Learn to See Yourself with Compassion

October 28, 2012

The Urge to Quit {and why I won’t}

In the last week I have been feeling a whole lot of feelings about running a creative business.

Tough ones. Caught in a ball in my throat constantly threatening to spill out in the form of tears feelings.

Stuff I haven’t felt since before I began. In fact almost exactly what I felt before I began offering e-courses.

Of invisibility.

Of aloneness.

Of feeling a tiny fish in a really big pond and not really being able to swim with the big fishes.

Of not wanting to be a ‘big’ or really well known, but just wanting to feel ‘seen’ and finding a place where I fit in.

Of feeling like I don’t fit in where I thought I would.

Of ‘who am I to’?

Of not being enough and that for everything I teach there is someone teaching it to a bigger audience.

I have been having these feelings like I want to quit my creative work (which I have really never felt in these last 2 years as I feel absolutely grateful that I have been able to do this work). Still, I’m getting the urge to run away.

But I won’t run.

I know this present space will lead me to deepen what I can offer to the world, recommit to my creative work on a more soul-purpose level and will deeply reinforce the importance of making people feel seen in my classes.

I know that there is a place online and in person where I do fit in, where I do feel seen.

I know that this feeling of wanting to run away means that there is something important I still have to do.

I also owe it to those women who have decided to ‘be their own muse’ not to quit.

But truthfully, I wanted to spill this now, in the midst of it {when it truly feels like shit}.

Not just after, when I’ve had a ‘realization’ or made it through to the new discovery.

In case you’re where I am or have been there, or in case it comes in the future. I want you to know you are not alone and not to quit whatever it is (be it opening an etsy shop or teaching a workshop) if the urge to quit comes from fear.

This whole photography journey for me came from a feeling of emptiness. Of sitting with that emptiness and seeing what it had to teach me. Of not running away from it. So I know, whatever this present urge to quit or to give up is, it is a teacher.

I’ll listen to it, journal through it and keep moving forward into whatever is next.

October 18, 2012

Awkwardness

I’m a Leo, so the summer is my time. I feel energized, connected, thriving and alive.

Then summer shifts to fall and my words get caught up in my mouth and spill out with stutters and foggy pauses. I feel the intense urge to go inward, which I know I need but I also know will swiftly shift to having too much time alone and my social awkwardness gains momentum.

I’m not sure how to shift it, or if this is just the way of the fall for a Leo, stumbling over my own feet once the light shifts away.

This year, I’ve decided to not berate myself over it. I’m embracing my awkwardness.

I’m letting my friends into seeing the me who can’t get her words out or who is even more awkward than usual. I’ve learned a lot this year about friendship and letting friends in more, to see the more messy me. It has felt really beautiful to do that and know that we can all be really ourselves with each other to a greater depth.

Being in an awkward phase these days has me thinking about self-portraiture too (which is generally always on my mind). In my classes I talk quite a bit about making space for the parts of ourselves that need to step into the photo and tell their story. That we might not know what parts of ourselves they are until we allow space for them and it can be profoundly healing to do this.

I’ve known for a while that one of those things is my awkwardness. Self-portraiture, for me, always has been and I always expect it always will be to create a space to feel free in my own skin.

In those moments where I’m on an abandoned railway or in the forest, with no one around, I find myself ‘dancing like no one is watching‘ and often that movement is completely and totally awkward but wildly free. I’m so grateful to year of taking Nia dance for allowing me to shift to this place of freedom in dance. Its an awkwardness I can embrace as it represents freedom to me.

I’m creating a space where my awkwardness is welcomed.

These photos also don’t often make it to flickr, or to my blog and often they don’t actually look all that good but I know that what is more important is that I have the space for all of me…the me that moves in a way that looks fabulous in a photo and makes me feel really good about myself (which are totally important) and the space for the awkward in me too.

Seriously…I really can’t believe I’m sharing one of my super awkward dancing photos with you but like I said, I want to tell you more truths and honour that this awkwardness needs space too.

October 14, 2012

Rainy Day Photography

This week, our blissful extended summer shifted to the usual fall Vancouver weather.

