View allAll Photos Tagged Innertruth
Beyond Munch, My Scream
A face that screams the pain words cannot hold."
A raw and visceral self-portrait inspired by the emotional power of Munch's The Scream.
This image represents a deeply personal cry — silent, yet deafening — a manifestation of inner turmoil and unspoken truths.
It goes beyond imitation, becoming an authentic expression of my own experience and struggle.
A face that screams the pain words cannot hold."
A raw and visceral self-portrait inspired by the emotional power of Munch's The Scream.
This image represents a deeply personal cry — silent, yet deafening — a manifestation of inner turmoil and unspoken truths.
It goes beyond imitation, becoming an authentic expression of my own experience and struggle.
This weekend the mood to spend time as a woman was very strong. Typically, for me anyway, I had no opportunity to actually fulfil my enthusiasm. My usual coping method is to browse my pictures sand videos recorded in previous sessions where I became a woman.
I've been musing recently on how my approach has shifted and that I no longer feel I'm a man dressing up when I become Helene but I'm a woman. Technically, I am a man using make-up, shaving off body hair, wigs, body shaping aids, wearing female clothing and changing my posture, thinking and behaviour. I feel I now become a woman and the man is no more.
Some may accuse me of delusion, I've even been told I have a mental illness. I don't see it that way at all. I acknowledge I'm not a cisgender woman but I adore women, I admire them and Helene is an homage to them. I seek to honour them not parody them. When I align physically and in my mind with Helene I feel I've become her, she is a female to me. She is me and I feel free.
Most men have no desire to present as a female but there are many who do. It's a life long struggle for many of us that have these desires. I admire those who accepted themselves at a young age and are out there being girls in their teens and young women. I dreamed of it and dressed as a girl in private as a teenager and felt pure joy when I was female. I wanted to head out as one of the girls. Back then many girls were rather cruel to me if they found out and gave me a hard time. Not many were supportive.
I genuinely have regrets that I let my fears dominate me and I missed out on years of spending part of my life as a woman. I did not seek to transition but I did want to spend time being female. I dreamed of the freedom to be either gender. Some days I was okay being a man and on others I was keen to become a woman. This has been referred to as gender fluidity and I suppose thats a description that fits.
I'm older now and cannot escape the past. I suppressed my desires to spend time as a woman through fear of discovery but I now need to go forward. The bottom line is enjoy and feel good being a woman, so much so that when I'm Helene I do forget I'm a man! It no longer scares me, I feel I'm now finally unlocking my full persona. I am both man and woman and the woman needs to be alive now and again.
Physically those who are hostile to and despise men such as me who say they become female are judging me on my birth gender and physicality. There is no empathy to ones feelings and inner desire to fully express themselves in a way that is their inner truth.
My inner truth is I need my female self to live, not all of the time I admit, but she does need to be real and exist, thats all I seek. For this though I can receive condemnation. The truth I realise this desire I have is not going to go away. I have no idea why it exists within me but it has been lifelong. When I become Helene it is always the most amazing, incredible and joyous experience. I love that she is a part of me. I cherish her
Description:
In the heart of a neon-soaked cityscape, shadows and lights engage in an eternal waltz. Follow Alluring and Vibrant as their journey into the night unravels the illusions they've clung to. Alluring, draped in gentle pinks and purples, realizes her tranquil demeanour is merely a veneer concealing an abyss of unacknowledged chaos. Vibrant, the epitome of electric blues and vivid purples, begins to see her insatiable curiosity and boundless energy as desperate distractions from an inner void. As they scrutinize each other, their divergent energies lay bare the stark truths they've been avoiding. Join their introspective odyssey through the pulsating cityscape as they strip away the illusions and embrace their profound complexities.
Blogger:
www.jjfbbennett.com/2024/06/a-journey-through-neon-dreams...
Keywords:
Neon cityscape, Illusions, Duality, Introspection, Alluring and Vibrant, Existential journey, Neon lights, Emotional discovery, Complexities, Urban waltz
This is a macro view showing the translucent magic of the mineral selenite, seen at the Tucson Rock and Gem Show. Late afternoon I found a dealer in an outdoor tent that had about 80 large specimens for sale, mostly slabs that were averaging 16" long. To get this shot (one of 30 tries) I crouched down below the sale table and shot through the 1 1/2" deep slab into the sunlight. Last year at the show I was able to get a good photo of large chunk that seemed columnar. This year my goal was to show the interesting crystal pattern in a slab.
For fun see the "metaphysical" chakra information here.
