14 | Jason Malouin | Photographic Inception of Connection and Communication | Just Be You Podcast

A perfect picture is never formulated, it is felt moments before it happens.

Today I have one of the world's best portrait photographers, Jason Malouin and we dive deep into effective communication and impacting the world through the inception of visual connection.

I feel so freaking blessed when it comes to podcasting because I become profoundly wiser - via the wisdom of my guests - after every conversation.

Today some of the mind-blowing points include:

  • Why all connections are not equal and how the level of connection really matters.
  • How to ask the right questions to help the people you are trying to help.
  • How and why assumptions suck.
  • What you think matters is more than likely not what anyone else finds valuable.
  • Divine moments are captured via the intuitive ‘moments before’.
  • How to communicate effectively.
  • How a few quick mini wins can take you through the armour of trying to get it all perfect.
  • Understanding that how we think we are portraying ourselves is not how we are actually seen.
  • It’s the micro details in our expression that hold power.
  • You cannot demand genuine or authentic connection - it must be unveiled through vulnerability.
  • What makes a moment ‘photo worthy’.
  • Just because you cannot see your greatness, is never a true indication of its non-existence.
  • 'Being you' requires us to remove stuff, not add on.
  • How to get us to our core to reveal ourselves to the world.
  • Communication is only effective if you begin with where the level of the listener is at.
  • How the key is always, to give yourself permission.

Direct Download of the episode at Libsyn

 

It's not about the photos

 At the end of the day, it's not about the photos, it's about what we are communicating. Profound portrait photography is about being able to transmit ideas effectively, efficiently and cleanly and through an excellent image, communicating the subject's message to the world.

Find Jason at:

Portait Store

Instagram

 

Don't miss out - subscribe to the Just Be You Podcast for updates on iTunes and Libsyn, yo!

Love

 

 
 


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I post things about life n' stuff here, come check it out!

