In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album

 

I'm becoming even more passionate about getting our photos out of our phones and computers and into our hands. Ellie loves to look through my photo albums from my childhood, from when Jon and I were first dating, and from the trips I took before everything went digital. She also loves it when a new set of Instagram photos printed from the various sites I use comes in the mail and she can hold a photo of herself and put her favorites up in her room.

Printed photos are a way for us to hold tangible evidence of our lives in our hands. We can literally hold a piece of our story and then put it someplace to remind ourselves of the feelings, the true stories, of that moment.

And when we pair these photos with words that help us go even deeper into the story, we hit a frequency that helps us feel seen.

I really believe this is why I used to sit in the guest room/office in my childhood home and slowly, repeatedly, flip through the photos from when I was little. I was feeling seen by looking through these pieces of my story. 

That isn't to say that we can't feel seen sharing our photos through Instagram and Facebook. These moments of feeling seen do happen in real ways online. I love Instagram for the connection I feel there. And in the Facebook groups I use for my ecourses, I see real, deep connection happening when stories and photos are shared.

But the connection to the memories, to sharing these moments, can be fleeting online. And when we only share on social media, we sometimes forget to take that important step of feeling seen by ourselves that happens when we interact in more hands on ways with our own photos, with these pieces of our stories.

In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album

Helping you capture the beauty and realness of your everyday moments by printing out your photos + pairing them with words to share even more of the story is the reason why I want to get the In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album into your hands. It is one way I'm saying: It's time to stop talking about how we want to find ways to tell our stories and start doing it.

This field journal is a beautiful book you can fill with your photos and your words that tell the story of where you are right now. It is your reminder to see and to notice, to root yourself deeply in the beauty of your everyday life (even on the messy, rainy, tough days). The 27 prompts throughout the journal are the prompts I turn to daily, and they give you a place to begin. There are also blanks pages for you to come up with your own prompts and ideas.

In This Moment really is a mindfulness meets photography ecourse that arrives in your mailbox. You can actually hold it in your hands so it doesn't get lost in your inbox.

 

Previously, In This Moment was available only through The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit. But I now have about 100 of them in my studio ready to be sent to you. You can buy it in my shop right here. 

The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit

A few seasons ago, Jen Lee and I put our heads together and an offering that came straight from my heart was born. We called it The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit, and we loved it so much Jen even made a trailer for it.

There are just a few full kits left and Jen's shipped them out here to my corner of the world so I can send them into the world with love right to you. You can find them here.

You can find the poetry books here in my shop and the photography journals are right here. I have a few CDs available, just send me an email if you are interested. And I'm so happy to share that I've just reprinted an updated version of the Mirror Meditation Journal! They'll be in the shop soon, and they will be part of my upcoming course Being Seen, which is all about the mirror meditation and taking self-portraits and it will run again in October.

A little more about The Gift of This Moment:

Bring the retreat experience right to your front door with this limited-edition offering. In this kit you'll explore three of my "go-to" practices for reflective living: the mirror meditation, capturing the everyday moments through my camera lens, and the words of others through the gift of poetry. 

These stories, practices, and meditations are the closest thing I have to bringing you into the circle at one of my Be Present Retreats. My hope is that they will feel like a companion for you as you practice being present amidst it all. 

The kit includes:

• The Gift of This Moment: Practices for Reflective Living Audio CD, with stories and teachings on three of my most-used practices for living deeply in the present moment.
• Five Days in April Poetry Collection
• Seen: A Mirror Meditation Journal
• In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album
• Breathing from the Heart: Guided Meditations download and sticker
• Rejuvenate. Reconnect. Retreat. Black mini tote
• Pocket mirror and two temporary tattoos 

The Gift of This Moment: Practices for Mindful Living is a professionally recorded and beautifully designed audio CD featuring an introduction to these practices through stories of how I use them in my life. You also receive Breathing from the Heart: Guided Meditations, which are five downloadable mp3s of professionally recorded meditations by me. Two of these meditations can be used with the mirror meditation. (Also available by itself here.)

