challenge yourself

Your body is your home

/ madaboutmybody / Leave a comment

The best kind of home can be found wherever you are.

When we are at peace with the body we live in, and not at war with it in our minds, we are free from the inside out, and wherever we are, it is possible to feel safe and loved.

While this does not come naturally to someone suffering from negative body image, addictions, or an eating disorder, it can be learned. Too often we are separated from our own bodies by excessive jugements inflicted on ourselves by our own minds.

Imagine sinking into a warm bathtub, or wrapping yourself in a cosy blanket on a chilly Fall day. Now imagine that living in a body you love can feel that good, all day every day!nude woman, body image

When I look at this self-portrait, I see the inner distress I was feeling, but the positive is that it was being expressed. As my friend photographed me, I told her about my fears and frustrations, and because I was vulnerable in my nudity, what came through seemed less filtered than usual, more raw, more true. Naked and liberating.

These photos were taken during the early months of the pandemic, when we were getting a taste of complete lock-downs. It was hard, and I was struggling with being alone so much, not being able to see my closest family members because they were out-of-town. It was in the weeks leading up to my birthday, which I was about to spend alone, the only human contact possible through video calls. My friend was also suffering from isolation during the lock-down, and by being in the same room together for an hour or so for the photoshoot, we were breaking the rules. And yet it did us both a world of good.

I continue to learn, discover and affirm that my body is my home. I have abused this home with disordered eating for many years. My fears and insecurities have long pushed me to seek comfort in food, but now I am getting closer to finding comfort in the only vessel I have to take me through this life, and to be increasingly grateful for all the wonderful life experiences it continues to allow me to have, pandemic or no pandemic.

It’s time to come home to stay.

Why bother drawing the body?

/ madaboutmybody / Leave a comment

There is a viewpoint “out there” that says if you are seen nude, you are somehow dishonored. Clearly, the women in our art collective disagree, but we know this perception exists, and we understand where the sense of shame comes from. Nobody wants their privacy invaded, their vulnerability paraded or their intimacy exposed.

Everyone wants to be able to share their intimacy on their own terms. Or not at all. But if we’re not exposed to our own bodies, our own vulnerabilities, how can we accept ourselves, every aspect of ourselves, exactly the way we are?

We draw the human body, often including our own bodies, in order to LOVE what is UNLOVED.

Our goal is to offer tender, loving, eyes upon all aspects of life, including those we are less comfortable with. Drawing is a slow, contemplative process that allows us to see things differently, as opposed to the instant judgment that comes up when we see an image we instantly, unthinkingly like, or dislike. It helps us to see what’s really there, with less judgement and more curiosity and acceptance. To peel back the labels and see what’s underneath.

We invite others to draw in order to participate in this change in perception; to move beyond the exclusion we usually practice with our easy judgments in order to see things the way they are, with love.

Simply write to us to find out how to get started on this process, we are happy to accompany you: madaboutmybody@gmail.com

 

Your body hears everything your mind says

/ madaboutmybody / 2 Comments

Your body hears everything your mind says … this powerful quote is attributed to American singer-songwriter Naomi Judd. Thank you Naomi Judd! I just came across it today for the first time, even though I have been following all kinds of body image sites and activists for years, and it really struck a chord.

It made me do a full stop and start questioning just what my mind has been saying about me lately, as I have been in a phase of intense self-judgement. Why? I’m not sure why, perhaps simply because I need to learn to consciously choose to live otherwise. To see myself as I am, to stop imagining I should be someone different or that I am inherently wrong. This sounds so harsh it’s embarrassing to put it out there, and yet I know that I am not alone in this me-bashing! And I don’t want anyone to feel this bad about themselves, ever, not even me. No more. We can’t do much with our lives until we discover our worth, and live like we not only deserve to be happy, but also live like we have, and we are, something and someone worth sharing.

drawing of nude woman leaning over flowers

A friend of mine photographed me this last Spring, with flowers from her garden. I was trying to let go more in front of the camera, to be less balled up than I often am during photo shoots. It was a calming, quiet session, and I later chose quite a few photos to work from. In drawing this one, I fell into criticism, got all freaked out and perfectionist, and let it sit on my desk for two months. Tonight I found it and decided to complete it, quickly, to try to let go of the results and just be with there with myself through the image. It’s soft… a soft woman in a safe place, leaning over freshly cut tulips, her hair falling  gently down over her face, the light warm and golden. I left it unfinished. I’m unfinished too. I’m a work in progress… aren’t we all, always?