@amber_hawken
  • Absolutely nothing else to say except, Beer.
  • Oh um, hey, hi, guys? Announcement. Important one. I used to read Happy Potter walking to school with this woman. Literally, face in book from front of our home to assembly. We went through our versions of teenage hell together and managed to become two fairly opposite and equally love-each-other-so-much-it’s-crazy-adults. I feel like that adequately expresses how fabulous she is and how magical it is to hang out in parks in Germany together, two decades later. That’s all.
  • Unlock Your Intuition- guided meditation! LINK in stories/Free Stuff highlights Compounded over a lifetime, our decisions give birth to our ultimate destiny. You know, such as whether you eat tacos or burritos for dinner. That’s why it’s important to have some solid decision-making processes to help you along the way. Decision fatigue is a thing. So is overthinking, worry and getting stuck on the details. It sucks our creativity and confidence, both of which contribute to the connection to flow we all need to sustain a steady progress in everyday life. Also known as, resistance to listening to your intuition. Intuition is a tricky one. Let’s take a squiz. Have you ever been in this pickle? You are standing at the gelato counter and there are at least three flavours you just can’t choose between? Or it’s the 100th time you and your partner have had this same argument and you can’t decide whether to keep on pushing through or walk away. Or you love parts of your job, but it somewhat feels like it’s chewing your soul apart. You’re confused. You need the money but wonder if it’s really worth the sacrifice. Basically. You’ve got an important decision to make, but you’re legitimately torn. Part of you wants to be bold and say yes, but another part of you wonders if you should say no and play it safe. How do you know if that knot in your guts or tightness in your chest is your intuition speaking to you to take action or fear clouding your decision-making process once again – doing its best to keep you inside your comfort zone? If you ever feel anxious and confused when you’re about to a decision, big or small, todays guided audio is for you. You’ll learn a simple test that can help you make smart decisions, every time. http://www.amberhawken.com/cultivateintuition/
  • Each time I pack my bags to cross the ocean I get this sense of magic about life. Im about to fly in a big met thing that looks like a bird who needs  more yoga, to visit a best friend I’ve loved and obsessed with Happy Potter about for over 20 years. Also, drink beer at Oktoberfest. Also, finish writing my new two day workshop, Purpose, Alchemy + Empowerment (if you’re interested, pop your name on the email list, link in bio) and launching 2020’s first retreat dates. And, rebranding Calm Mind…And, launching a new Charity that will act as a kind of holistic Medicare that financially funds conscious business to serve people who could use empowerment the most; prisoners, addicts,  homeless, veternas, foster children, victims receiving from abuse, refugees etc. How the fuck could we ever believe life is anything except an adventure to be lived. Well, I know how. I have a mind, and it makes up shit about dreams being too much, too arrogant,  selfish, stupid, greedy and  impossible. I have a voice of self doubt and criticism that likes to whisper that I am far too over zealous in my ideas and obnoxious with my constant creation and expression. “Who are you”, “what you have is not enough”. When it comes down to it, we eventually realise, feeling confident and ready are not prerequisites for creation. Just do it. You’ll learn, gain  clarity and expand just through the simple  shift energy forward. The next step appears when you take the first.  You’re a god-damn universe of possibility. Also - Shantaram, the book by GDE is the tits. Well worth reading before you die.
  • I met a medical doctor who served at the aftermath of auschwitz in Poland some time ago. He was such a light and calm fellow and I asked him what wisdom he had to share after working with such darkness. “Be happy, spread happiness”. He kind of boomed it in this deep Dutch accent. It slapped me in the face. I just felt like he looked st me as if, “silly kids”, you do too much, try too hard. And while like sadness, it’s me belief happiness is very temporary, to me what he was telling me was, be love. Sounds esoteric as fuck perhaps, but when someone who has cleaned up the remanded and seen such destruction at a soul and cellular level and can be sitting there as energetically calm and clean as some of my most wise teachers, you listen. I wanted to just share this for whoever needed reminding that life should be much more simple. Open, let life flow through you, don’t let anything in life be reason to close. Be. Be happy. Be human. Be open. Be feeling. Be messy. Be. Be love.
  • ”amber, what would you do if Gandhi was watching?” This is pinned to my wall right now. Because I’m challenging myself to exist in alignment in every way. I fuck it up often. Literally, today I did some pretty silly stuff, which is a perfectly normal human thing. But I’m getting a little more firm on that leniency. However it of course, re-enforces the remembering we forget which is that, Gandhi, well, he’s just a mirror of our own light that we’re afraid to own. The idea of him watching is the big me watching little me scramble about trying to human, forgetting I’m more than human. Our sabotage, our upper limits, the procrastination, the ice-cream I ate for dinner, and our resistance is nothing more than the fear of our own unlimited potential. I was scared of the dark as a kid, you know, monster and shit. Now we just bustle round avoiding the light. These words  remind me of what I am, where I am from and what I am here to be. To the best of my being, Im living this now, a few scrapped knees and hurt hearts moments, perhaps an overdose of ice cream, but this practice and dedicated to experiencing my existence beyond what I think brings a light to my heart and joy to my world that simply cannot be replicated by any external - well - anything. Home is inside and beyond.
