only what my heart most wanted to teach but I felt like it was created for those who I most wanted to say YES to these classes. And I wanted to talk more openly about what I had been doing to heal and I hoped that it would be helpful to them.

The first session of Be Your Own Beloved made it so clear that indeed…these activities could deeply shift one’s experience of seeing themselves in photos, all the participant needed to do was to really show up and give them a try. When they did, it could be transformative.

I still couldn’t reach through the computer and make them pick up the camera, but that became part of the process. Saying yes is your first step of bravery and then the next is picking up the camera to choose to try. These both are a big part of the act of self-love and self-care in the class…as much as the photos themselves.

It was hard to say goodbye to the older class, but I felt so clear that this was the class that could most help women and that I felt truly alive in teaching. I felt like there was already so much out there in terms of classes & photographic support for those people who wanted to explore the artistic or technical side. Not only that, but it was the quiet ones, the more new-to-selfies folks that I really wanted to serve. It was those of you who like me, may not have ever felt beautiful or confident and want to build a loving relationship with their self-image (even if it took a while) that I felt so clearly focused on creating content for. Plus, I think it was the course I had meant to be teaching all along.

So this was all behind why I stopped teaching the Muse class and stepped into teaching Be Your Own Beloved.

Immediately, the very first session, I knew I had made the right decision. I knew that I could far more of a difference in this world if I stopped shying away from hiding self-love behind the technical side and let it be in the forefront.

So this is for you.

You don’t need to know how to take a self-portrait or a selfie.

You don’t need to feel like it is even possible to use selfies as a tool for self-love.

You don’t need to like how you see yourself in a photo.

You don’t need to hate how you see yourself in a photo either.

This class is for those of us who just want to be open to a new story of how we might see ourselves in a photo and who wonder “Could anything really change within 28 days”. I’ve gotta tell you…it can.

Be Your Own Beloved is simply about openly exploring selfies as a tool for seeing yourself with compassion and creating an ongoing way for you to support & connect with yourself on a deeper level.

This is for you.

P.S….If it really scares you to sign up, don’t hesitate to use the contact form to connect with me for a little extra encouragement before or after you sign up!

August 26, 2014

Making Peace with My Body…In a Bikini!

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Earlier this summer I was visiting friends in Squamish (a town about 45 minutes north of Vancouver, where I live) and one of our first adventures was heading to one of the gorgeous lakes for a swim. Lake swimming is pretty much my favourite thing ever. Its usually frickin’ cold, so there is definitely some bravery involved, and if it is a SUPER hot day…it’s the most refreshing thing ever.

I had bought a couple new bathing suits for the summer, one of them being my first ever bikini. Thanks to the high waisted bikini trend, it was the first time I ever even wanted to wear one. I got mine at Forever 21 (online) for a super affordable price, so I went for it. This was the first time I had ever actually worn it in public.

To tell you the truth, it felt great to wear a two piece & I really didn’t feel uncomfortable wearing it or swimming in it. I didn’t feel ashamed or like I needed to cover up. I just felt like finally, I was wearing a two piece bathing suit that was meant for my body. That I was worthy of rockin’ it.

Success….I had worn a bikini & felt great in it.

But, like I often do…I wanted to capture that feeling of pride, of feeling good in it and to live what I preach in Be Your Own Beloved and see myself with kindness in this moment through my camera.

So, post-swim while my friend was getting some sunny reading time in, I decided to take a few selfies. I feel super comfortable around her just being me, so I found a spot to prop my camera in a tree (literally) and went for it. I wanted to capture the sunshine, how awesome it felt to swim and yes, to capture myself proudly wearing a bikini (or fatkini as we lovingly call them in the body-positive, fat acceptance world).

I used my favourite timer app Gorillacam and took a few dozen photos having fun, reaching my arms up, just being happy to be at the lake & wanting to capture that. When I looked at the photos.

Hmmmm.

Okay.

My reaction wasn’t what I had hoped for. I was overwhelmed with old stories of body shame in that moment, seeing myself at different angles in that bikini.