One of my favourite parts of the rainy season and one of my big ways to get through the grey is to focus on what the rain does bring that is fabulous for photos, primarily those little water droplets. When I notice pauses in the rain happen, I head out for a quick stroll around the neighbourhood and see what droplet photos I can gather.

What I love about seeking water droplets is that it invites you to go even deeper into the art of noticing. An entire plant will be covered in water droplets and you get to focus in on which ones draw you in. It makes you look even closer.

Here are some glimpses of what I found in todays rainy pause:

October 12, 2012

The Line between Focus and Blur

When my lens is wide eyed, open.

There becomes this thin line of focus where swirling circles of light become concrete or grass or truth that I can feel under my feet.

Where reality is clear and then in another inch everything else turns to magic again.

I’m at home in the play between these spaces of acute truth and shifting reality.

I can decide if today is a day to play in the blur, to become bokeh.

Or to step into the focus, to be more visible, to have the lines of my body shift from blur to sharp focus.

Most days I walk the line between the two of them.

Balancing in that space between raw truth and shifting reality.

Laser sharp focus and wide eyed wonder.

Yet committed to being in the frame.

In the story of my own life.

October 10, 2012

My Word of the Year

Whenever I visit with folks in person from this creative online world, of course, our word of the year comes up. I told a friend my word of the year recently and I confessed that I hadn’t spoken my word aloud online. When I spoke it we burst into laughter because, well, its the kind of word that needs to be spoken aloud. Keeping it silent is pretty much the opposite of the word itself.

And the word is: Confidence

Here’s the thing though. Just like any other word, when you put the intention out, it takes hold and creates a focus for your year. Though sometimes not in the way you expect!

When I chose the word confidence, I wanted a word that would help me thrive in both my personal life and business.

It isn’t a glamourous word to chose as your word of the year. Not at all. But I’ve seen over the past few years that when I pick a word that becomes a focus for my year, big things can happen and they aren’t always pretty. Oh, like the year I chose the word thrive. The year I made gigantic changes in all the ways I was merely surviving…not always a pretty picture.

I knew there were some big changes that I wanted to make in this year including being proactive about dating, evolving my business and diving into some big-dream truths. I knew that if I picked a word that was a bit less vulnerable, well, it might not be helpful. I wanted to step up this year in a lot of ways. So I went for it, for the unglamourous but the truth behind all of the thing that I really wanted to change in my life.

Is finding confidence.

I confess I’ve had this post as a draft for a long time now (i even accidently published an old version of it…if that showed up in your blog reader, thats why). I wanted to wait for a time when I really felt confident, when I felt like that sassier, more confident version of myself who made bold business decisions and exuded confidence.

There has been lots of moments that that felt true and many that it hasn’t.

What I’m learning about confidence is that it really isn’t just only about the outward expression. It isn’t just about extroversion and what we present to other people.

Like those words I found written on a wall near my house, I’m learning about being more self-confident and supportive to those parts of myself that don’t fit it. To be totally truthful, its not all that hard to be bold and confident in the ways that are socially welcomed in a certain situation or in society in general. I’m discovering that maybe true confidence exists in embracing those parts of ourselves that may not always be welcomed with open arms but finding ways to love ourselves (in the ebb and flow process of self-love) no matter what.

Its not just about an outward expression of confidence, or at least, that doesn’t seem to be the end result (its never really what we envision it to be on January 1st, is it). Sure, I really welcome more moments of sassily feeling confident in my own skin, feeling brave in dating and business but I’m really all good with whatever else confidence has to teach me in the coming months. I think it is a pretty darn good word to have chosen after all.

I’m getting some glimpses of some ways that my business could change drastically if I chose to. The word confidence might make you think that I want to start trying to be the next big thing, but its actually quite the opposite. I think I’m dialing in to a deeper purpose in the work that I’m doing, one that could make for some big shifts in my offerings but that might feel even more in alignment with what I feel like I’m meant to offer in this lifetime.

So, I figured it was high time that I spoke that word aloud.

Confidence.

Bring it on.

{And I’d love to hear what your word of the year is and if you’re having any half-a-year into it revelations}