time – Promoting Passion

Creating Through Pain

brookeshaden — Mon, 21 May 2018 13:42:02 +0000

For whatever reason, I have always been hesitant to talk about pain. I live in pain, but I’m not bothered by that and I never felt the need to bother anyone else with it, either. I’ve always been of the mindset that if I take care of myself, and I see the best parts of life, then I can manage day to day. This method is working splendidly for me.

I have Fibromyalgia, which is categorized as wide spread pain. Not very specific. For me, it manifests in joint pain akin to arthritis, chronic fatigue, and extreme body sensitivity. This means hugs hurt me (sadly). It means that I feel a lot more pain when I am touched than the average person would.

That’s just an overview, not a pity party. I don’t mind having Fibromyalgia too much. Some days it’s tougher than others, but I have a really annoyingly positive attitude about it and I don’t dwell on it. I have it easier than a lot of people.

My friends are often annoyed with me because I won’t talk about it or say when I’m not feeling well. How I’ve personally lived my life is to keep my pains to myself and deal with it by myself. I’m not saying this method is healthy; it is just what I’ve done.

So, talking about it openly doesn’t feel great. But, I had a few emails from people recently asking if I would talk about it, so I have. And, I created two images that represent how pain feels to me.

Here is how I deal with my pain and continue to be regularly productive:

1. I always get 7-9 hours of sleep per night. I don’t have kids so that’s point one. But nonetheless, I prioritize sleep like no one’s business. I usually go to sleep between 9-10pm, and wake up between 5-6am.

2. I eat a whole foods, plant based diet largely without sugar. That works well for me personally: I am not attempting to give nutrition advise.
(Speaking of…I’m about to go slice a fresh loaf of this bread that I’ll smear with avocado. My favorite breakfast!)

3. I see beauty in pain. I really do. It inspires me and I create from it often. I let my poses, my emotions be dictated by what pain feels like to me.

4. I carry light-weight equipment. This has made a HUGE impact in my life. My gear that helps me travel light is: Sony a7rii (mirrorless, full frame camera), 3 Legged Thing tripod (carbon fiber, folds really small), and a Microsoft Surface Pro (laptop under 3lbs!). I use roller bags where possible because I also have nerve damage in my back.

5. I have a gratitude practice.

6. I build downtime into my day. I know that I have energy and feel best in the mornings. I do not, unless it is absolutely necessary, work past 7pm. I let myself relax from that time until I go to sleep.

7. I exercise, lightly. I do yoga everyday and hike 2-3 times a week.

8. A common effect of Fibromyalgia is bad memory. I have it in abundance. I keep to do lists and charts to keep myself organized. This helps to get me excited about finishing a goal as well as keeps my brain straight!

I know that there are people living in pain far, far worse than mine. And there are people who have never lived in pain. No matter your experience, I hope this sheds some insight into working through adversity.

At the end of the day, I have a passion that cannot be silenced. I try not to let time get in the way of pursuing that dream. What I mean by that is this: It might take me longer than I think it should to get some tasks finished. I might need to rest and take care of my body before I can move on and conquer. I’m learning to be okay with that. Passion and dreams do not have an expiration date. Take your abilities one step at a time.

I created these two images based on how I feel in pain.

One, a ripping apart of the body, an explosion within.

The other, a sinking, suffocating feeling as time passes you by.

Maybe one of these images resonate with you. Maybe you know the feeling.

Let me know below.
I’d love to open the conversation so that we all feel that we can share our pain.

White Wall Wednesday: Episode 6

brookeshaden — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 14:34:50 +0000

I love getting to share some of my editing process. This week was super fun because I was working in a way that has a lot of wiggle room for creativity. I love changing colors especially in my images until I find just the perfect combination. I always have an idea of a color palette before I start, but there is magic in finding control in the editing room so that you can create a palette that speaks to your soul. That is how I felt during this edit.

Some of what you will see includes: changing the color of the dress (and overall), moving the subject to a different background, blending the subject, and some finishing techniques.

How does color speak to you? I never felt so in control of my editing until I learned color tweaks and color theory. To me, nothing has a bigger impact on the viewer than the color of an image.

Training for the Creative Marathon

brookeshaden — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 14:41:04 +0000

We can learn a lot from athletes. They know, factually and without dispute, that they must practice before they compete. A runner knows that he or she must run most days leading up to a marathon to build endurance. A high jumper knows that he or she must practice in order to be able to achieve the jump of their dreams. Yet a lot other professions, passions or hobbies aren’t necessarily seen in the same way. Photographers and artists, for some reason, seem exempt in this category. We get an idea, and then when it doesn’t work out, we consider it, or ourselves, a failure. So rarely do we try again, each day, practicing until we get it right. We simply assume we are not good at it.