Going to start another drawing now, and be ever more careful about what my mind says. I’ll call it out. I don’t want my body to hear any more of that negative bullshit.

Anastasia (series) – II

/ madaboutmybody / 2 Comments

Anastasia was struggling with dieting and really frustrated with her body; not at all at peace with her shape or her weight at the time we met. Talking about it honestly, I think she was surprised to hear that even though I was slim, I felt just as uncomfortable in my body as what she described, and I’d always felt that bad about myself, for as long as I could remember. I told her how using imagery to fight for the cause of improving body image and loving our bodies was helping me work on my issues. I explained that for several years already I’d been photographing and drawing the nude body, including my own, and how liberating it was. She seemed to understand how this process could be helpful, and liked the idea of doing a photo shoot with me. It didn’t happen right away, because as I well knew from my own experiences, a lot of inner resistance came up in the meantime.

Our photo session finally happened about a year later. It had been a rough year for Anastasia; a break-up, a move, and quitting a boring office job that led her to enroll in a course to become an esthetician. She told me about these studies, in particular how the practice periods required intimate contact with other students’ bodies through massage and skin care, and how this had made her a lot more relaxed about everything body-related. She said she now felt ready to be photographed nude, as a challenge to herself. Instead of trying to lose weight or change her body, she just wanted to change the negative opinion she held towards herself.

To explore a body symptom is to enter it, as it has entered us, and to partake in a sacred mystery. It is with the greatest respect and humility that we undertake this task.

— Rose-Emily Rothenberg, The Jewel in the Wound

From photo to silhouette to artsy whatever

/ madaboutmybody / 2 Comments

With digital cameras we can get creative photographing ourselves and our bodies in order to get more comfortable with them. Unfortunately the most accessible photos of the human body are usually highly sexualised, erotic images, or excessively idealized fine art nudes, yet there is a huge spectrum of possibilities in between. Where are the regular people of all shapes and size doing ordinary things? These types of images of the body are so hard to find, that in order to draw the body from photos, my group of artist-friends found that we had to take the photos we wanted ourselves.

This image is an example of playing with the camera… I was hiding behind the scarf at first and slowly pulled it off and wrapped in around myself in different ways while taking photos using the timer and a tripod. First it’s traced, then colored, painted… whatever. I had fun with the scarf because I love to mix decorative patterns with the simple beauty of the human form.

mad about my body tracing mad about my body drawing

My self-portrait sessions only ever happen a result of periods of feeling really bad about myself and my body, and they always bring me peace. The process of drawing even more so. This little photo shoot turned into a series that I thought was quite lovely, but that I would never have conceived of or produced, were it not for my need to work through my intense body shame.

I wish I could bring this change of perspective on the body to every human being who cannot see their own beauty. To those who have lost all sense of connection to and recognition of the wonders of the body that they inhabit. Who have been blinded by the insane unattainable images that our society feeds us, making us sick with desire to be what we are not. I know what it is to carry that false vision and to live the pain of self-rejection. So I continue to draw, and share my story, again and again… and invite you to draw with us so you can see the bigger picture that for now, your mind cannot.

madaboutmybody@gmail.com

 

Look at us, we’re all okay… just the way we are

/ madaboutmybody / 2 Comments

It takes a lot to go against the grain of a visual culture that provides an endless stream of idealized bodies and lifestyles. It can make it very hard to figure out exactly who we are and what our lives are really about. Finding our essence as a person often requires peeling back layers of false constructs, most of which are simply unrealistic ideas and images about what or who we want to be or think we are supposed to be.

Self-portraiture for self-love

My self-portrait process has definitely been a swim upstream, often choked with resistance. All of my drawings are produced from photographs, yet I didn’t want anyone to photograph me nude! I must admit that on the rare occasions I found the courage to ask a friend to photograph me, it was always a good experience, and I was grateful for the images to work from. But for many, many of my drawings, I used the timer on a tiny point-and-shoot digital camera and a little tripod or a stack of books to take the photos myself. For three years I committed to taking 3 photos a day, and it definitely broke down my resistance.

With time, and repetition, I learned to judge less. See more. Find the beauty in many of the photos. Draw the ones I hated the most, and rediscover that no matter what, my human body is still an amazing machine that allows me to experience life in so many ways.

Try it at home. Please try it. Look at yourself, photograph yourself, draw yourself, so that you, too, can discover that you are okay just the way you are. You are better than okay, you are beautiful, you are you… you are alive… and no matter how loudly your mind protests with all its petty complaints about what could be better, you are enough.

