Learn to See Yourself with Compassion

October 21, 2021

Oh Hello…

Oh hello. It’s me Vivienne.

It’s been over 3 years since I clicked ‘post’ here. It’s probably largely because of that kiddo of mine up there in the photo who is now 2.5!

But I think it’s also a combination of the culture of blogging disappearing even more into people sharing on Instagram, and also this website of mine changing it’s format so even trying to come here and write a post felt new and overwhelming. Oh, and having pretty much only nap time to do anything for me and lots of other things that take precedence in my work time over blogging. That too!

Yet I’ve been spending time here on my site changing things and it felt like it was time to revisit blogging again. I miss the practice of spilling words into the page. I miss connecting with people through their blogs too (I still have a blog reader I check sometimes so if you still blog regularly let me know in the comments…I’d love to follow along).

Part of me wonders if anyone will even see this. Does anyone read blogs anymore? Yet there’s an energy to writing that ‘will anyone see this’ that is lovely. It feels full of possibility once again. Unlike how constraining social media feels these days.

It reminds me of the Vivienne who started blogging many (and I mean many) years ago from my attic apartment in Fernwood, feeling the freedom to write these strange little tales of her life. Then the community she found through these blogs, the homecoming that felt like. Then the blog became the place she’d tell visual stories once her love of photography emerged. I really did find myself and document that process in this format of blogging.

So I’m going to press ‘post’. To begin again. To see how this next chapter unfolds. Perhaps to tell some more visual stories. To spill some more tales. To inhabit this space once again.

July 7, 2018

Who’s Gaze Are You Seeing Yourself Through?

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Who’s gaze are we seeing ourselves through?

That’s the topic of our very first activity in the Take Your Selfie for Yourself E-Coursestarting this Monday.

So…who’s gaze are we seeing ourselves through?

I wish we could all say “My own gaze” and have never doubted that. I wish we were never taught how we should or shouldn’t be in a photo. I wish we were never told what a ‘good photo or a ‘bad photo’ is or were taught to place our value on our body.

But we were. So when we pick up the camera, we are met by all the ways that we are taught to see our bodies through societies gaze. Every time we see ourselves through a critical lens, that’s the external gaze of enoughness put upon us. It took me a long time to learn that myself…that when I would see something in a photo that I struggled with…that was the external gaze trying to define my worth. My belly’s worth. Or my backs worth. Or the worth of my bare arms.

Thankfully, we can unlearn this. The more we wake up to how we’re seeing our body through a lens of external validation, the more we can return to our own internal validation.

Because we don’t have to earn it.
We don’t have to change ourselves to be worthy of it.
We just have to be willing to accept it…our inherent worth.
To except that all bodies are worthy bodies, including our own.
And that the more we SEE our inherently worthy body, the more we’ll be able to wake up to it’s worthiness.

A powerful thing happens when we stop prioritizing the desire to be approved of by others, by external validation and start approving of ourselves, start feeling SEEN by and for ourselves.

But there comes a point in most of our body acceptance path where we have to make this choice, where it becomes too toxic to keep trying to please others and the choice to please ourselves, to witness ourselves, to SEE ourselves, to hear ourselves…becomes the clear choice.

Come join me for this powerful class where we explore seeing ourselves through our own gaze …I loved teaching this one last year and seeing the shifts it helped people make in really choosing their own worth rather than constantly being on the rollercoaster of finding our worth externally.

Come join me for Take Your Selfie for Yourself and let’s choose ourselves. Class starts Monday!

There is also a session of Be Your Own Beloved coming this August if that’s a better fit for you (it’s a more beginner-friendly class). If you’re not sure what is the right class for you, don’t hesitate to click the contact form and connect with me!

June 25, 2018

Becoming Familiar to Ourselves through the Lens

I took this photo yesterday and had that feeling of “there you are”. That feeling of recognition. Of familiarity. Of feeling at home in myself and seeing that reflected in a photo.

But it was interesting to notice because this was not a typical kind of selfie that I would have that experience in. As up until about 6 months ago this perspective wasn’t in my repertoire of how I would take photos of myself. 6 months ago I probably would have taken his photo and not felt that homecoming and self-recognition as it was a very unfamiliar way of seeing myself.

In my classes we explore this idea of becoming familiar with ourselves again and it felt interesting to notice this as I see it as a direct result of shaking up the way I was taking my photos. Normally I’d be taking it from above, like a typical selfie, but in Body Curiosity we shook that up and took photos from all sorts of unexpected perspectives with the intention of refamiliaring and renormalizing seeing our body again. And while I have experienced that process time and time again in this healing journey, it felt cool to notice it right when it was happening today and I wanted to share that with you.

