I would love to hear from you and, if you have been following, you know opening my comments is an issue right now. So if you want to share anything go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.
I would love to hear from you and, if you have been following, you know opening my comments is an issue right now. So if you want to share anything go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.
There is a dance of emergence that happens as the artist engages in both the making and allowing of the art to come forth.
For me the dance right now is “being seen at 50” and the dance floor is my photo editor. I push and pull my image, playing with filters and color balance and all sorts of things I don’t really understand until something happens. I see something I wasn’t expecting, something that feels true.
In that moment I meet myself. Newly.
Today I see the bare face, the dark circles, some farrows and gray hair, my tired and worn energy. All that we are suppose to hide from the world. All I often do hide from the world.
But here right now, I feel compelled to highlight what often gets covered. I pull the blotchinesss out, darken the tones so I can sit with my somberness, my weariness.
And I see my resolve.
I see truth. This truth of me wanting to be seen. Life is beginning to show on this face and body of mine in a way that is creating character. I may no longer longer be able to mask lack of sleep with more caffeine, but I am also no longer prone to apologizing for my intensity.
Sometimes we want to see our prettiness, but what our Soul longs for is our rawness.
These portrait meetings of myself are rich and already initiating quiet upheaval of my inner relationship to me.
And I am making it public. And that is scary.
And liberating.
And raw.
Will you meet your rawness today?
It is there, just under the surface or beneath what you feel you want to cover.
I would love to hear from you and I want to open comments on this, but it is proving to be a complicated thing. So if you want to share anything with me go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.
No surprise to anyone who puts themselves out in the world, and that would be all of us, being seen is vulnerable stuff.
I noticed my default thought this morning as I was taking pictures was to “pretty myself up” for the camera. Especially since the post yesterday is my most read ever!
People are watching- Oh My God, I have to look good!
Now there is not a thing in the world wrong with prettying up, showing the world your best face. In fact prettying ourselves can be so much fun and deep self expression! It is Aphrodite at play!
But it is the assumption that our “best face” is always the carefully created one, the powdered and shadowed and glossed one. That we need to “put on our face.” The one that hides the life being lived now.
This is the face of the life I am living now and right now I deem it my best face. It comforts because it is mine.
Sometimes our best face is the private and bare one, showing the truth brought by morning sun and lack of sleep.
Being seen at 50- it is casting magic already.
What is the truth your face is telling?
Thank you for coming on the ride. Let me know how you are seeing you.
(I would love to hear from you and I want to open comments on this, but it is proving to be a complicated thing. So if you want to share anything with me go here or e-mail me at sandi@lusciouslife.com.)
This self portrait marks the beginning of a 30 day series:being seen at 50.
The inspiration came from a 3am epiphany last night. I was doing my usual insomnia blah, blah, blah about what wasn’t working in my life. Suddenly I popped out of feeling sorry for myself and saw so clearly how much negative cultural baggage about female aging had seeped into my thinking since turning 50. Any amount is too much of course, but I became crystal clear that the tone and harshness buzzing in the background of my inner conversation is recent and something I want to stop.
Now.
Granting this judgmental conversation space in my psyche, how ever faint it may seem and how ever much I don’t “really” believe it, makes me invisible to myself. It becomes the infection that erodes the foundation of my sense of self, my power, and sacred connection and creativity.
It does the same to you when you entertain the limits the culture sets for how you should be, look, and have.
This is mean and dangerous to the core of our inner truth.
So I got the inspiration for “being seen at 50.” Part art project, part self declaration, part truth telling, where I will see myself though posting self portraits, and see myself being seen as other see the portraits. I will post, if not each day at least several times a week for the next month. I know, I know, the world does not need yet another “selfie” gallery, but I am doing it anyway!
Because, on wiser thought that is EXACTLY what the world needs!