Seen: A Mirror Meditation Journal (paperback) includes an introduction to the practice of mirror meditation by author Liz Lamoreux, with prompts throughout and beautiful hand-drawn illustrations by artist Liz Kalloch. Designed to walk you gently step-by-step through 30 days or more of this grounding and transformative practice. 

Five Days in April Poetry Collection is full of 20 poems for the times when your own words fail you. For the moments that leave you wondering if you're alone, in the missing and the hoping, in the falling apart and putting the pieces back together. (Available by itself here.)

In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album is your reminder to see and to notice, to root yourself deeply in the present. Carry with you, cherish, remember. Hard cover, double-wire bound, 86 pages, including 27 writing and photo prompts. (Available by itself here.)

I believe these practices will help you begin to feel deeply seen so that in those moments when you are making your way through the realness, the hard stuff, the confusion that sometimes punctuates this life, you will realize you are never alone. I believe this because I practice every day. 

And here's the part where I say this: When we launched this, I wasn't quite ready to step into the truth of shouting from the rooftops, "These practices will change your life!" I didn't know how to put into words that we really had created something full of the same magic I witness and experience at my retreats. 

And today as I hold these beautiful real live books and journals in my hands, I really want you to hear me say: These practices will change your life. Truth from my heart to yours.

I hope you scoop them up. I'd love it if we had to reprint them so I could send even more out into the world. Yes yes yes!

(The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit was produced by Jen Lee Productions.)

the gift of this (real) moment

When Jen Lee and I brainstormed the idea to offer The Gift of This Moment as a three-month subscription, I had this vision of making a video sharing my favorite pieces of this home retreat kit and explaining why working through it as a three-month journey would be such a powerful experience. But we are living in real time over here, and as Jen and I talk about in her podcast, things don't always unfold the way we think they will when we release an idea into the world.

So today, I feel really moved to instead tell you a story about how I turned to these practices in the midst of a recent moment of overwhelm.

One evening last week found me holding my daughter as she sat in my lap in the middle of the kitchen floor. She was sobbing about her sparkle shoes. I was at a total loss as to why she was suddenly sobbing about these used to be favorite shoes. Over the previous few days, she'd been getting angry at them and me whenever she tried to put them on, and I'd decided to handle it by giving her space as she wanted to "do it myself!" On this evening though, she's given up and come into the kitchen with one shoe off and one shoe in her hand and her face showing an honest despair.

I got down at her level and she pointed for me to sit, then she turned around and backed up until she plopped into my lap. I held her as she cried and tried to make a few suggestions to help or even distract her, but nothing worked. After a few minutes, I started to cry myself because I didn't know how to fix it and I just felt so tired. The sparkle shoes began to represent a lot more than just shoes. I began to feel like I was gripping the piece of me that is "just Liz" by my fingernails before I slipped over the edge of a cliff of sorts.

As Ellie kept crying, I started to breathe deeply, letting my breath really slow. Then, suddenly she took a deep breath and handed me her shoe and asked me to put it on and asked to eat some apple. And off we were back into the rhythm. When I needed to walk down the hall to get something while she was comfortably munching away, I paused in front of the hallway mirror and spent about 45 seconds looking at my exhausted face and whispered aloud, "You are not disappearing."

Minutes later Jon came through the door and we were all in an uproar again in the way that happens sometimes when everyone's feelings are on the surface. We were basically circling around the beginnings of an argument as I was trying to make dinner while a dog, two year old, and husband circled around me in the kitchen.

Eventually I got them settled in with more apple and a show and put dinner in the oven. I poured myself a drink and blocked the dog out of the kitchen and sat on the kitchen floor, leaning against the dishwasher and took five deep breaths. Then I felt really moved to use my iphone camera to take a photo. This act of seeing myself reflected in the camera often feels like being in front of the mirror and is another way of saying to myself, "I'm not disappearing." 

Even though this photo isn't really flattering or from "my best angle," it is beautiful to me. I don't want to only tell the pretty stories; I want to tell the stories found in the in between...

 

Within about thirty seconds of taking this photo, a little girl was climbing into my lap and smiling and wanting to chat. And life kept going the way it always does. But I had my footing again because I had found myself in the momentary stillness.

