Discover Your Extraordinary Self with Transformational Photography

Good morning Liz!!  Writing this note bright and early as I pack to head down to Atlanta this morning.

I’ll check in as I can thru the day, but I also know the blog is in excellent hands with you. 

Thank you for being here and for sharing the transformational work you are doing via photography.  As someone who is at her computer…a lot…I am pondering your questions that you left us with, as the computer is not so friendly to the “being in ones” body.

 Walks and vacations at the beach are my favorite for really feeling in connection with my body.  (The latter don’t come around nearly enough, but I do walk daily with my greyhound). 

hi Liz i had been searching meaning of his picture whole life can you help me finding  its meaning it would be of great . YOU LOOK TERIFIC  AND ENTHUSIASTIC  IN ABOVE  
PHOTO

Hi Liz, i is so great to see you and your work profiled here on Soul Filled Cafe! I know I have been thrilled with the work you’ve done for me and for my family.  It is a true joy to see you bringing your gifts to a larger audience.

Your article is evocative and asks some important questions–I find it so refreshing that your photography work is about so much more than taking a picture–it is an invitation to re-member ourselves and step back into the exquisite pleasure of being in a body. 

Love the photos of Karen and Pooki above!

To reconnect with my body (because I can easily get lost in my head), my favorite go to activities are walking outside, looking at the sky, being near trees (hugging them sometimes), hiking, dancing, moving, singing. 

I’m looking forward to reading the posts today.

Thank you, Heather for inviting Liz to be at the Soul Filled Cafe!

Love to you both, kim

Good morning to all the beautiful souls at the Soul-Filled Cafe! I feel extraordinarily conscious of my senses today, noticing my stomach rumbling and anticipating breakfast, hearing the wind chimes outside my door, feeling the sting of tears on my face (I have a very ill friend on my mind), and gazing with awe at the blue sky, white clouds and fading fall leaves.

Being aware of your senses is the first step in loving your body into a transformation. Ask any question or perhaps start by telling me what you are aware of, physically, in this very moment.

big hugs,
Liz

Hi Heather,
You are SO right about time spent at the computer.  I’ve actually noticed that there are times when I can be at the computer for hours and then others when I am there for a short while before needing a break.  What I “notice” is that when my focus is fading, or I become tired, or I begin to slump in my seat, THAT is time for a break.

When you are in a state of awareness about your body, you will “hear” its messages to you and be able to take intentional action to give it what it needs.  In that moment, as you step away, is the time to ask the question of “what would give me pleasure right now?” or “what would energize me right now?”.  I listen for the answer that gives me a feeling that is pleasurable, rather than words that show up in my head.

It would be interesting to hear what sensations you can recall if you place your attention to those walks on the beach. The physical memory would blend with the emotional experience and make it easier to bring the feeling of those walks to you when you are away from the ocean.

Hi Liz,

Great food for thought questions!

Over the last several years, I’ve really discovered how important it is to stay connected with my body.  I haven’t wanted to – part of me didn’t want to be engaged in anything as “shallow” (love the judgment here ) as worrying about what I looked like.

But without that connection, I simply can not connect to my inner wisdom, my intuition, or any of the other powerful resources I have.  Even with that ah-ha (and you and your wisdom have helped me get to that ah-ha place), it’s very hard for me to be continually present.

I can fully and completely get into my body out in nature.  Everything flows for me with that connection.

Without that cue or support from nature, it’s harder for me to be embodied.  Part of that, I think, is that I am so sensitive to all emotions (mine and others), that being in my body is often overwhelming.

Your message about taking time for pleasure really resonates with me.  I realize as I think about being overwhelmed by emotions, I am mainly talking about negative emotions.  How amazing would it be to be overwhelmed with positive, pleasurable feelings??  

Would love your thoughts about making that transition to remembering to feel pleasure…it’s clear I need some direction here!  Who would think it would be so hard to feel pleasure!

Thanks for being here today and sharing!

Jennifer 

Thank you for the photographic compliments! Would you like to tell more about yourself and explain about this search that you’ve been on?

Jennifer what wisdom thank you for sharing!  I love that thought of being “overwhelmed with positive, pleasurable feelings;” occurred to me when I read this that of course, when we cut ourselves off from our bodies out of fear of feeling “negative” emotions, joy and pleasure become unavailable to us.  I’m so glad you raised this point.  Will enjoy reading Liz’s insights about this. 

