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The Art of Self Worth
Did you know 85% of people have low self-esteem? Join Sarah Anne and Sarah Kelly for conversations about discovering our worth. Each of us has the potential to make a positive impact on the world. However, we often forget this and become disconnected from our true worth. Finding our worth is a lifelong journey that includes play, joy, pain, fear, healing, unlearning, re-learning, and more. In this podcast we share the good, bad and in-between around self-worth. You are worthy.
The Art of Self Worth
Transforming Your Inner Critic: Snapshots of Inner Healing with Vanessa Mata
Have you ever considered the camera and creativity as a catalyst for self-worth? Vanessa Mata, a Toronto-based educator, activist, and photographer, joins us to share how she is challenging beauty norms and championing the voices of the unseen, both behind the camera and in the classroom.
With each snapshot, she's flipping the script on cultural expectations, capturing the essence, strength and beauty of each person. Her transformative photography combines art with spirituality, redefining the path to healing and mental well-being. Through her personal experiences of growth and the joyfulness of her photo shoots, Vanessa is creating ripples of confidence and self-love that echo far beyond the frame.
In this episode Vanessa shares her insights on navigating the inner critic and the transformational journey towards self-love. She provides a testament to the undeniable strength found in fostering self-advocacy and inner healing.
We have the pleasure of working with Vanessa on our retreats, as a guest facilitator and always an amazing photographer. In fact, she'll be joining our Embodied Worth Speaker Series this Friday at noon ET to continue this conversation on Taming the Inner Critic. We'd love for you to join us
Follow her and be part of the change at LunaLightsVM on Instagram and her website, where every message, idea, and collaboration is a snapshot of possibility.
✨ You are meant to shine. ✨
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Hey Sarah, hey Sarah, we just had the best conversation. We say that about every conversation we do, but is it a lie? I don't think so. We are so lucky we get to talk to some of the best people. And Vanessa, yeah, it's her way of being, like her softness, yet fierceness, like there's this, like power behind her soft exterior, if that makes sense. Definitely, when she just casually threw in there oh yeah, you'll hear the story when you listen. Oh yeah, I inspired my students to just go strike. Yeah, it's casual. So a little bit for you guys.
Speaker 1:Vanessa is joining us from Canada, as you already heard, is an educator, she's an activist and she's a photographer. So she has been working around how creativity, and especially photography, can both promote healing and help to create a balanced state of mental health. What I love about Vanessa's work is that she really uses photography to challenge the conventional standards of beauty and provide people that are often underrepresented with an opportunity to showcase their light. Vanessa, thank you so, so much for joining us, not just today for the podcast, but you'll also be joining us this Friday for our In Body Worth speaker series session. All about taming your inner critic. Hello, I'm so excited to be here my nine to five is a secondary school teacher. All other times I am doing photography or something creative. One of my past roles was to work in social work alongside with young people. One of the reasons of the many reasons we love you which would be an hour long podcast if we listed everything but is that you really are a true artist and a storyteller through your photography. Each of your photos captures the light and strength of the people that you are taking that photo up, and so we're curious has photography always been important in your life and what made you focus on photography? That's a really good question, because growing up, my sister and I are actually both really creative, but it was something that we didn't really think that we could pursue for cultural reasons. We just felt like it wasn't something that we could do to support ourselves. Photography has always kind of been around.
Speaker 1:I remember growing up barring my dad's film camera and growing up to parades and snapping photos. Or if I had a school trip, I would buy the disposable film cameras and take that with me. I love to document moments and photos and just capturing things, and for me, getting back to film was like opening up a kinder surprise. It was just like all the excitement you didn't know what you were going to get. That was kind of my journey along the way with photography.
Speaker 1:After I got my first DSLR digital camera, I was still taking photos, with my friends going downtown kind of orchestrating photo shoots, not knowing that they were really like photo shoots. But I think I had a moment where I was taking photos and not really knowing how I came about to taking those photos or how I guess the functionality of a camera was. And then that's when I made the decision to take some courses, start networking. I am self-taught, so that's also another thing where, again, maybe it's part of like never feeling like I could pursue it, but I kind of managed it and still kind of pursued it in my own way, interning and just connecting with different free workshops in the city and slowly just becoming a photographer. I think that was the moving point where it really became something important, where I wanted to take it a little bit more serious.
Speaker 1:Looking back now, I've always had a camera in hand or around. That creative vision was always there. I so remember those disposable cameras and the excitement of truly not knowing what you're going to capture Like remember doing selfies, but they're just disposable cameras. Yeah, yeah, and they would be like and they would be like and they would be like and they would be like and they would be like and they would be like and they would be like and they would be like. Yeah yeah, you don't choose to focus on the conventional beauty standards. You really make a focus of kind of challenging what we think is beautiful and in that way you capture people's beauty. I've seen it again and again and again.
