I had the joy of photographing best selling author and life coach Lisa Culhane a few weeks ago during a headshot marathon. What an incredible gift it was to connect with her. It turns out she lives in my neighborhood, just blocks from me. She has just written a new book, Discover the New G Spot (or How to Unfriend your Guilt) which is about guilt and gratitude. I've been practicing gratitude myself recently and felt like the universe was whacking me in the head with this introduction. Lisa is so beautiful it was a treat to photograph her. She was a good sport with me trying some ideas that I thought could be fun for her website and her book. You will see in these photos, she's a total hand-talker. As a reward for my work, Lisa wrote this wonderful blog post for me which is about the nicest thing I've ever read. Love you, Lisa. So glad you found me. Channeling Your Inner Model by Lisa Culhane

I had my picture taken.

By Willy Wilson, a professional photographer.

All by myself.

I haven’t done that since I had my Senior Portraits done over 30 years ago

I was dreading it. I didn’t know what to wear. I didn’t know how to do my hair. Skye would be doing my makeup and I feared I would look all made up and nothing like myself. I was afraid I would look fat in the pictures And I just knew I would look old.

But something else happened entirely.

I had a great time. My negative stories were for naught.

My clothes were fine. My makeup was great. My hair was my hair. But most importantly it was really, truly, unequivocally fun.

Willy had me twirling, laughing and channeling my inner model. She took self-consciousness right out of the equation and had me strutting my stuff like those models you see on the catwalks.

I stopped sucking in my stomach, caring about my clothes, hair and wrinkles and started enjoying the moment. By encouraging me to channel my inner model Willy helped me channel my inner beauty. By encouraging me to be in the moment and have fun Willy helped me realize that capturing my joy was more important than capturing my good side. And with that simple realization my inner model stepped up and fully enjoyed the shoot.