“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” - Maya Angelou
Last April I dove head first into a photo project hosted by two dear women, Meredith and Kristin, called Now You. I didn't like that I never saw myself in any of the photos I was taking. Lots of photos of my boys, the garden, our home. But I was not present.
Not so coincidentally, there was a lot going on in my personal life. I had a lot of questions. I needed direction. And thought this class might be the perfect thing to stop...look in the mirror...and se if the answers I was looking for were there, inside of me.
As each self portrait prompt came into my email inbox, I eagerly, with equal parts timidity, started shooting away. It was a great start. I was proud of myself.
That is until the second week.
The theme was roots & wings, with the idea that by grounding ourselves first, we can find our wings. Meredith challenged us with setting the timers on our cameras and capturing ourselves in mid jump.
It was tough. And I struggled with the emotions that the assignment brought up.
Flight, wings...fear, doubt, shame, sadness.
I tried.
But I couldn't bring myself to post anything to the class.
I was firmly planted, but couldn't fly. I was stuck. Frozen.
And I quit the class.
I've spent the last several months since then devotingway too much time thinking about what the heck happened. Trying to be gentle with myself, trying not to feel like I let anyone down. Trying to realize we each have our own processes and in my process I needed to work through some things.
So, here I am again. New year...a few proverbial pounds lighter. And with a new word for the year...FLY!
Oh and the class...I signed up for the new NOWYOU Workshop: 52 of YOU.
Here's to flying!
xxooxxoo,
Eren