And if you need help learning this new way of seeing yourself, or know of someone else who desperately needs this kind of support, there is help to be had, hands to be held, guidance that can be offered along this path. Please, just ask. madaboutmybody@gmail.com

It was self-loathing that led me to self portraiture

/ madaboutmybody / Leave a comment

Funny how pain and suffering are sometimes the only things that push us to move beyond the paralysis of our comfort zones. I certainly never set out to draw self portraits, and much less to to share them on the internet.

There is no quick fix to learning to love yourself when you have made a habit of hating yourself.  The negative self-talk some of us know too well is the mother or all partypoopers to any human psyche. And it self-perpetuates. But it’s never true! It’s a very deeply ingrained bad practice that needs to be replaced by a good practice, and drawing is a very strong positive mantra that is based in reality, not just on ideas.

self-loathing, body image, body hate, art therapy

Often when I draw, or guide groups to draw on the subject of body image, I invite people to write what pops in their minds as they work. Our minds are stimulated differently while concentrating on lines, curves, light and shadows. Drawing is contemplative, and gives us  time to make connections, or more clearly identify memories and beliefs that we would otherwise be unaware of. Putting those thoughts down on paper allows us to see them with a bit more distance , and then choose what we want to believe, or not.

While this image has French words, you don’t really need to understand them other than to know I was writing all the mean thoughts that came up in my mind about my body as I drew a photo I’d judged as ugly – wait, no  –  it was my body I was judging, the photo itself was just fine! I can make fun about this now because I don’t live in that self-loathing as constantly as I used to. Thanks to this practice, my head is more often above the waters of self-hate, and when those thoughts come up, it is easier for me to recognize that they are not true, and to push them away. But it took practice, practice, practice…

For self portraiture, the first part of the practice is to dare… and I mean really DARE! to photograph the vulnerability of your own body, or ask someone you trust to photograph you. I will share more about this process in my next article, because it has always been the hardest part for me. If that seems impossible for you to fathom now, you can start with photos of your face or of others’ bodies, perhaps those with a size and shape similar to yours.

Then, you trace. It’s a simple process, no performance, no stress, you’re just copying contours (better with a light box so you can see the lines of the photo clearly under the paper you’re tracing to). Then you can work with the photo nearby for reference and shade, color, or paint the silhouette of the face or body you have traced. If that’s too hard, we can supply silhouettes for you to draw; we have prepared many for our workshops. Then write what comes up.

Remember – it’s a practice – results do not matter. Wanting nice or good results is hard to avoid. Many of us, including me, seem to be hard-wired to think that art requires magical talents and is something you sell or hang on a wall. For some people, it is that, and that’s okay! But art is also transformative and therapeutic, because it teaches us to really see.

Model drawing & modelling when you’re not a model

/ madaboutmybody / Leave a comment

Do you have that recurring nightmare about being naked in public?

What’s that about? I’m pretty sure it’s about vulnerability. Fear of being judged if you were to find yourself completely unprotected and fully “seen”.  And sometimes, it’s about body shame. And the difficulty with healing body shame is that you can’t do that without involving the body, when all you want to do is hide it!

For ten years I ran figure drawing workshops, which usually involves hiring nude models to pose, so that people can practice drawing the human form. But our group did it all backwards. We started in my living room, with the bravest among us offering to be the model. As we were just beginners slowly forming a group, we didn’t want to charge those learning to draw, so we didn’t pay those modelling.

And we discovered that there was a subtle difference when the models were not paid; instead of it being a job, it became a gift they offered to those drawing… a gift of their vulnerability.  They were there because they wanted to be, not to be paid. So we continued that way intentionally. We called it a “figure drawing workshop for body acceptance” and invited people who wanted the challenge of finding themselves nude in front of others to model, even if they had no previous experience. And it worked!

It allowed people who were uncomfortable in their own skin to start working through their shame. They gave us the gift of their vulnerability, and in return received the gift of discovering that the artists were really only there to draw their body, not to judge, exploit or even necessarily admire their bodies. And that was a gift in itself. With time, the artists started making a point of showing their work to the models, and to offer them one of their drawings to thank them for posing.

I was never particularly strong at drawing models, and I was not a willing model! I preferred to find models and run the workshops, but that also put me in the hot spot if models cancelled at the last minute. It’s scarier to think about it than to actually do it, so who could blame them! When this happened, we asked for a stand-in in the room. If nobody responded, then it was me.

This is a drawing I received from an artist at a session I posed at. It helped me see myself differently than I usually do… definitely with less judgement. It’s just another body… unique as they all are…