Women owning our age, our looks, our being, our space, our visibility! The world needs to see us and we need to see each other. As we are. In our life, being with it all when it is not all shiny and when it is all shiny. Revolution happens in embracing being seen, especially, and if only, by ourselves. At 50, at 62, at 37, at all of our ages.
It is a bit embarrassing letting you see this piece of my shadow, but no shadow can exist in the light. So for the next month my humble little red point and shoot camera be the light that lets me be seen by me and by you, in this new way.
I am not sure of how it all will unfold. I want this project to have its own organic flow. What I do know is I will each post will picture most likely with some words, maybe many. But maybe no words sometimes. Beyond that, my intention is to stay open, curious, and be seen. All 50 years of me.
Will you join me in your own way? Take self portraits, greet yourself in the mirror with kindness, leave your creative mark someplace new where you can see it. It matters less what you do than that you allow yourself to deeply see YOU. To stop looking for how ever long you can for the culturally dictated facade of you you may think you need.
If you want to join me, let me know. Send me a message, I’d love to hear from you.
We are evolving creatures of beauty. We deserve to be seen by ourselves as such.
Your precious time, your skill, your creative energy.
You have the right to keep it to yourself.
You do not have to share it with anyone.
It can be your private solace, your personal sanctuary, your secret garden.
The world does not own your productivity, nor do you have any obligation to feed the insatiable beast of the world’s demands for more, more, more.
No one is entitled to your life expression.
It is your gift to do with as YOU please. As a creative, human soul, some bit, maybe a very large bit of your life expression will be shared. Freely, eagerly, joyfully, tentatively, slowly, loudly, elegantly, messily, or in a myriad of other “-ly’s”.
You will be so filled up with the energy you are harnessing, that you are stewarding, that you are manifesting, it will flow into the world because it must.
Not because what you are doing is perfect, or that you even feel ready, but because the energy of your creativity, passion, spirit, desire, purpose, will, devotion, is so ripe to be in the world it needs to move out through you.
Like the child who runs to her mommy to show off her latest painting, still dripping wet. Or the business you start, even though you are scared to death, because it is that important to you. Like the dance you must do when that one song comes on. What is inside needs to express itself in the world.
This is when you share. This is when you give. This is when the world can receive you as the abundant gift you are. Anything else carries the tinge of obligation, forcing, resisting, proving, controlling, and it creates psychic drag that builds up and it will weigh you down.
When you don’t feel you own the way you share yourself with the world you feel guilty when you say “no”. No, not right now. No, I don’t want to. No, that doesn’t work for me. No, not that but this. No, this is private.
For me a moment I learned that what I wanted to give was less important than what others wanted from me was in third grade.
***
My teacher was Miss Tyree. She was tall, had deep read hair styled in a practical bob, wore serious brown rimed glasses. She played piano every morning as we sang the Star Spangled Banner or My Country Tis of Thee after dutifully saying our pledge of allegiance. I loved her. I wanted to be like her. I wanted to play the piano.
I started taking lessons and not too surprisingly, daily practicing was not my favorite thing. The discipline challenged me. But I was also very shy and unsure of myself so practicing in house full of people who had opinions about the inevitable and many wrong notes was hard.
And then there were the recitals. I hated them. I did not want to play in front of a room full of people, I didn’t want to play in front of anyone. Because I was shy and unsure, but also because I wanted to play just because I wanted to.
For me. Only. I didn’t want to entertain the world.
I was told that wasn’t how it worked. If you take lessons playing in public came with the deal. It was implied that people wanted to hear me play so I owed it to them.
I got the message I couldn’t have my own private pleasures, my own just-for-me expression. If it had value outside of myself, I owed to those who wanted it.
I didn’t understand this. Why couldn’t this be just for me? My own private, beautiful thing?
But at 9 years old I couldn’t fight convention and parental decision so I did the recitals. For many years. And it took the joy of playing music away and replaced it with performance and anxiety.