Ah beloved Kim,
Thank you for coming here and sharing your thoughts! Let me ask you, would you say that those very same body-connecting activities make you feel more alive? That in moving and engaging your body you become more present, receptive, something else?

I think that there will be plenty of people out there who could say “I looked at the sky and it didn’t do a thing for me” or “I’ve walked through trees and got a great workout, but that doesn’t ‘mean anything”. I have a feeling that those same actions for you bring something quite deep to your soul in that moment. You are choosing to reconnect to your body based on your “knowing”.

What I find is that if I am outdoors doing those very same things, if I slow down and take a moment here and there to check in with my toes, my knees, my hair, my skin, my belly, my heart, ANY part of the body, I notice where I feel the joy or pleasure of touching that tree, or notice the welling up in my heart over the beauty of the sky.  Once I am aware of those sensations, not only can I deepen them with focused attention, but I can call upon them at a later time, when I need the feeling that they brought to me.

That one step alone can shift the body focus from being considered a needed diversion from our mind-centerness, to being an intentional place to go when we want to connect to our more natural,intuitive, powerful, energetic selves.

Dear Liz,

Thanks for giving me food for thought this morning. I realized that I am always, or much of the time, I am in my head. I have break out of that to become connected with my physical world. This is very strange to me because I was a dancer for most of my life. And even dance became a head game because I was focusing on how it looked to the audience and not how it felt. Yoga helped to step through this by connecting posture, breath and the feelings within. Having an auto-immune condition taught me to listen to my bodies cues.

My connection with the physical self comes alive with fragrance: a favorite organic body creme, a scented candle, baking bread, grinding coffee beans. Those scents give me great pleasure and I can start to connect with my full body

Jennifer, you are such a sacred-space-holder for others that it is no wonder you flooding with emotions and perhaps have used disconnection as a much needed way to filter and diffuse the impact on you.  In nature, it sounds as if  you allow yourself to be completely open, vulnerable, and in a receptive mode, because I know that you get many of your intuitive downloads when you are there.

I think that it is in the contrast of having had dark feelings that we can recognize and appreciate the feelings of pleasure at a more meaningful level. When I step into a Soul Mirror portrait session, it is a sacred experience for my client to explore her darkness and her light, to meet them knowing that they are all a part of her, but do not define her. The intention of the experience is to feel all of it, to learn that some of what you carry around physically is truly, authentically YOU and some of it comes from others. The photographs throughout the process are something of a documentary of that physical/spiritual journey, rather than the goal.

A good awareness trigger of when you need to call in the pleasure patrol, is when you are feeling the opposite. Pleasure is a much more powerful sensation, but it speaks in a quieter voice at the start. That is why it is so easy to forget about it.  The more you exercise that conscious choice of pleasure, the stronger and more insistent it will be to be present in your life. Just a baby steps here but it is a good way to start the practice of noticing and remembering to change.

One suggestion for opening the portal to greater pleasure is to note what feels pleasurable to you. Not what you “think” should be pleasurable, but what you “feel”. Using the body-scanning technique, I always note whether some part of my body is speaking loudest and focus there. If nothing is standing out, start with your feet (and honestly, this works much better if you are standing, at ease, flexible in your legs and torso) and move upward.

Pleasure comes to us in so many ways, whether a sensation of tingling, the feeling of your cells spreading and connecting with their environment, a frisson of sexual energy, a feeling of fullness. As I feel the pleasure in my body, let’s say when the sun is warm on my bare skin and the wind is blowing through my hair, I will use my energetic thoughts and see that energy pulsing its way up my body.  It is often an orgasmic feeling for me that will spread throughout my body.

I received an email from a friend who could not be online with us today, these are her questions:
1).
Please talk in detail about the “tapping into the wisdom of the
body…intuitive guidance…” part. Do you have specific exercises to
suggest?

2). As much as I love to dance, I get “shy” about dancing around
anyone and can lose the joy in it. Any suggestions?

3). Ideas for getting beyond my body-fat discomfort? I am not really heavy, but
have “apple” body shape tendencies which have always felt less
feminine to me. Ideas?

My thoughts will be in reply, please join in.

Wow, this is SOOOO fun!