  • Why are we so afraid the yummy parts of life, the yummy parts of ourselves, the light? Why is it so easy to find our darkness and focus on it? Why does that darkness haunt us until we feel so utterly destitute within ourselves that we shut down and resort to the conclusion of I am just not X enough? I’ll tell you why. Because when you own your light, when you are brave enough to dive so deep into your soul that fear becomes some kind of withering weed on the edge of a life you used to be restricted by, you realise that there are a million worlds inside the centre of your being. In that space, you cannot blame a single soul on this planet for your pain. You realise that you have to let go of all the anger and sadness and blame and feel every vibration and frequency of uncomfortableness (yeh, I made that word up) that you have ever avoided just so that you can see it really wasn’t so bad after all. And then you can pull yourself out of those depths and place your feet on the ground and realise: Fuck, I am in charge. It feels powerful and scary because now you are responsible. It is a very fucking beautiful thing to realise that you own your life. Its okay to be cautious of darkness, as long as you know that the light potential inside of you is what you are resisting everytime you pull back from pain. Light gets in when we crack; it’s just that most of us are so afraid to let things fall apart. The better we get at leaning into fear, the sooner we enter that sanctuary and light will shine through that darkness. If we don’t want fear to run us, if we want to stop sprinting away from fear like husbands avoiding boxing day sales, we must cultivate our safe zone: a home, a humble, graceful sanction within, on a mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual level. Here are FOUR steps (in comments) to help you do this ❤️
  • Oh pain, oh feelings.Thinking is just our silly old minds trying to control energy. Insane really, how the fuck do you think you’ll be able to box up and send off a part of the universe in a neatly rationalised package? You cant. Emotions are the same. They’re energy, and our body is like a conduit. Our mental controlling tendencies and resistance to fear constipates us. And then as a result, the mind gets even busier and our body becomes meek and exhausted because energy cannot flow out, or in. And we need the ‘in’ to stay alive and inspired. The truth is, everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything. And that’s the only time everything will be okay. So relax. Take a breath, theres plenty of time to practice, you have your whole life, but for tonight, why you dont give sitting, breathing, watching and getting out of your own way a go. Allow what’s rising up be there, let it take its course, dont label it or wish it away, just sit. Dont feed the mental drama your attention or fight it, just allow it to writher in its melodramatic complaining ways and you just sit back, be and go beyond.
  • 3am. Hike. Sunrise. Friends. Champagne 30 laps around the sun celebrations Fuck yes.
  • Think the work to your heart can be done without a trace of mud? Fuck no. Many people try to find a “spiritual” path where they do not have to face themselves but where they can still liberate themselves--liberate themselves from themselves, in fact. In truth, this is impossible. We cannot do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our real shit, our most undesirable parts. We have to see that. That is the foundation of warriorship and the basis of conquering fear. We have to face our fear; we have to look at it, study it, work with it, and practice meditation with it. Self-evaluation and self-criticism are, basically, neurotic tendencies which derive from our not having enough confidence in ourselves, confidence in the sense of seeing what we are, knowing what we are, knowing that we can afford to open. We can afford to surrender that raw and rugged neurotic quality of self and step out of fascination, step out of preconceived ideas. Walking the spiritual path properly is a very subtle process; it is not something to jump into naively. There are numerous sidetracks which lead to a distorted, ego-centered version of spirituality; we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are developing spiritually when instead we are strengthening our egocentricity through spiritual techniques. This fundamental distortion may be referred to as spiritual materialism. And it’ll keep your shit stinky. Rather than build on the basis of our preconceptions. We must allow ourselves to be disappointed, which means the surrendering of me-ness, my achievement. We would like to watch ourselves attain enlightenment, watch our disciples celebrating, worshiping, throwing flowers at us, with miracles and earthquakes occurring and gods and angels singing and so forth. This never happens. Treading the spiritual path is painful. It is a constant unmasking, peeling off of layer after layer of masks. It involves insult after insult to who you continue to be when you’re trying too hard not to be “anyone”.
  • DANNYYYGAAA. Damn, that Ozzie accent is good. Im releasing this full video tomorrow to my subscribers - link in my bio! Have you ever laid in bed  at night and thought to yourself, “my mind won’t stop?”. You know, you settling into your pillows, your cosy socks on, a cuppa beside you, so excited to rest, gently closing those eyes and BOOM. The storm between your ears stirs. Unanswered work emails, you forgot to tell Marjorie about that asshole client, the real estate agent who is pain in your ass, you left the clothes in the washing and there is an unpaid parking fine. Also, when was the last time you watered to plants? You haven’t checked on the goldfish for three days, is it even alive? And then, well its off course the perfect time to reflect on all your life mistakes from the age of three and the potential future failures. Apparently a list of ignorer from most regretful to least and then do it chronologically to  ensure you didn’t miss any,  this will ensure you feel like you are an organised failure. Perhaps scanning your inventory of your imperfections, and what people may or may not think about you due to these and what you might do to change them. And  then, onto the black list of mofos who have done you wrong, add a little spite, anger  and blame to your nightly evening, ahem, rest. So by now you’ve covered the full spectrum of shame, doubt, guilt, insecurity, anger, fury, depression, sadness, fear, regret, desperation, loathing and anxiety. Well done, what feat. This is normal and it’s also the sign of a mind using its owner. Im going to explain how you can turn this around so the mind is your greatest ally.
  • Time for a gramtox. @amber_hawken link in bio for how to stay in tune with what I’m jamming ❤️✌🏼

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