What do you do when you’re at a crossroads and feel unsure which direction to go?

Or when you’re feeling lost and alone?

Or feeling creatively stuck?

In moments like these, many of us seek wisdom.

While wisdom can come from many sources, one of my favourite places to seek guidance is from my inner child—the younger child part of me that is very much alive inside my heart.

By cultivating a deep and trusting relationship with Little Darius, he and I have ongoing conversations where he shares many great ideas and insights with me. He has wisdom that Adult Darius might not be able to access on his own.

It’s counterintuitive but so freaking effective.

My inner child is key to my creative process as well. He gives me access to curiosity, wonder and play.

All of these are superpowers when it comes to creativity.

With the right meditation I can slow my mind down and gently connect with my inner child. Then, if he can sense my intentions are kind and loving, he often shares really significant insights with me.

If you’d like to try this out but aren’t sure where to start, I made a free guided meditation to facilitate quality time between you and your own inner child.

It can help you start your day feeling more grounded and focused. It can also clear whatever’s stuck and guide you back to your heart.

The link for the free meditation is in my bio.

(ALTERNATIVE CTA) —> Here is the link to the free Inner Child Guided Meditation.

Big love,

D

A bear or a tree or a bird looks and acts different in every season. But sometimes it feels like as humans, we’re supposed to be the same all year round.

Seasons change. And people change too. Change can be a beautiful thing, but it requires time for us to adapt.

I am finally finding my summer flow, which always happens around the middle of July.

As I start adapting my schedule and my life to a season that looks and feels very different from a cold Canadian winter, I see a familiar pattern emerging.

There is a part of me that wants to rush back into that glorious feeling of full summer flow.

Combined with my tendency to overcommit and over-schedule my life, I end up taking on too much, too soon.

Since I’m still in the early days of my 2023 summer flow, I don’t yet have the momentum required to uphold these commitments.

What I’ve learned is that it’s better to take small, consistent steps first, and allow my engine to build momentum naturally.

So this week instead of stacking 20+ things onto each day, I am going to do less and win more.

(By winning I mean doing what I said I was going to do.)

• Because winning builds momentum.
• Winning builds confidence.
• Winning builds the hunger to add more things to my life.

So this week my win is to go for a 5 minute walk every day.

I know 5 minutes is ridiculously short, but that’s the point.

If I choose to walk for longer that’s fine, but my goal is to slowly, lovingly get my engine going.

So, is there one simple thing you are willing to commit to this week to build momentum and summer flow?

And if so, what would happen if you made it even simpler? (E.g. making 20 min walk into a 5 min walk.)

If you want, reply to this post and let me know your one simple thing this week. And let’s get that summer momentum rolling.

Big love,

D

I’ve taken almost 900,000 photos and I am still surprised by the secret of how photography really works.

My job as a photographer is to do 2 things:

Job # 1 → Find beauty

I see beauty everywhere and in everything. But more specifically, beauty is when someone takes the courageous act of letting the gorgeous light inside their heart shine through.

Job # 2 → Remind people how much fun it is to be themselves

Someone once described what I do as couples therapy, but the couple is the person I am photographing and their own heart.

So many of us go through life estranged from our hearts, our bodies, our dreams.

The way I use photography is to guide you back toward your heart, so that you can reconnect.

Initially it can be scary to see yourself, especially if it’s been a long time since you’ve had real quality time with your heart.

That’s why the journey I take people on is custom paced for each person. We can go really slow; there is no need to rush or force people on the path. In fact it’s much better and more productive to make sure the pace we set is optimized for joy.

Not only does this result in awesome photos, but it also results in an awesome creative experience where people feel empowered and can remember how beautiful, brilliant and powerful they have always been.

Big love,

D

PS: If this post excites you and you are curious about such a journey for yourself reach out. Everyone is welcome. Yes, I work with many top thought leaders, authors and speakers, but I also love working with humans who have never really had a full photography experience before. I have a great promo for the summer and there are still a few spots left.

I lost myself in the last two weeks of June. I was working incredibly hard for the previous 2 months, and then fell off of my most important routines and rituals.

Keeping up my routines and rituals is key to my mental health and success. I am always at some point inconsistent with my routines, and if I’m not careful in those moments when my consistency falters, I can fall hard. Often that results in losing touch with my support systems, and thereby feeling a million miles away from everyone.

It took me a while but I’m back. And I’m here to say:

We ALL fall at some point.

It’s inevitable.

And since I know that some point in the future I will fall again, my focus now is on learning as much as I can so that next time I fall smarter. This will also help me fall less often and bounce back faster.

Here are a few questions I ask myself to help me be more supportive and loving:

• Were there any consistent triggers that activated the fall?
• Was I pushing too hard / burning out?
• Was I having fun?
• Was I going too slow / have a lack of momentum?
• Was I doing this for someone else? e.g. people pleasing
• Was I ignoring a key part of my life? (health, family, finances)
• Was I bypassing or finding a clever excuse to ignore my desires?
• Was I making the time to really listen to my heart?

By taking the time to honestly reflect on these questions, I can learn and lovingly begin again. When the next fall inevitably comes, I’ll fall smarter.

Do you have any tips that help you bounce back from a fall? If so, please share them in the comments or send me a direct message. I’d love to know.

Big love,

D

1. What would you create if you weren’t afraid?
2. What would you create if your family would never see it?
3. What would you create if you knew this would be your last summer?
4. What would you create if you had the courage to be 100% honest?
5. What would you create if you did not need validation?
6. What would you create if you stopped numbing or distracting yourself from your pain?
7. What would you create if likes, comments, and follows could not be tracked?
8. What would you create if there was no connection to money, business or profit?
9. What would you create if you let your heart guide you fully?
10. What would you create just for you—just for your own well-being?

