I'm always shooting photos because I find it to be one of those things that keeps me in the moment. I'm very comfortable being behind the lens, but completely critical in front of it. A few years ago, I took a photography class, where we were forced to take self portraits and display them for our classmates. I honestly must have taken 80 before I found one that I felt OK about submitting to our class. I hated my profile, felt like certain angles made me looked bug eyed, you name it, I found something to criticize.
I looked chubby, tired, more wrinkled - any little criticism had me constantly hitting the delete button.
So now, every once in awhile, I snap a self portrait, not to seek attention, but to force myself to be kinder. Accept that this is how I look, this is who I am at this moment in time. Today I snapped this photo with my iphone after visiting my mom. I'm smiling, but I can see the sadness in my eyes.
And that's ok. We have to learn to love every side of ourselves, and be our own best supporters.
I read this quote yesterday by Mindy Kaling, and it really hit home:
"My relationship with my mom is really the single most profound relationship that I’ve ever had in my life," Mindy tells me...But her voice breaks when she starts talking about how she sat down with a pen and paper and asked her mother to give her all the advice she could possibly give her before she died, and Kaling realized she’d never be able to ask her mother for advice again. “I said to her, ‘Mom, I’m going to be so lonely without you.’” She’s crying now but keeps going. “And she just said, ‘You have to be your own best friend. If you always remember that, you will always have someone there with you.’”
xoxo
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