Morinville Photographers Self Portraits

Seriously the most difficult thing to photograph is yourself. Not only is the challenge in setting up the camera at the right angles, in the right light, getting focused on yourself, posing yourself, but the real challenge is acceptance of oneself. 

This self isolation is not the best for us being able to advocate to be gentle with ourselves. We are distanced from our sounding boards, we are distanced from people who inspire and move us to be better and to be more. Self-reflection in its entirety is reflecting on ourselves on how we cope with loneliness, crisis and being idol. 

Last year my husband was deployed for 7 months, it was lonely, but a different kind of lonely.  I was able to distract myself with being involved with the community. I created a village that supported me and helped me through that difficult time. I got up and went on a road trip to lean on people when I hit a rough spot. 

That village I created, those resources I learned to utilize, they are no longer available to me. So once again I adapt. I learn to lean harder on my husband,  I learn to quiet the noise of the outside world and enjoy the solitude and knowing my children even better. But my mind has become so much louder when I quiet the social media, when I don't worry about my social presence and how the world responds to my person. Instead I have to learn a friendship of self, to listen to the language of self and to trust myself to challenge myself and give myself the gentleness I need to survive. There are some really wonderful and inspired days that I am proud of the woman I am. And there are days where I fall. On the days I fall, I learn to pick myself up and don't wait for someone else to do it. I learn to lean on my immediate family, and voice my need for connection virtually with others. This is what I have taken from my time social distancing. 

Wherever you are at on your social distancing journey, know that tomorrow is a new day, a new challenge and a new chance of doing something different.