(^ Which one of these prompts feels most important to you today?)

Many times on my own spiritual journey I’ve gotten lost by going too deep, too fast.

Even when I was a child, I was constantly exploring my existence.

My childhood journals are filled with questions like:

• What is my purpose?
* Why am I here?
• Who am I really?

I still love diving deep into questions like these.

It’s the sacred deep end of the ocean of life. I love exploring new waters and not knowing what I might find.

But over the years I have learned that going too deep can be exhausting, especially if you go alone.

Guides that specialize in the sacred deep end can be incredibly helpful.

Spiritual guides—such as my dear friend Rebecca—specialize in providing much needed support for humans who desire to safely explore the sacred deep end.

Rebecca is a medicine woman with a tremendous amount of experience and wisdom.

Check out her website for all the modalities she is versed in and to learn how serious she is about this work.

She is incredibly deep and ALSO one of the most playful, silly, kind and sweet humans I know.

After 40 years on this planet I have come to the conclusion that the most spiritual humans I know are also some of the silliest and most playful.

Life is a wonderful paradox in that way. So precious and sacred, and simultaneously one big cosmic joke.

A joke that we should all be laughing about, not in a disrespectful way, but more like the type of laugh when you all of a sudden are brought into a hilarious inside joke.

I am so grateful for spiritual lightworkers like Rebecca, who dance on the interaction between sacred and silly, and show us what true abundance looks like.

Big love,

D

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Our most important task as creative beings is to make space, so that God can flow energy through us. 🎬

If you want to create more, you will need to let go of anything that is needlessly filling you up. Otherwise, there will be no room for greatness to flow through you.

But letting go can feel overwhelming.

It requires radical self-awareness and honesty, both of which will leave you stripped naked and exposed.

And sure, being naked can be terrifying. 🫥

But it can also be one of the most liberating human experiences—if you let it.

Perfectionism kills creativity.

It prevents us from sharing our gifts with the world.

It whispers in our ears that we are not ready.

It convinces us to take more courses, read more books, hire more coaches, and do more therapy to prepare for some day when we might finally be ready…

Next month...

Next year…

Next decade...

Perfectionism is a disease. Many of us suffer from it. But the good news is that it can be managed.

I recently shared a YouTube video where I discuss 7 of the tactics I use every day to deflect perfectionism. I share one of those tips in today’s video.

If you’re tired of playing small and keeping the best of you from the world, you should definitely check out the video. The link is in my bio.

Big love,

D

Mistakes happen. No one is perfect because perfection is a myth. It doesn’t exist and never has. It’s a fictional creature that gobbles up your creative energy and robs you of your joy. Like an energy vampire that sucks out your creativity.

I learned this lesson yesterday in the most amazing way.

My dear friend and business coach Giovanni Marsico surprised me during a Zoom call yesterday by letting me know one of my all-time favourite authors, the legendary Seth Godin used one of my photos in his newest book.

What an amazing surprise.

Seth has a library of photos he could of used, but he chose my photo. What an absolute honour.

I was riding cloud nine… then I noticed my last name was misspelled.

What a bummer.

I was upset for maybe a minute, then I started to smile, and then before I knew it I was literally laughing out loud.

In that moment I knew this typo was not an accident. This was a clever gift from the Universe.

It was a beautiful lesson for me to take with me on my own artist journey.

Here’s the lesson.

If a 20 time best selling author, who is clearly a legend in his category can make a mistake on the jacket of his book, then I can bring my own expectations for my own work down a whole bunch.

What a gift this typo turned out to be. A reminder to be gentler and more compassionate with myself. Even with the best of intentions, inevitably there will be mistakes, typos, misspeakings, and things that fall through the cracks. It’s bound to happen.

When these things happen, I will do my best to own the mistake, see the lesson and do better in the future. I will also do my best to laugh and be gentle with myself. I will not let the mythical creature called perfection steal my energy or my joy.

Thank you Seth for this gift. Thank you for choosing my photo and for the truly wonderful experience I had during our photoshoot.

And of course thank you Gio for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to take my photography to the next level by working with living legends like Seth.

Big love,

D

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I woke up this morning feeling super blocked and unsure of what to write about. So I went through my old writing to this time last year, and was surprised to discover that exactly 365 days ago, I had the idea to take photos of strangers.

I had no idea people would love this project so much. I wasn’t thinking about that.

Mostly I just wanted to push my photography and creativity to a new edge and see what I discover.

There’s something so exciting about stepping into uncertainty, not for “follows” and external validation, but because you're curious to see what’s on the other side of the unknown.

It’s okay for an artist not to have it figured out or to be fully ready. Sometimes you just need to step into the unknown, one step at a time, and be open to discovering something new.

The following is from my journal exactly 365 days ago:

I bought this domain (www.nostrangers.art) yesterday.

I made the entire website today.

This weekend I am going out for my first set of photos for this project. I am nervous, but also excited.

I normally get a few hours with each person I photograph, but for this project I’ll only have seconds.

I have done this style of photography before and can be fun, except for all the rejection. I am curious to see if things are different now. Maybe people will be more open?

My intentions for NoStrangers:

• I want to take awesome photos of new humans.

• I want to have fun and feel creativity refreshed.

• I want to meet new humans and share their stories through this project.

• I want to grow as a photographer, artist and human.

• I want to emotionally impact as many humans as possible.

As I read this post from last year, I wonder if there is something I can learn about myself and my creativity as I step into the new project I am launching soon.

Big love,

D

PS: If you feel called to, dig into one of your old journals and drop a quote or piece of advice from your younger self in the comments below.