Tag: #nudeforchange

PATTERNS OF TRANSITION PART 2

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PART 2

Let go of who you think you should be, in order to be who you are.

~ Brenè Brown.

A step back, to transcend the present moment, this particular period in my life, in order to better see the bigger pattern. How did I get here? How did it get to that point? Stepping off the professional cliff, the windowsill of my corporate career, where it looked high enough to kill most…

…the great resignation…

Taking a different perspective in understanding what is happening for me right now. I need to ‘get on the balcony’ of it all.

I’m beginning this reflection at 25 years of age; prior to this was all school/higher education and casual work. While including lecturing and tutoring at university, I also cooked a lot of burgers…. I still cook a damn fine burger… (hey btw, did anyone else have to look up ‘coatigan’?).

Ok. So Let’s talk a walk through the last 21 years of my life, from a ‘professional’ perspective…

In 2001, despite loving teaching and research, I realize, before finishing my PhD that academia is not the right environment for me and I start working in the public service.

I land an APS 6 role (if that means anything) as a Senior Research Officer in the Office of Road Safety in a state government department. I don’t mind the work, I stay friends with a couple of the people, but more than anything, the bureaucracy and administrative processes drive me up the wall.

While working full time I  focus my energy and complete my PhD in Social Psychology which is conferred in 2002.

In 2003 I come to terms with the fact I’m not a great employee (I don’t like being told what to do …) and would rather work for myself.

I start and run a successful small business with national coverage. This business runs for  almost 10 years, it is very well regarded and supported by clients and other professionals.

By 2007, however, I realize I need to learn more and go back to studying to grow myself and my business. My business morphs as I switch focus and I find myself running a small, boutique but highly popular yoga studio and school.

I eventually walk away from the business. I leave client programs, train the trainer programs, and professional development workshops. A reach that includes a published book, meditation CDs, websites, social media and many magazine articles and other publications…

I feel like I have reached the limits of my business know how and need to learn  more and/or re-direct my energy. In 2014 I re-enter academia to become a business school academic. I see only in hindsight how this is a pivotal moment in my life.

In this period I am a Senior Lecturer (Level C), an academic at Australia’s national university. Teaching management, leadership and organisational change, researching identity and transformation leadership, learning from leading academics around me.

I receive three awards for excellence in education as a university lecturer (my students give me a standing ovation as I receive one of the awards, just wow). I manage also to get a few well regarded publications and, despite not having a piece of paper to prove it, an MBA level education in business simply from being immersed in the environment for years.

My professional identity blossoms in 2018 when I co-design, develop and deliver a world leading executive education program around organisational leadership and transformation. The program is backed by two of Australia’s leading universities at different times, and by the peak industry body for organisational transformation in Australia. But things shift and change, and my world begins to dissolve again.

In 2021 I finally realise, in the midst of my second experience of burn-out since returning to academia, this is not the right environment for me, and leave again.

It is now 2022 and I have no idea what’s happening. And I’m mostly ok with that.

I started this blog:  And She Flies… partly as a way of working out where I’m at. Sharing my working out in case it is useful for others to see. A way for both of us to learn.

The years have gifted me with many thank you notes, cards, emails, now empty bottles of wine, I don’t think about them often and look at them even less. But each is a feather in the wings that carry me forward in this journey.  The strength of self belief that every single person who ever thanked me helped build.

The courage to look and see the patterns of constraint and release, containment and freedom. To see that I have been exploring the boundaries of this space, where my abilities intersect with opportunities and my preferences create friction in my environment.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

~ Carl Jung.

So, in liberating my self from the expectations of ‘career’,  what’s left to show for all that I’ve done?

Everything that I am.

Everything that I stand for.

All that I have learned and become capable of, can never be taken from me, nor can I walk from it or even give it away. Believe me, I tried.

This is who I am, this is my journey. This is the mind I was given to work with, the spirit that came into being.

And this is the answer to the question: if I am not my professional self, if I am not all that I have trained and studied and practiced to be, then what am I? What is left of me to love?

The answer is ‘me’. I am enough.

I follow my Dharma. My calling, the path I am here to tread.

The journey I, my self, am on. It is spiritual, not professional.