Now, it might be easy to assume that because I take SO many selfies, that I never have ones I don’t like. Not the case at all. I’m knee deep in the process alongside you and just like with everyone, it often takes a lot of photos to get that one I really love too. The outtakes are part of the process, each of them potentially telling me a story about how I could see myself and the powerful thing about this process is knowing that I get to choose the one that gets to be a part of my path to self-love.

But this selfie-taking adventure felt a bit different because, well…I’m wearing a bikini for the first time.

It felt new, like I didn’t know how to myself with compassion in quite the same way in something showing so much skin. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working on making peace with my belly and this was a big step in that self-compassion mission.

Here’s the truth…seeing yourself with kindness through our camera isn’t only about taking AWESOME photos that we feel fabulous in. It is the process of noticing where our critic comes up and having a dialogue with it (or sometimes just telling it to get the heck out of our way) and choosing how we want to see ourselves.

This was one of those times when getting the photo that felt like it was the one that captured the day…well, it didn’t come easy.

I took a couple dozen photos and there wasn’t one that jumped out saying YES…this is the one.

I could feel my disappointment rise up, that I wasn’t capturing the energy of the day. So I looked closer at the ones I had taken, put aside any body critic for just a moment and looked at the look on my face in them. Then realized there was indeed one that felt like it captured the bliss I felt and that this was the story I wanted to remember of the day. I may not have gotten the photo I loved, but I got one I liked.

Still, I was left with all these stories of how I saw myself in that bikini rising up.

It is easy to take the ‘truth’ we think we are seeing in the photo and let that define how we feel outside of the photo too.

I didn’t want to do that. Cause I really felt great wearing it and because I have worked so hard to shed body shame.

So I put the phone away for a bit. I felt good about the one I chose, but part of me wanted to hide the other photos away and never look at them again, packaging them up as a defining truth that could be written into my skin. I couldn’t quite shed the shame that spoke words like “How did you really think you looked in that bikini”?

But I knew this really was new territory for me. As a plus size girl, rockin’ a bikini for the first time, I was proud that I was just going for it and that was worthy unto itself, whether or not I had a photo to prove it.

I have learned to love myself in photos when clothed, but even half-bare felt like a whole new part of that path.

Later on in the day I returned to the photos and noticed something different happening.

Past the initial reaction of my inner critic and somewhere in between finding my way to a place where I felt good about those photos I found myself in the land of inquisitiveness.

I mean, I had never actually seen my body in a photo like this, with my torso bare.

I found these questions, or noticing come up.

Thoughts like:

Hmmm…my torso actually looks waaaay longer in these photos than I would have thought. I think I see my torso as being pretty short, but thats not at all what I’m seeing in these photos.

And, oh my…my chest looks gigantic in these photos. Bigger than I perceive it to be and bigger than I think it actually is! Interesting…I think it might be the bathing suit top itself adding some girth there. Not a bad thing, just a noticing.

And so often I hear people critic themselves and their back fat, but when I see those photos of myself from behind, I kind of like the way that my body curves & folds. I didn’t expect that.

This felt like making peace with my body. To meet it with this inquisitiveness. To engage in the process of noticing what I loved and what I still struggled with. To meet the tough moments of shame with compassion too. Making peace with our bodies isn’t just the moments of awesome confidence. It is the ones where we are struggling too & meeting those moments with resilience.

I wanted to share this with you and invite you to perhaps open up an old folder of photos today, ones that you might have packed away & tied up with a bow encasing a story of how you look in the photos in there….never to be looked at again.

What if we met ourselves with inquisitiveness between that place of love vs hate?

Or maybe you took Be Your Own Beloved and might want to look back at some of your course outtakes?

If you do, what might happen if we separated that initial response we had from our experience with the photos, one in which we may have even recoiled or ran from them afraid of what we saw. That happened and that is okay. But it doesn’t mean that your initial reaction is true.

What would happen if we returned to those photos with inquisitiveness? Not even putting pressure on ourselves to see with kindness…just simply being open to notice what comes up.

We don’t have to love them. We don’t have to share them. But what if they were a map to get to know ourselves even better? What if you saw them from outside of yourself? What if you looked at them as though you were supporting a friend with seeing herself with kindness?