If we were having tea today and you began to describe your version of a moment like this, a moment where you began to feel like you were losing a piece of yourself and not sure how to find it again, and you said, "How do I stay myself in the midst of it all sometimes? How do I not disappear? How do I just hold onto me with my fingertips?" I would say something like this:

Start with the mirror meditation. Stand in front of yourself and let yourself gently fall into the truth of knowing you are right here. Begin to trust that you can breathe through this moment and the one after it. Do this everyday for a while. 

Then, begin to use your camera as a way to capture the beauty, the real, the truth of your everyday life. Keep looking in the mirror and use your lens to illustrate your story, your feelings, you real moments. 

And then, let poetry remind you that you are not alone as you let someone else's stories help to light your path.

Try these practice because you want to be present for all of it...for the days that feel like trudging through the mud and the days full of more sunshine and love than you thought possible. Being present to this moment, right here, this is how you stay yourself in the midst of all the life hands you.

I believe these practices will help you begin to feel deeply seen so that in those moments when you are making your way through the realness, the hard stuff, the confusion that sometimes punctuates this life, you will realize you are never alone.

I believe this because I do it every day. The mirror saves me from myself sometimes as it literally gives me back to myself. My camera helps me to sift through all the stuff around and inside me so that I can find the stillness, the beauty, the raw truth that makes up each day. And the poetry of others lights the way and encourages me to put my stories onto the page.

The Gift of This Moment invites you to create space for the stillness, the realness, and the wisdom that rests inside you as it guides you through these three practices. Working with these practices over three months, receiving a package of goodness each month, will provide you with even more space to lean into these practices that will help you stay rooted in this moment.

Please just email me if you have any questions about The Gift of This Moment. Thank you for being here beside me on this journey.

(The Gift of This Moment was produced and published by Jen Lee Productions. You can read more about it in this series of blog posts.)

hand holds

Hand Holds: Practices for Reflective Living with Liz Lamoreux from Jen Lee on Vimeo.

The Gift of This Moment has a trailer! 

Everything about this video makes me so so happy. It was such a joy to be able to share the pieces of this kit with a few of the ladies at the Your Story Retreat. And, I read from my own book of poetry for the first time. Surreal and beautiful. (More on that soon.)

You can purchase this Home Retreat Kit here.

Learn more about the stories behind this new collection of good things in this series of posts.

give yourself the gift of this moment

A note from Liz: Today is the official launch day of The Gift of This Moment, a project I have been holding close to my heart for over a year now. I am so excited that it is ready to go out into the world to be a gentle and true companion for you on your journey. Read on for the details of this home retreat kit.

****

Some days it's the way the importance of what you're up to in the world sweeps you out, as if into a tide.

Other days it's the way the breeding inbox and never-ending details tap incessantly on your shoulder.

Or the way the future breathes down your back. And then you blink and turn the calendar and wonder where all those weeks and days and hours and minutes went. You wonder what you missed noticing and forgot to tuck in your heart and carry with you.

You wonder who you could have been if you let those moments change you instead of chase you.

Sometimes it's helpful to get tired of things like hype and speed and hamster wheels that promise you so much but in the end leave you spit out and spent with calendars heavy on scribbles and light on memories.

What if you didn't need a sabbatical in Tibet or a hike through the Himalayas to turn the ship around? What if reflective living was as simple as a moment in front of a mirror, a snapshot and a line penned on a napkin, or a book of holy heart words tucked in your bag the exact minute you need them?

What if it was a gift you could give yourself, that arrives gently at your door?

The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit by Liz Lamoreux

Finally it's here: a collection of invitations, reminders and practices to keep you grounded, awake and clear so you don't miss your deep wisdom or your hidden treasures - those moments of seeing and hearing and embracing that first change us and then travel with us forever.

