Category Archives: Self Portraits

May 14, 2015

You Don’t Have to Apologize for Your Selfie

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You don’t need to apologize for your selfie.

For posting one when you don’t usually.

For wanting to be seen.

You don’t have to apologize for being yourself.

For your wrinkles, your chin, your belly, your smile.

For your inherently worthy body, right here right now.

You don’t have to apologize for being unfiltered

Or highly filtered. Or even touched up.

It’s your story to tell the way you need to.

You don’t owe us an apology. And what would it feel like not to apologize?

When I have the urge to apologize for posting something I don’t usually or a photo I’m not sure folks will groove with I feel myself shrink down, worried what other people might think. In fact often apologizing does the opposite of what we might want it too…pointing out that thing we think we need to apologize for actually points out what you might not want the viewer to notice.

Sharing without apology feels like a way to ground myself in my own power, in my own right to be here and tell my story.

And if you can’t resist the urge to apologize (or if you don’t have that same experience of the apology feeling like it invites you to sit in your smallness rather than bigness, that’s totally groovy too of course).

Or if this feels really big to share a selfie unapologetically and you’re not sure how to begin, Beloved Beginnings is a self-paced class that is always available. Or the Be Your Own Beloved class that is now open for registration. Both were created not for people who already love taking selfies, but for those who it feels really vulnerable or out of your comfort zone.

Tell your story.

Take your selfie.

Unapologetically.

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

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)!

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 25, 2015

Let Yourself Shine

We were sitting out on the fire escape high above the street with glasses full of red wine. She was a crone with long black hair and looked like the picturesque witchy woman, which she was. We were talking about the city we lived in and the way it has a strange energy to it.

“Don’t ever let them put a blanket over your light” she said.

I’ve thought about those words so many times over the years. Mostly once I left that city. Because, you know what, I had a blanket over my light.

She was so right. I don’t think it was anyone else who put it over me, or the city, I most definitely put it over myself. It was cozy and safe under there.

That blanket has stayed there for a long time. It was heavy, dark and definitely my safety zone. I walked the world with this blanket of fear, afraid to show my light, afraid that they’d tell me:

“Who are you to try to shine like that?”

“Who do you think you are?”

“Don’t try and show off. Just accept things as they are.”

“You aren’t good enough.”

I listened to those voices for a long time.

A LONG time.

Mediocrity was a comfortable place for me. Not letting my light shine was safe and not scary. I was protecting myself.

After a while it didn’t work anymore. Mediocrity is not enough. It was suffocating, sad and stagnant. I wanted more than that.

So I started to believe in myself again, believe that I had something to offer. I didn’t know what it was, especially since I had been hiding my light for so long.

For a long time I had 4 pages ripped out of a magazine taped to my apartment wall which contained these words:

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

-Anais Nin

I would read that quote every day. I knew some day it would be worth the risk to blossom. Then the time came and I was wracked with fear.

I gathered up my courage and peeked out from underneath that blanket covering my light.

Hello?

Hello, hello, hello the world echoed.

Just in case that was just a coincidence, I tried again.

Hello?

Hello, hello, hello the world echoed back at me again.

Okay. It seemed pretty safe out there. Safe enough to stick my head out and see. It wasn’t as scary as I’d feared. I walked around with my head emerged, still having the blanket around me taking special care to keep my heart protected.

Slowly I let the blanket drift lower and let more of myself emerge. Eventually my heart was left exposed. It beat loudly, adrenaline pumping.

“Cover yourself…this is too much”.

“Are you crazy, I’m wildly exposed here” it said.

So my heart and I had a little conversation.

Dear Heart

Having a blanket over your light, suffocating your dreams, is not the love I want to give you. You are worth a better kind of self-love.

Just because I am letting my dreams emerge, it doesn’t mean that I won’t protect you.

Trust me.

Love,

Vivienne

It calmed to a regular heartbeat. Regulating and surprised itself by actually enjoying the sun shining down on it rather than being hidden in fear.

The blanket fell further until it wasn’t needed anymore.

I didn’t leave it behind though. Sometimes things are so scary to let emerge that they need blankets, they need to ease into existence rather than jump in full force.

Some days I still need to hide under it. To keep in touch with that part of me that is scared. Fear is an important part of the creative process. There have been times when I hide back under there for a while until it is time to emerge with a new idea or new dream.

It feels so intriguing to me that when I really think about it, my work now teaching self-portraiture e-courses is just this. It is about taking a medium that some people perceive as ‘vain’ and turning that on its head. My work is about helping people pull that blanket of fear off of themselves and giving them tools to allow themselves to shine. It is about creating a community that echos back at you ‘you are so wonderful’ loudly and clearly so you know you are not alone.

As well, sometimes people may try and put a blanket over you and so many of us are experts at putting blankets over our own light.

Just promise me that if you are indeed hiding your light like I have been…that some day when you are ready, you will lift up the corner of it and shout out “hello”. I will promise you that the world will echo back at you.

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!