This is the pull of the great resignation. This is the wake up call so many now heed.

Love your reason for being. This is who you are. Your authentic self.

Love the things that excite and delight you, that make your heart sing and give you a place to belong in the world. These feelings, these emotions are the signs, the sparks of light that show you the path. Your path.

Follow the light of your joy, not through rose colored glasses, blindly bumping into life as you go, but in small, incremental ways that move you closer, one step at a time, to a more fulfilled, more peaceful state of being. A state of being that honors and respects your natural rhythms and helps prevent you from dissociating and heading down a path of ill health.

For me, my patterns and experiences bring me back now to self employment, back to a direct connection with the means of production.

To autonomy and self-determination.

To sovereignty and freedom.

Let go of all that you are, so that you may become all that you might be.

May you be happy,

may you be healthy,

may you be free of suffering.

Namaste

S x

In the end, only three things matter; how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.

~ Buddha.
Let go of all that you are, then you may become all that you might be. ~ Simone B’Free

Patterns of transition – part 1

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PART I

**Beware! Dramatic overtones woven throughout.

A hushed silence befalls the theatre. She walks back on stage, lights dimmed. As if a fog had settled around her.

A coatigan of shadows.

She begins.**

Oh! To craft your own fall from grace, a plot you share with few, and fully with none.

A strategy borne in response to an outside attempt to bring your reputation into question. Disrepute.

To cut you off. To suffocate you.

One who denies any wrongdoing,

Who shames the other,

Who discredits the other,

Who lies about their actions,

Who acts enraged when called out for their inappropriate behaviour.

**She gestures wildly.**

I’d already learnt you can’t beat a narcissist playing by the rules that they are master at manipulating. So I stopped playing the game.

I’d had enough. I was done. The decision made, I gathered everything I had into a ball of energy, ignited and alight,  and I used it as a weapon against them.

I threw it with everything I had.

A catapult of words and images, laden with reputation and status. The weight coming from the heaviness of expectation landing back at the source. A cannon ball of personal power and all of the ego that went with it. Thrown with the intent of ruin.

I took him down as I went. Blind-sighted by his own delusions of grandeur, he would never admit it was me. And nor was I alone, but sacrifice I did.

Letting go, no! Throwing away an identity that I traded so much to build, was both easy and incredibly difficult. I poured heart, soul and passion, so much energy and effort into the work I have done over the years.

Still.

It was never meant to be.

**She moves gracefully to centre stage.**

The ego grieves its own death.

The heart celebrates the suffering that has come to an end.

The mind surveys what remains.

The damage, smoking rubble.

What is left of me?

The gift to my self, in sacrificing the ego in this way, is surely the answer to this question?

If I am not this identity I crafted so well, if I am not all that I have trained and studied and practiced to be, then what am I?

What remains of me to love?

**The spotlight dims.

She stands alone, deep in thought, her mind captured by the past.

What becomes of she who emancipates her self?

One free of expectations of roles carried past.

Free of the fear of breaking norms and attracting criticism.

Free of the shackles that had been around her mind.

And what has become of him? She imagines him playing golf and mowing the lawn. One of life’s pedestrians. Chasing the belief that if he can just keep things looking good, and land that hole in one, he’ll finally be good enough….a karmic mouse wheel. She spares a thought for his wife, and hopes she has a hobby that gets her out of the house.

At that she smiles. And as she leaves the stage, the costume slips away. Beneath it, her feathers, old and new, shimmer in the dim lighting of the theatre, soft sparkles glimmer, like raindrops on the silken thread of a woven web. A gasp and a sigh as the roof of the theatre lifts. Focus shifting.

Scarlett and gold.

Strength and courage.

Threads that weave a tale.

Onwards and upwards, towards the open sky.

The luminescence of transformation.

The liminality of transition.

A flight of faith and hope.

On wings she finally knows how to fly.**

What becomes of she who emancipates her self? ~ Simone B’Free

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Under your own microscope

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Conceptualizing this project as ‘identity work’ is just one way of sharing a narrative, an interpretation, my experience, of knowing and participating in this process of growth and personal evolution.

