Ripples

Let me explain. The woman on the left is me (that's the picture needs explaining). The woman on the right is Cindy Willick, a motivational speaker and friend from my life coach training. She posted a link to this video to our class forum at the beginning of January.

If you haven't watched it, do so now.

Isn't that the coolest? I love her. The exchange on our forum after I watched it went something like this:

Me: [blah, blah, blah, admiration and so on] I keep toying with the idea of putting on my bathing suit (and boots) and heading out for a picture in the snow to send to you! Of course, we're in for another ice storm tomorrow, and that's not quite the kind of glistening I want to do...

Cindy: I'm going to challenge to do just what you mischievously said you'd do: take a photo of yourself in a bathing suit + boots in the snow. Go for it!!!

(And you know me... I love a good, fun challenge.)

Me: (see above picture)

Yes, I put on my bathingsuit and went outside in the freezing rain (hence the umbrella) and actually posted the picture to our class forum. I also passed on the challenge to everyone in our class. I am disappointed to report that not one other person has followed up.

Anyway, I thought that was the end of it. I mean, maybe someday I'll get an actual mid-riff baring bikini and take a picture of myself in it and send that to her (or maybe the forum), but for now, that was that. Until today.

In the small talk before class the master coach conducting today's lesson mentioned that she had kept my photo on her computer to remind her to be TAO. That's the acronym we use for Transparent-Authentic-Open. I was stunned. Then another student mentioned that she has a friend who runs girl-empowerment seminars and that this woman was using my picture in presentations about media images of women (to counter those images I presume).

At first I was a bit embarrassed, but now, now I am just humbled. I never would have imagined that my act of silliness and courage would ripple so far. So I am inspired to be a little crazier and post that picture here. And to challenge all of you to take a picture of yourself in something that feels a bit too revealing to post on the web and send it to Cindy: cindy@cindywillick.com. Wouldn't it be incredible to see a photo montage, with fun music of course, of all sorts of people Baring It All?