At The Journal, we know that real strength doesn’t always shout. Sometimes, it shows up as quiet resilience and the courage to be honest with yourself.
In her latest heartfelt editorial, “Inner Truth,” our Partner Photographer Catherine Nikolaidis captures the beauty of truly knowing who you are—even the parts that aren’t easy to face. With her stunning black and white photography, Catherine shows us that you don’t need to toughen up to get through life; you just need to be real with yourself.
Her work is a gentle but powerful reminder that choosing softness is its own kind of strength—and that honesty with yourself is where true power begins.
Discover your inner truth:
Read the full editorial and experience Catherine’s latest visual narrative at The Journal: iloveevents.online/inner-truth/
But it is a heart, my beloved.
Where are its shores and its bottom?
You know not the limits of this
kingdom, still you are its queen.
If it were only a moment of pleasure
it would flower in an easy smile, and
you could see it and read it in a
moment.
If it were merely a pain it would
melt in limpid tears, reflecting its
inmost secret without a word.
But it is love, my beloved.
- Rabindranath Tagore( Nobel Laureate Indian Poet)
As the Dance Reveals Itself.
Description: In the heart of a neon-soaked cityscape, shadows and lights engage in an eternal waltz. Follow Alluring and Vibrant as their journey into the night unravels the illusions they've clung to. Alluring, draped in gentle pinks and purples, realizes her tranquil demeanour is merely a veneer concealing an abyss of unacknowledged Chaos. Vibrant, the epitome of electric blues and vivid purples, begins to see her insatiable Curiosity and boundless energy as desperate distractions from an inner void. As they scrutinize each other, their divergent energies lay bare the stark truths they've been avoiding. Join their introspective odyssey through the pulsating cityscape as they strip away the illusions and embrace their profound complexities.
Blogger: www.jjfbbennett.com/2024/06/as-dance-reveals-itself.html
Keywords: Neon cityscape, Illusions, Duality, Introspection, Alluring and Vibrant, Existential journey, Neon lights, Emotional discovery, Complexities, Urban waltz
Started: 16th November 2006
Finished: 12th December 2006
Yarn: Lana Grossa's Soffice, 62% Merino extrafine, 10% Cashmere, 28% Acrylic, Colour #009
Needle: 5 mm/ US #8 Inox circs
Pattern: Inner Truth by Laura Andersson on MagKnits
Started: 16th November 2006
Finished: 12th December 2006
Yarn: Lana Grossa's Soffice, 62% Merino extrafine, 10% Cashmere, 28% Acrylic, Colour #009
Needle: 5 mm/ US #8 Inox circs
Pattern: Inner Truth by Laura Andersson on MagKnits
Started: 16th November 2006
Finished: 12th December 2006
Yarn: Lana Grossa's Soffice, 62% Merino extrafine, 10% Cashmere, 28% Acrylic, Colour #009
Needle: 5 mm/ US #8 Inox circs
Pattern: Inner Truth by Laura Andersson on MagKnits
"Art is nothing but the expression of our dream; the more we surrender to it the closer we get to the inner truth of things..."~Franz Marc
"Contemplation engages the soul and connects us with our inner truth" Dr Philip Morphew #philipmorphew #soul #life #energy #chiropractic #chiro #inspiration #innerdemons #spiritualjourney #thejourney #success #successquotes #inspirationalquotes #spiritualliving #spirituality #innertruth - philipmorphew
The mirror offers no delay.
A room can soften things. Time can soften things. Conversation can disperse them, redirect them, bury them beneath sequence and noise. But a mirror does not participate in that mercy. It returns immediately, without mediation, without emotional cushioning, without the small narrative adjustments by which a person usually preserves distance from himself. The face appears at once, intact, unavoidable, carrying with it not only image but confrontation.
He stands there under ordinary light. That matters. Nothing in the scene is heightened to force revelation. No dramatic shadows carve new truths into his features. No distortion transforms him into something uncanny. The room is small, practical, familiar. The conditions are domestic rather than symbolic. And precisely because the setting is so ordinary, the encounter becomes harder to evade. If the moment were theatrical, it could be dismissed as mood. Instead, it occurs under the flat honesty of the everyday.
This is where the memoir’s severity shows itself.
In Confessions to the Empty Chair, self-recognition is rarely granted the comfort of distance. The soul does not always discover itself in dramatic crisis. Sometimes it catches itself plainly, in rooms where no audience is present and no performance is required. The danger of the mirror lies not in what it invents, but in what it refuses to help conceal. It does not accuse. It does something worse and better than accusation: it remains accurate.
