I believe that what you focus on grows. I have spent the past year really working on focusing on joy and wonder in my own life and have seen results that affirm this truth.
I’ve been hearing many messages around me lately that echo this idea. Even in the face of darkness, it’s important to focus on the light. It is always my goal with my photography to illuminate the light – to capture the love and joy and wonder in life. When we focus on these things, they grow.
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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
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I believe in empowering children to make them aware of their own radiant presence and capacity to effect change. The best way to teach children something is to embody the teaching ourselves, to walk the walk, to SHOW them what we care about by LIVING it. What if we looked at our own energy and actions as having the butterfly effect? What if we valued our daily interactions as if they were each opportunities to make a change in the world. Maybe smiling at a stranger on the street could change the whole trajectory of their day. A smile is contagious, comforting, affirming, honouring. And it is free, easy, simple. Small acts of kindness can make big change. Let’s surrender to not knowing how or where that change will happen, but that we are a part of a network of growing, generative change.
Children have the ability to create a ripple in the world like any adult. In fact, I believe they have an opportunity to become acquainted with their own voice earlier than adults and therefore have a greater capacity to make change than anyone who came before. But they need us to believe in them and to give them opportunities to trust themselves and to speak, sing, dance, draw, paint, play, and imagine. We can allow them to naturally weave imagination into their everyday often enough that this kind of capacity to think and dream without limits remains their reality as they grow up. This openness to possibility will create brain pathways for them that will help them for the rest of their lives. Interestingly, the most desirable qualities for leaders and changemakers today are creativity and imagination.
I have only 4 spots left for Wonder Portrait Mini Sessions on November 11 – Creative portraits that capture the wonder and joy of your children through play. It’s my intention that seeing joyful and wondrous photos of your children keep your heart full and connected to their beautiful truth.