If you want to know who you really are, get naked.

I’m over the guilt thing. I’m not sure if this is a problem exclusive to women, but it seems to be prolific among us. Any time I do anything that is for myself and that is not for work, a friend, a family member, a charity, etc., somehow I can’t get rid of the nagging feeling that what I am doing is wrong. Watched an episode of Hoarders? Wrong. Got my nails done? Wrong. Ate a piece of chocolate? Wrong. Read a cheesy Christmas novel that served no greater purpose other than making you feel better about life for a few minutes? Wrong.

This feeling goes along with a fantastic blog post I read on Tuesday over at Twenty Something Travel. The gist of that post is that the American Dream at times works against us–we don’t take time out for ourselves because it has somehow become ‘wrong’ in our culture to do so. Life is about work, work, work, and more work. You really should go read the post. Go on. I’ll wait.

How did that post make you feel? You agreed, didn’t you?

Well, so did I. And that’s why I say that I’m over the ‘guilt’ thing.

Last week, I took a whole day to myself. A whole day! I went to the Green Valley Ranch spa and spent the entire day soaking in a jacuzzi, breathing in the steam in a deliciously hot steam room, and sweating out my stress in a sauna. I got a luxurious, soul-pampering massage, and I loved every second of it.

The fear of judgement is the fear of living

What I didn’t love is how I felt about this experience before and after. Before I went, I kept making lists of excuses about why I get to go do this–I’ve had a really stressful year, I’m in a turbulent place in my life right now, so many things are happening that I need to relax and calm down, etc., etc. After my majestic spa day, I kept worrying about being judged. What will people think when they find out that I spent the whole day at a spa instead of working? I just left my job, everyone knows I don’t have a lot of money, I can’t imagine anyone will understand why I did this.

That is such bullshit. I didn’t kill anyone; I went to the freaking spa.

My naked day at the spa and what I learned about human nature

Let me tell you about how fantastic my day at the spa was, sans guilt, judgement, or excuse, and what it made me realize about people.

My friend Anna and I felt relaxed almost as soon as we parked in the spa parking lot. The themed sidewalk leading to the entrance set the zen-like mood for the day. We checked in, then walked down a large staircase where we were greeted with soft bathrobes and slippers. We threw our street clothes into lockers, glad to be rid of them, and slipped on our robes.

An attendant brought us bottles of water, and we quickly glanced around, taking in the steam rooms, jacuzzi, rainfall shower, sauna, and sumptuous bathroom before sitting down in comfortable arm chairs to wait for our names to be called. Soon, a lovely young woman called for me and took me to a treatment room for my 50-minute Swedish massage.

It was the most amazing 50 minutes of my life. I did not want to get up off of that table! Soft, new age-y music was playing, the lighting was low, and my masseuse made me forget every single stressful thing for an entire 50 minutes. That in itself is nothing short of a miracle.

The time to “get naked” and talk as women do

After our massages, we rotated among the steam room, sauna, and jacuzzi for hours. We drank gallons of lemon water, sweated out pounds of stress, and allowed ourselves the time to talk as women do. It felt almost elemental, in a way. We were stripped of our clothes and of our responsibilities, and that gave us so much more freedom to really talk about ourselves in a way that we hadn’t before.

Perhaps that is the secret of the spa: without the mantle and uniform of wife, mother, girlfriend or employee to buoy you, you are stripped down to yourself. Time away from your daily routine gives you the time to “get naked,” the time to explore your thoughts in a way that we don’t ordinarily do. Many people view this as selfish, but I view it as necessary. Not everyone needs a trip to the spa to get to that point, I don’t need a trip to the spa to get to that point, but it is one way to get there.

Travel is another way to “get naked.” And by travel, of course I don’t mean a week in a hotel in the most touristy part of wherever with dinner at Applebee’s every night, I mean real travel that gets you in with the locals and out of the chains. When you are out of your element, you are forced to look at yourself and your life in an entirely different way. This is one reason that Alex and I are headed to Europe next year.

“Get naked” so you can speak honestly to yourself

I’ve also had moments like that, “get naked” moments, moments where you are stripped down to yourself, at the top of a mountain in Nevada, sitting in a train en route to Monaco, and hiking through Georgia back country. I’ve had a moment like that while just sitting out on my tiny apartment balcony with my journal. The point is, we need to get naked as often as possible and get to know ourselves as deeply and intimately as we can. If that’s too new age-y or Oprah-like for you, I’m not sorry. It’s the truth. We can sit in cubicles and work ourselves to death and pretend like it’s a good life during the two weeks of vacation we get a year, or we can strip ourselves down to nothing, look in a mirror, and ask questions that most people are afraid to ask:

What is this all about, anyway? What do I want? Is there another way to live, and am I brave enough to go for it?

Emily is a recovering cubicle monkey, former obituary writer, and ex-yuppie. In her free time, she volunteers for Wings of Hope and pretends like she knows how to use her fancy camera. Emily has lived all over the United States and France and currently resides in Las Vegas. Her favorite place in the world is Isla Espiritu Santo in La Paz, Mexico.