To me, the notion of ‘identity work’ shares two important understandings at once:

  1. This is about who you are and how you show up; and
  2. It takes energy and effort.

This is from my personal point of view (POV) as the person undertaking the process of growth and development. This is the first person perspective.

From a methodological perspective, the auto-ethnographic nature of the project is the reflective, interpretive, critical voice that observes and witnesses and tries to understand in hindsight, with reference to the social and political context I exist within. This perspective, some would argue, is a blurring of first and second person perspectives, however, relative to the processes of identity work, an auto-ethnography is in the voice of the second person, the self witnessing and commenting on the ego as well as noticing its self.

I notice both of these perspectives most when my personal experience of life runs up against norms and expectations, rules and regulations. When how I am is not who I’m expected to be. And who I am no longer has any intention of conforming, or believing simply because I am told.

This is most of the time… lol.

To scrutinise yourself in this way, to develop the self, to be intentional with the ego, to observe and witness your own emotions, thoughts and actions on such a constant basis can be exhausting. And without self love, without compassionate understanding, generosity of spirit and the courage to forgive yourself on a daily basis, it would likely consume you and lead to further neurosis.

This is because the tension between self and expectations is a relational thing. This is me face to face with the third perspective; what you think of me. And if I can’t back myself, if I can’t look at my self in the mirror and like what I see, I won’t be able to hold my head high as I walk away when you laugh or sneer, or criticize or deny. I choose not to lose any sleep over your opinion of me.

This work is not for the faint hearted. For those not ready to be vulnerable and exposed.

To do it publicly as I am….

To be honest, the more public this looks, the more private it becomes. Let me explain the paradox. One that people who identify as neuro-divergent, gender non-conforming or who have other non-conforming ways of identifying, might be able to relate to.

When your identity constantly brings you attention on a regular basis, not because you are trying to gain attention but because you arrived on this planet in a space suit that operates a bit differently to others, you get to a point in your life when you realize that attention is yours whether you want it or not. And this realization offers you a choice. Use your differences as a strength, a super power, or hide them and let them eat away at you as you live an inauthentic life, conforming and holding yourself back and in as best you can….

The point is, your identity as a weirdo is public anyway. Anyone who knows you, already knows you’re a bit of a nut or unusual or a bit out there….when you fully own that it takes away the sting of others noticing your differences and replaces it with a courage and confidence.

And now, take look around at all the other weirdos who are working out how to brand their uniqueness, craft a resume or a business around their personal value proposition, and you might see an opportunity for your self. A way to transcend the bullying, the manipulation, the feelings of being held back, restricted or simply ignored, brushed off as irrelevant. No more.

It is those of us who think different, who dare to be different, that make change happen.

Maybe not today, who knows? (*Simone, you’re getting off track…*)

Anyway, the point is, as you become aware of the parts of your identity that are on show by default, you also become more aware of your inner world,  and the more of your relational identity (the parts of you other people can interact with) you share, the more experience you have to reflect on, the richer your inner world becomes.

With more inner content, more reflections, thoughts and feelings, there is more of yourself that you come to know, more of ‘you’ that is private and un-shared, even though to the rest of the world it seems as though you have put literally everything on display!

With regard to self awareness, there are four ‘awareness windows’ to notice and reflect on (a sense making framework based on Johari Window):

  • What I know about my self and share with you (known, knowns)
  • What I know about my self and don’t share with you (the known, unknowns – this is what I’ve been talking about)
  • What I don’t know about myself but you know about me (e.g. your experience of me) (unknown, knowns)
  • What I don’t know about myself and you have not observed either (unknown, unknowns).

I show you what I show you, to learn about me.

To see who I am when I show up in this sovereign state. On my own terms.

A mantra, my reminder, it is not your microscope I am under, but my own.

May you be happy,

may you be healthy,

may you be free from suffering.

Namaste,

S x

Identity work in a complex world

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I continue through this process, murky and hazardous, yet emergent and directional.

As difficult as it is to wade through the swamp of your own neuroses, to become immersed in your deepest anxieties yet again.

The relief of breaking free of yet another entanglement of the mind.

Liberation, presupposes oppression, the suffering of being restrained.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), I can’t not do it. It is just the way my mind works, grabbing at loose threads, tugging them further, examining the ties.

