Swimming Naked: How a supermodel, a skinny dip and the Source helped me silence my voice of shame.

I had to travel halfway around the world, make friends with a supermodel, and skinny dip for the first time in my 42 years on this earth before I learned to silence the voice of shame inside my head that had haunted and followed me most every day of my life.

I’d started my morning at the COMO Shambhala resort in Bali with an Estate Walk around the perimeter of the property, accompanied by a beautiful, athletic American girl with long eyelashes. I turned to her when we’d finished: “I hope I didn’t go too slowly for you. I’m fighting some jet lag, and the humidity is killing me!” She chuckled and admitted, “Are you kidding? I was working my ass off just to keep up with you!” We both laughed. “I’m Jen,” she said. Our friendship had begun.

Our Very Big, Small World

Within the first 24 hours of my stay in Bali, the universe sent me several signs that, while the world is very big, it can also be quite small and interconnected. People show up at just the right time, teaching you just what you need to learn. Jen was traveling with another woman named Kate. They had recently reconnected after being on the same crew team in college. The three of us met up later that afternoon to participate in hydrotherapy, and they asked me to join them for dinner, where we discovered that Kate’s mentor just happened to be a former classmate and friend of mine from the Pepperdine MSOD program.  I had traveled halfway around the world to meet a friend of a friend! Earlier that day, I had had an instant connection with Eve, the soulful, in-house nutritionist who also went to Pepperdine and also, like me, worked in academic medicine for many years.

By the time I went to bed that night, a sense of quiet confidence washed over me. Now I knew my two and a half weeks alone in Bali wouldn’t be spent in isolation. Without much effort, I had already formed several connections in a short time. A new thought arose: perhaps, I could do less and still get what I wanted; just maybe I wouldn’t have to push the river to feel connected to others despite being so far from home in this foreign land.

Beautiful Women, Traveling Alone

The next morning at breakfast, I listened to the sounds of misty rain falling in the jungle and watched scurrying lizards and swooping birds.  The fresh air and the humidity somehow ignited my appetite, and I devoured a fresh tropical fruit plate, with papaya, mango, banana, pineapple, and fresh coconut, and an egg white frittata with mushrooms and truffle oil. While I digested, I saw a striking young woman with mile-high cheekbones and bushy eyebrows slip in and sit down at a table across the open-air restaurant. Sneaking glances at her periodically, I was captivated. And I had a sense she might be watching me too. I got the feeling she wanted to connect.

Then I thought, “Why would such a beautiful woman be traveling alone? She must be waiting for her entourage or at least a significant other to join her.” The thing about being alone with your thoughts is that your self-talk is really pronounced. Then the other me, the new friend in my head, rebelled.  “Seriously, Cindy?! Are you listening to yourself? That woman is too beautiful to be traveling alone? Hello? YOU ARE A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN TRAVELING ALONE!”

A Swimmer from the Source

It was cloudy and overcast and rained on and off during my first few days in Bali. One afternoon when there was a slight break in the clouds, I ventured out of my room and found Jen reading by the pool while a solitary woman in a bikini swam laps alongside our lounge chairs. As Jen and I chatted about her morning, we watched the tall, willowy swimmer go back and forth across the pool. “The Source,” a local spring believed by natives to have healing benefits, provided the water for the various unheated pools, making swimmers earn their rewards while fighting not to get hypothermia.

The swimmer emerged from the water and smiled. I was surprised to recognize her as the woman from breakfast. I smiled back and asked, “Level with me. Just how cold is it?” With her exotic beauty and self-assuredness, I conjectured she must be French or English, anything but American, and probably a model. She gracefully shook the water out of her cropped hair and in hip Southwestern tones, she replied, “It isn’t too bad once you are in.”

She sat down next to us and seemed as excited to make our acquaintance as we were hers. Like me, she was traveling on her own after an intense period of non-stop work; and unlike me, she made her living as a model. Having never bought a copy of Vogue, my new friend’s name didn’t ring a bell, thus putting us all on equal ground. We chattered like high school girls, mostly about the current state of our love lives and the loves that had come and gone; growth and development in our lives and careers; our homes and communities; yoga and working out; and our perspectives on the Estate.  It’s interesting how open strangers at a spa can be, so authentic and vulnerable with one another, seeking perspective on their life stories, including hopes and dreams, challenges and hardships.

I found myself admiring my new friend and her self-assuredness. Despite being in her early twenties, she had the maturity of someone much older. She was open and answered questions honestly. And she was curious and asked insightful questions in return. She admitted she doesn’t always like the way she looks in pictures, and she can be extremely hard on herself. She blushed when I teased her a little. She listened intently, taking in every piece of hard-earned wisdom that Jen and I offered. She said she appreciated meeting people like us that she would never regularly meet who didn’t know her, didn’t know her world, and who held up a mirror for her to see herself and the possibilities that existed. She liked us, and it felt important to her that we like her too. I wondered if the supermodel and I weren’t all that different after all, both of us perfectly and uniquely flawed and just trying to be liked for our best selves in the world.

