what's minnow been up to?

a life/work update after 4 years of big changes

photo taken by my friend’s daughter during a camping trip a few weeks ago.

I’ve always had this self-inflicted pressure to become my own reality show and share everything with everyone. Especially with a piece like this, I told myself I need to be authentic and be completely open with what’s going on, because that’s what artists do. But the pressure really came from my need for people to like me, not my artistic integrity. Because maybe if they understood everything that was going on, then they would accept me. And if they liked and accepted me, then that would make up for the ways I couldn’t like and accept myself.

Being able to draw a line between what is for me and what’s for others, has become about setting healthy boundaries for myself and not outsourcing the need for approval to others. My story is my story and that’s why I can accept it, not because others say it’s acceptable. Some things are only meant for me to work through and integrate. It’s called inner work for a reason, Minnow. But more than that, everyone doesn’t deserve to know everything.

Now, I imagine that line of what to share or not to share as a waterline, and I’m an iceberg deciding which parts of me are beneath or above the surface for others to see.

One of the greatest blessings of my life has been that whatever was above the surface turned into projects I could work on professionally, like photography and coaching. But that also meant my personal growth or stagnation flowed into my work. Said another way, the deeper the work I do underneath the surface, what’s above the surface is sturdy, strong enough to withstand the Titanics of life.

So as I continue to work through what’s happening underneath the waterline, I wanted to tell you about what’s coming up to the surface and the exciting projects I’m grateful to be working on.

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Taking Portraits with Persona Sessions

Photography has made up most of this iceberg for the last 15 years, photographing weddings then I went into headshots, commercial/lifestyle, documentary, and event work. Basically anything that had to do with photographing people. These days, I use “portrait photographer” as my catch all for what I do. I photograph around five weddings per year, commercial and corporate work with Frame, and portraits of people with Persona Sessions.

I started calling my portrait sessions Persona Sessions after I looked up where the word “person” comes from. It comes from persona—a combination of two words, per meaning “through” and sonare (so-nah-ray) meaning “to sound”. So you can say a person is not just about how they look or what they do, but what sounds through them–their soul, their energy, and the stories they inhabit as they move through the world. 

A portrait session then is a space for your persona to be on full display and beautifully captured in a photo. That doesn’t happen with great equipment or the photographer’s skill level alone. There needs to be a certain quality of presence created between you and the photographer. One that helps you feel grounded, safe, and trusting of what will unfold during the session. 

But most people feel way too awkward being in front of a camera, or worse, the experience of getting their photo taken feels so forced and fake. This breaks my heart because a photoshoot should be fun and playful! They should be able to show up exactly how they want to show up, and look fabulous doing it.

So I started giving clients writing prompts to journal with and doing a coaching session before the actual shoot. The journaling helped them look inward to what they wanted, rather than comparing themselves to others for inspiration or validation. The coaching session held space for us to see what wants to sound through and set a creative direction to capture it. This helped us build trust, safety, and presence that allowed the portrait session to flow and capture their energy—their persona.

I started offering these sessions last year, and I don’t think I can just do a “standard” portrait session ever again.

1:1 Coaching

I started coaching in July 2020 after COVID lockdowns took away all my photography work for the year. It was an unexpected but natural pivot for me because portrait sessions are all about creating a space that’s safe and comfortable for people who weren’t used to having a camera pointed at them. Coaching, I found, was essentially a portrait session without a camera. I was bringing out someone’s creative or business potential instead of their photogenic potential. 

My coaching early on was helping people start their own businesses or a side project that they held off on doing. But after a year, my “business coaching” became more about the person than what they were doing. Because I noticed how they showed up in their life affected how they showed up in their work. One client called our sessions life coaching for business people.

One thing that’s always bothered me about talking about coaching is that the usual way it’s pitched is to help you improve yourself or your business. That pitch only works if we believe that we are fundamentally missing something or that something isn’t broken about us and we need fixing. It’s how I thought about myself when I needed coaching, and it’s how I see so many coaches trying to sell their services. You have this problem, I have the answer. Work with me and your life will be better.

And after thousands of hours of coaching clients, I have come to believe that none of us are broken, or lacking, or in need of improvement. We begin from a place of innate wholeness and our growth and transformation unfolds from there. It’s about getting unblocked and allowing ourselves transform, not trying to control, force, hustle, grit, or discipline our way into it. And more than that, I believe the coaching relationship itself is creates the conditions for growth and transformation.

There’s a renewed reverence and energy I have around my practice after my own growth and transformation and training with Aletheia. More than anything else that I do, coaching is the most direct reflection of my own transformation and growth.

Writing for Like the Fish

If I were to bring back the iceberg analogy from before, writing is the main tool I have to draw those healthy boundaries and look inward rather than outward for love and belonging. Writing is also something I do mainly for myself it’s how I process, integrate, and deepen what’s going on underneath the waterline. If photography and coaching is for others, writing is for me.

What ends up above the surface and shared with others are things that I feel ready to talk about and hope will make others feel less alone. There’s still a lot that’s raw and unfiltered and isn’t ready to come up to the surface, like the fact Becky and I are no longer together. But there are other things I am ready to share, like the reordering of my Christian faith, non-patriarchal masculinity, and wholehearted creativity.

So, stay tuned!

Building a Community of Writers with Foster

And even though writing is so fundamental to what I do, the paradox is that writing is both my most sacred and stunted expression. Other things like photography and coaching came much easier to me. Every time I try to write, I feel naked and vulnerable, and give myself every reason to not do it. 

But what if I don’t have to do it alone? What would it look like to be with other writers who get it, and I start writing for the sake of writing, not to meet the ridiculous expectations I have for myself? Being a part of Foster has helped enjoy writing again. It’s a place where, as my friend Sara says, is “a mindful alternative to the writing industrial complex." 

My absolute favorite part of Foster is the weekly Writing Circles. It’s exactly what the name says it is. We get together on Zoom every week for 90 minutes. During the first 15 minutes we check in with one another and do some grounding work to see what’s present for us before we write, then we write for 50-60 minutes. We then come back together for the time that’s remaining and share how well or shitty it went. 

(I know at first it sounds like another thing online, and we’re all sick of doing everything online since the pandemic. But with these Writing Circles, we’re really only online for the first 15 and the last 15 minutes. During the hour we write you can go for a walk, lie on the floor, or whatever helps for your writing.)

I facilitate two Writing Circles every week for members and every other week I host one that anyone can join. I get to hold space, help get people unstuck in their writing, and get some of my writing done too.

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As I share about all that’s coming up above the surface, I’m struck by how much has changed in me and around me the past 4 years. It’s hard for me to recognize Minnow and what he was up to before 2020. Richard Rohr talks about how transformation follows an arc of order, disorder, and reorder, and it seems as though I’m always somewhere in or between one of those points.  I can’t control which part of the iceberg melts away or hardens. Nor can I control what will show up and crash into me. 

All I can control is how present, open, and accepting I am to what is happening now. Being able to do that is the core practice and discipline for me these days. And in the moments I can be present and feel the richness of my life, I can confess along with Julian of Norwich, “First the fall, and then the recovery from the fall, and both are the mercy of God.”