Tag Archives: Self Esteem

Slow Love

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About a year ago I read Slow Love- How I lost my job, Put on my pajamas & Found happiness by Dominique Browning. I savored every page, and was sad to have it come to an end.

Dominique is in her fifties and lost her job as editor of House & Garden when the magazine folded at the end of 2007. Like so many people lately, she was suddenly out of work. At the same time her children had left home, and she ended a long love affair, as well as sold the home that she thought she would live in forever.

Having lost my knitwear design job after sixteen years in 2007, I could relate to suddenly losing the main thing that she so accurately says “defined her days, paced and regulated her life.” She had feared losing it for many years, and when it happened, it nearly flattened her. With the busyness of her work gone, she was left with plenty of time to think about life, which she writes about with bold honesty and humor. It is like reading someone’s diary.

I especially like her quote of Adam Nicolson’s from Sea Room:

 “At the back of that hurry is the knowledge that it is a screen against honesty.”

 

That is one powerful sentence.

Slow Love is about living life more slowly. As Dominique says, it is “the love that comes of an unhurried and focused attention to the simplest things, available to all of us, at any time, should we choose to engage…..Perhaps even importantly, slow love comes out of the quiet hours, out of learning from the silence that is always there when we want it.”

Slow Love is about finding peace. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it.

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty

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Revelation: You only have to be who you are

There are certainly times in all of our lives when we have to be who we aren’t…for instance when we have to deal with new challenges or step outside the comfort zone of who we have always known ourselves to be.

But in terms of day-to-day living, the older I get, the more I realize that for the most part, we really do only need to be who we are. This is very helpful for me to remember when I wish I was more like someone else- or that I was smarter, or wiser, or better in some way. It is certainly helpful to remember this as we age- as our sight starts to weaken, and our memory loses it’s strength, or when we don’t have as much energy as we use to.

Years ago when my kids were young and life was more hectic, I wrote on a piece of paper “If it’s okay with me, then don’t worry about it.” and put it in my wallet as a reminder to stay on course to my true self. It really helped, and I think it is partly what eventually brought me around to:

You only have to be who you are.

It’s such a relief don’t you think?

 

Written by Louise at Lines of Beauty.

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We only photograph beautiful people… which means YOU are next.

Why is it so hard to look at ourselves in the mirror and see our own inherent beauty?

I was talking to a couple of friends of mine yesterday about the difference between America and other cultures.  In America we have a “standard of beauty” which is vey narrow AND very much an illusion.

My girlfriend remarked yesterday that her friend had come to visit from France and everywhere they went the woman said… “where are all the women with short hair?”

It made my friend sit up and take notice to the fact that here… we do not celebrate our differences, and we look at those who really make a statement with a short haircut or a really different style as bold or brave (or weird).

Here (America)  we work hard to “fit in” aka:  be someone we are not. not be noticed. not stick out. not to be remarkable.

Fascinating don’t you think?

Robyn was recently approached by a woman who loves the project and follows it.  She wondered why we only photograph beautiful women? Robyn responded….

“because that’s all there is to photograph…. would you like to be next?” and said that the woman became flustered and kind of stammered her way through some excuse until a distraction came by so she could gratefully and hurriedly excuse herself…. (where was she going anyway?… back to that place where she is unworthy and unrecognizable?….ooooh please come out… there is sunshine and light out here!) and we further discussed it.

Most people who see the project from a distance do not realize that eighteen women have put themselves into the project (they were not handpicked and ps: most of their albums are in our face book gallery)

They decided to show up for themselves, and take a stand.

They decided to be seen.

Be noticed.

Stick out.

Be Remarkable.

… and it’s YOU the viewer who made them

BEAUTIFUL.

Guess what?

You have the SAME EXACT POWER to deem yourself the same.

I want to reiterate: no one NEEDS the project.
You are already *perfect* exactly as you are.
You are already beautiful.
Worthy.
Remarkable.

You hold the power to release yourself at any time.

However, if you’d like to do the project and see what comes up for you… all are welcome.

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The Revelation Project: A Beginning

It’s pretty easy for us to forget who we are or even who we wanted to be after years of care taking, raising a family, or just plain years later.

For many of us – it’s not that our husbands, boyfriends, or partners don’t make us feel beautiful or worthy – the catcher is that we don’t quite feel the part ourselves.

There are those of us who have never really seen or been able to appreciate the inherent beauty of our selves and the expressions and attributes that are uniquely and endearingly ours. Instead I think we hope that some day we’ll stumble out of bed one morning and peek into the mirror and suddenly see that woman who’s finally appeared (but who really looks nothing like us!) She’s longer, leaner, shorter, smarter, curlier, calmer, funnier, smoother, thinner, straiter, whiter, shapelier, darker, perkier, leggier, blonder, hipper……. and in the meantime we punish the one who looks back at us from the mirror, unconsciously chastising her for not somehow getting it right. again.

If you are anything like me then you might get lost along the way in the land of low self esteem, resignation, cynicism, and self criticism (I have a frequent flyer card).

My neighbor Robyn Ivy is an incredibly accomplished photographer who like many of us – look’s like she has it all handled.   She’s a hip Mother of two, recently divorced, smart, talented, lovely, insightful and pee your pants funny. I never would have guessed she even had moments like the afore mentioned had she not also been the kind of authentic and refreshing person that she is ~ laying it all out there.  I was both amazed and mildly horrified by her candor- and so began a friendship.

The night before she came over with her camera she’d been pretty upset. Her new foret into dating was kind of difficult given that she was pretty unwilling to be vulnerable with anyone, and the moment she finally let him in, …he bolted- pushing every button of  insecurity she possibly had to the penthouse floor.  There was nothing I could do of course, except listen, hand her a tissue, and nod my head empathetically…

Because great and twisted minds think alike our best revenge was to embark on a photo odessy that was aimed directly at getting relief through humor, make- up, and good girlfriend snarkiness and although both of us snickered our way through the various poses and and contrived sprawls with the intention of loading the images on Facebook ( he was still a “friend” after all) we found instead that something entirely different actually ended up happening that had nothing to do with him.

As we went through the photo’s and edited them, sure -we laughed and giggled and snorted, but the process itself was quite remarkable because it provided a catharsis that went far deeper than either of us imagined.   The entire process, as well as the outcome had truly empowered her and gave her back something she felt she had lost somewhere along the way: herself.

In the weeks that followed the results of the shoot had a lasting effect, a kind of “balancing” effect and for some reason gave Robyn permission to hit the “reset” button and take inventory of the things she wanted to accomplish.  Somehow seeing herself in the photos allowed her to step OUT of her head and see herself in a way she desperately did not even know she needed.

Since then, we’ve gone on to get similar if not more powerful results from the subsequent women we have photographed.  I’ll continue to post the results as well as a few interviews over the course of the next few weeks and you can see and hear for yourselves the kind of impact this project has made so far on each of these amazing women.

After some discussion we decided to call this “process” something that we would continue to develop and document. We decided on the name The Revelation Project because,  throughout the process, “something” gets found, unveiled, or revealed that was not previously available or accessible. I’m sorry if it sounds hokey… I’m just the photographer.

Here are the photos of Robyn taken that day.  Since then we have photographed a total of 15 women and counting…  follow their remarkable insights, stories, and interviews by subscribing to our posts or following our progress on TLC’s “Parentables” blog where we will also be documenting our collective progress.  Thank you always for your feedback, comments or cries of outrage!