Accuracy can feel merciless when one has grown used to interpretation.
Most of life is interpreted before it is faced. We explain ourselves to ourselves. We introduce motives that soften the harder contours of action. We move quickly to context, quickly to cause, quickly to those surrounding structures that make our inconsistencies appear less final than they may actually be. Interpretation is not always dishonest, but it can become a shield. The mirror interrupts that shield because it presents the face before the explanation.
And the face knows.
Not because the glass is alive. Not because the reflection possesses some independent intelligence. It “knows” in the sense that it has become the site where the individual’s own knowledge can no longer be dispersed. He recognizes something there that has already been true, something he has perhaps carried in fragments, in unease, in partially admitted suspicions. But here it gathers. The face does not reveal a new fact; it consolidates an old one.
That consolidation is what makes the moment difficult.
It is one thing to feel vaguely divided about oneself. It is another to stand before one’s own visible outline and sense that what looks back is fully continuous with what one has been trying not to name. The features have not changed, but the relation to them has. He is no longer merely grooming or passing through the room. He is being halted by his own recognizability.
This is one of the memoir’s deeper insights: that self-knowledge often arrives not as discovery of the unknown, but as collapse of avoidance. The truth was not hidden in some inaccessible chamber. It was dispersed across ordinary moments, ordinary reactions, ordinary evasions. The mirror becomes unbearable only because it gathers those fragments into one frame and hands them back without commentary.
There is nowhere to relocate the problem.
That is the force of the setting. A bathroom at night is private, stripped down, nearly administrative in its function. It is where one cleans, checks, passes through. But in a life like the one Confessions to the Empty Chair traces, even such a room can become an unwilling confessional. The mirror is not sacred space, yet it becomes morally charged because the self enters it without witnesses and still cannot escape witness. The individual becomes both the one looking and the one looked at.
That doubling is not the same as division. It is judgment without a judge in the ordinary sense.
He is not evaluating himself against public opinion in this instant. He is not imagining how others see him. He is not calibrating himself against the social order. The confrontation is more intimate than that. It asks whether the face he carries through the world is still capable of sheltering him from what he already inwardly knows. The answer, here, is no.
The expression matters. It is not melodramatic. It is not shattered. That would weaken the image. The power of the moment lies in composure. The face remains intact, almost calm, perhaps slightly tired, perhaps more exposed than usual, but not theatrically broken. The recognition does not require emotional excess to authenticate itself. On the contrary, the more contained the expression, the more exact the scene becomes. This is not collapse. It is admission.
And admission has its own dignity.
The memoir never flatters the self, but neither does it reduce it to caricature. The face that knows is not a face of monstrosity. It is a human face, carrying the burden of being accurately seen by the one who inhabits it. That is morally serious work. It is one thing to be accused by another. It is another to stop cooperating with one’s own evasions.
That stoppage is the beginning of something.
Not resolution. Not healing in a simple sense. Not immediate reform. The mirror does not fix anything. It does, however, remove certain excuses from circulation. After this kind of encounter, the individual can still delay, still wander, still struggle, still fail—but he cannot honestly claim that he has not seen. The face has already closed that avenue.
This is why the image belongs so deeply to the architecture of the book. Confessions to the Empty Chair repeatedly asks what happens when interior truth ceases to remain diffusely felt and becomes concretely recognizable. The answer is rarely dramatic at first. More often, it is quiet and lasting. A person leaves the room. The night continues. The mirror returns to being an object. But something in the person’s relation to himself has altered, and cannot be fully restored to its former vagueness.
The mirror has done what mirrors do best when they are most feared: it has returned the familiar stripped of innocence.
The face does not become someone else’s. It remains his. That continuity is part of the wound. If the image were alien, it could be rejected. But it is precisely its unmistakable familiarity that creates the pressure. He knows the face. He has always known it. What changes now is the degree of truth he is willing to allow it to carry.
This makes the moment profoundly human and deeply spiritual at once. Not spiritual in the sentimental sense, but in the older, harder sense: the soul catching up to what the body has been carrying all along. The bathroom mirror becomes the place where appearance loses its neutrality. It ceases to be a surface and becomes a threshold.
He looks.
The face remains.
Nothing supernatural occurs.
And still, the room is no longer the same room it was before he entered it, because the knowledge now attached to that face will travel with him when he leaves.
That is the hidden force of the image. It does not depict transformation. It depicts the end of a certain kind of ignorance.