Part of the problem is how we view the arts. We are taught that art is something very natural, that if we are to be good at it we are born that way with a certain intuition and magic. Yet it does not have to be so. I am not naturally good at very many things. Photoshop is not intuitive to me, and I have to work hard. I always have. In school I got mediocre grades, didn’t get into any great colleges, and I worked twice as hard as anyone I knew in school then. So working hard isn’t an issue, but self-confidence can be.

Like any athlete, if you do put in the practice and you don’t see any obvious changes, it is easy to get discouraged. We practice and fail and don’t seem to get better – we can’t log our running times our measure our high jumps – so it might all seem for naught. But, instead of getting so down on ourselves, we must simply figure out a way to measure how much our practice time is helping.

One way to do that is to create a running list of everything that you’ve learned from failing. Each time you try something new and fail, write down one thing that you learned from the process. For a photographer, it might be certain lighting, a tool in Photoshop, etc. The second thing to do is to actively seek a solution. If you can’t figure out how to do something in Photoshop, go searching for the answer to that specific thing. What if we all took more notice of what exactly has gone wrong and how to fix it, *and* we practiced each day for the thing we love most?

I did this in high school. I practiced everyday, took note of things I was bad at, sought out extra help in areas I needed to improve, and yet still, despite all of that, I did not get into a great college. I still got bad grades. What I have learned since leaving the school system has been life-changing. When I was trapped in that way of thinking, I did not have the capacity to judge myself outside of the standards imposed on me: testing, grading, report cards, etc. I thought that the measure of my worth was directly proportional to how “fridge-worthy” my report card was. And so I judged myself based on rules that someone else created.

What I know now is that there is no way of grading your passion. There is no way of knowing if you are certainly getting better or worse. All we can know is this: the way the tide breaks on our life is a particular pattern that only we can learn to love. We cannot change the way the tide breaks, we can only jump in the waves or stand aside and watch it happen. We can choose to pursue our passion or we can give up trying. And no one can grade us on hard we played in the waves. That is for us to know, and so our worth is not measurable by mathematic standards, but instead by how much we practiced what we love.

Promoting Passion Week 53: How to Take Time Back

brookeshaden — Mon, 29 Dec 2014 18:52:39 +0000

Have you ever said to yourself, “Time is moving so quickly!”? I know I have. I used to be absolutely stunned at how as a child time seemed to move so slowly. A summer lasted a lifetime. School never seemed to end. I felt as though I would be a child forever. But then I kept growing, and when I found myself at adulthood I couldn’t get time to stay still. It moved so quickly, and I found life passing, and I worried frequently that I would miss everything. That one day I would blink and I would be much closer to death, and that would be it.

Most people go through this change in time. For most people childhood moves rather slowly because we are unaware of life’s duties and the inevitable passing of time. We are largely unaware of death and the things we want to accomplish before then. So we are blissfully ignorant of time at all, and thus, it moves slowly.

Depending on who you are, you might think about time frequently. Maybe you’re at work and have a deadline and comment on how you wish you had longer. Maybe you are savoring a good moment and wish it could last forever. Or maybe you are growing older and thinking of when you had more time. No matter what the circumstance, we all think about time at some point in our lives, and usually it is a constant companion.

But the reason I write about this is because of my shift in how I perceive time. I used to worry about it. I used to think it moved so quickly. But now things have changed. Just the other day my husband asked me if I felt time moved too quickly, and without hesitation I said “no”. Because, without realizing it, I changed my perspective on time. I stopped wondering where it had gone and instead started to embrace where it was now, for however long it chooses to stay.

I started thinking about what changed in my life over the last few years. People always say that as you get older time moves faster – an old saying to be sure, but one that is very often true. The older we get, the faster time seems to move. If this is true, then I must be nearing the edge of a black hole, because time is doing just the opposite.

What changed for me is my attitude toward life. I used to see it as a race. I used to want to be better (than who, I can’t exactly say), and achieve more, and be rewarded for these things. I saw others doing more and wanted to hustle to be like them. I saw greatness swirling around me and wanted a piece for myself. I tried really hard to get to the top. I valued that which now I see as a plague.

What changed is how I react to situations, as well as how I create them and how I leave them. Instead of working to be better, I work to be complete. Instead of creating situations that are full of stress I create situations that are full of peace. And when one chapter closes, I do not think of all I could have done but instead all that I did do, and I feel fulfilled.

