What a night this would be. Deeply romantic. Two lovers sharing space. Stripping naked as you move through entrees, the main course and dessert. It works wonders. Really. Because it allows love to grow and cements deep connections that don't get pulled apart by the wear and tear of life.
The word naked conjures up all kinds of thoughts and fantasies. But the most special kind of naked happens when two lovers share their hearts with one another. Not just their naked bodies. They strip down to the real stuff of life. What they want from each other. What makes them happy. Being truly barren and exposed allows you to focus on one another and what the future chapters of your life look like together.
This kind of naked transcends the nude kind. It throws you into a sort of flowing transparency, like spiraling down a water slide and immersing yourself in deep pools you aren't use to swimming in. But you smile because the ride steps up your pulse and reminds you how exhilarating life can be. You become aware that a truly satisfying existence means letting the currents sweep you away to new places, well beyond the wall-like dams that have kept you from paddling upstream and beyond.
When two lovers share their heart, aspirations and dreams, what they hope for in marriage comes to life. Like taking a blank canvas and watching the purest colors merge into fresh images made of new shades and shapes. Ones you have designed. You forget the original colors you used as you stand mesmerized by the fresh themes that define something new. Bold themes you dared to create that seem to dance right off the once white, barren paper they now inhabit.
On your next date night, go to your favorite hangout and strip to the bones. Spiritual, soul-stripping where you talk and talk about love; how you cherish one another; why you have chosen a life together. Together! Yes, keep your real clothes on. But throw off the walls and secrets that have darkened inner places where you fear to go and seldom reveal to anyone. Maybe even yourself. Where you hesitate to be frank and honest. Yet where your true self lives and feels most alive.
This doesn't mean just getting stuff off your chest. Sometimes you get in touch with hurts and wounds. You can share these too. But the heart contains more than wounds. It harbors the real you. Where you find, just inside the doorway to your soul, rooms furnished with softness, warmth and generosity. The "you" that longs to emerge past the walls of fear, anxiety and loneliness and into peace, hope and love.
So how do we get naked, barren and truly open with one another? Let's take a look at some real, naked principles and suggestions that drive it all home.
1.Stripping your heart down to the real you isn't easy. Takes some growth work for many. Start that work. Find ways to create greater levels of insight into your true self - deep in your heart where your wants and needs thrive and soak up the blood of complete honesty. Learn to journal your feelings and experiences or find a life coach, therapist or mentor that gets you to look more closely at what makes you tic. That makes you feel alive.
2.Ask your mate to join you in a quest for honesty. Make it a crusade together to stop dishonesty. Rather, cultivate transparency. Dare each other to speak more boldly about your wants and needs. Commit to further conversations that honor depth, openness and being real. Get these conversations on the calendar. Literally.
3.Commit to opening up your heart. One that bleeds fondness and compassion for each other at every opportunity. Stay connected to your deeper intentions to keep care and love alive. Cling to and honor devotion to the well-being of your lover, life partner, your mate like fruit on a vine clings to its branches.
4.And finally, learn to enjoy your mate. Give him or her your all. Grow your internal well of love and let it spill over into all the ways you reach out to one another. But remember to take delight in your mate. His or her differences. Even the quirks that make them so unique and often define their individuality.
Love, pure love, only grows when stripped of all the weight and anxieties that keep it hidden and that push it below the water's surface where needed oxygen disappears. Genuine love must float well above the tides that force you under and drown out life and light and keep you soaked in fear and cautiousness.
Move beyond fear. Cultivate transparency.
Let vulnerability reign in your life. Then and only then will you have a true chance to be seen and to know each other. Not the fake self with fake smiles and fake emotions.
The true you....the naked you.