What usually breaks it for me is uncovering the link to a deeper core belief. An aspect of my narrative, the story I tell myself about who I am and why I am the way I am. Once I follow my thoughts, my reactions, the patterns in the things that are triggering me, setting me off, I stay with the thoughts and feelings, watching as my sub-conscious surfaces the connections. Until the construction of the story becomes clear. I learn about the author and the narrator, the characters and what I thought they wanted from me.

Like a silent photographer waiting for wildlife to emerge from the bush. My awareness sits waiting for my thoughts. However, I myself (my ego that is) am the bait, that the photographer didn’t set or see, getting hooked and struggling to break free many times over before being able to step far enough away to see the source of the trap. The image, an understanding.

A practice.

Training the mind to notice its own patterns.

Noticing where your thoughts and feelings are coming from, the story that they form.

Noticing the ego wanting to hold on to hurt and pain.

Noticing the desire to be free of the pain.

Realising the ego is the only thing causing your self this suffering.

Again.

Again I learn this lesson but this time it fuels me back into action, back to the work of knowing who I am, of exploring my freedom in this world that is struggling to know itself. A planet pushing back on the industrialisation of the so called ‘developed’ world. To be free of the arrogant tyranny of paternalistic colonialism and capitalism. The bullish, foolish nature of toxic masculinity, control, money, power…

And again.

I have hope. And faith. I believe in our young people. While many older folk criticise the young for being unwilling to do a hard days work, for being too soft and arrogant and entitled, we forget that it is us that created the environment that brought our interpretation of this collective attitude into being. Our generation, caught up in the swinging hips and pouting lips of the 70’s, the bright lights and neon tights of the 80’s, we are the ones who want to just keep partying like it is still 1999.

Work hard, party hard. Right?

What many are unwilling to do though, is the difficult identity work that our young people are now working through. Adolescents willing to go to therapy and understand their emerging neuroses, as they are developing, as they are playing out, patterns repeating for the first time or maybe the second, but without decades of conditioning layered over  shadows already forming.

Kids transitioning, transforming and transcending, both understanding and seeing beyond the notions of social constructivism,  the made up nature of the world around them. The injustice, the inequality, the brutality of a made up system they don’t agree with and don’t wish to be part of. They can see that they have a choice.

Yet still the media and politicians scratch their heads. Ignoring the obvious.

The great resignation is just a side effect, as millions of parents and others, conscious, thinking people look around and realize, they can’t be themselves in this system. Collective identity work. We can’t follow our dreams and explore our passions in a world that narrows our attention to exam results and KPIs, unemployment rates and the national budget.

Do you feel it, as you read? As I write these words I feel my mind constrict, my awareness narrowing, my triggers igniting, the rant arising…..

Instead I switch my focus, to the wonders of creative technology, the connected world of our youth online, to the innovation and ingenuity of the ‘inexperienced’, the idealism of the ‘naive’, those without the knowledge of what ‘can’t’ be done or isn’t ‘real’. While there are many challenges yet to navigate, the internet and the digital world are already part of our future. And adapting to a world of increasing complexity is something the young are typically far better at than the old, those who’s minds have ‘reached a certain age’, and have ‘trouble letting go’ ( ~ Morpheous, The Matrix, 1999).

But our youth are doing the work needed. They are facing the demons we couldn’t bare to see. They are breaking generational patterns, working through trauma and the accumulation of dysfunction and toxic conditioning. Collectively, they are letting go. Freeing themselves of a system not fit for purpose, free to explore their potential and become their authentic selves.

Looking around at the macro patterns in society, I believe two new worlds are emerging, essentially characterized by the online community, and those moving off-the-grid. And for some, our identities already straddle these worlds. We are learning to harness the possibilities of technology and the virtual world, while being grounded and nourished by the sustaining rhythms of our planet Earth.

Together, technology and ecology, wisdom and love, can remind us of who we really are and how beautiful life can be when we all show up with peaceful, ethical and collaborative intentions toward each other.

The wisdom of the ages and the passion that drives creation, the forces that will help us shape a better world.

Identity work reconnecting us, one by one, to the authentic energy and light within.