Would you like some support in your journey to make peace with your body? If so, come join me for Be Your own Beloved which starts on September 1st. I promise that bikini-selfies aren’t a part of the class (unless you want it to be) and the class is a powerful mix of activities that will be both inside & outside of your comfort zone! I should warn you…this class can absolutely transform the way you see yourself in photos and open the door to self-love in big beautiful ways! We are going to start gathering in the Flickr Group on Friday so now is a great time to join us!

March 10, 2014

Her Body was Not Wrong

She used to think this body was wrong.

That these thick thighs, this belly, these wide arms weren’t okay. The way her back flows in layers she heard others curse as ‘back fat’.

She believed it hook, line and sinker.

Walked the world as though her body didn’t deserve the space it took up.

Until it got sick of being discounted, ignored, detested.

Her one body in this lifetime.

Her one skin, her two strong legs that walked her around the neighbourhood,

Her hands lifted the camera to her two bright eyes to see through.

She slowly started to unveil.

Baggy layers gave way to clothes that actually helped her perceive her size, her curvature with her own eyes, not with another’s.

She armed herself with that camera and set out to figure out how her body looked to her.

From different angles, from the ground up, from above.

Finding that for once, no one else’s voices of whether or not her body was worthy were invited to this space between her and the camera.

For once, finally, she could hear herself speak.

And that voice, shouted over for years by louder critics.

Had always been there.

Saying ‘I’ve loved you all along, just as you are”.

Your body was never wrong.

Now tell me, you get to choose the way you see yourself from now on.

Who’s eyes are you going to choose to see through?

Your own?

Or everyone else’s?

It’s yours to decide.

March 3, 2014

Tips for Taking Self-Portraits in Public!

So, we’re out on a photo walk or on an everyday adventure and we see the perfect spot to take a self-portrait with our camera or iPhone, but….there are people around! Do we take the photo? Do we move on? What will they think we’re up to?

These questions come up a lot in my self-portrait classes and it such a good one to chat about! So I thought I’d share a few tips with you about how to take self-portraits (especially full body photos or those in which we step into the frame) in public!

Find a Bit of Privacy in a Public Space

You might be surprised to know, there are plenty of times I don’t take a photo because I do feel too in view of other people. One trick I really like to do is to find a bit of privacy in a public space. This could standing behind a tree, or on the other side of a fence, or just go down the beach a bit to take the photo.

Indeed, if you are setting up your tripod, you likely won’t be too inconspicuous, which is why I love to take photos from the ground (or near the ground, on a rock, on top of my purse)! That way your camera can be out of view (or like you just put it down) and you can take your self-portrait!

To me, it does feel really important to find a little bit of privacy. My personal exploration through self-portraiture is really based on finding my way back home to feeling present & at home in my own body, my own skin and a big part of that explored through movement. So finding these little bits of privacy even in public places, feels important to create that safe space to move or dance or whatever I need to do to feel grounded in my body on that day!

Have a Couple Camera Options!

One of the ways I really like to listen to my gut when taking these self-portraits is whether the moment I want to take the photo in public calls for using my iPhone or my DSLR. iPhones are much more subtle as they are so much smaller and someone would have to be pretty close to see that I’m taking photos from the ground with it!

My DSLR on the other hand, is much bigger and I’m more likely to be noticed using it! If you have a Point and Shoot, that is a great option too as it is pretty subtle!

Having these options feels really important too when I’m in a place where I don’t want to make it too public that I have a big fancy camera or if I don’t feel too comfortable being too far away from my camera bag. In these kind of situations I like to use my iPhone as it is much easier to set it down and step into the frame without being too far away!

Scout out Locations (and sometimes, just go for it)

If you’re craving to take more self-portraits out ‘n about, I totally recommend keeping your eyes open for good spots to go to and to make note of them! Places like parks, community gardens, in front of murals, in touristy places, in fields, in the forest, alleys!

I love to jot down places that I haven’t tried yet in a note on my iPhone as I see them and if at the moment it doesn’t seem like its going to be a fit to take a photo, you can always come back!

Yet, sometimes you might just see a spot that you REALLY want to take a photo. Sometimes we just need to go for it! The time we’re spending wondering if someone will come around the corner seeing us might be the exact time we need to actually go for it and take the photo! Often on my photo walks I’ll find a ray of light that is just asking to be stood in for a photo and there are plenty of houses around. Is someone watching from inside their house? Perhaps? But I like to remember that all the jumping and twirling might just add a bit of joy to their day! In this case, like my last point, I might decide to use my iPhone to make the photo more subtle to people watching!

