How to Feel Good Naked

You get up before it is light in the morning and make your way to the gym. You push yourself to your physical limits. When you get home, you eat your carefully measured out protein shake and oats and drink the first of many bottles of water for the day. It’s not much fun. It’s not meant to be. It’s what you need to do to feel good naked.

But you’re going about it the wrong way. Nakedness is not about being unclothed and revealing your skin to yourself and your partner if you have one. Nakedness is embodying your vulnerability.

No matter how flat your stomach is, no matter how large the gap between your thighs, no matter how much your hip bones are visible, you will never feel good naked if you don’t feel good with your vulnerability.

To be vulnerable is to be “capable of or susceptible to be wounded or hurt, as by a weapon.” It is being without defences, without covering, without protection. It is the way we are born before we have the chance to build walls, to invent our public persona, or formulate an identity we approve of. No matter how beautiful you think your body looks you won’t feel good naked unless you feel comfortable with the possibility that you might get hurt. And when you do get hurt, you know you have the capacity to digest and process that pain and transform it into a gift of learning.

Who are you when you are stripped back to your naked self? Are you scarred, are you flawed, are you as fucked up as the rest of us? Of course you are. Are you easily hurt, are you more sensitive to your pain and the pain of others, are you exposed? Yes.

We have been told that true vulnerability and standing naked in the harsh glow of an overhead light is uncomfortable unless we are perfect. Bullshit.

We feel good naked when we acknowledge that we are as imperfect as the next person and that hurting is as important as breathing. It makes us alive. It makes us grateful. It makes us treasure each moment of bliss because we can recognise that we can experience unimaginable joy in spite of our pain and our flaws.

You won’t feel good naked even if your body looks exactly the way you think it should look. Even if you get there in the physical realm, you still won’t feel good unless you can accept that the parts of you that are unseen are not so easily sculptured into an acceptable form through willpower and determination.

Dissolve wide open, lead from your heart, love yourself unconditionally, and celebrate your flaws. You can feel good naked because when you are vulnerable you can love with your whole heart in spite of the fact that there are no guarantees. You will get hurt, and when you do, you’ll have another scar and another story that will add to your divine beauty.

And everyone knows, that when you’re naked, you are the sexiest you’ll ever be.

Mmmmmm … naked body + naked heart … delicious ♥

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Tagged as: eating disorder recovery, self-love