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I’m SO excited that Practice: Embodying Your Curvy & Beloved Body is about to begin (class starts Monday)!

Tomorrow I’m going to share a bit about my journey back to my curvy & beloved body with you but today I wanted to share something super fun with you…the story of a photo adventure my Mom & I went on in preparation for Practice!

Back in July as Anna and I were planning Practice, I just happened to be visiting my family back in Ontario and wanted to do some photos for the class on the beach near where my folks live.

Plus, my Mom is actually a yoga instructor!  At Age 58 she got inspired to take her Yoga Teacher training.  During her training we had weekly skype yoga sessions so she could practice her teaching skills on an eager participant!  It happened to be at the same time as I had my first (and hopefully only) running injury and it was truly so helpful for me in the recovery process and pain management.  Now is an awesome yoga teacher at a studio in Port Elgin Ontario!

I’m so proud of you Mom!

So it was a perfect way to spend some quality Mom & Daughter time while also using my Mom’s yoga knowledge to take some self-portraits to use for the class.

We biked down to the beach with panniers packed with yoga mats and props!  There is this beautiful rocky beach where we pulled up and unpacked our gear.  I set up a bit of a self-portrait station (putting the yoga mats in place to focus on and actually using blocks as a make-shift tripod)!

Then we started the fun!

It was so helpful to have my Mom guide me through some of the poses (just like Anna’s awesome lessons in the class will do for us) as I got into place and as we neared the end, I handed the camera over to her and she took a number of shots of me (dancing around and the close up ones)!  Thanks Mom!

I truly can’t wait to share this new class with you.  As Anna & I have been creating the content for the class, we’ve been loving the ways that self-portraiture and yoga truly overlap as tools for seeing ourselves with kindness and feeling at home in our bodies.  Only a few more days until we get to share it with you!

I hope you’ll join Anna & I for Practice: Embodying Your Curvy & Beloved Body…and class starts Monday so be sure to sign up soon!

Yup, it seems as though I am.

Now, this might seem like a big thing to proclaim and it is.

And it is a few years in the making.

Now, this isn’t one of those announcements where I’m telling you I got a book deal.  Nope, no specific publisher is awaiting this book (though I have a few in mind).

This is a proclamation of beginning.

Because I think it will help me commit to the writing process, but also because it took a long time to be ready to write this and I kind of want to celebrate the ups and downs it sometimes takes just to begin something BIG.

This is pretty much the biggest dream I have for my life (other than finding love, having a family and living a life rich in love and happiness…that would rock too).

Like any creative journey it has been full of ups and downs (and I’m just starting the actual writing process…its been a rollercoaster just getting here).  But today over my morning coffee I just felt the words filling up my thoughts, the ones to begin it all and I knew it was finally time to just do it.

So I did.

7000+ words on day one (I’m sure not every day will be remotely as much, but apparently it was indeed time to begin).

Today seemed to be the day that I finally (FINALLY) got out of my own way and started.

Even as I was writing this morning I still had thoughts of ‘I’m not a writer’ and ‘I don’t know how to write a book’.

What I do know is that I feel deeply compelled to let the mission of Be Your Own Beloved go out to the world in the form of a book.  In fact I feel like I have to do it.

And saying ‘I’m writing a book’ didn’t come without a whole lot of fear.

I wrote it down in my Mondo Beyondo list many years ago, scared silly to even speak it aloud.

For I while the rollercoaster was that Be Your Own Beloved was evolving from the original self-portrait E-Course You are Your Own Muse and I was working on making YAYOM the book, yet the beloved mission was just being born and I needed time to let it evolve.  My work was shifting and changing and it wasn’t time for the book to be birthed.

For the last year I’ve been gathering up blog posts both in a paper form (inspired by my awesome mentor Jennifer Lee) and in a document in Scrivener (oh i love scrivener).  I’ve been slowly bit by bit working on an outline for this book.  So there was a lot of work happening before I was even ready to start writing.

Then in the spring I stopped working on it completely.  I felt like I was procrastonating on actually beginning the writing or letting fear get in my way and actually really beat myself up about that.  Then suddenly I felt this strong urge to read read read and thats just what I did.  Now it makes sense, that I needed a break from the planning to just devour books for a while, to notice what drew me in about the books I was loving, do to more research and to find a place where if I trusted I knew what I loved about these books, it would help me figure out ‘how to write a book’.

I just feel as though I need to let this book out and create what I wish I could have found along the path to self-love, to let the be your own beloved message be something you might stumble across in a book store some day and it might help you see yourself with kindness.

I wanted to say this all out loud as I really want to make this happen and as of today, I feel like I’m finally ready.

So of course it might take a while, but I’m grateful that today my inner critic stepped aside, saying nothing and said let another voice emerge that said ‘Its time to write’.  And so it begins.

So, for a while now, the amazing Anna Guest-Jelley of Curvy Yoga and I have been working on a collaboration and today is the day that we are finally going to spill the beans!

I came across Anna’s work last year and LOVED the idea of yoga that invited folks of all body types to participate and feel welcomed.  I knew right away seeing her blog posts and website that our philosophies of body-acceptance overlapped.

So earlier this year when Anna signed up for Be Your Own Beloved, I was beyond honoured.  Then even more honoured that she not just enjoyed the class but found it really transformative.  I adore when folks who are just beginning their self-love journey decided to join in on Be Your Own Beloved and also those who have been on their self-love journey for a long while but never tried the tool of self-portraiture.

So after Anna’s experience with Be Your Own Beloved, we got chatting about the merging of yoga and self-portraiture in the form of an E-Course and the day has finally come for us to share what we have created for you!

Yes, Curvy Yoga + Be Your Own Beloved = Practice: Embodying your Curvy & Beloved Body! 

And you don’t need to be a yogini.

You don’t need to own a fancy camera.

You just need to be inspired to explore the merging of yoga and self-portrait photography as a tool for feeling embodied in your curvy beloved body!

So are you ready?

Anna and I are proud to introduce you to:

Practice: Embodying your Curvy Beloved Body!  

You can find out more about the class over at Anna’s Curvy Yoga Website and registration is now open!

Class runs August 26th-September 20th and the cost is $49!