Naked Truth: The Act of Bravery In Search Of My Worthiness

Why does it feel like an act of bravery to simply show up as ourselves?

Take a moment.

Stand in front of your full-length mirror and strip it all down. Take off all your layers, let go of your shield and lay down your sword. Wipe off the warpaint and soften your gaze. What’s in front of you is not a battle, it’s your body.

In front of that mirror, you are naked, fresh, real, human, vulnerable.

How do you feel? Are you proud? Do you avert your eyes? Do you focus on some areas more than others? Are you secretly revelling in curiosity over your form? Is your nakedness normal, routine, ordinary or extraordinary, rare and revolutionary?

How many minutes can you stand with yourself? How many moments of intensity can you create between you and the person you inhabit? And when you look away, where do you look? What thought enters your head first?

Ok, breathe and suit up. Let’s talk.

Where did you go when I asked you to look at yourself naked?

The first time this was suggested at me, I bulked. Of course, I see myself naked. I get in and out of the shower. I have mirrors in my house. I SEE myself. But in my defensiveness, I realized my defence. If this was truly normal, why wasn’t I just diving into the challenge, gleefully examining my exterior with pride and pleasure?

Because up until recently, examine my body was for flaws or function. My time with my body was not spent in worship or pleasure, but in questioning worthiness and cultured peer pressure.

We might be tempted to underestimate the judgment of our bodies is a skin-deep scorecard. That by slipping into our button up our blouse, we have covered the verbal carnage our mind left behind on our body.

But the body holds our wounds deep and constant.