Speaker 1:And you also really use your photography as a way to showcase people that are often underrepresented. And can you share a little bit about how you do that and why it's so important? It is at the root of my photography work and I tell my students this all the time. I tell them that when I was growing up, I did not have any teachers that looked like me until I was in teachers college, which was not that long ago. I tell them it's a big deal to have people that you can identify with. There's like power in that. Even in the curriculum that we now teach, we emphasize different perspectives and different lenses, whereas back then I never saw myself in what I was learning, and for me everything is interconnected and everything is transferable.
Speaker 1:So now that I'm a photographer, of course I didn't feel like I could pursue this type of art. Like art wasn't for me. And then, on top of that, I didn't see myself in media or in the outlets that I was looking into. It is really important to me because I try to emphasize stories that would get missed. I really, really believe that anyone anyone could be photographed. Anyone could be your so-and-so model. I think photographing models is cool, it's fun, but I really think that anyone could be a model. Anyone has a uniqueness that could be highlighted.
Speaker 1:Especially, growing up, once I was in my early 20s I felt a little lost, like leaving the education system, I felt lost within myself, I felt disconnected from like culture and I had a lot of unlearning and learning to do and I still do. But I think that gap in my life really pushed me to want to create a platform for people today and through my work and just really highlighting everyone has a story, everyone has a beautiful story. I'm so grateful that I get to connect with people in my 9-5 and in my previous job as a counselor, but now I get to do that in a creative way. I feel really fortunate, really lucky, and there is again a lot of power. When you can see yourself in media or in fashion or in just any creative field, it makes you feel like you belong. There's space for you there and I think for young people that I teach or for just people in general who see my stuff, I want them to feel like, yeah, yeah, I could do it too, and I really do believe anyone can model, step out into their own creative path. Sky's a limit there. I love that because it really truly is so empowering. We come back to at the end of the day, like all of us just wanna be included and seen and heard, right Like that is so much of worthiness.
Speaker 1:So in that empowerment piece you also bridge creativity and mental health. Can you share a little bit more about how that link came in teaching your students, in how you do photography today, like just the importance of creativity on our overall mental health? Yeah, I think creativity can truly heal people. I think when we step into that creative world we are able to tap into our intuition. I think as a person, I think without photography my spirituality, my growth would have taken a backseat, because they go hand in hand so well when I'm doing photography. I'm present, I'm mastering that skill of like, being grounded and listening to my intuition and it creates again belonging, creates collaboration, and these are all things that impact young people.
Speaker 1:I strongly always encourage my kids to advocate for themselves and we start small. We start like we have a small classroom here. It might be daunting to put up your hand in a classroom of 30, but here we're a class of eight, like put up your hand, make mistakes, ask questions, because that practice of doing it only gets easier, right, or it doesn't get as daunting when you tap into creativity and you're tapping into intuition and collaboration. It just gets easier and easier as you move forward and I think these are all things that young people need to grow and they just impact their self-esteem and their work and I think that just transfers into the amazing young adults that they can become. And for me, as an educator or as a teacher, as a creative rules are interchangeable.
Speaker 1:Young people, when they have the opportunity to share a piece of themselves, there's like a light that goes off and I'm so lucky that I get to see that. But they really start feeling like someone's in my corner, someone believes in me, and I think that really impacts and shapes how they navigate with adults, how they navigate with each other. Most importantly, they navigate with themselves, which I think in the long run can impact mental health. So if we start building those connections at a younger age, I just think that they become better advocates once they like, leave my space or they just move on in life. And I just say how much I love that throughout that answer you are centering advocacy and like, that self-knowledge and that self-worth. What a powerful connection to make. And, my gosh, I'm so excited for your students to come to the world. I'm excited for them too. They made me cry the other day when I told them I was leaving and they're like please, miss, don't leave. And some of them went to the principal's office and they said, hey, we will strike. And for me I'm just like I mean, don't strike, don't cause a disruption, but I'm happy that you weren't afraid to go and seek out answers for what you need. I'm like that's the whole goal, that's the whole goal. And they checked it, they did it. I'm proud of them and I hope they continue doing it.
Speaker 1:Moving forward to Friday, we've been kind of hinting around at the whole time, like everything we've been talking about, goes back to this topic, but taming the inner critic that's I mean, that's a big phrase. What exactly does taming the inner critic mean to you? The critic for me has been my protector, has been my motivator, but ultimately I think transitioning out of the dark space that I was in three years ago has been probably one of my biggest teachers. Three years ago I just realized that the critic was kind of driving my life, it was overpowering me, it kind of took over my steering wheel and diverted me into a space that just wasn't healthy for myself and I kind of just lost track of who I really was and it was just overall really impacting my mental health. It's funny because time really does help with the cell being self-reflective, and I think now, looking back at that dark space or that dark time in my life, I'm able to see that I have a really strong bond with my higher self.
