I got naked on 9/11/2016. Now before you ask if I get particularly turned on by days with patriotic significance I'll stop you right there... No... that answer is no. But at the time, unbeknownst to me, I was answering a call within myself. Maybe not as heroic as the emergency service people responding to the tragic emergency we all think of when we talk about 9/11, but I'd been hearing my own alarm bells going off for a while by this point…and this turned out to be the day I took action.
Adam and I had been married for 17 years by that time and like every couple had our share of ups and downs, but overall we had a reasonably loving and happy yet uneventful marriage. You see, I play by the rules…be a nice girl, in school I worked hard for good grades, after college I worked my way up in my first job, and since then I've been fortunate to have a great career. My family looks like the typical standard American family - high school sweethearts, 2 kids, picket fence, everything. And yet something was missing.
In numerology the number 911 carries significance. Over the past 6 months or so I've been seeing this number everywhere - 9:11 on the clock, on postal addresses and mailboxes, on receipts, and on license plates. The number 9 stands for universal spiritual laws such as love, peace, mercy, and forgiveness toward others and the number 1 has the meaning of new beginnings and the encouragement to take action to create one’s own reality…with the repetition of 1 amplifying it's meeting. Upon further research I found that this phenomenon of seeing the number 911 is common enough that it's been named the "call of the light worker," which is one whose life's mission is to be a peacemaker among different groups of people and a bridge builder for the widest gaps in humanity. It is believed that those who see it repeatedly are being given a sign of encouragement to let go of the old and embark on the next chapter. This is all very interesting whether you believe that exact interpretation or not. Isn't that good advice for just about anyone who is feeling stuck and needs permission to grow? My perspective is that everyone is called to be a light worker.
I've lived a lot of my life worrying about what others thought of me and my ability to perform. And honestly, in a lot of ways that has paid off. But in my concern for my outer reputation, I had a lot of blocks in my own psyche regarding sex and shame and my openness to giving all types of pleasure a proper place in my own life. Then late one summer day in 2016 something began to shift. I had just gotten out of the shower and was drying off and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I realized in that moment that it was almost as if I was looking at a stranger. In my daily routine my body was always covered up. So much so that I had no idea what I even looked like or felt like without layers of clothing on. For some reason that day I decided I needed to figure out how to introduce myself to my body. So it is more than a little ironic that when I look back on my journal entries about how I felt when I first started sleeping naked, that the day I finally took the plunge was 9/11/16.
And so began a personal journey of exploring my physicality, my true feelings about sex and shame, examining the long held biases that I always dismissed as low libido or "just the way I am.” This all led me to communicate more openly with Adam about my fantasies…and it turns out he had some too! And we started to imagine what our intimate life could look like... together.
Everyone's path to their true self is unique, and yours may look completely different than ours. But through expanding our collective consciousness and including new ideas we invite you to take that next step on your own journey. Our sincere wish is that our experiences may in some way inspire and enrich your life and relationships.
Namaste,
Eve