I hope this finds you full of enthusiasm for a change of season no matter where you are in the world.
It’s so easy to get bogged down in our lives, to feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders with so many responsibilities, work, children, deadlines, mortgages, bills, and a million other things.
If you are reading this and you feel a bit blah because you are in overwhelm for the long list of things you ‘should’ do, this is a little invitation from me to think about life differently.
What if you had a little more fun, built a little more lightness into your life, added a whole lot more love, dinners out and tango lessons!
Instead of focusing on the never-ending list of things to tick off, what would happen if you put on Jon Bon Jovi and did the accounts and in between got up and did some air guitar? You may feel ridiculous and laugh but that is the point!
What if instead of taking the kids to another lesson you guys went to the beach and lied in the sun and laughed and ate ice-cream?
Imagine instead of going to a job (photography included) with a feeling of anxiety, instead, you said to yourself ‘this is going to be fun’… and it was.
Here’s the good news, we can make every day any way we want it to be. We can get pissed off, focus on the negative, dial down into the details or have a different experience. It’s our choice.
If you feel life somehow life got too serious, remember the reason we are here is joy. It’s that simple. When you are joyful, you are fully in your true spirit and when you are truly you that is when the magic happens.
So build a little joy into your daily life and get the big guy upstairs to fast-track your dreams.
The past four years have been beyond interesting in all things growth for me. Thanks to three different auto-immunes Alopecia areata, Graves disease, and Lichen Sclerosus, I got to take a VERY good look at how I was living my life.
I pulled up a train crash speeding at about 100km an hour before it hit a wall and in the process have learnt some of the most marvelous life lessons of all time.
Jumping off a cliff into a new life 18 years ago, leaving Australia for Italy and a business for photography brought me so many insights into who I am and why I am here. There was so much to learn once I woke up from the trance I had been living that I couldn’t wait to get started.
There was photography and Florence, museums and art, a new way of living and being. And there was so much love and joy.
Love for life, for the small things, the world around me and the adventure I was on. The joy was daily in riding a bike through the streets of Florence, in learning a new language and the belly laughs for the mistakes I made and finding a community.
But somewhere in between Florence and the auto-immunes, my life got way more serious, I moved to Paris, got busy trying to make it work and being back in a big city.
I credit the auto-immunes with giving me my joy back. They gave me the kick up the bum I needed to take responsibility of my life again and start living it the way I wanted to live it.
I got back on the JOY TRAIN.
And yes I did and do eat a million fruit and vegetables, Yes I did stop all those chemicals and loads of other things (YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT HERE) but the healthiest thing you can do for your nervous system is to laugh, to share, to find joy and to allow yourself pleasure with a capital P.
Isn’t this the best news you have had all year! Yes folks, the green juices are fabulous but your nervous system needs a break from doing, from the stress of work and life and all things serious. It needs to dance and ride bikes, it needs to laugh till tears come out your eyes and your stomach hurts, it needs to play football with your kids and lie in a park and do nothing. It needs to paint and to garden, to smell the roses and to go fishing.
The more little breaks you give that poor shot to pieces nervous system of yours, the more it will fire up the hormones we need and get them doing what they are meant to be doing instead of freaking out and flooding our body with cortisol.
So lovelies, light a candle, buy yourself some flowers, book a massage because it’s good for you.
Five Tips for Getting the Joy Back
Remember what makes you happy and build it into your daily or weekly life, it can be as simple as riding a bike or gardening
When you feel like life is too much ask for help or when someone offers it accept it. Doing it all on our own is no longer a badge of honour
Build something that makes you feel good into your life. You decide how often. A swim, a massage, a walk in the mountains or a dance lesson.
Make frequent breaks in your day.. Yes you are allowed to rest. Sit down for 10 mins if your job is on your feet or vice-versa get up from the computer and do some stretches. Take time to meditate or do nothing, lie on the grass and look at the sky.
Disconnect – being connected all the time keeps our nervous systems on call. So make some rules around the use of your phone and social media so you can be present with the ones you love
The super big bonus of letting your nervous system calm down is that you let a little light into your heart and soul. And when the light gets in you get a little piece to your puzzle.
Before I became a photographer and moved to Italy circa the year 2000, this time of the year I would go into a sort of agitated anxious state. I would start calling all my single girlfriends and see what they were doing for Christmas because there was nothing like Christmas that made me feel isolated, lonely and not shaping up.
Often we would book a trip to Bali on Christmas Day after we had spent the day with our families so we could jet away from our lives and leave the season ‘to be jolly’ (cause there was nothing jolly about it for us) behind us just like it never happened.
I have had a lot of time lately to reflect on why it took me so long to get back on a path that was authentic to me. I was looking for the answers in the wrong places, for almost 20 years I looked for the answers outside of me.
I looked to ‘Mr Right’ to love me and when he wasn’t around I felt unloved. I looked to others to nurture me and I spent so much time running around doing things that had no purpose to fill up my time that I never had time to sit, reflect and look inwards.
I searched madly for it all outside of me but always came up empty handed and disappointed. So folks, this is about where in the story you put on the Whitney Houston track the ‘The Greatest Love Of All’ and stand up and sing with your biggest voice because that’s actually what happened to me. My 20 Year detour started when I stopped searching outside me and that’s when life feel into place (or you know what I mean).
Well, you are probably thinking easier said than done!
How do you get to that place where you actually believe it?
Shannon Fricke and I are using our stories to show there is a way to live your life that is authentic to you with joy, happiness and personal reward.
Although our stories are vastly different we have used the same framework to overcome our personal and creative challenges and continue to find our paths to our authentic selves, our new found creativity and joy.
If you would like to join us for an open discussion with like-minded souls and explore the possibilities we are having a one day workshop in Sydney December 17th and you can read all the details HERE.
For anyone who knows my story I got my first break in Marie Claire and I am so thrilled to have a little interview and feature on my photographer with them.
Check out these few excerpts from the interview:
“Her iconic ‘Italian Joy’ and ‘Jeune Fille En Fleur’ photographs have become collectable items for fine-art fans worldwide. But it’s Carla Coulson’s azure-blue beach shots that have sent our wander lust levels stellar. Now living in Paris, Carla Coulson has her eye set on snapping the Med’s luxury shorelines next. Here, she speaks to Nicola Moyne about following her heart, Leicas and the art of shooting beach life”
“What advice would you give any aspiring photographers out there?
Follow your heart and don’t try and make money out of it too soon. There is an enormous value in letting your eye and style develop without the pressure of a job. It’s wonderful to let your heart lead you and see where it takes you. If you give yourself enough time in the beginning and develop a style and an opinion, it will ultimately make your journey to wherever you want to go shorter.”
If you want to read a little behind my shooting and visual philosophy click HERE.
Sending big love to the folks at Marie Claire for their ongoing generosity..
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