Emotionally Naked

Do you know who you are?

I’m supposed to be giving a TEDx talk on identity and one of the biggest things that I’ve realised since writing my talk is that I still have absolutely no idea who I am.

My talk isn’t about my body or my appearance but these are parts of my life that have played a HUGE role in my identity.

I can’t choose what I look like.
I can’t choose the shape of my body or the colour of my iris or the way that I smile.

Of course we can CHANGE what we look like - with clothes and make up, hair dye and braces, diets and surgery.

But what I REALLY look like is still something of which I have had relatively little control.

When I was younger, I made myself ‘prettier’… I WANTED the attention. I dressed up. I did my make up. Wore clothes that made me look GOOD. I did none of this for me though. It was all for other people.

Then I grew up a bit and realised that I didn’t know if people ever really liked me for who I was or whether they were simply intrigued by what I looked like.

So I did the complete opposite.

I wore no make up at all. I rarely styled my hair. I wore baggy, unflattering clothes and I deliberately tried to fade into the background of even my own life to try and figure out whether I, the me that I am on the inside, was worthy of the same kind of attention I’d been getting for the me on the outside.

Now I think I have a better balance of both.

Except what is hilariously ironic is that the most liked photo of me on my Instagram is a professional, edited photo with my face full of make up - something I still, even now, rarely wear.

I can’t tell you how many people said I looked ‘great’ and ‘incredible’ when they saw example photos from that shoot. My own partner didn’t even recognise me.

I’m very comfortable in my physical body and I get naked a LOT. Some people probably do think that I do it for attention and I’d be lying if I said there were parts of me that didn’t enjoy it. BUT I also do it because being naked in nature is something that makes me feel a deeper sense of connection to something bigger than myself.

It feels primal and it feels real in a world that is full of fakery.

Being emotionally naked - however - is something else entirely.

It’s still something I struggle with because I’ve hidden how I feel for so much of my life. I’ve built up this physical mask of myself that keeps the parts of me that I feel are unworthy locked so far away that they might never be recovered.

I’m more authentic now than I’ve ever been - don’t get me wrong. I pride myself on honesty and truth and trying to be myself.

The problem is that I’ve forgotten who ‘myself’ really is…

I’m still figuring that part out and I still mostly don’t like the version of myself that I am right now. But I also accept that it’s a part of my journey to becoming a version of myself that I do…

Being yourself is a beautiful thing.