Liz, I just hopped on to the cafe today, and am blown away by what you’re sharing. This is so amazing.

And I just got over a flu that laid me flat, so I’m very aware of my body right now (it feels so delicious to have more energy again).

I’m going to spend more time reading what everyone has already written…this is perfect timing. Thank you, Liz, and thank you everyone!

Warmly,
Sue

Julie,
It is so interesting that the dance you performed was more focused on the audience, I would guess that you may have felt more technically perfect but not necessarily soul-filled?  I studied Middle Eastern dance for 7 years and definitely credit it as part of my own shift in how I show up physically.  I was the bane of every group choreography that I participated in because to focus on the group, and remembering the steps, took me out of my body!  And I had to move my body!  My best dancing (felt the best to me and appreciated by the audience) was when I did my solo dances, completely improvising as I felt into the music.

Yoga is a wonderful practice for the body, I’m glad that you found a better form of movement that supports you. I enjoy it when I need the inner calm and feeling of control over my body. 

Do you find that those same scents hold memories and other sensations that deepen your pleasure beyond a nice scent?

Hi Sue,
I’m glad that you are on the mend from the flu.  That is one of those spaces of “not feeling the pleasure” that I spoke of to Jennifer, that reminds us how much we LOVE feeling good.  The contrast that builds the appreciation and desire for it to be something different.

Hey Liz! All this is so fascinating. Typically when I am not feeling great, I check in on the thoughts going through my head (they are often untrue!)  and also to check into the sensations in my body and non-judgmentally observe them. This definitely helps.

What I’m interested in is when you’re talking about focusing on a pleasurable sensation, then expanding it, and it sounds like you’re saying you can then “imprint” that sensation and call it back when you need it. Can you say more about this and how you use it when you are in a negative place?

Thanks!

Carolyn

p.s. On a side note, having had the joy of being photographed by you, what I saw was that you know how to guide someone to an inner place of personal power and inspiration. We think being in that place is only internal, but once I was there and you photographed me, it showed up in the photo. Amazing! 

Liz what genius comments! Yes, I suppose you are right.  Those activities are enlivening and awareness producing for ME, yet someone else might need different kinds of experiences to step into their body.  I like your suggestion of shifting into the awareness of what the body is feeling in any particular moment–that works very well for me also.

I have a very deep and personal connection to the elements and to nature, also my intuitive and learning styles are primarily visual/kinesthetic.  So being somewhere that stimulates my body and my eyes raises my awareness and brings me back in touch with the most precious parts of who I am.  That’s why I love hiking, watching the sunset, taking people to Ireland to experience the elements and ancient places of power, listening to live music…all of these things bring me into the moment.  And perhaps, in part, because I have, over time, begun to associate these experiences with “waking up.”  They are like little bells for me–doorways to awareness, including physical awareness. 

Thank you for your insights! Love, kim

I can totally relate to the feeling of being sensitive to others and my own emotions, and that being open to sensations in my body is sometimes overwhelming.  My experience is that I haven’t much choice but to let those physical/emotional impressions flow through when they arise, knowing that there is pleasure on the other side.  I have no skill in pushing back negative feelings, at least not for long.  I am working on accepting that I am a sensitive person, and all that it means, the bad and the good and the neutral. 
But Liz has taught me some specific ways to find pleasure in the body, and to build it up during those moments when I am feeling less overwhelmed and more open to feeling good.

Sue Wilhelm, by the way

Carolyn,
You were illuminated in your photos, and it was a joy to see!

I have been in the place where the negative emotions have overwhelmed me, almost as if I am swimming in a pool of them and cannot reach the side to climb out.  There were moments when I needed a friend to throw in a life preserver.

More of the time, though, when I see myself heading toward that soup of shadows, I call upon a trigger, it could be a powerful phrase or look at a spot-on portrait of myself in my essence (the one from this article is my favorite), a piece of music, something that holds great sensation-resonance in my body. When I speak the phrase or look at the photograph, I feel the sensations in my body start rumbling. For me, It begins as that sensation you feel when you hear a beautiful truth about yourself that you have lost touch with, do you know what I mean?  Tears may flow, my heart will fill, warmth suffuses my body. 

