Form + Flow: What Being Nude for Two Hours Taught Me About Life
In the house I grew up in, it wasn’t normal to find anyone walking around naked. Both of my parents kept their bodies private, away from my brother and me. It wasn’t until I started treating women for their pelvic floor and seeing breasts and vulva on a regular basis while working with mothers that I started even being “ok” about changing clothes in front of my own mother.
To this day, my mom will comment on my body and tell me to cover up, while wearing a V neck shirt or if I’m at my hometown beach on a hot summer day. And she’s not saying that because she wants me to protect my skin from sun damage. I don’t think she means to make me feel like I have to hide myself, but it caused a bit of a complex when it came to body image and self love towards the end of my twenties.
I’m currently on the brink of turning 30, and I’ve had some massive shifts happen that have led me to this new place- a place where I felt confident and safe enough to accept an offer I never expected to get, let alone say yes to.
I WAS ASKED TO BE A NUDE MODEL FOR A LIFE DRAWING CLASS CALLED FORM + FLOW THAT HAPPENS ONCE A WEEK AT ONE OF MY FAVORITE PLACES, GATHER ENCINITAS.
My good friend Kate just arrived back home from her travels abroad and is the one who curates this event. She asked me because she was thinking of “strong women” to ask to model and I came to mind. My gut reaction was “hell yeah.” My brain’s reaction was “you’re not going to tell your family, but they will probably find out. You good with that?” I decided to go with my gut on this one, because the act of doing something outside of my comfort zone is what I encourage a lot of people I work with to do regularly- whether it’s to take a yoga class with me for their first time, to show me their pelvic floor, or to share their trauma with me- that's vulnerable and it takes guts to get through it. So after having gone through it all, here are my take aways. My thoughts. My responses.
Four realizations I had leading up to and during Form + Flow Life Drawing session:
This is healing for me. Never ever did I think I’d be comfortable enough in my own skin to be showing it to people I knew and people I met for the first time. But just like these artists showed up to practice their craft, I showed up to practice self love - of my entire body, skin, in the midst of luteal phase - which is also a practice. I’m not perfect at it, and can talk myself down (pretending to downplay things when I get a compliment isn’t me being humble, it’s me being insecure about receiving compliments/being deserving), but in those two hours, I felt safe enough to let my guard down and show my true self. This was in great part due to Kate’s ability to create and hold space for myself and the artists. The artists themselves were amazingly supportive, grateful, and respectful.
Even though the first few poses were “awkward” for me, because of sheer nudity, I could feel my thoughts transforming my body and getting through the discomfort using my breath. During the 10 minute and 20 minute postures, all I could think about was how I was truly practicing yoga. It may not have been traditional asana, but my meditation was happening every time I took a cycle of breath, and I moved into a place of comfort and felt accomplished because of it. I felt empowered.
Check your ego, Britt. This wasn’t even about me. It was about the artists in my community coming together to hone their craft, to find balance and wellness for the soul, to express themselves, to practice the art of acceptance for what ends up landing on paper. It actually is the same for people who practice yoga, write, play and listen to music, dance, cook, garden… they’re all forms of quieting the mind chatter and dropping into meditation.
I need to do this kind of stuff more often. Not the nude part necessarily, but the uncomfortable part. I accidentally put myself in a physically uncomfortable position for my neck for the very last posture and just caught myself breathing and meditating through it because I knew I could handle it. And in no time, Kate let us know there were just 5 minutes left! I think all the yin practices I’ve been doing once a week helped me in my mental game. During those last 5 minutes of the last posture for the night, I concluded that I want to put myself in an uncomfortable place, in a truly novel experience, every single month - whether that’s for my body, my mind, or my soul. Because life throws that kind of stuff at us often, and it’d be good practice getting used to it. It’s the very nature and symbolism of my logo- the nautilus shell. I want to expand my horizons and do things that really stretch me in all senses of the word - to work on being a better human.
My take aways may not be the same as yours and my practice may be different, but there’s growth that happens in places that make you uncomfortable. Being nude for a few people from my neighborhood was, yes, uncomfortable for me, but also liberating. My fears of being judged were trumped by reality, and the reality was that these artists who showed up weren’t showing up for me necessarily. They showed up because maybe they had their own fears of not being good enough, being too in their heads about their work, or just screwing it all up for themselves with one “bad” line. And in the end, my fears of judgement weren’t even based on my body or skin, I was more worried about creating a cool figure for the artists to draw that I could actually hold and maintain. Actually, I was most afraid of what my family might think of this particular choice and life experience I allowed myself to have.
Despite these fears, I want to leave you with this mantra, and perhaps a challenge:
YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. WE’RE ALL BEAUTIFUL. INSIDE AND OUT.
IF THIS ISN’T AN ACCEPTED THOUGHT FOR YOU TODAY: PRACTICE LOOKING AT YOURSELF AND SAY IT ALOUD UNTIL YOU BELIEVE IT.
YOUR ENTIRE BEING WILL APPRECIATE IT.
[Editor’s note: at the time of publishing this, I had shared with my family these words and received an open-minded and loving response from who it mattered most to me, my mom.]
