Help Me See: Take Sad Photos

If you only take one kind of photo, you only have one kind of memory to look back on. Capturing the not so happy moments can be crucial in helping us process, heal, and recognize how far we’ve come in the full scope of our lives when we feel ready to reflect.

This is about considering the possibility to process a moment in a different way. And in turn, giving your future self the opportunity to reflect on the fullness of your life.

Transcript

You know,

Your kid's not always going to cry over a broken toy or throw a fit about going to bed or wake up ass early when you just want to sleep.

That's not always going to happen.

So while in those moments you're not feeling particularly spurred to want to remember this forever,

Your kid one day is not going to care about toys.

And they are going to be up in their room well before bedtime because they want to be alone and they're going to sleep in when you want to hang out with them or have breakfast.

You know,

So the issue at hand is that what we think now is not necessarily what we think or feel later.

And these photographs and these videos and this documentation is our calling card back to remembering this blip in our life.

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Hello,

Hello,

And welcome to another episode of Help Me See.

I am recording this episode from my bed because I have a headache.

And it's really interesting.

I feel like I started this month with a migraine,

Ended it with a migraine a couple of days ago and I'm having a headache again.

And I'm wondering how much of it is like my physical tension.

So this month,

The topic is release.

This monthly intention is release.

If you are part of the Nostalgia Now community,

You know that more intimately,

We actually have our first official meeting on Thursday night of this week.

So I am so excited to get on Zoom and discuss and share experiences and of course,

Create our visual living memoir of April 2022.

If you want to learn more about Nostalgia Now,

Go ahead and click the link in the show notes and you can read more about what we're talking about here.

But I say the physical reliefs because it's all connected.

Every part of it is connected if you think about it long enough.

So a big cause of my headaches seems to be from like muscle tension from my neck and my shoulders.

And that tension just naturally happens throughout the day.

And with this month's intention being release,

I've been noticing it more and more.

As I'm doing things when I'm stressed,

When I'm trying to get something done,

I notice my shoulders at my ears and I keep telling myself to release,

Release,

Release.

And I think an important thing to bring up here as we're doing this work is having patience with yourself.

None of this is like a it's one and done type of thing.

Like deep patterns take time to let go of.

They are so ingrained in our daily lives,

In our brains.

It's completely natural to keep defaulting back to an action or to a feeling that is undesirable.

It's the awareness of it that is the one.

I actually talk about the idea of like knowing versus doing in episode 22.

It's been a pattern for me in my life of being frustrated because I feel like I quote unquote know better in terms of like,

This shouldn't be impacting me because the story,

The real story here is XYZ.

Or I understand why it's unproductive to feel like this because my truth is ABC.

But yeah,

We're human.

And sometimes we just feel what we feel no matter how we choose to think about it.

So I just wanted to call that out here.

As we're going through our lives and growing and becoming more aware of what we want to let go of or bring into our lives,

Like as wonderful as it is to make these revelations,

It takes time.

It takes time and being patient with the transition and the transformation and the resistance is part of it.

It's part of it.

I mean who really likes to have to be patient though?

I get it.

Not me.

Which is probably why I have a headache today.

Anyway,

I wanted to call that out and something else I wanted to talk about is an idea that I wanted to touch on based on a video I actually posted on Instagram recently about all of the things that our photographs can do for us.

But with that,

I want to talk about taking sad photos.

So I don't mean to make it a goal of yours unless it's something you want to do.

That's not necessarily what I'm getting at here.

But when I say take sad photos,

I'm saying it as a reminder to capture the wholeness of your life,

The many dimensions of your identity in this season.

If our photographs are frozen moments that we can learn and heal and grow and be comforted from years from now,

You could imagine that the scope of opportunity for processing that will be really limited if you're only looking at your happy and sweet moments.

I brought this up before in touching on my selfies during postpartum.

I had pretty bad postpartum depression and anxiety and I still took photos of myself that were,

I mean to say unflattering is like the least of it.

There was just so much going on.

But having those photographs to look back on,

It's pivotal to remember and reflect on how far I've come and send that version of myself some love and to be proud of myself.

These photographs can be markers for our lives,

Like little,

What's it called?

You bend a page in the book,

Like dog year,

Like little dog years of our lives.

And if we're only highlighting the good stuff,

Then we're losing the dimension of our experience.

It can be painful to reflect on memories that aren't sweet and aren't the happy ones.

But those are the reasons why we're able to appreciate the good ones so much.

