On this weekends adventure to Washington State, even though it was just a day trip, it was fun to just engage in the energy of travelling, even if only for the short time.

One of the things I love about getting out of town is the unexpected, the in between moments.  The bits of time in between plans where you can just look up at where you are and take a little self-care photo walk.

Just wandering around a town I don’t know makes me seriously happy (with my camera of course).  Something about being in a place I don’t know brings up the energy of acutely noticing, of just seeing with new eyes.  I especially love taking these little photo walks because while being in a car is a much easier way to travel, just getting feet to ground in a new place makes me really feel like I’m experiencing a place, not just seeing it rush by the car window.  I had 2 little bits of adventuring at the start and end of saturday’s photo adventure and in each of those short stretches of time I went on a little wander just to see what might catch my eye.

In Bellingham, just after getting off the bus I spotted it, this patch of tall grass with yellow flowers across the street. I wandered over there and couldn’t resist putting down my iPhone and using the Gorillacam app…stepping into the frame to capture some photos of this day of adventure.

Then, off on the grand adventure away from the rain, through the mountains to the sunny forest that I shared a bit about in yesterday’s post.  At the end of that beautiful day I ended up needing to change my travel plans and found myself taking the train home from a town I had never been to: Everett Washington.

After getting my train ticket I had some time to spare and while the town looked pretty industrial in that area, I felt drawn to wander around a bit on a photo walk.  I headed up the hill and there it was, this gorgeous mural.  It was kind of the last thing I expected to find in that moment.  This week in Be Your Own Beloved we had been seeking out messages of love (hearts, words, notes) as reminders to cultivate self-love and I smiled big when I saw that there at the bottom it was…the words ‘You are Loved’.  It was a beautiful reminder that wherever you are, there is indeed love.  Here are a few more iPhone captures of that sweet little one city block photo walk in Everett!

Have you found that too, that sometimes it is the little in between moments, the unexpected explorations that really add something special to a trip?

Yesterday I went on a bit of an adventure to meet up with some folks in Washington State to gather, feast and photograph.  The intention behind this day being to use some of the photos in an upcoming issue of the amazing magazine Amulet (its a pretty breathtaking magazine isn’t it)!

What I love about gatherings that are also photo shoots is that while on one hand I have a task of photographing the experience, it seems to always end up being a beautiful experience of gathering together, sharing incredible food and exploring a pretty stunning location.  Earlier this year I gathered with some folks for this dreamy beach photo shoot.  For this one we adventured eastward over snowcap mountains to a beautiful park in the middle of Washington State and found this spot in the woods to shoot.

While of course the DSLR photos are saved for Amulet, I wanted to give you a behind the scenes sneak peek (iPhone style) of this shoot!

I immediately said YES when Olive (amazing coach and one of the facilitators) asked me, because as you can probably imagine, that project is so up my alley.  I’ve been craving to do more in person workshops so this was a great opportunity to do just that and to talk about self-portraiture as self-care to a group of awesome folks.  There have been a few in person teaching opportunities coming my way locally, which has felt really incredible….because this work I’ve been doing for years has been SO online based.   For it to cross over to locally AND in-person, not just from me making it happen, but from opportunities coming up is really making me happy.

So back to the workshop…

The day of the event came and along with it MEGA nerves.  Now, I’m an introvert but an introvert who loves teaching (maybe its the introverted Leo thing) and feels drawn to do it in person.

It reminded me of when I first started teaching e-courses and how vulnerable it was to put it out into the world.  I’m remembering those days and how while it isn’t easy-peasy these days to launch a new class, there isn’t that mega fear there was when I first started.

Here’s the thing I need to remember about that fear.  That it is a sign that we are venturing outside our comfort zone, and that is a good thing!

Just like when I’m asking participants in Be Your Own Beloved to come face to face with their inner critic and to tell it:

“I’ve got this.  Thanks for trying to alert me to something new and that I’m going outside my comfort zone, but I believe I can handle this, so inner critic…buzz off”

Within the many hours of the day 0f the workshop where I had to say this to my inner critic again and again I realized how much this is a place where there is room to grow, to really show up for myself and I plan to get brave and do it more.

The workshop felt awesome and I loved seeing how once I started, the nerves disappeared and made way for a lovely evening.

I’ve been dreaming of doing some more local Be Your Own Beloved workshops and this class was the spark I needed (yes even with the nerves) to get going on planning it.  I’m even dreaming of bringing it to some other Canadian cities and then at some point bring it to the US too.

If you think your city would be one for me to add to the list as I dream up bringing these in person workshops on the road someday, spill the beans!

Each time I’m running Be Your Own Beloved I take part in the class too.  I’m so loving how each time I do, even though they might be the same prompts, I experience them differently.

