How to Look Good Naked

This week I became a famous bag lady when I gave the 4Sight talk at a 4Networking breakfast meeting. The funny part is,  I arrived dressed normally and nipped out to change just before I was due to give my talk. I got two reactions. They either didn't realise it was me or more alarmingly they did and wonder how they'd never noticed I was that fat before.  These were the males of the species of course!  

So here are this the picture and the talk. 

Oh yeah, the point of the fat suit is so I can strip off and get naked! 

Have you ever noticed just how much advertising is devoted to persuading us that what we have is not good enough? Whilst some of the time the strap line is just ‘buy this because it is a fantastic product!’ (Guess that’s Apple’s pitch) Usually what we are told is that we would be: better, younger, more successful, more appealing more acceptable if we only had the latest gizmo.

I get it, as business people we are all trying to sell the benefits of our products by highlighting the PAIN –Problems, Aspirations, Issues Needs, however perhaps we ought to be more mindful of the long term damage we are most likely doing – but that’s another blog post!

Talking of negative messages: The most outrageous one I’ve heard lately is:  Menopausal skin!

What on earth is menopausal skin? I take it they mean old skin and everyone knows that being old is not acceptable. Why else would some much attention and money be devoted to remaining young looking?

Yet even the young do not escape the onslaught.

It is any wonder that despite the immense wealth in the west, a recent survey showed a sizable number of people suffer from low self esteem and deep feelings of inadequacy.

The attack isn’t only from advertising.

There are endless numbers of individuals, family and friends only to ready to put their oar in and reinforce our self doubts. Someone once told me that for every negative message you hear you need 10 positive ones to counter act it!

A have you noticed the countless programmes with list of ZZ lists of celebrities (these are celebrities who are so far away from the A list you’d have to o to the ZZ column on an excel spreadsheet to find them) putting the boot in on some poor ‘more famous than they are’ soul.

Fortunately there seems to be a trend in the media towards focusing on us being able to accept ourselves – well at least our appearance, with programmes like How to look good naked etc.

Clearly this is a lot easier said than done. Yet in some respects it is probably a lot easier to take off our physical garments, than to shift the psychological inadequacies that we wear.

The things that we hold that tell us we are not good enough can be likened to clothes:

1. Clothes protect us from the elements.
2. Clothes also provide us with identity and status.

We use clothes to reflect who believe we are, to express our creativity or to cover up what we would rather other people did not see.

When you got dressed this morning what were you thinking? Perhaps you were criticising yourself for being too fat/thin, not tall enough or not young

Despite this over critical society that we live in, at any moment we are actually being called to deepen our self acceptance, because before we can truly love and accept another we must first truly love and accept ourselves.

Self acceptance is my greatest challenge. I’m not immune to the illusion that I’m not good enough and I’ve done the training and got the badge!

I call it an illusion because the reality of who you are has never changed. It has to be how you were created. When you were unaware of the value judgments

So let’s rewind a little bit. In order to accept yourself you have to know who you are. So who are you?

What is constant about you? Clearly every cell in your body has been renewed so what makes you you?

We have to start stripping away the layers, the metaphorical clothes that we have put on that now cover our inner, unchanging core.

So what type of metaphoric garments do people wear to cover up their true selves? Let’s see.

Some people wear a body warmer of unworthiness. These give the wearer a false sense of safety and comfort, just like body warmers that expose your arms to the elements.

Next people can also wear underwear of not good enough. This is worn close to the skin. It protects your most intimate parts, your deep hurts that you don’t want anyone to see.

Here’s a common one, how many people have shoes of discontent? That feeling of never being satisfied with your life or yourself, just like wearing slightly tight pinching shoes.

Often people wear a hat of invisibility. They want to hide their feelings and true self in case they are ridiculed. How many times have you found yourself keeping quite because you don’t want to get shot down or pretended not to be hurt by something that has wounded you to the core?. 

Now here’s the really sad part. Hats of invisibility come with one of those deep blue or black velvet drawstring bags. The sort that jewellers put precious stones in. People use these to protect your heart for these knocks. Unfortunately, these bags work both ways - they also kept everyone one else out.

So tonight when you are taking of your clothes to get into bed take a moment to reflect on the protective garments you wore today that reinforced feelings of inadequacy and separation.

What we choose to wear over our true selves does not alter who we truly are.

Because as I’ve already said that is unchanging.

If something never changes than I would argue it has to be eternal.

And if it is eternal, i.e. it goes on forever, then it has to be boundless and connected to all things. And if it is connected to all things, it cannot be separate from anything. Which means you cannot be separate from other people. Your true self is connected to everyone.

Self acceptance, means acceptance of everyone

So my advice – learn how to look good naked! Take off your clothes of inadequacy and accept and love yourself, it is all that you need to do to accept and love everyone else too.