Speaker 1:Now I look at my critic as like an opportunity and an opportunity to heal, an opportunity to become more self-aware and to really take the Acknowledgement and the agreement that this is my opportunity to love myself again. I feel like the inner critic can bring so much shame, and Having it be a teacher is an invitation more Light for taking this out of shame. But like, oh, what's, what's that critic showing me? What do I need to do? Or exactly Do I need to heal? Yes, yes, so that's exactly it. If I'm, you know, on the subway or walking across the street and I get really annoyed, it's an opportunity to be like, okay, hold on, like what is annoying me about this? What do I have control over? And why is this having a little bit more control over my emotions right now?
Speaker 1:Three years ago, my criticisms towards myself were heavily impacting, like my mood, physically, like I Felt, like I was nauseous all the time from anxiety in that time, because we were always told that you need to love yourself, you need to become self-aware, but it doesn't always click. There needs to be either like a time where we need to agree and take that agreement for ourselves, and I think that's when, like things can start unfolding for us and like that path of Enlightenment or just healing could really start. Okay, so, on that path of enlightenment and healing, one of the things we have witnessed is the critic often comes out in seeing photographs of ourselves. Yet it can also be that teacher of healing. So how can photography and creativity be there to help you heal your inner critic or tame your inner critic?
Speaker 1:So there's two parts, because I'm normally behind the camera, right, but as a creative like I, am constantly putting myself out there, and that was not easy, it's still not. It's like a skill that after time it kind of gets a little bit easier and easier and less daunting. But I'm constantly putting out my visions out into the universe, out for people to judge and Criticize and and have just opinions on it. I sometimes show my pictures to my photography boss and I get feedback and the feedback I always the feedback that I want. The more you do it or I become a habit. Years ago I've read four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. The one that stood up to me was always he's trying your best. So you don't have any regrets as a creative. If I don't do that, I will literally fall apart Because it's so hard. It's. It's a competitive field. There's just always things that are changing, trends are coming about. There's just always something new to learn. If I go into anything creative With the mindset that I'm, I tried my best and this is what I can do in the time that I'm in, then I feel like I don't have any regret.
Speaker 1:In our retreat, during my workshop, I talked about just really being in the moment, being joyful and loving yourself, and I think that magic of when you're feeling yourself really does come out in photos. And when it does, and when you're feeling like that, it feels like you're a little bit more Grateful, more forgiving of yourself because you tried your best. It gives you an opportunity to create some acceptance right, like I know I'm getting older, I'm getting wrinkles. You know I got puffy under eyes and sometimes photos don't make me look like flattering, but I'm okay with it. Like it gives me an opportunity to be okay with it, create more love for myself. I love that. I think it's such a beautiful practice of looking at photos that other people tell us are beautiful of ourselves, because sometimes it takes me a while to see that beauty. That's why I love doing photo shoots with you. It's like it's easy to see you are so good at getting people into that space of positivity and self-acceptance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just going to say even on our retreat, when we had women really being courageous about the types of photo shoots they wanted to do, I was like oh, it even gives me an opportunity to be like, oh, wow, like I've been so hard on myself and I see someone living in their full truth and their full love. I want some of that too. It really helps, because we're all really like mere reflections of each other. If they're doing that, it really inspires me to want to do that too. Listeners, when Vanessa is saying brave photo shoots, she means nude photo shoots on the public beach and at the waterfall, and they are the most stunning, beautiful photos I have ever seen. And we're not naming names, but let's just say that you would never guess that these women would make this choice and they were so empowered and so beautiful.
Speaker 1:I just have to add in one of my favorite things of doing photo shoots with you, vanessa, is how excited you get to Because you'll get a shot that's good. You're like, oh, my God, so good, and it gives self-esteem boost because it's so wonderful. So when someone suddenly being like, yeah, you look great, you're amazing, and you can see the pure excitement and joy in your face, and it's contagious to then feel joy and like, oh, I am pretty, oh, I got this, I'm brave to try new things, and so I love the synchronicity of how the bravery, the courage, transfers behind the lens and in front, like your subjects encourage you and you give us courage. And like the whole thing over the cry. The whole thing is amazing. Oh, that's so sweet.
Speaker 1:Aww, how can people stay in touch with you? Of course they're all going to come on Friday, that's a no-brainer, but how else can they stay connected and learn more? I love when people message me on Instagram, reach out for anything, ideas or collaborations. So my Instagram is LunaLightsVM VM is my initials. I have a website that was recently completed and looks so beautiful, and it's LunaLightsVMcom.
