This weekend the YNow kids and I went *camping* at Harbin Hot Springs. Harbin is a little hippie getaway north of San Francisco. Clothing is optional.

Yep, I spent the weekend with a bunch of naked people. I am very self-conscious about my body. Usually even wearing a swimsuit in front of people is stressful for me so I wasn’t sure how this would unfold.

There were about 20 of us caravaning up to Harbin and my car arrived first. It was a very warm day and the boys took their shirts off immediately. I figured this was my chance to get things started without a big, intimidating audience so I followed their lead (swim top still on). This was probably the most interesting part of the weekend because as the other cars arrived I could feel my self-consciousness increasing, especially as people voiced their surprise that I was so quick to disrobe. Rather than shriek and put my shirt on again, I just stayed with the discomfort until it burned off. I followed the same pattern in taking off my shorts, swim top and finally bottoms. I was naked! It was uncomfortable for a few minutes, but those feelings burned away quickly. I survived!

This weekend was really freeing in a lot of ways. I got much more comfortable with my body and with my friends. The body image edge is a big one for me and this weekend really helped me conquer a big part of it.

My friend D was also nervous about nudity, so we agreed to take our bottoms off at the same time. On the ride home we both felt triumphant over our fear, ready to take on the next challenge. I think this is an important point in spiritual growth: once you’ve taken your pants off, they’re off. Sometimes we get so enamored of the high that comes with breaking down a barrier that we try to repeat it; we keep putting our pants on just to take them off again. D and I left our (figurative) pants at Harbin and said, “Good riddance!” We can now use that power to break through our next edge.

Which brings me to the OneTaste update. I’ve been trying to keep the OT posts to a minimum for a few reasons:

1. My parents read this blog.
2. People from OneTaste read this blog.
3. Other friends read this blog.
4. Laura is not a fan of OneTaste.

OneTaste is the biggest thing going on in my life right now. I have been giving a different story to each of those four groups of people about my experiences there. I’m done with that. For better or worse, I am going to be blogging more about OT and everyone in my life will have equal access to my writing. That’s kind of scary right now, but it feels more authentic.

I’m planning on moving into the OneTaste residency program in July. It will be nearly impossible for me to keep OT out of the blog once I move in. It’s hard to expose things that are truly important to you, that’s why I haven’t shared my decision to move into OT prior to this post. I’m eying the “publish” button on my WordPress dashboard with trepidation. What will happen when I share this with the world?

And thus I remove my pants…