For more locations ideas, check out this post: 10 Great Places to Take Self-Portraits!

Listen to Your Intuition, Not Just Your Inner Critic

I go on LOTS of photo walks, especially when spring arrives and the light has returned! I often try to go out every evening even just for a walk around a few blocks of my neighbourhood. What I’ve discovered about taking self-portraits in public is that it really helps to notice what is my intuition speaking and what is my inner critic.

When we can listen to our intuition, we can notice if it feels like a safe or comfortable spot to pause and take a self-portrait in public. We can notice what feels like the right type of photo to take in that moment. Do we feel brave enough to put down our camera and step into the frame? Or would this be a better moment to stretch our our arm and take an arms length self-portrait? Or do we feel most comfortable in that moment taking the oh so subtle foot self-portrait style photo? In each moment we have lots of options.

If none of them feel like a fit in that moment, I encourage you to just keep adventuring and not see it as not being brave enough or failing. Its listening to our intuition about whether or not it is a good moment to go for it! To tell you the truth I often find that when I have a moment of not feeling comfortable taking a photo in a certain spot in public (even if it is a place where I normally might take it) there is often a new spot, a different place that I’ll find further along on the photo walk to try.

Now, our Inner Critic on the other hand, might be that voice telling us that “We’ll look silly” or “People might laugh at Us” or “I’ll make a fool of myself”. These voices are trying to stop us from going outside of our comfort zone. Stepping into the frame and taking a self-portrait with our whole selves in it, especially in public, is vulnerable. Our Inner Critics…in a mean way…are trying to protect us. I know its hard to push past them ALL the time, but I really encourage you to not let them stop you from taking self-portraits in public all the time. I tend to like to remember different locations when I’m really having a rough Inner Critic day. On a day like this, I’ll try a location like the community garden near my house that is pretty quiet…and has a lower risk of people seeing me take my self-portraits than, for example, taking a photo standing in the sidewalk. Sometimes finding a space that feels a bit less busy is enough to help the Inner Critics take a hike!

Bring a Friend

Sometimes it can be helpful to have a cohort in our selfie taking and it can make us feel much more comfortable having someone to stand near our camera or cheer us on!

For my own personal journey with self-portraiture it has felt really important to find outside spaces where I can really feel comfortable moving and dancing as I heal my relationship to my body and feeling present in it. For me, this often has meant taking these photos solo as I feel more uninhibited and its that freedom, that ‘Dance like No One is Watching’ that I feel really in need of on this healing path.

But for you, going on photo walks with a friend might be the perfect answer, having support, and as you get even more comfortable taking photos out and about, you might try it on your own later on! I encourage you to do what feels right for you on this path!

And you know what…sometimes people will see us! Sometimes they’ll walk right into the photo (which makes for a fun outtake)!

I hope these have been helpful to you and I’d LOVE to know if you give taking a self-portrait in public a try! If you share your photo on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook please do use the hashtag #beyourownbeloved so I can find your photo as I’d love to celebrate you and cheer you on!

For more self-portrait suggestions & prompts, come join me for one of the upcoming sessions of one of my E-Courses! Beloved Beginnings starts soon, on March 10th, and is a 10 day exploration of seeing yourself with kindness through your camera!

Then starting April 1st, a new session of Be Your Own Beloved starts! This 28 Day class has been transformative in so many folks lives in shifting the way that they see themselves in photos from a place of critique to a place of self-compassion (and even seeing themselves with love)!

February 26, 2014

Is Using a Filter on Your Self-Portrait Hiding?

When we use filters on our selfies as we share them online…are we hiding?

Are we using those filters to mask ourselves? Or are they artistic expression?

Is using a filter a bad thing? Is it more ‘truthful’ to not use a filter?

When I started teaching Be Your Own Beloved, these questions came up in discussions with some of the participants. It was so intriguing to me, as I hadn’t thought of using filters as hiding…but I was interested in why that was a pretty common experience for a lot of the folks in my class.