I feel like its important for me to be right there alongside them doing this work as they are bravely engaging in the activities.

But at the same time I also am doing it for myself.  Because this self-love journey is so multi-layered.  Because these prompts come from my own healing journey and they aren’t meant just to do once and suddenly we see ourselves with love and the inner critic disappears.  Because doing these same prompts again I’m amazed at how much new realizations emerge.  New layers of the healing.

I try to take my self-portraits with my iPhone as I participate alongside the participants. In this class, more than ever, I really want people to not feel the need to take a ‘perfect’ photo.  That it isn’t about having a fancy camera or even knowing how to use it.  Its just about showing up in our own photos.    Our inner critic can come out in reference to our self-image but also to feeling as though our photograph is ‘enough’.

Yesterday’s photo was one of those ‘digging in deeper’ moments for me.  I shared this with the participants in the flickr group:

The truth of today is that I see tiredness in my own eyes, I see me but without a spark.  

The truth of today is that I really wanted to retake this and not share it.  

The truth of today is that I often do reshoot until I get one that I really feel like I can see myself with kindness in but that today I stopped myself from shooting more because I really want to share more of the ones in between, the ones that are outside of my comfort zones and really show up for you amazing #beyourownbeloved participants and not just with happy jumping photos and feeling sassy.  So this is the truth of today.

Now, I think sometimes folks might think that because I do this work that taking self-portraits is easy-breazy, that I’m 100% comfortable with taking photos.

But its the opposite.  While its not so much outside of my comfort zone to take out the camera and engage in the act of taking self-portraits, the work of seeing myself with kindness is ongoing and ever evolving.  I’m definitely feeling the effects of years of doing this work and am seeing myself with much more compassion lately.  Yet that doesn’t mean taking selfies is always easy (mind you….I do make sure I have fun amidst the work of self-compassion).

Like yesterday when I took that one and felt drawn to see her with compassion, with her tired eyes and a shot I might have normally retaken.

So I wanted to share this moment with you.  The in between.  The days when just showing up in front of the camera and telling the truth of the day is more than enough.

A few months ago I came to the place in my creative business where I realized I needed some ‘company self-care policies’, to add some pro-active self care into my week.  You can read about that realization here. I quickly realized that while I did need them within my business, I needed to create some life self-care policies too!

Since then, I have been filling my journal with thoughts about self-care tools:

• how some things feel like self-care and actually drain me
• how to figure out what the best way to nurture myself
• what self-care tools aren’t working for me and I need to let go of
• what are the simple ways I can cultivate more self-care
• how to create ‘policies’ and make self-care non-negotiable yet not shame myself if i can’t fulfill that ‘policy’ during the week

Then one day on one of my self-care journalling Monday mornings (totally one of my self-care policies) I realized that all of these spillings, questions and answers where a collection of really useful tools that might be able to help YOU figure out what self-care policies are right for you.

So I decided to create a new course in the Be Your Own Beloved series!  It is a 2 week course (14 days in a row) inviting you to discover some new tools to help you create more space in your life for YOU to thrive.  In the first week I have 7 different, really unique ways to approach discovering the self-care tools that will help you cultivate more self-care time in your life.  This isn’t a one size fits all approach at all.  In the second week we put these tools into practice.

Of course, being a Be Your Own Beloved class there is also a self-portrait element, but it is completely beginner friendly.  This course is a great sidekick to the original Be Your Own Beloved class but can also be taken on its own!  As with the original #beyourownbeloved class we are going to have a beautiful community energy in this class and will be able to share our self-care discoveries and get inspired by one another.

Oh, and it is super affordable too!

Head on over here for more info about Be Your Own Beloved: Creating Self-Care Policies! 

On Sunday I went out to the forest on my new vintage bike, to this spot by a creek that I love to take photos at.  Not a soul came by the whole time I was there taking photos which absolutely rocked (and is so rare in the city).

I was shooting a photo for this months She is Three Triptych and brought along a scarf to use as a prop!  I remembered these photos by the wonderful Brooke Schmidt taken when she participated in one of my courses, and got inspired to try doing some Brooke-inspired throwing around of the scarf!

Oh my goodness…it was actually super challenging!

Seriously, probably over 100 shots to get a few I loved BUT every single shot was fun to take.  I hadn’t brought my remote but I’m sure it would it have made it a lot easier (or maybe not, that scarf moved wild and free and I never knew what it was going to do when I threw it up in the air)!

It was also fun to use the Gorillacam app on my iPhone.  You can set it to take a whole lot of photos at once so I set it to 30 shots and just danced around and had fun!

Here are some of my favourites outtakes that came out of this adventure and peek over at She is Three today to see the one that got included in this month’s Triptych!

On Saturday I was heading home from ‘The Drive’, the main street in my neighbourhood and I stumbled across a yard sale.