I know there's a lot of times I'll offer to go photograph someone who's loved ones in hospice if they want me to or just some less than ideal,

To say the least,

Moments.

And I'll hear,

Why would I want to remember that?

Or I don't really want to remember this.

And obviously I respect that deeply,

But I want to offer something here.

I want to offer that the trouble with this could be that choosing to not have photographs is taking permanent action and permanent decisions off of feelings that are heightened in this season,

Feelings that might change later.

And I don't mean this always in the most extreme sad photo way.

I mean this in the way of your kid's not always going to cry over a broken toy or throw a fit about going to bed or wake up as early when you just want to sleep.

That's not always going to happen.

So while in those moments you're not feeling particularly spurred to want to remember this forever,

Your kid one day is not going to care about toys and they are going to be up in their room well before bedtime because they want to be alone and they're going to sleep in when you want to hang out with them or have breakfast.

So the issue at hand is that what we think now is not necessarily what we think or feel later.

And these photographs and these videos and this documentation is our calling card back to remembering this blip in our life,

The season that is temporary with everything in its impermanence.

So I want to offer if you take a moment and think about the dimensions of what you're capturing in your life,

Are you noticing gaps?

Are there moments of mundane boredom that you don't photograph?

Think about if you're 20 years from now and your life looks completely different than it does right now,

What is something that you might want to remember?

What's a novelty almost that even though it's not exciting now,

It might be endearing later to you.

All of this is about looking at your present with nostalgic eyes.

And it's not being in a permanent state of bittersweet or forlorn or fear of missing all of these moments because they're fleeting.

But it's the idea of looking at every part of your life with more of a weight in terms of reverence,

Of appreciation and of gratitude.

And no,

It is not always possible to live like this 24-7.

In fact,

I would venture to say it's impossible.

And if you are someone that does that,

Please reach out.

I'd love to hear.

But it doesn't hurt to talk about it and to strive for that,

I feel,

Because keeping the notion of this top of mind will help you integrate it into your life little by little more and more so that you're less likely to look back and say the dreaded,

I wish I knew how important that was at the time.

One of the photos that I,

The first one that comes to mind when I think about photos that I took that are sad that I don't even want to look back at.

And I don't know that I ever will,

But I'm comforted to know that I have the option to is when we came back from the vet after our beloved dog passed.

And we didn't even know what to do with ourselves.

It was like the deepest grief we've ever felt.

And we both sat in his dog bed.

And I just took a photo of us and I think that there's also a link with those photographs helping us process and validating,

You know,

The not so great feelings that can happen throughout our lives.

So not only do I find it to be something that helps us look back in our lives in a more holistic way,

But I also feel like in those moments when you take the power of pulling out your camera because you or your phone or whatever it is that you want to do to document,

You are acknowledging what is happening,

What has happened,

What is before you.

And there's power in that.

There's power in not wanting to hide from it and wanting to run as fast as you can away from it,

Which is what it felt like for me at that time.

It's like I wanted to be as far away from that moment as possible,

But also I wanted my time to stop because the further I got,

The farther I was away from the last time that I was with my dog.

Oh gosh.

Still so tender.

It's been over a year and I remember I was really,

I really dreaded that year because that would mean that I was in a whole new year without having been with him.

So it's all,

It's intense.

It's intense stuff.

I wasn't even planning on going into this part of it,

But I think it's important.

I think it's important to talk about this kind of tool,

This modality of photo taking in the way of processing times that are not ideal.

I think that's why fine art photographers make such intriguing work where they take these feelings and these things that they're going through and they kind of create work based on things that they don't have words for.

And if that's not something that you're into,

Then I still believe taking a photo of the mundane of whatever that moment is can be helpful.

You know,

Try it.

I mean,

Maybe not jump into it at the most intense time for you if it doesn't feel right,

But next time you're not feeling your best or next time your kid's frustrating you or try snapping a photo.

It might help diffuse the situation.

It might help change your tune about it.

I remember a friend of mine,

Her kid was having a tantrum outside and she just had the thought to take a photo after we had talked or she started filming him.

And she was really frustrated.

But then when she started filming him,

It was like this lens switch of realizing how sweet it was,

Of like how silly,

But how sweet.

And all of a sudden it kind of diffused the situation.

And I think that's so,

So,

So beautiful.

Anyway,

So I hope that you got something from this episode.

I hope that you walk away feeling seen or inspired in some way.

And it went a little bit heavier than I anticipated,

But I think that was meant to come out and to come through.

And thank you for listening.

Thank you.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I will catch you next time.

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Really,

Really hope you did.

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