Friend or Foe?

Something shifted inside of me that afternoon, lying in my bathing suit next to one of the world’s most beautiful models. While I was trying to suck in my tummy during our conversation, I couldn’t help but wonder if this lovely woman was actually my enemy. The media made her the standard to which all women, myself included, compared ourselves. My new friend represented the nearly unattainable — flawless complexion, beautiful, tall, thin, young, and sexy.  I’ve been conditioned from an early age to strive to look like her, while simultaneously making it look like I’m not focusing too much on my appearance. In falling short, I have felt badly about my body and myself.

I suspect other women feel like this too: we hide in bathing suit cover-ups, if we have the courage to even get out in a bathing suit at all. We put ourselves down as not good enough because we haven’t shed those last five, ten, fifty or one hundred pounds. Collectively, we spend billions of dollars on make-up, anti-aging creams and gels, and weight loss regimes, and when we ultimately fail to live up to the unrealistic expectations we set for ourselves, we feel shame.

Escaping the Booby-Trap

And it isn’t just our appearance and body image – it is our intelligence, money and work, health, speaking out, relationships and parenting choices too. Shame makes us feel inadequate and disconnected, and creates feelings of being unlovable and judged, in competition with and/or judging or shaming anyone who comes closer to hitting the standards than we do. Shame sits like a booby trap on top of our happiness, holding us back from ever feeling too good about ourselves and even poisoning our relationships with others.

At one point in the conversation our friend went to the bathroom, Jen turned to me and whispered, “I would never mention this in front of her, but I used to model too when I was younger and living in Japan.” I said, “No doubt. You are beautiful and still are! But why wouldn’t you mention that?” She replied, “Because look at how fat I am now. She would never be able to believe that I was once a model.” I was shocked to hear this since Jen was beautiful and by no means heavy. There it was: the voice of shame, and it had connected us all: it lives in my head, and Jen’s and even inside the head of our beautiful new friend the international model. Even she has been taught to judge herself against some impossible standard that even she isn’t living up to.

Peace Treaty

This realization hit me hard. My new friend wasn’t the enemy, shame was. I have spent so long hating my body that I hadn’t even realized that it had been serving me well for the past 42 years. My short time at the Estate reminded me of how good I feel when I treat my body right – regular exercise, fresh air, lots of water and healthy foods including fruits and vegetables. I made peace with myself and my body that day sitting by the pool next to my new friend, the supermodel. I unclenched my stomach muscles and stopped sucking it in and just relaxed. I realized that the more comfortable I was about my body, the more comfortable they would be about their bodies. I embraced my body for what it was and treated it with more respect in the days that followed, overriding any negative messaging that was prompted by who I “should” be and sharing my insights with a few friends. Due to these shifts on the insides, my outside has caught up, and I show up differently in the world now. I have lost weight without being on a restrictive diet. I have gotten into great shape because it feels good, and I feel more confident and at home inside of myself.

When I think back to seeing my new friend for the first time across the restaurant, I am convinced we were meant to meet each other on this trip and to be connected in each other’s lives. Now when I’m on my way to work and see her face on the side of a building or a bus stop or catch her latest TV ad or see her image in a magazine, I can’t help but smile and send my love, admiration and support to her. The courage that she displayed in being vulnerable and admitting her flaws with Jen and me that afternoon had a profound impact, and in some small way, I hope that sharing this story might help others become more aware of the impact of shame on their sense of selves as well. Maybe, if each of us is a little more authentic and open about the thoughts that go on in our heads, and when we are brave enough to say them aloud to those we feel safe with, and they are met with empathy, and maybe if we have these types of conversations with our daughters and model what it means to really love our bodies, maybe we have a chance at beating shame once and for all.

My Balinese Souvenir

I changed hotels and as I unpacked my suitcase I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I thought, hey, here’s the souvenir I want to bring home from Bali — this mirror. I looked taller, more angular, slimmer. As I went about my activities throughout the day I found myself wondering about that “skinny mirror” back in my room. Was that really me, the way the rest of the world sees me? Was the mirror flawed, or had my recent insights simply fixed my eyes, which had given me a skewed vision of myself?

My room at this hotel, in the city of Ubud, had its own private pool, enclosed by a wooden fence and tropical plants, and I could often be found drifting in an inner tube, soaking up the Vitamin D. Then one day, with the ink not yet dried on my fledging peace treaty with my body, I decided to strip off my bathing suit and take a swim — a baptism of sorts. Despite being a competitive swimmer for 10 years during my childhood, I had never ever gone skinny dipping. I dove headfirst into the pool and the water against my naked skin made me feel free and alive. My negative inner chatter was silent and was replaced with overwhelming joy, freedom, affirmation, and acceptance, which warmly spread across my body. Through this symbolic ritual, a new relationship with myself had been christened.

*Note: Character names have been changed to protect the privacy of my new friends.