Now…if you aren’t familiar with what I mean by ‘filter’, it is anything that we layer on top of a photo. Some apps provide filters (like Instagram) that are a combination of effects that alter the photo. Other apps like Pic Tap Go allow you to add all sorts of features one by one. These layers might be things like brightening the photo, changing the colour & tones, adding some texture or a border. Much like you might layer effects in something like the website PicMonkey.

My exploration of photography began just as the most basic camera phones were emerging (let alone options to use filters) and as I started to explore using a digital camera, I noticed the way that everyone else’s photos seemed so much brighter than mine so I went on a mission to figure out why this was. I learned about photoshop and got playful with it, as well as websites like PicMonkey (well, in that era it was called Picnik). I learned about how to change contrast & add colour and my photos finally had the same vibrancy that everyone else’s seemed to. I most definitely fell head over heals with using texture and layers on my photos too.

So when iPhones and Apps & filters emerged I was thrilled that it was now way easier to add a little spark to our photos! Not only that, but using filters allows us to discover our own style. Do we love black and white photos? Or a little bit of brightening to our face in the self-portrait? Do we love adding a layer that almost looks like fog or softening to our photos?

Quite honestly, it never felt like hiding to me, but I absolutely want to honour that for some people it does.

To me, it felt like these filters were now going to make it so much easier for me to get creative with my self-portraits and to take a photo that I might have thought was okay and transform it into something I felt really proud of, within seconds.

As a portrait photographer, this is part of the process…picking out which images have that extra spark or let your client shine. Then we process your photo deciding what changes help the photo shine even more. The tools portrait photographers use are reflected in a lot of those filters that you might use on Instagram. Adding a brightness, or more contrast, adding a texture or turning it into black and white.

This is part of the fun of taking photographs and yes, self-portraits…figuring out which one lets us shine.

In fact, I think a filter can often be a way that we can take a photo that may bring up old stories of how we see ourselves and help shift it into a photo that we might be able to really see ourselves with kindness in.

Plus, the thing about self-portraiture is that:

We get to decide when & how its taken.

We get to pick which one out of the many we took feels like it lets us shine the most.

And we get to choose what we want to do before sharing it.

Its vulnerable to share our photos online too…so in my opinion, filter or no filter…pushing past that vulnerability is something to be proud of!

It seems like a creative, empowered choice to share our photos online and process them in a way that makes us feel good about the photo.

You didn’t stop yourself from taking it…

You didn’t delete it after taking it…

You chose to share it and let us see you Sure, sometimes when we use filters, it might blur out parts of us or add so much texture that we might be less visible in the photo. But I hope you’ll ponder that in fact this might not be hiding after all. You still are getting creative with it and sharing it…and all of those layers and the choices you made in getting creative with them is a way of letting us see you too, through your style of processing the photo.

Perhaps if there is a filter that really feels like a safety net to you, something that you do feel like you hide behind…maybe there is another filter out there that is similar in the tools it uses, but that could feel like a filter that helps you shine, rather than hide?

And is posting a photo filter free…better? This is a longstanding conversation in photography in general…but to be honest, I don’t feel like posting a self-portrait is better filter-free. It might be a way we can step out of our comfort zone (which is SO powerful) to share a photo filter free, but I don’t think it disvalues the ones we do add a filter too. As you might have noticed, I’m not really into seeing some self-portraits as ‘better’ in general (a foot photo being less valuable than a full body self-portrait for example. Both are brave)! If you don’t use filters…awesome! If you do…thats awesome too!

My personal style of using filters these days has become much more subtle than when I first started using them, but I almost always add a little something to a self-portrait to help it reflect the vibrancy that I want it to hold.

I thought I’d bring up this subject today in case you feel like each time you have a filter on a photo, you aren’t being truthful enough by sharing it filter-free. Lets go of the idea of using filters of hiding. I happen to think it is brave creativity in action.

Lets re-work the idea of filter as being something that we ‘hide’ behind to being something that helps us shine, that invites us to feel more confident sharing our photo & seeing ourselves with compassion. So lets use our filters with pride today…and if you do, please tag it with #beyourownbeloved so I can cheer you on!

How do you feel about using filters on your photos? I’d love to open up a conversation in the comments here about this subject…and I’d love to hear from you!