There she was, shiny and red, cute and vintage.  Unlike any other bike I’ve seen.

I asked the price, sure that once I heard it I would easily be able to pick up my groceries and walk home without it.

But then she said it, and it was wicked cheap.  So I put down my groceries and gave her a spin.

3 gears,

pedal brakes

big tires

and she’s a folding bike

She rode like a dream and after that trial ride she became mine.  I was smitten.

I went home, got my helmet and then headed out to the seawall, a bike path that weaves around the waters edge of this coastal city.  I was worried at first that something was wrong, that there was a reason she was so affordable and that I’d need to do repairs but it was such a beautiful ride.

It reminded me of my bike at my parents house that I ride when I’m visiting for cottage time in the summer.  Somehow pedal brakes and minimal gears just feels like summer to me, when you just can’t help but coast more and feel happy.

And then my gremlins a.k.a. my inner critic appeared.

Now, my gremlins and I have a long history and after lots and lots of work (and putting them in their place) we’ve kind of been at peace lately.

But there they were rearing their meanie selves again.

I’d bike past store windows and look at my reflection, much like I used to and judge how wide I looked from the side walking by a store window.  Did I look like a fool on this bike? As I big girl, do I look silly riding this little bike?  Is this bike too funky for me?

This went on for about 5 minutes and my gremlins ranted and raved and sucked the pleasure out of the moment.  I remembered how icky it felt to have my gremlins taking over.  So I had a conversation with myself that went something like this:

“Do you feel a sense of freedom on this bike?”

Yes.

“Does this bike make you happy”

Yes.

“Does this bike feel really comfortable to ride”

Yes.

“Will this bike allow you to be more free in getting around the city?

Yes.

“Will this bike be able to come on travel adventures with you because it is foldable?”

Yes

“Does this bike make you want to put on vintage dresses and ride it with style?”

Heck yes.

Then this bike is meant for you, and you have to honour it by rockin’ it with confidence.

And I looked up.

Towards me were biking two guys on tall bikes, then a couple on a flourescent pink tandem bike.  A few minutes later a recumbant bike and then yes, even a unicycle.  Then more and more, people of all body types and ages riding bikes by me.  As each of them passed me I had to smile as it felt like the universe was listening and reminding me of this.

You can rock anything if you gather up the confidence to.

But when we get so caught up in our inward chatter, we miss the opportunity to feel really a part of a community that celebrates uniqueness if we just open up to noticing them.

So I let my shoulders relax.

And smiled the rest of the way home.   People smiled widely back at me, not because I was riding a funky bike but because I was riding it with a gigantic happy smile on my face.

I wanted to share this with you in case you happen to adventure outside your comfort zone today and have an unexpected visit from your own inner critic.  Look up, look outwards and see the beautiful brave diverse world around you and let yourself shine within it.

I realized that I haven’t outright told you about this new path, though I’m sure you are seeing the changes in the courses offered and the new title of this site.  The new path is all about being your own beloved and cultivating self-compassion through self-portraiture.

Something happened this February when I offered Be Your Own Beloved.  There was something within me shouting ‘This!!! This is it. This is what you need to focus on.  This is how you can be most of service in the world.  This is your IT’.  I just felt a clarity I had never felt really in my life let alone in business.  For so much of my life I felt like I had no clue what my purpose was so to feel it, to feel a little taste of clarity kind of blew me away.

In these last few years of teaching e-courses it has been incredible to teach such a wide variety of classes.  Everything from making videos to seeing photography through the lens of the chakras.  A super wide range.  So, its been a bit of a process to realize that by feeling so focused on #beyourownbeloved and truly be able to be of service through it, I needed to stop offering all the other classes.  So this is what I wanted to tell you today.

It has been an honour to help people see that they can make videos and get past their fear of technology, it has been amazing to help people see that they are artists and photographers and explore self-portraiture through discovering tools of photography but I truly feel so clear that what really lights me up, what really feels like what I can most be of service in….is helping people see their own worthiness and help them bring more self-love into their lives through their cameras.  That it isn’t about our cameras or our photography skill or how ‘perfect’ of an image we can get.

It is about telling our story.

It is about showing up in front of the camera seeking that self-love.

It is about resiliency.

It is about using the tools that might feel like the ways that negative self-talk may most be prevalent (like seeing images of ourselves) and taking the power back, reclaiming that tool as a way to cultivate self-love.

Its all about the love.

There are new classes coming, but they are all focused around self-portraiture, self-love and self-care and this feels really right.

So I wanted to share this with you in case you were awaiting the next Montage session or hoping the Chakra class was coming back (I’m even still on the fence about continuing to offer YAYOM…its my baby, my first born and I may still offer it but way less frequently than I have been).  These courses may appear again in a self-paced or E-Book form though!

