My New Favorite Color is Nude – Moxie On Monday

Why is taking your clothes off considered such a big deal in our culture?

Just look at young children. They do it all the time. Naturally. Freely. Not a care in the world.

As the years go by, we learn to equate our naked bodies with shame … shame that comes to be reflected on the outside.

We’re taught to hide. We’re taught to build up boundaries – some healthy, many not.

We’re born believing in ourselves. We’re also born shameless. Overtime, we lose belief bit by bit while we build up shame little by little.

Taking my clothes off, posing nude, was a personal challenge for me.

What did I learn from my experience?

I learned that what we fear is often simply a story we’ve told ourselves, oftentimes the same story others have told us. Our social environment is the ultimate Influencer.

I also learned that taking my clothes off wasn’t really about the clothes or the lack of clothes. It wasn’t about how perfect my body looked. It wasn’t about what others think of how I look. It was the final step in a lifelong journey of inner freedom, laying down the last shackle, the last chain tying me to anyone but myself.

When you toss the last bit of artifice, the last thing to hide behind, you find freedom. I know I did!

For me, taking off my clothes was a metaphor. Clothing was a symbol of hiding. It was a beautiful cloak to hide behind.

Peeling those clothes off was like peeling away the final layer of who I was told to be, taught to be, programmed to be, shamed to be. This allowed me to become who I truly am – a woman proud to stand tall in the beautiful “InFit” she’s spent her life building from within.

For some, taking off your clothes, posing stark naked, may be no big deal at all. Perhaps, there’s something else you fear, some other story you’ve told yourself about yourself, some other way to free yourself from within.

One of the most surprising revelations for me was that what I’m wearing or not wearing has nothing to do with WHO I AM. Clothes, or lack thereof, don’t define me – won’t ever define me.

The only person who will ever define me is me.

The only person who can ever truly define you is YOU.

What I also realized was that the stories I was told about being a “good girl,” a “virginal girl,” weren’t true. They were simply someone else’s beliefs projected onto me. My mistake was in accepting them.

Not any more.

Being a “good girl” has nothing to do with the outside, nothing to do with clothing or nudity. Being a good girl has to do with the heart.

What’s holding you back? What’s keeping you from feeling free – from being free on the inside?

You might be surprised to find that doing just that – whatever it is that’s keeping you in fear, keeping you from being free, from feeling free is exactly what you might want to consider doing!

After all, freedom feels so damn good.

I should have been born in the 60’s and grown up in the 70’s … Oh wait … I did!

*Makeup by the amazing Jessica de Ben!