Give yourself this gift and receive:

• The Gift of This Moment: Practices for Reflective Living, a professionally recorded and beautifully designed audio CD featuring Liz Lamoreux's heart-felt stories and an introduction to her 3 Practices for Reflective Living.
• Seen: A Mirror Meditation Journal, a 30-Day companion for reconnecting with the person who knows you best - You. Paperback, 40 pages, including 18 invitations, notes and check-ins. Featuring line art by Liz Kalloch.
• In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album, your reminder to see and to notice, to root yourself deeply in the present. Carry with you, cherish, remember. Hard cover, double-wire bound, 86 pages, including 27 writing and photo prompts.
• Five Days in April: A Poetry Collection, for the times when your own words fail you. Paperback, 40 pages, including 20 soulful poems by Liz Lamoreux.
• Breathing from the Heart: Guided Meditations, five downloadable mp3s of professionally recorded meditations by Liz, whose training as a yoga instructor infuses and informs this journey.
• A Breathing from the Heart reminder sticker to place where you need it most.
• A custom-designed, travel-size mirror in a sheer organza bag to help you reconnect to yourself wherever you are.
• "Here" and "I am Beauty" temporary tattoos from Chickadee Road so you can adorn yourself with the reminders you most need to keep you present to your practice.
• Rejuvenate. Reconnect. Retreat. Black mini tote bag to hold together all the parts and pieces, plus your keys, your phone and other on-the-go essentials.

The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit: All you need to rejuvenate, reconnect and retreat, any time, any place. No plane ticket required.

$135 USD, ships free worldwide

(From Jen Lee Productions)

witnessing the story (the gift of this moment)

overlooking puget sound . may 17

Life around here feels like a daily journey of holding the beauty in one hand and the intensity that is life...that is parenting and marriage and health stuff and running my own business in limited hours and product launches and collaborations...that is navigating the energy of the Internet...that is remembering self-care and kindness in the midst of it all...that is doing the best I can...in the other.

As I thought about what to post here today, I headed over to Flickr to see if there was a photo that would inspire me to write something in this space. As I looked through the Instagram photos I posted last week, I realized that almost every day, I used what I call my "In This Moment" practice to keep myself grounded through it all.

This practice is about taking a photo to capture a moment + writing down a few words to pair with the photo. But it really is about using your camera and a few words as a meditation to be more present to the simple (and sometimes profound) moments that make up your daily life. It's about letting the camera get you out of your head and into your awareness of the beauty and realness and joy and sometimes even sadness that punctuates your life. It's about writing down field notes that tell the stories so you will remember. It's about being your own witness.

The words I wrote down a couple of days after taking the photo of Puget Sound at the top of this post:

I sat in the car with the windows rolled down while she softly snored in the backseat. The birds were chattering, the waves were lapping far below me as two boats sailed by. This moment was so excruciatingly simple + beautiful that my only option was to take out my notebook and write a poem. Poetry + getting out of my head saves me every time.

Sometimes I write a little paragraph like this, but most of the time, I write simple thoughts and short sentences.

What I know: This bringing me flowers stage is awesome.

I am 100% as tired as I look, yet here I am soaking up the sun and doing my best.
(hairstyle by EJ)

In this moment, I am soaking up the rich deep real beauty that is a handwritten letter.

truth = long day. just being right here. leaning into trust.

today was a softer day because the iPhone stayed in my purse.

Looking through these photos today, this is what I know: This practice isn't about the perfect photo. It's about taking a moment to capture your world (yourself) and then writing down a piece of the story. The photo above of Ellie and me isn't the best photo ever, but I love it for lots of reasons. Of course, it looks very sweet...this mother and daughter with flowers in their hair cuddled up together. And the moment was very sweet. But the moments surrounding it were full of the intensity of Ellie wearing a heart monitor for 24 hours and the reality of her heart issues right in my face every time I looked at it paired with the awesome yet exhausting always on the move insistent teething toddler that she is right now. I wanted to capture pieces of all of this realness in the short words I paired with this photo.

Before I decided to write this post, when I was looking through these photos + words, I began to feel the space inside me expand with each breath. Honestly, I began to feel gentler with myself, which is why I decided to write this post today. I was experiencing a shift from listing the ways I am not enough (which was what I was beginning to do this morning) to seeing myself and knowing I am...I am...I am...

