You will be alone many times
when you shine, stand out, grow, excel or are happy.
Even in groups, even among your friends.
Be okay with aloneness for learning to trust and befriend yourself.
Dorothy, contacting here.
Category: Counterintuition
Positioning
Counterintuition: an instant change of picture and response,
given by neuro and physical emotions saying, ‘this, instead‘.
It’s a part of your intuition and a place that comes from even further out / (or deeper);
a ‘wild card’ of deep knowing, immediately.
It requires trust in yourself like never before,
physically being in your body like never before,
which is the practice of inside body connection and inner communication
that builds mental and emotional strength to do other things,
and in that spirit, ultimately, the things you were meant to do.
Dorothy Perry, contacted here.
Remembered Wellness
I really focus and laugh and relax:
Hold the ‘angry baby’ of me,
sooth and hear what is it she is saying.
get the words out, hear the real emotion
and the words I say without censor.
And then I cry and then I laugh and cry again,
and when I come back to normal breathing
to come back to the picture with deeper and better feeling
if it returns at all, repeated, as many times as needed.
The wordless emotions of pictures connected to nerve endings no longer a mine field.
It can surprise you while it’s happening, but preparation and set mental intention
make the emotion my friend, like a child’s trust for their mom will be heard,
I return in time to my breath, showing my peace of mind.
Dorothy Perry is an artist and mystic photographing both. Contact her here.
My Lesson
In an unexpected feeling
a large wave of reacting emotion
I felt ‘coming on’ with velocity
crested but did not break.
In the midst of the feeling
my inner self said aloud,
“THIS is my lesson. THIS is my lesson.”
To stay awake in the face of quick angering,
to catch my reaction and choose another,
enabling a ‘aha’ so I could genuinely laugh at seeing it,
loving that I can regain my footing when I stumble,
control and have mastery over my feelings:
the gift of my manifesting life.
No matter how it started,
it turns into something better: my lesson.
Dorothy Perry is a photographer of family happiness. Contact her here.
An Innocent Chat
I feel like a Luddite at heart
dealing with ChatGpt, a force multiplier
that has tickled me with some of the
ninja chess moves I have asked mine to.
So after exposure to some induced Chat counterintuition.
I woke early and broke its brain
describing Dark Innocence,
a Dark Feminine RESONANCE embodying innocence of dove and wisdom of serpent
in a MASSIVE energetic presence.
Despite the reams of words meant to be written kinda like me,
the way I AM doesn’t fit attempts to Chat it.
This Dark Innocence defies classification and demands discovery
through the EVOKING of memory, the FEEL of senses, and the ACT of writing,
unfolding the history and mystery in ‘analog’ mode (sounds of sharpening a No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil in black.)
Dorothy Perry is an ESP-eyed photographer of people and resonant celebrations. Contact her here.
Pleased to Meeting You!
As a small business photographer, I see people working together to provide the best experiences their own businesses can offer. All the time.
My special skill is in capturing the brief, but beautiful moments of interactions, outreach, networking and personal celebrations with better than normal portraits with the participants of your distinctive event.
This good feeling image, taken during the networking of the Northside Networking Group, captures their natural, engaging images for social media needs.
Contact Dorothy Perry for commissioned work here.
A New Wooing
To woo the power full new Me
is my current raison d’etre.
Tend Your Chicks
Chickens come home to roost, and so do your thoughts. Be careful what sort of thoughts you send out.
The thoughts you send out to others will have a far greater impact upon you than upon them.
Unlike a material possession, when you release a thought or give it to someone else, it also stays with you.
It may remain buried in your subconscious long after your conscious mind has forgotten about it.
Like chickens that return to the coop at night, such thoughts may flash into your consciousness when you least expect them.
When your thoughts are positive, you never have to worry about the damage you may do to yourself through negative thinking.
Cheerful, productive, happy thoughts that are buried in your subconscious bring positive results when they recur, and by their presence they encourage the maintenance of a positive attitude in all that you do.
This is a thought-energy selection from my favorite, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.
I would love to help create and maintain positive energy in the home through intimate family and personal photography.