The most powerful part of this process is to stimulate FEELING! And you know, feeling the pain fully, expressing it physically can be VERY releasing. I am very physically demonstrative,  talking with my hands, hugging, hopping up and down when I am excited, so the more physical I can be in delving into feeling the negative, the greater the release (tears, screaming, wild dancing …) the greater the space it creates for the beauty and pleasure feelings to flow in.

my lovely leaping-across-the-stones water sprite from the photograph above!

Sue,
This may or may not be pertinent to you, but it helps me in my resilience against the negative thoughts from others, to deepen into MY OWN knowing of my worth and the value of my wisdom to know if the energies coming at me are based on a truth that I would want to evaluate, or based on someone else’s pain/needs that they are sending my way, knowingly or unknowingly. I like Carolyn’s method of non-judgmentally observing the negative emotions, as she has shown me, it tends to diffuse their power.

Kind of like the old “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me” idea, I strengthen MY core in those moments, feel my feet rooted to the earth, filling my trunk (torso) with the pleasure and wisdom of what I know to be my positive truths. In those moments, I feel like a strong, flexibly tree, able to weather anything that buffets me.

Here are a few topics requested by my friend, Deborah, who is unable to participate live on the Cafe:
1 – Please talk in detail about the “tapping into the wisdom of the body…intuitive guidance…” part. Do you have specific exercises to suggest?

2 – As much as I love to dance, I get “shy” about dancing around anyone and can lose the joy in it. Any suggestions?

3 – Ideas for getting beyond my body-fat discomfort? I am not really heavy, but have “apple” body shape tendencies which have always felt less feminine to me.

“”tapping into the wisdom of the body…intuitive guidance…”
Now you can see where awareness of your body, and the ability to listen to it without filters of self-judgement, is so important … and that is in the area of intuitive guidance. 

Our bodies speak to us with feelings of energy, love, joy, fear, pain .. a whole gamut. Not everyone is kinesthetic in how their intuition speaks. That said, our bodies are still speaking to us, asking for what they need at a primal level such as food, clothing, shelter, but also they let us know when we are getting into a situation that causes stress, goes against our better instincts, or is in perfect alignment with our life purpose journey.

I feel the exact same pleasure feelings when I am in alignment as the feelings that I call upon to get into my groove and to reconnect to my own beautiful spirit.  Perhaps what you can do here is to notice how your body feels (and where you feel it) when you are consciously choosing actions that align with your path. Notice and practice repeating those feelings.  If you feel a warm welling of energy around your heart, then practice (during an emotionally neutral moment) FEELING around your heart, use your imagination to see your heart pumping strongly, or less graphically, see a warm light filling the spaces around your heart and spreading throughout your body.  Repeating the exercise of what you know that you already feel when aligned and guided, helps you recognize when it happens again because you are creating cellular memories.

Deborah, dance is a beautiful way to expess your spirit, it is absolutely MY FAVORITE way to lose myself in sensation, in my glory. How did I get that way?  I’ve always been moved to dance, whether as a child dancing with my sister to songs of the Peer Gynt Suite, improvising to the sound of the music, or as a teenager being at church dances (and being told by chaperones to place more space in between us) or as I stepped into belly dance class as a 41-year old mother of two, ready to embrace my heritage and my body.

I’ve always had it in me, but in my belly dance classes, I truly connected to the energy of being a WOMAN. The feeling that I was embodying the essence of woman and celebrating the source of life by honoring my belly. And I’ll tell you, at first I wore tummy covers with my costumes, feeling ashamed of the surgical scar on my belly. As I spent more time with the dance, learning about the Arabic culture and the idea of women celebrating women with all of their curves, bumps, marks and life experiences, I was renewed in my knowledge that I was doing this “for me”, to celebrate ME!  Every dance I do is pretty much an internal job, as I go inward I am fully immersed in the feelings in my body to the extent that I don’t care what others think.

My suggestion to you is to put the veil over your eyes figuratively, when you have an opportunity to dance in purblic, to place your attention inward, to notice how you feel when you move a certain way and to know that there is no wrong way to move. Your inner pleasure will fuel the external expression and you will awe others in your freedom, without even planning to do so.

I am thrilled to hear about you, Liz.  I have often thought that this would be a terrific thing for people to have — and there you are!  Love the photos you have taken here on the Soul Filled Cafe.

By the way, Liz, where are you in physical space?  I’d love to recommend you to clients.  I checked out your website but couldn’t find the info.

