Life is better when you strip away pretense

I sometimes wonder if everyone is worried about showing off their bare feet because then everyone will see where they’ve been. 

Maybe I am afraid to let you see where I stepped off my path and picked up that scar that serves as an everyday reminder that I am a traveler and not the destination. Travelers make mistakes and change course, get robbed, lose their passports and miss flights. Destinations stay in one place, and everyone shows up to take selfies with them. I am not the destination. I am the traveler. And I have this belief that you might be too.

Every day, I talk to naked people who think they have clothes on. They’ve been stripped bare by pain of neglect or abandonment or something totally different. They’ve been betrayed, cheated on, left or just plain hurt. So they clothe themselves with resentment or anger or jadedness, clothes that don’t fit very well. It’s hard to connect and its hard to make love with clothes on. You get me? Hey, get your head out of the gutter!

Sometimes we have to bare ourselves before they will, to let them know it’s safe. That’s sort of against the rules, but it’s the only way to get anything done. Someone has to go first. I want us all to be bare and unashamed like I was before I went to middle school and discovered that you’re not cool unless you wear Hollister or Abercrombie & Fitch. I want to hang out with people that bare themselves. Life would be more interesting that way. We could all go to shiny places and talk about our dreams without playing those social games that tie us up in knots of fakery.

If everyone was naked, then we wouldn’t have to wonder whether we could be real because we’d all be taking the same risk. All our vulnerabilities would dangle out there together, and no one would judge because judgment is armor, which defeats the purpose of being naked.

I like those bumper stickers that say we should party naked. I think that would be a fun party. Afterward, we should all go to church. If there was ever a place that needed more naked people, it would be church. I haven’t been to church since I moved here, but when I was going to church I always would think about my clothes when I go to church. A preacher once told me that church is the one place where you can leave all your burdens at the door. I never understood that. It’s like there wasn’t enough room for all of us and our burdens so one of us had to stay outside. This is probably why I spent most of my time at coffee shops. I never knew how to let go of my burdens. They would follow me wherever I went.

I want to start a coffee shop for naked people (remember, this is a metaphor). In my coffee shop, clothes are optional and burdens welcome. We’ll strip away all manner of pretense and relish in the bold flavors of vulnerability. We’ll sip on authenticity and fast from all the ways we do violence to each other out there in the world, and even in our own town to each other. 

No shoes. No shirt. No problem.

We’ll give ourselves permission to hurt so we don’t clothe ourselves with rage. We’ll show compassion for our failures. We’ll tell stories and laugh. We’ll cry and that’s OK. We’ll weep and that’s OK. We’ll meditate, or pray or ask questions about the world. And we’ll spend as many days as we can together, burdened and bare. Because life is more memorable when you’re naked. Just by being bared exactly as you are, you are empowering others to do the same. Show your vulnerability. Please remember this. Sending you courage.

Danielle Spillman is a local certified yoga teacher, health enthusiast, and writer. You can find more of her musings at www.findyourlightyoga.com.