*****

In "The Gift of This Moment," I dive deeper into this practice. I share stories and prompts and other good things to guide you into developing your own "In This Moment" practice so that you will begin to integrate it into your daily creative self-care. 

One reason I do this practice is because I want to remember. Because I would love to look through an album of photos from the everyday moments of my own childhood and read my mother's words about the beautiful, real, hard, joyful days we experienced as a family. I would love to spend an evening with a friend and be given the gift of sitting together sifting through pages of her photos + words to get to know her even more. These days, so many of our photos stay on our computers, and I want to hold them in my hands and read pieces of the stories that make up this crazy life.

This leads me to one of my favorite parts of this kit: You will print out your photos and put them into the In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album and pair them with your field notes so that you can hold in your hands the evidence of the ways you tell story. I imagine you out there in your corner of the world carrying your Field Journal with you and capturing a photo and then jotting down a few lines in your journal because you don't want to forget how you found the space to be a witness to your own story.

The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit is available for pre-order and will ship in June. Each week leading up to its release, I will be sharing a bit more about the pieces you will find inside; you can read all the posts about it here. 

the gift of this moment (a home retreat kit)

"I want you to imagine a climber who is about to climb up a mountain, or maybe even just a climbing wall that is indoors."

And so begins your invitation into The Gift of This Moment, a home retreat kit that includes practices for reflective living that have been hand holds for me on my journey.

In this kit, I invite you to sink into my stories as though we are sitting together tucked in a cabin in the Pacific Northwest woods. And as you listen, you will begin to see how these hand holds can become part of your daily practice.

But because we can't always be together tucked into a cabin, Jen Lee has helped me gather up all these pieces into a home retreat kit for you: no plane ticket required.

"It isn't about finding the perfect solution to make life better. It's about practicing and just showing up, and the beauty that just showing up gives you."

Next week, I'll begin looking at each piece of this kit to give you an insider's glimpse into why I believe these practices can give you the gift of getting to know the one person who knows you, who gets you, who can best support you: You. 

The Gift of This Moment Home Retreat Kit includes:

• "The Gift of this Moment: Practices for Mindful Living" professionally recorded audio CD 
• In This Moment: Field Journal and Photo Album, hardcover, double wire bound, 88 pages 
• Seen: A Mirror Meditation Journal 
• Five Days in April: A Poetry Collection 
• Breathing from the Heart: Guided Meditations 
• "Rejuvenate. Reconnect. Retreat." Mini Black Tote . . . and more!

Available now for pre-order right here. It releases next month, and I can't wait for you to hold it in your hands.

a little sneak peek

So so excited to share this wee sneak peek of The Gift of This Moment!

I will be sharing more details soon, but I am so delighted by these postcards showing all the pieces of this project (which is really a home retreat kit) and simply had to share right now! Jen Lee is producing this project (and has gently held my ideas and hopes throughout this experience), and Liz Kalloch has made everything look so beautiful. 

I can't wait to hold all the pieces in my hands and share them with you. 

Over here: The Create Space classroom is ready, the students are gathering, and today I'm creating my personal altar I'll use and share during this session. Ellie Jane's new favorite game is asking me to put at least eight and sometimes twelve barrettes in her hair (and mine) at one time (evidence here). I'm planning to rest today as much as possible since a cold seems to have grabbed on to me during the trip home. Lots of mugs of tea in my future. I'm hoping a movie date might be part of our Sunday. (Seen any good ones?) The rhododendrons are in full bloom everywhere in our neighborhood (gosh how I LOVE them). I am filling a Smash journal with notes to myself (and using my new lovely Washi tape from Freckled Fawn and some fun designs I found from the Recollections collection at Michaels [can't find a link on Michael's site but found this great blog post about this new line of tape]). I am planning to begin The Best Day The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon by Donald Hall while drinking the previously mentioned mugs of tea. And I know I will be soaking up the joy of hearing a little girl giggle as she dances with her daddy (life can be so so hard but joy still arrives when I choose to see it).

And what are you up to in your corner?

May your weekend be full of rest and joy and hopefully some time out in the sun...

Blessings and light,

Liz