We pick up the camera and take a photo wanting that self-recognition, wanting to feel like we know the person looking back at us. But I think we often get stuck in seeing ourselves only through one perspective, one typical way of taking an image of ourselves. Or we get stuck in yearning for that recognition (and often we feel that by meeting societal body standards and getting that validation) in feeling recognized as ‘beautiful’ or ‘photogenic’ and take photos in the ways that we know we’ll recognize ourselves in those ways. But that’s external recognition. That’s not what heals us. That’s not what changes us. Internal self-recognition does.

And through these experiences I believe more than ever that we can find that internal self-recognition with ourselves. That any kind of photo, if we experience it regularly and meet it with as much compassion as we can on that day, will lead to being able to eventually see it and experience it as a familiar perspectives of ourselves. To recognize our body and ourselves in it and see ourselves from a non-judgemental, neutral perspective. Indeed, this process of re-normalization takes time (and there is no one timeline) but it’s these moments where we take a photo that we might have critiqued in the past and say “Oh, there you are!” and see ourselves with that recognition.

Let’s spark that that process of coming home and becoming familiar to ourselves through our own lens. If you’d like a guide in that process, come join me for one of the upcoming E-Courses like the 30 Day Be Your Own Beloved E-Course or the Take Your Selfie for Yourself E-Course (don’t hesitate to write to me via the contact form if you’re not sure which one is the best fit for you).

April 9, 2018

The Selfie that Changed Me

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This was one of the photos I took in my own selfie practice that broke open a new level of healing for me. It broke the rules of what is ‘flattering’ and challenged that in me. It broke rules of how much of these rolls on my body ‘should be seen’ and how it should be seen. It was me taking a photo of my hand reaching into the frame, like I often take photos but this time I didn’t make the rest of my body invisible.

This is an example of how when we expand how we’re willing to SEE our body, we expand how far we’re willing to extend our compassion. SEEING my body in this way allowed me to neutralize my reaction to it.

It challenged me at first, yes. But the more I saw it, the less it brought up a reaction for me at all (well, that process of seeing a photo regularly that challenges us…combined with work around dealing with my own internalized fatphobia that comes with that reaction that would think a fat roll would negate my value or worthiness).

I see such beauty in this photo too. Especially now that there is no charge to it for me. The way the rolls flow in light and shadow, the way the lines of the dress add to the flow (a horizontal striped dress of course…something fat bodies are told not to wear, one of the rules I’ve long since ditched about what I should wear). I see these rolls as an old friend I’ve learned to love. I see them in this photo now that I’ve been working with it and it gives me comfort rather than a place of critique.

And the truth is I don’t know what you see in it. I can’t control how other people see my body and I no longer prioritize that. Because this body is mine, where I live and one I’ve learned to love and if anyone else has a problem with it, that’s their body stories coming up. Not mine.

We are in charge of how we see our own body and we have to reclaim that vision and that voice back for ourselves.

Seeing ourselves from different perspectives is one of the most pivotal tools for making peace with how we see our body. Which is exactly what we’re exploring in the upcoming Body Curiosity E-Course. And don’t worry if the idea of taking a photo like this is outside your comfort zone…you get to get curious about your body on your own terms and can decide how to explore the playful activities in a way that allows you to expand your comfort zone (and your self-compassion) at a pace that works for you.

Find out more about the Body Curiosity E-Course here.

February 26, 2018

We See Through A Lens of Diet Culture

We have been taught to relate to food through a lens of diet culture.

We have been taught to relate to exercise through a platform of diet culture.

Diet culture steals our voice and inner knowing and tells us what to do. How to eat. How to move and yes, how to relate to our body in photos.

And I know for many people, on their path to body acceptance wake up to the way that we relate to food and exercise and reclaim their power back through frameworks like Intuitive Eating, Joyful Movement and the Health at Every Size Movement.

But then we wonder why we still struggle with photos.

I get asked this question all the time. “Why do I still struggle with photos after doing all this work with food and exercise. I’m awake to diet culture, but still…photos bring it all up again”.

And my answer is…that diet culture has woven it’s toxic magic wand over our photos too…and it’s a place where we have to reclaim body-neutrality, weight-neutrality, and cultivate a practice of seeing ourselves through an unbiased lens.

And just like healing our relationship to food and exercise, it takes time. It takes unlearning and it takes waking ourselves up again and again to the ways that diet culture has infiltrated this element of our lives too.

Are you ready for an awakening to diet culture in this part of your life too?

Are you ready to do the work to clear the lens of diet culture and listen in to the person waiting underneath?

Come join me for the Body Acceptance Selfie Series (including the Smash the Scale & Pick Up the Camera Webinar Series)! Get all the details and get ready to ditch the lens of diet culture by joining me here. The program starts with our Compassionate Conversations class next Monday!