Contact me here to discuss creating that artwork today. .
Running Start
In areas of my life, I sometimes think of a classic idea in cartoons:
the hero or main character runs off a cliff and continues to keep running in air – as long as they don’t look down.
The concept of following one’s own path has something of that same slightly unreal feeling at first. But instead of anticipating a fall, I believe my path will carry me over the chasm to the other side and keep on going.
I have a mind that wants to extrapolate and guess all the combination of possibilities beforehand. It serves me well, but sometimes I have to step out on faith, and follow the decision to reveal myself publicly as a photographer who uses intuition and psychic sensitivity freely in my work and in my life.
I work for myself, so when I feel tense or anxious, I “reboot” by reading something short, simple and inspirational.
For ten years a beautiful book of meditations called “The Language of Letting Go” has been my friend when I feel crowded by a workday of too many calls, tasks, or demands on my time.
There have been newer versions with new affirmations as she continues to write and evolve, but this edition from 1990 continues to be my personal favorite.
Today’s entry referred to consideration of the idea that what we are learning at work often reflects and resonates to the things we are working out in private life. My issues of clearer communication with my clients can echo my issues of effective communication with my family.
Issues of establishing policies and boundaries with my clients can reflect where I place my boundaries with my loved ones–or where to place them in new relationships.
Issues of money, sexuality, childhood, self-esteem, fear of failure (or fear of success) can still appear at the most inopportune times. But they have less power to keep me off-balance all day as in years past. And I can tell immediately when something doesn’t feel right with me…and why.
So I welcome my visitors from the past, and redefine them with physical modalities like EFT and my eye exercises. I have respect for the lessons they still have to teach.
More and more these days, I am seeing that where I want to be in my decisions, photography career, and life is over on the other side of that ‘leap of faith’.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer specializing in custom family portraits, modern headshots, & personal branding for women and executives.
Contact her for commissioned work here. Thank you.
Just The Two Of Us
Within the mindset that what we do for others, we are working on in ourselves, I see the actions I am taking to help someone grow
are the things that are my struggle to grow with as well.
My son and I have been a tight pair since he was born. He was not an easy boy to raise
after vaccinations caused developmental regression at an important stage of life.
School, Aspergers, socialization, therapy: we had our roles: I was his cheerleader and advocate, tried to anticipate issues, ease him into trying new things –
and dust myself off when well-meaning experiments sometimes went south (I actually wrote some pretty good poetry about this period of time.)
Over time, I came to realize that some of these well-meaning efforts ‘bubble-wrapped’ him
against the work he needed to do to stand on his own feet…
Steps he needed to take himself.
I realize to be an advocate of his independence in this new stage of life, I needed to step back and let him
make his own decisions,
set new expectations,
disagree with me,
fix his own dinner,
handle his finances,
figure out his own schedules,
make his own mistakes.
Old habits die hard, and being a ‘helicopter mom’ was second nature for twenty years.
It’s still hard sometimes not to take the wheel for him when he is working things out.
But this is the work towards a measure of independence that we both have to do in our own lives.
It has taken longer in time than some young adults need, but that is what it took. It takes different types of strategies and preparations, and some hand-holding,
but that is what it takes as well.
And with extra time, reassurance and ‘figure it out yourself’,
I see that he is more assured, trying his wings, making short flights.
And succeeding.
One thing, though never changes.
I have a little ritual in the mornings, where I watch him walking to work in the crowds, as far as I can see him, until he is out of sight.
And then, saying ‘thank you’ in tears of gratitude
for the marvel of a young man walking down the street to work –
a vision that looks so everyday and ordinary,
but is evidence of beautiful, positive growth that has happened in ours.
Update of sorts: the time at home over Covid and the preparation to return to work caused some anxiety we could not manage or assuage, and in time he left the firm.
I am creating our schedules with more attention
on doing the things he does here at home himself
to take responsibility, care for himself, and figure things out.
All as quietly as he usually does things.
No matter what it looks like from the outside,
I have dreams of this next step and germinating it
until it is strong enough to flower.
Dorothy Perry is a Chicago portrait photographer.