1. Set goals for yourself, but do not set strict time limits.

I am all for setting goals, and I am even all for giving yourself a timely goal to complete your task. What I am not all about is what I call the Pass/Fail grading system. If you set a goal for yourself, and a date to complete that goal, it is not healthy to judge yourself solely based on how well you met that arbitrary date. Should your plan not come together fully by that time, do not give yourself a failing grade. Do not look down at yourself. Keep going, and realize that your dream is worth it.

2. When something goes wrong, teach yourself how to see the good in it.

Failures are for crazy people…meaning you have to be crazy to buy into them. Forget about failures. Stop seeing life as failure and success. Instead see it as an in-between, no matter how wonderfully or how terribly something goes. If it goes wrong, seek out those things you did well in the effort. If it goes well, seek to better yourself by identifying weaknesses. Life is almost never about a failure or a success. It is about your journey to get there and how much you have grown once you’re on the other side.

3. Keep a list.

When looking back at our life, it is easy to identify different chapters. Childhood. College. Marriage. Parenthood. Career. Self-discovery. Etc.

This is how people think. We split our lives up into these smaller pockets so that we can keep track of what has happened to us. Let’s play into that a little bit. As you enter each new experience, write down words to describe how you felt about it. I am not good at journaling my experiences. I get bored with it. But if you can remember to, every so often, write down simple words that indicate what you’ve learned from a specific situation then you are more likely to savor those lessons and keep them closer.

Here are some good examples from my life. I used to be far too interested in the worry that surrounds the internet: is so-and-so copying my work? Did I get a negative comment? Will people like me? From these naturally occurring questions I began to develop answers for myself, though not in direct relation to the questions. I learned humility, in understanding that the world does not revolve around any one person. I learned optimism, in realizing it is far more fulfilling to trust and love than to distrust and hate. I learned confidence, in understanding that I must love myself before anyone else will take that chance.

Learn from your circumstance, and remember those lessons. Keep them close, and let them govern your life. The more lessons you gather, the more life seems to slow down and taste a little bit sweeter.

4. Ditch the media.

My phone is a phone most of the time. It doesn’t update me on emails, and I frequently have it turned to airplane mode. I don’t bring my camera and laptop most places I go if I can help it. I turn my computer off when I’m not using it so it isn’t as easy to access on a whim. I’ve implemented a new system of coming up with creative ideas: instead of logging them in my phone, I write them on notepads strategically placed around my house, in my car, and in my purse.

The obsession that is wanting everything immediately largely stems from media. If we can take it down a notch and do things the old-fashioned way from time to time, we begin to savor the moments we spend doing those things a little bit more. Instead of driving, walk. Instead of emailing, write a letter. Instead of starting your day with the computer, watch the sunrise. Let nature take over. Appreciate the immediacy of life.

5. Start a gratitude club.

Start a tradition for yourself where you share what you are grateful for. Maybe it is at the dinner table, or you start a dinner club once a week for your friends to talk about gratitude. Maybe you start a blog, or use it as a space to talk about gratitude. Maybe you write it down for yourself.

At the end of every week (I choose Fridays) I talk with my husband about what I was grateful for during the previous week. This allows me to focus on the good, learn from the bad, and understand more clearly what is good about my life. If I am having trouble coming up with enough points, I search for my failures. There is more goodness in failures than in successes.

6. Find meaning in everything.

Search. SEARCH. It is what keeps us questioning and wondering and alive. Search for meaning in all things big and small. Do not wait for momentous occasions for your life to seem full and important. Create them for yourself. Run through the forest and pretend you are the wind. Notice someone’s smile on a bus and smile back, and feel the humanity in that. Cry when you want to cry and laugh when you want to laugh and enjoy the power in that. From the most mundane, everyday objects to the most important, life-changing travels, everything contains equal potential to astound us.

7. Find your innocence and curiosity.

Childhood goes by so slowly because we are discovering. When I was very young I had a dream that I flew, but I believe it really happened. So instead of telling me that it was all a dream, my mom told me that everyone flies once in their life, and that was my turn. What grew in me was a sense of huge imagination. I believed her. I believed in my ability to do whatever I wanted. I believed I was special. When we are children we believe these things so easily. We see our potential without recognizing it as such, and we believe we are worth trying for.

Get that feeling back. Believe in things you would usually discount. Learn to deny nothing and find the possibility in all things. Create your own possibilities, and believe you are worth it.

Don’t let this new year come and go. Spend time in the middle of it. Enjoy each moment of it.

Be present.

Be curious.

See everything.

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Photograph taken during my stay in Hana (Maui) Hawaii in October with model Marsha Denlinger.