***
What if my experience were different? What if I had been supported in being shy and needing more time to keep my fledgling skill private? With encouragement with out demand would I have become, if not comfortable playing for others, curious enough to try? If I were supported in my desire to have my playing be just for me would I have learned to trust myself and my innate desire more?
I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t have the same issues with my art being displayed. I was okay (if still nervous) sharing that part of my creative life. Now I use my photography in my blogging and e-letters even though I am far from a professional, but sharing my writing is an ongoing ebb and flow of a private and public dance. The more space I give myself for all the privacy I want, the sharing of my thoughts and bits of vulnerability feel natural, almost as if they require being shared.
Over the years I have witnessed this pattern of the upwelling in energy to the point of outward flow in my coaching of deeply feeling, creative, soulful women.
When allowed the space to sink in and find what is authentically calling them rather than what is expected of them (by themselves and the outer world) an organic and beautifully unique path unfolds.
Add to this the changing desires and energy at midlife and the pull to question the status quo in their life, a profound reclaiming of ownership of exactly how they share their precious selves with the world happens. With out guilt and with joy and homecoming. For some it is a grand coming out, for others an intimate returning in, but it always changes everything.
You have the right to keep it to yourself.
Your precious time, your skill, your creative energy.
You have the right to keep it to yourself.
You do not have to share it with anyone.
It can be your private solace, your personal sanctuary, your secret garden.
Until, and if, you chose otherwise.
If you are looking for support in finding your own beautifully unique life path, I may be able to help.
I saw these two young ones a few weeks ago at The National Heirloom Exposition, a festival that celebrates local foods and sustainable agriculture. This Princess was hard to miss, dressed as she was in all her finery. It was a joy to catch her though out the day as she made her way amongst the farmers, craft people, gardeners, and artisans of the expo; always hand in hand with her fellow princess.
We all have an inner Princess. She is one of three umbrella archetypes I see in all women. She is the part of us that is innocent, curious, ready to explore, at home in her world because she knows no other way to be. While she is enjoying her world as it shows up for her, she is in training for the world she will step into as she grows into her other archetypes, the Empress and the Priestess.
The Princess captivates us with her unselfconscious enthusiasm and hopefulness. She teaches us the power of play, dreams, and trust. She believes her believing makes a difference, and in fact can change the world. Remember when nothing in the world was more exciting than to go on an adventure with your best friend? When you dressed for magic instead of meetings? When you skipped rather than walked and always felt better? When you knew that if you wished hard enough anything could happen? The world was really all about you and what made you happy.
Your Princess is a powerful ally you may be overlooking.
We are pushed to set aside our Princess if we want to be taken “seriously.” She is all too often relegated to the childish, selfish, and frivolous in a world that minimizes the wisdom and ways of the young feminine. But I will tell you this. I have never seen a truly powerful, embodied, creative, effective and powerful woman who has not integrated her magical Princess.
Of course there is a shadow side to the Princess, as with all energies. But that is not the topic today. Today, I wish for you to listen to the dreams and imaginations of your inner joyful Princess. Especially if you find yourself stuck or disheartened. Especially if you have set her aside in the urgency to deal with grown up life. Tune into her play and wanting. She will guide you to your heart’s desire in its purest form. Her take on things may seem too innocent, to simplistic, but don’t be fooled. Essential truth and guidance are always simple at heart.
Even though you are grown up, inside your Princess urges you to find delight in the world around you, to dress for your heart and imagination, and to walk though life knowing your dreams are yours to create. To Believe.
She sees what is possible and believes in it with all her heart, because why would it be any other way?
I love this picture of these two Princesses, holding each others hand. In their lives together, yet differently. One in her gold and crimson, the other in more humble robes; each radiating the powerful joy of youth, trust and the devotion that is only found in the young. Each knowing the world is more fun with the other.
The world, your world, is more fun, more joyful, more playfully wise, with your Princess.
Grab her hand, your life is waiting. Skip and meet it.