“I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.”

~ Neo, The Matrix.
The wisdom of the ages and the passion that drives creation, the forces that will help us shape a better world. ~ Simone B’Free
Freedom comes from the confidence gained from truly loving one’s self.
Not through the lens of the ego, but the compassionate understanding of the heart and soul. Unconditional, ego-less, self love. ~Simone B’Free

Allowing for emergence and embracing one’s own complexity

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Something I have observed about my experience of sovereignty is that the feeling of it comes and goes.

As if my conditioning were a landslide of mud and debris, I become entangled and triggered,  scrabbling and alert, lashing out and fighting back at everything coming in my direction.

As I imagine it, what it would be like to go back into the Matrix after being extracted, knowing that anyone you interact with could turn out to be an agent. It is not my usual MO. Until recently I have always assumed the best in people, to my own detriment many times. One of my living spirit guides once told me, ‘they’re not your friends’.  For so long I wanted to believe this wasn’t true, then for just as long I grieved at the loss of perceived trust and my naive sense of safety in the world. But then I realised how my own narrative still held me in place, deep within, the story I still told my self was that if I was just good enough…

So despite my understanding of sovereignty, and fresh memories of how it feels, my mind is still so full of hooks and potholes, I get caught up and trip over myself time and time again. I am a sovereign being with a conditioned mind, the accumulation of small traumas leaving craters on my heart, imprints on my soul.

I am observing that to be free we have to transcend our selves, our ego. As Viktor Frankl noted, freedom lies in choosing our responses, but in order to have access to all of the possible responses we must be able to transcend our own conditioning, to see when the only thing preventing our freedom, is us and the limits and restrictions we place on our selves.

This applies both collectively and individually of course. Such a salient theme as history plays out before us in this present time. Norms and expectations being questioned. Identity politics, left and right, right and wrong, black and white….

So many voices, of theorists, thinkers and contemplatives, flooding our awareness, like a meteor shower to the collective conscious, voices from the past, hearts and minds, planet and people.

A plea, for a revolution so desperately needed.

A cry from the Earth her self, the roar of a mother protecting her young.

As a sovereign being, I choose to rise above my anxiety, my fears, and turn towards my hope. I choose to harness my strengths, gather my gifts and continue in the direction of faith, in human kind and our collective evolution. It is hard work. Some days it flows, other days I have no energy for the fight, but every day I believe in what I stand for, I strive to be intentional in my actions, I think big, I aim high. But am I free in doing so?

With a certain level of cognitive maturity it becomes possible to  continually rewrite and updates one’s own narrative, not to delude or omit, but to evolve and develop. To grow. A type of complex adaptive reasoning, that experiences identity as pliable, like modelling clay. You only have one particular lump of clay to work with, but you get to craft, shape and mold it.

The trick seems to be in nuanced, intentional crafting – gently, subtly altering your relational self to help others be at their best, to be free from suffering, to enable, facilitate, and navigate complexity.  The complexity in the world around us, the complexities that arise between us and those we carry within.

I’m starting to believe that understanding  and being able to intentionally ‘drive’ or manage your own complexity is the ultimate secret to navigating the world around us. To embrace all that you are, the shadows, the paradoxes, the reactive, hurt child. The saint and the sinner, the Madonna and the whore.

Women’s sovereignty in particular is attached to the social norms and expectations around the division of labour. If a woman is expected to raise children, prepare food, clean the house, the clothes, how does she find time to pursue grand ideas? In this way, her ideas are kept small by her circumstances.

(In much the same way, corporate roles and reputations keep people from ever knowing who they really are).

Just as Virginia Wolfe exposes in A Room Of One’s Own, not only does one need physical space to think, write, and create, but one also needs the mental space to allow for emergence, to wonder, to experiment, to meditate and contemplate and be inspired by the world around.

But with this physical space then comes the freedom to explore other things, to wonder about other aspects of one’s identity, other interests or passions, desires not yet explored….imagine a world where all women everywhere were liberated in their sexuality, felt free to dress and express themselves authentically, with no concern about shape or size, or fear of men’s interpretations, perceptions and reactions, or the sneers and snide remarks of other women.

