On Dancing Naked and the Power of Letting Go

I danced naked on the sidewalk the other day.  Ran circles around Franki as she stood, also naked.

Let’s back up a little….

We’d just finished swimming and had come inside to dry off.  I stripped my bathing suit off and wrapped a towel around me.  Franki, bottoms off, top on, said she was cold, so I suggested she take her wet top off and wrap the towel around her as I had. 

We walked toward our front porch to hang our suits up to dry and when we got out there, her towel came off and she exclaimed, “Let’s have a naked dance party”!!

I laughed and said, “Sure, go ahead”!

Spontaneous dance parties are not unusual around here.  Franki naked is not unusual around here either.

But her determination about me taking my towel off, was. 

“Come on, mama.  Let’s do it”, she said. 

My eyes darted left and right and off into the distance.  No neighbors in sight.  No one looking.  Six foot high ornamental grasses surrounding me - offering cover, and yet, I hesitated.

“Come over here.  It’s ok, mama”, she said with certainty standing several feet away from me.

I paused, feeling timid about her request.  She was asking me to take my towel off, bare my nakedness, walk down the steps to the center of our sidewalk…and dance. 

With flip-flops on.

She wanted me to leave the security of my towel on the chair.  Let it go.…

Not keep it near me. 

Not hold it. 

Walk away.

Leave it. 

And she wanted me to follow her to a place that seemed far, far away….what seemed like miles away from the safety of the fabric wrapped around me… but really only about 15 feet away.

The mere idea of it washed over me as self-consciousness. 

The desire to do it and the hesitation, at odds with each other. 

I questioned myself as I looked around, “Can I do this?”, as I wafted from feeling self-conscious and bare to exhilarated at the idea of, “dare I do it”. 

It’s pretty normal for Franki to be walking around the house naked.  For me?  Not so much.  Although I have sat topless at our kitchen table, eating lunch with her.  But that’s a whole other story….

Franki hasn’t yet been trained to be so conscious of self or her body.  She hasn’t formed a set of beliefs that limit her experience in the way I have.  She hasn’t heard criticism from others and no harsh voice of her own has taken residence inside her head.   

In that moment, I recognized the metaphor. 

The towel I was being beckoned to shed - a symbol of my limiting beliefs, old thoughts I’ve held and carried about myself, the concerns about judgment, the self-consciousness of being seen – really seen in the expression of who I am.

Franki – representing freedom, unapologetic expression and the life and desires I’m reaching for – calling me out from the towel I’ve wrapped around me.

I let go. 

I took that towel and threw it, following Franki’s lead to dance naked on the sidewalk donning only the flip-flops on my feet.

Your desires will cause you to expand. 

Your desires will have you stretching beyond your current beliefs about yourself, your abilities and the possibilities that lay before you. 

When you’re asked to take that towel off, what will you do?

Hold the towel and wrap it around even tighter?

Perhaps loosen it, if only a little?

Or, will you take that towel off completely and go dance naked on the sidewalk?

Life is filled with moments where you can make new decisions about who you are.  You’re going to find yourself throwing that towel off and then finding another towel, wrapped tightly around you. 

Don’t let it stop you.

Choose to dance naked and let the towel go.