And once that ignorance is gone, even an ordinary face can feel like revelation.
Never be afraid of ending a relationship. When a relationship no longer works, by holding on, we dig in, making the scars deeper. By separating, we give space for the wounds to heal.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Driftingapart #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Howtobreakup #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfdoubt #Selfwork #Selfworth #Surrender #Traumabonding #Understanding #Worthiness
Never be afraid of ending a relationship. When a relationship no longer works, by holding on, we dig in, making the scars deeper. By separating, we give space for the wounds to heal.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Driftingapart #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Howtobreakup #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfdoubt #Selfwork #Selfworth #Surrender #Traumabonding #Understanding #Worthiness
Never be afraid of ending a relationship. When a relationship no longer works, by holding on, we dig in, making the scars deeper. By separating, we give space for the wounds to heal.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Driftingapart #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Howtobreakup #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfdoubt #Selfwork #Selfworth #Surrender #Traumabonding #Understanding #Worthiness
Once we have learned all we can from a relationship, the bond is released.
By holding on beyond this time we damage the relationship, often beyond repair.
By letting go, we can drift apart intact, leaving room for the paths to cross again for future learnings.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfwork #Understanding #Worthiness
We trust our senses implicitly.
Yet our senses are only there to trick us into believing we are something other than what we truly are!
------------------------------
What will you do today to empower your life?
This quote is taken from my book "Empowering Thoughts". 280 pages of thoughts to empower your life. Available worldwide now from your favourite online bookstores. Learn more at the link below.
Wishing you a beautiful and empowered day,
James Cole
empoweringmeditations.com/book
#Awakenedsoul #Awareness #Belief #Beliefs #Beliefsystem #Believe #Believing #Empoweringmeditations #EmpoweringThoughts #Faith #Freeyourmind #Highervibes #Highervibrations #Innergrowth #Innertruth #Innerwisdom #JamesCole #Life #Mindset #Personalgrowth #Selflove #Senses #Spirituality #Trickery #Trust #Truthbetold #Universe #Weareone #Whatarewe #Whatisreal
Never be afraid of ending a relationship. When a relationship no longer works, by holding on, we dig in, making the scars deeper. By separating, we give space for the wounds to heal.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Driftingapart #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Howtobreakup #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfdoubt #Selfwork #Selfworth #Surrender #Traumabonding #Understanding #Worthiness
We trust our senses implicitly.
Yet our senses are only there to trick us into believing we are something other than what we truly are!
------------------------------
What will you do today to empower your life?
This quote is taken from my book "Empowering Thoughts". 280 pages of thoughts to empower your life. Available worldwide now from your favourite online bookstores. Learn more at the link below.
Wishing you a beautiful and empowered day,
James Cole
empoweringmeditations.com/book
#Awakenedsoul #Awareness #Belief #Beliefs #Beliefsystem #Believe #Believing #Empoweringmeditations #EmpoweringThoughts #Faith #Freeyourmind #Highervibes #Highervibrations #Innergrowth #Innertruth #Innerwisdom #JamesCole #Life #Mindset #Personalgrowth #Selflove #Senses #Spirituality #Trickery #Trust #Truthbetold #Universe #Weareone #Whatarewe #Whatisreal
Never be afraid of ending a relationship. When a relationship no longer works, by holding on, we dig in, making the scars deeper. By separating, we give space for the wounds to heal.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Driftingapart #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Howtobreakup #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfdoubt #Selfwork #Selfworth #Surrender #Traumabonding #Understanding #Worthiness
Once we have learned all we can from a relationship, the bond is released.
By holding on beyond this time we damage the relationship, often beyond repair.
By letting go, we can drift apart intact, leaving room for the paths to cross again for future learnings.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfwork #Understanding #Worthiness
Once we have learned all we can from a relationship, the bond is released.
By holding on beyond this time we damage the relationship, often beyond repair.
By letting go, we can drift apart intact, leaving room for the paths to cross again for future learnings.
empoweringmeditations.com/nsflkpost
#Abuseawareness #Abusiverelationship #Breakup #Breakupquotes #Breakups #Brokenlove #Brokenrelationships #Connected #Contemplate #Empoweringmeditations #Healthyrelationships #Heartfelt #Hurtquotes #Innerpeace #Innertruth #Innerwork #Letgo #Lettinggo #Lostlove #Lovequote #Redflags #Relationship #Relationshiprules #Selfawareness #Selfdiscovery #Selfwork #Understanding #Worthiness