Just the freedom that comes from the confidence gained from truly loving one’s self. Not through the lens of the ego, but the compassionate understanding of the heart and soul. Unconditional, ego-less, self love.

In my mind, the path to sovereignty is paved by love.

Learning to love your self unconditionally is the work.

The work is the continual process of knowing and re-learning everyday, who you are. Identity work develops deep self awareness and requires us to be willing to acknowledge both the light and the dark, learning to harness each as they are needed, to respond intelligently, with both wisdom and compassion, to the world you find yourself in.

In this lies freedom.

Here you will find sovereignty.

“I am not one and simple, I am complex and many”

~ Virginia Woolf
Identity work is about developing awareness of, acknowledging, accepting and loving one’s whole complex self. And then using that awareness with intent, to show up as the best version of yourself you can be.
~ Simone B’free.

Flowing: momentum and the present moment.

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A mindful pause.

I have been sitting with my own patterns, the ebbs and flows, the ups and downs. I realise I experience suffering when not in flow.  When my motivation and energy and focus are not aligned, I become anxious and at times, depressed.

For years and years I found flow in academic pursuits,  the study of yoga and Buddhism, and also in teaching. These periods of flow could last months, and as I look back there are times when it may have been years. I have used these times well, I have helped others, I have had new experiences and learned new things, and I’ve grown as a human in the process.

I sit here, in this present moment, in one of those uncomfortable in between times, the periods of liminality, of having let go but not yet landed, still free falling, hoping for a safe place to ground. My feet unsure of what they will find, my mind unable to perceive anything more than a sense of direction, my heart allowing the feelings of uncertainty.

I am unsure.

Unsure of what the future will bring.

Unsure of which direction the world will head as we sit at this historic juncture.

Unsure which catastrophe is more likely to play out.

Unsure of how we will untangle  ourselves from crisis and chaos.

Unsure of the order that will eventually ensue…compassion or control?

The tension between compassion and control is almost perceptible among the collective. Is this an open, inclusive space or a closed, exclusive place?

Open or closed.

Inclusive or exclusive.

Friendly or hostile…?

Safe or not?

People are being led by one of two things right now – hope or fear. In Australia we are about to vote for the next federal government. The topics distract us from the real question we are being asked.

The blue team are pushing security, a strong economy, a tight boarder, doubling down on defense and strategic political alliances. A stronger now, we can’t afford to think about the future –  a vote for fear and status quo.

Try not to worry. Trust the people who understand these complicated things and you get on with your productive life and your favourite sport.

The red team are peddling universal health care, dignity in poverty, compassion in despair, an acknowledgement that suffering is likely to increase and spread, a collective response to the challenges ahead. A better future, we’ll all have to do it tough to get there – a vote for hope and transformation.

An acknowledgment of the complexity and the need to work together as this unfolds. We don’t know what the future will bring but we’ll face it together.

There’s also a green team, but the media are hoping we all forget about that. The media themselves, so sports oriented that they can’t compute that more than one team is playing this game. They portray a narrative that there can only be one of two winners, a grand final to be battled out in the thorny arena of press conferences and photo opportunities. Perpetuating the insanity of a system and rituals no longer fit for purpose.

The truth is, we need the blue to turn red and the red to turn green and the green to turn to deep blue…sky blue, ocean blue, the kind of blue you see on a world globe. A swirl of different blues that blend so beautifully with the greens and browns, the greys and reds, the colours of nature; at least those we can perceive.

We need to come back together, to shape a shared understanding of the now and collective vision of the future. We need strong, trustworthy leadership with a sense of direction and penchant for collaboration.  We need leaders who are willing to explore different visions of the future, wonder about what is possible, who are willing to dream a little as they lead.

I sigh.

I am not left wondering why I cannot slip easily into flow.

The energy of the world is chaotic right now. Disorder and neuroticism are the rulers of the day. Those who seek to control are grabbing at power with both hands, those that seek to help are overwhelmed by their own compassion, and the sight of so much despair. Where do I direct my energy? Who can I help when the bombs are still dropping?

As I continue my practice, an imperfect one at that, I remind myself that this is all I have. The time to allow myself to just be, to do the things that need to be done – chop wood, carry water – rest and be ready.