I hope you’ll join me in continuing to explore seeing ourselves with kindness through our cameras!

A new session of Be Your own Beloved starts tomorrow and I can barely wait to send these love notes to the participants inboxes for the next 28 days.  Love notes with a daily tool to try on the path to seeing themselves with kindness.

This course comes right from my heart, from all the tricks and tools I’ve been using along the way to healing my own self-image and learning to be kinder to myself.  I first offered this class if February and I so hoped that these tools would resonated with the participants.  What happened floored me.  The experience changed peoples lives.  I mean, I know these tools changed mine and that had been my hope but to see the transformations and unfolding that happened in those 28 days was amazing.  I was a proud e-course mama and it has been truly an honour to offer this class.

This new session starts tomorrow and I’m adding even more powerful tools to the class (also because a fair number of people who took it the first time are back for more)!

We’re gathering in the Flickr group already for class, so I wanted to mention it to you in case you felt drawn to join us this time and to spend the next month in a beautiful community experience while at the same time focusing in on YOU and creating more self-kindness in your days and seeing yourself differently.

This is for you who don’t think you are photogenic and are never in photos but want to change that story.

This is for you mamas who need tools to reconnect with yourself.

This is for you who believe that you need to make changes before you take photos of yourself (let the love start now).

This is for you who want to change the story of the way you see yourself.

This is for all of us.

I wanted to share a few testimonials with you and experiences of some past participants and folks I’ve done Be Your Own Beloved workshops with.

Hear about Kyeli Smith’s experience of taking self-portraits in her amazing video and how her world was rocked by taking Be Your Own Beloved!

On her blog yesterday Andrea Scher shared a moment when she remembered a tool from taking Be Your Own Beloved and had a moment of self-kindness.

Read about the amazing Anna Guest-Jelley’s experience of taking Be Your Own Beloved here!

It has been really powerful to hear these stories of how the experience of taking a self-portrait each day for a month was for the month was for people and I wanted to share these with you as I have a feeling they might resonate with you!

Alana shared how the course affected her as a Mom:

When I became a mom, I felt like I took a step back internally, to let my daughter shine in front of me. At the time, I didn’t feel like I was shrinking, or playing small – I was completely wrapped up in how amazing she was. She was (and still is) the center of my life. Fast forward a few years and that piece of me that took a back seat wanted to be seen again. I wanted to be seen as a whole woman, not just as a mom. This reemergence had been happening slowly, over time, but it was taking  Be Your Own Beloved that helped me to physically see myself again as a whole, beautiful, complete being. 

There’s something deeply moving and heart-opening about looking at yourself through the lens of the camera. Vivienne taught the practice of self-portraiture in such a gentle way, it allowed me to release many of my fears and self-judgments and to see from the outside the shine I feel on the inside.

-Alana Sheeren

Here is also a glimpse of the experience that Rachael is presently having in the You are Your Own Muse class, but I wanted to share it today as I feel like it is one that people are experiencing in BYO Beloved too and that some of you might really relate to:

“I kept thinking that I would have to wait until I lost a lot of weight before I’d be happy with any photos of myself.  With this now old mindset (thank you Vivienne!) I’ve done just about everything possible to remain out of photos – it’s really quite sad, as there is a gap of 10 years with very few photos of me.  Vivienne – I am not exaggerating by saying that your class has been incredibly powerful and transformative for me, so thank you oh so very much for having this space for all of us to express ourselves and look at ourselves differently.”

-Rachel Krebs

Class starts tomorrow and its not too late to join in.

Gift yourself with the kindness and transformation that folks are having from being their own beloved and come join us!

She didn’t know what would happen this time she turned the camera towards herself

Sometimes it would be the same story that asked to be told.  The one about feeling at home in her own body, the one that craved to dance and twirl after too much time caged in, sitting on her hands trying to be still.

Sometimes it would be a calling to just send as much compassion her own way as she could, by looking through the camera.

Sometimes she would just yearn to be playful, to jump and make silly faces and make herself smile when she’d look at the images.

Sometimes she would yearn to capture herself in a way that made her feel beautiful, something she was only now starting to believe she was and she’d take that photo remembering that she gets to decide what about her is beautiful, on her own terms.

And some days, like on this day, the story was one that she didn’t even know yet.

One that she was in the motion of writing, right here right now.

And one day she’d look back at it and it would make so much sense.

But right now, all she knew was that her intuition told her: surround yourself in this green, this growing, this reaching towards the sky.

So she listened.

*

If your intuition is whispering to you that you’d like to try self-portraiture in a supportive community environment with self-reflective yet playful activities, a  new session of Be Your Own Beloved is starting oh so soon…this wedensday May 1st!  Come join us!