29 | The Healing Power of Photography (With Tuula Ahde)

What do the photographs you take and choose to share say about you? What might your photos be saying TO you?

I wonder if you've ever thought about those questions before?

Photoyoga For Your Mind started in 2017 as an organic combination of creativity, movement, and inner listening. It grew from a place of burnout and a quest for healing and recovery.

In the wake of burnout, Tuula researched widely and developed a deeper understanding about stress, the nervous system, and the body's trauma responses. But she noticed that hoarding information and talking ABOUT these things was not enough to bring the calm and deep awareness required for healing. So she turned to the device in her pocket and her love of creativity.

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I am excited to introduce my good friend and creative collaborator, Tuula Ahde. She is one of the original creators of this beautiful course, Photoyoga For Your Mind, which we have translated from Finnish into English and integrated into The Haven.

In our conversation, Tuula and I chat about the healing potential of creativity. We discuss the beautiful things that can happen when we slow down and listen to what wants to speak within, around, and through us.

We might not think of ourselves as such, but nearly everyone is a photographer these days. Most of us carry cameras in our pockets. Pulling a phone out and capturing a shot whenever the mood takes us is simple.

But how mindful are we of this process? What goes on when we take the photo? And how do we feel when we view them?

Photography can be an excellent metaphor for how we engage with our lives. The challenges, the possibilities, the shadows, and the parts only become apparent when we take the time to notice and reflect on what's happening.

What is Photoyoga For Your Mind?

Photoyoga For Your Mind is a journey of creative and inner discovery, where we explore photography as a metaphor and a tool. It helps us consider the hopes, challenges, and possibilities within and around us.

The course is built around seven parts. These are delivered weekly and include an aspect of photography that creatively relates to personal development and reflection.

* Focus: We will pause to look at ourselves, to see where and who we are right now

* Light and shadows: We will be hunting shadows and getting familiar with their presence in the world

* Shutter and shield: We will be identifying the sound we make behind our shields and recognising how it speaks uniquely through our creative voice

* Story: We will reflect on the story we are writing with our lives, filling in plot holes and adjusting character arcs

* Cropping, boundaries: We will be embracing the spaces, finding the edges, and cropping out the unnecessary noise

* Editing, post-processing and recovery: We will be setting habits for processing, learning to recognise what we need, where it's needed, and how to find it

* Wrap-up and closure: We will be bringing everything together, as we notice how the end of something is also a new beginning

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