I will be needed again soon enough.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be free from suffering.

Namaste

S x

Being (Album #3)

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I have noticed a significant dip in my drive for sharing all of this. I felt for a while, so small and irrelevant in the face of global unrest and disruption. I felt somewhat selfish and indulgent, like a greedy child screaming for cake, while others sit quietly awaiting a crumb.

But I have started to tell a story, and stories, for often unknown reasons, are always worth telling in full.

And of course…

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

~ Maya Angelou

In this album I was slowing to a place of joyful being. The weather was warming as summer drew closer, my family was safe and my garden was growing. I began to feel at peace in the world, and in my own skin.

These images reflect the emerging sense of liberation and my growing comfort with showing up as myself. They reflect the confidence that comes form the strength built on loving your self, mind, body and soul. They reflect an increasing irreverence for social norms and the expectations placed on me by colonialist paternalism. In light and shadow, I experimented with balance and boundaries.

I began to notice a physiological response to my own gaze.

Standing taller, grounding with each breath.

Core engaged, releasing tension.

Chest opening, receiving the love flowing in.

The desire to share the sense of freedom, the thrill of it, the release, the letting go, so strong. I wanted every woman to know what it felt like to just be themselves and ‘to hell with it all’.

If you can be free, be free.  What ever chain holds you back, stand up, walk free.

“There is no spoon”.

~ Spoon Boy, The Matrix

There is no chain. There is only the thought that you can’t.

Learn to recognise the barriers for your self and for others. Whenever possible, remind your self of your strengths, when you are with others, show them their strengths, their self, their sovereignty, as you step into your own.  Authentic being is facilitated by being in the presence of others who are also in the process of becoming.

Exchange feathers of friendship.

Hold them lightly, cherish them deeply.

Those who see you and love you, can heal you in ways you may have not known before.

It is not safe to never be vulnerable.

~ Leslie Kaminoff
Album #3 Being – Simone B’Free, in the process of becoming.

Album #2 – Transcending

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Namaste Friends, I hope this finds you well and using your energy to find all the ways you can, to thrive in this rapidly changing world.

This album (2 of 12 to date) reflects the realization that I could use my body to express myself through images, and that nudity enhanced or expanded what i could say, as did new photographic skills, accessorizing, and better equipment, my storytelling tools.

This is me coming home, and re-discovering a sense of confidence in my own skin. This is when I realized my body was beautiful, and not the horrid, defective, source of betrayal I had come to regard it as being. I had tried to make myself believe it before, with some success, however this is me capturing a newfound love of my whole self, my image, my body, my ability to capture what I was feeling; and my courage for trying to do so.

This is me realizing I could be whoever I wanted to be, that I didn’t have to be who I’d been told I was; too loud and smart to be ignored but too young and pretty to be taken seriously. Thighs and butt too big and lumpy to be sexy, but a face and smile to draw a crowd. A body not good enough for commercial purposes, a mind too quick to be contained. I am grateful they dared suggest my irrelevance, the slap in the face woke me up. This is me realising they don’t get to sideline me in my own life.

This is my story to tell.

I felt alive, free, playful, and exuberant. I was breathing in the world as it turned its monolithic head, and glanced at me. A nod , a sign post to indicate I was heading in the right direction.

There was a sense of something coming out and showing itself to the world, I was overcoming beliefs about my body that  I learned in my formative years, comparisons made, unhelpful, critical comments, sexist inappropriate, unnecessary remarks. I see now how they made their insecurities mine.

Well fuck them.

I am taking back my body.

My right to live as I please.

I take back my sovereignty and the right to write my own story, to reject their criticisms and their perspectives of me. I will not doubt myself like that again.

This gallery is a reflection of the moments in which I started to really see my self.

This gallery is a reflection of the moments in which I started to really believe in myself.

In these moments I started to fully love myself again, and through this process I began to transcend.

To a place more peaceful than where I had been.

A place where I could lay the pieces of myself out and see them in a way they’d never been seen.

In these moments of deep reflection, I started to make sense of my self, for myself.

Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Each step brings a fresh breeze.

Each step makes a flower bloom.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Bring the Earth your love and happiness.