Deirdre,
I am honored by your interest, DeirdreI am in St. Louis, Missouri.  My current website is kind of a halfway spot between Ravenlight Studio, which would be all forms of my business, marketing and general photography, and my new site (as yet unnamed) which will have my blog, information about monthly women’s gatherings, upcoming workshops and events around the subjects we have been discussing, and the Soul Mirror portraits.  You can find some current info at my FB page http://www.facebook.com/ravenlightstudio

Tell me more about YOU!

warmly,
Liz.

So, introducing another topic here: Many spiritual people shift very deeply into the realm of spirit, and using their thoughts to create a link to the Divine, that they discount or ignore the very physical vessels that they “wear” here on Earth. Do you see how shifting thoughts of physical relationship with self and others is possibly a way of honoring this physical body-gift from the Universe?  Can be food for thought, or active conversation.

So, introducing another topic here: Many spiritual people shift very
deeply into the realm of spirit, and using their thoughts to create a
link to the Divine, that they discount or ignore the very physical
vessels that they “wear” here on Earth. Do you see how shifting thoughts
of physical relationship with self and others is possibly a way of
honoring this physical body-gift from the Universe?  Can be food for
thought, or active conversation.

Thank you for these wonderful suggestions, Liz.

My main line of work (as you know) is to help people both identify and then heal the blocks that are keeping them from the life their Souls are longing to express – especially those of us who are playing out our Souls desires through our businesses.

What I have been learning is that while releasing the old beliefs is an integral part of the work, what has even more power is building in the new beliefs, living from those as much as possible, allowing them to pull you forward.

What I hear you saying about pleasure really resonates with me.  It’s not about getting rid of the negative feelings first and THEN feeling pleasure (something that I think many of us are taught, as in “eat your vegetable first THEN you can have dessert” or “do your work and THEN you can play”).  Rather, it’s about including pleasure throughout the day. Using those pleasurable feelings to draw you into feelings of self-worth, belief, authenticity and more.

GREAT conversation here today.  Thank you so much for giving so much of yourself to us in this forum.

Jennifer
 

Great analogy, Jennifer, about the vegetable eating.  You hit the nail on the head as far as concurrent positive feelings, even when the negatives still exist. Those pleasureables are mighty motivating for me. Thank you for speaking up and stimulating conversation today!

big hugs,
Liz

Another food for thought question that I will post here, so even after the end of the day, conversations can continue: Do your beliefs about your body image sabotage your ability to be fully
present and finding pleasure as you engage in the relationships of your
life?

This day has been beautiful, I appreciate each of you sharing yourself openly, bringing your own internal wisdom and pleasure practices to the discussion.  Since my expansion into inclusion of self-discovery and sensuality coaching is a newer venture, I do not yet have a full-fledged website built.  I do have a mailing list begun, and once the site is created with content and events to share, I’d love to notify you about it.  Please visit me at http://www.lizschneider.net or http://www.ravenlightstudio.com and hop on my list.  I will have a free “Pleasuring the Senses” e-course for you once I get it all up and running.

You can also find me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ravenlightstudio, or my on my personal FB profile.

I am in complete gratitude to Heather for connecting with me and finding value in my ideas and my work, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

As we part, I hope that you have gotten a sense of how your life might become brighter, more vibrantly alive, and filled with deeper meaning, when you include the physical aspect of yourself in the things that you cherish and care for. Embrace yourself right where you are, know that you can create anything that you desire, and pave your life journey with pleasure, in its myriad forms.

warm hugs to all,
Liz

yes. some of that makes sense.  i guess sometimes i am on a roll, and once my heart is full it pours out.  i would call what you’re talking about a kind of faith, which i am developing.  but also there is great doubt.  so much of it comes from myself.  i am learning… 

very fun to see my picture there  )) 

Liz – so loved your post and the photos are truly amazing. What a wonderful combination – wisdom and photography to bring out the authentic self. Brilliant.  I would love to share you with my clients once I get up and running myself. I will be working with cancer survivors to get their groove back after treatment ends and looking for ways to connect them with people that can help them do that. Thank you for this amazing and delicious work!

Susan,
What a delight it would be for me to photograph such brave and beautiful women. Please drop me a note via email or friend me on Facebook so I can keep you on my radar.