The Earth will be safe

when we feel safe in ourselves.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Gallery 2 – Simone B’Free – Transcending.

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May you be happy, healthy and free from suffering.

Namaste.

The Photographic Journey to here

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Namaste Friends,

Thank you for your patience, my processes paused as I noticed my reaction to world events. More disruption all over our planet: shifting political power, weaponized economics, ongoing pandemic, severe weather events due to climate change, and civil unrest in so many parts of the world… my heart has been heavy, my thoughts have been with those who are suffering.

However, in honour of those who do not currently have the freedom to continue to do the things that need to be done, and who instead must get on with the most important work of survival, I shall get on with the tasks before me…

Before enlightenment – chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment – chop wood, carry water.

Zen Buddhist proverb.

“To lose confidence in one’s body is to lose confidence in oneself”

Simone de Beauvoir

I started looking for myself in places where I knew I’d seen me before. I thought perhaps there would be clues left behind, or perhaps I’d get lucky and find I was still there.

In yoga. I saw my shape, my body, the crafting of age telling a story of it’s own.

In the garden I saw the crone, smiling as she welcomed me home. The witch standing close behind, ever sultry and full of sass, came first from private moments and then out into the world to play.

She reminded me of the desperate attempts the maiden had made to keep herself relevant, to hold on. To find good in the mistakes she and the child had made, instead finding grace in the lessons she learned, from all the times she fell.

I started to see more than the context and form. I started to see the way the different settings inspired me to hold my body or angle my head. I started to notice the different types of energy that flowed through me as I felt the sun on my naked skin, warmth in places that had never been warmed, changing the colours of my body, the tone of my hair.

I started seeing myself in the conversations that came from sharing the images. The therapist, the teacher, the coach, the nurturer, the healer.

I had lost myself in the trauma, not just my own, in fact by then my own had retracted and retreated to the peripheral of my mind, perspective taking hold. Now the storm had passed, I had rested and I started feeling ready.

This was me creeping back out into the sun to play. After too many years of turmoil, after spending far too long dwelling in the shadow of social expectations and dominant gender norms. After realising that I needed to choose to live ‘my best life’, that I needed to wake up and do the thing I want to do, the things that bring joy and love to me, my family and the world.

The images show a clear release and outward expression, the energy and playfulness abundant in moments of total liberation, uninhibited in my experimentation. Both joyful and irreverent in this moment of re-claiming and re-awakening the sovereign being within.

In these moments I was breaking trauma bonds with people central to my narrative and my identity. I was reclaiming the story of my body, what it means to me, how others saw it,  how I see it, the stories I tell myself about size and shape, colour and texture. I was ignoring expectations for how a woman of my age and professional standing should behave and enjoying every moment, embracing the abundant freedom of being as authentic in my anger as I was in the exhilaration of the release.

Crazy cat lady.

Cranky old hippie.

Crackpot yogi.

Oddball. Weirdo….I’ll take them all.

The first album of this project, some might say, ‘somewhat like the first pancake’, exposes my naivety and ignorance, as a model and photographer, and also as a woman who brings beginner’s mind to the things she does, willing to fail, make mistakes, be ‘good enough’ to make a start and learn and grow in the process of becoming rather than waiting to share perfection, which she may never attain.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action. 

John Dewey

Through the process of taking nude selfies and sharing them online with other people who identify as nudists and/or naturists I stumbled, very awkwardly, into a safe space for identity work. And found a community of people asking similar questions to myself, ‘why is society so hung up about nudity, with people seeing them?’. And as I experimented with different styles of photos, imitating others, coming up with my own crazy ideas, seeking inspiration from my environment, I started to see the different things that make up my identity the different parts of myself; and the things I have never shared before.

While I looked very outward facing in the photos, this was a time of deep introspection. I’ve always been comfortable alone. And this time and space I have given myself for this project has been like a retreat for my soul. A practice, a journey and a reflection, integrated into a process of un-learning and re-emerging.

The body is not a thing, it is a situation: it is our grasp on the world and our sketch of our project.

Simone de Beauvoir

May all beings everywhere know freedom from suffering,

Namaste.

Gallery 1 – Simone B’Free – Re-Awakening.