Rediscovering Self-Love Through Naked Yoga

Can a simple practice like naked yoga revolutionize your relationship with your body? Join me on an introspective journey where I reveal how stripping down and embracing yoga has helped me reconnect with myself in profound ways. After feeling disconnect and also gaining some extra weight, I discovered that practicing yoga without clothes allowed me to confront my imperfections and appreciate my body for its resilience. By putting away the scale and focusing on inner growth, I am learning to cherish my body unconditionally. This episode offers an intimate look at my path towards self-love and acceptance, and how you, too, can cultivate a more loving relationship with yourself.

But naked yoga isn't for everyone, and that's perfectly okay! We'll also explore other simple practices to nurture self-love and combat body dysmorphia, starting with something as small as smiling at yourself in the mirror. By making consistent, small efforts to build a positive inner environment, we can improve our relationships with ourselves and others, spreading kindness and beauty in our daily lives. Whether you're curious about naked yoga or looking for other ways to enhance your self-acceptance journey, this episode promises to offer valuable insights and practical tips for everyone. Tune in for an empowering discussion on learning to love and accept yourself just as you are.

Chapters

• 0:00 Unconditional Self-Love Through Naked Yoga
• 9:12 Mirror Self-Love Practice

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Hello, welcome back to the show. As promised, we are going to talk about some naked yoga today. You're probably like why on earth is Shanna doing naked yoga? Well, I've definitely got a story here and it may unfold in an unexpected way. So recently I have been focused on learning how to really love and accept myself. So what I have been telling myself, or what I've been saying, is that I'm willing to believe that I unconditionally love and accept myself, and a few weeks ago, I had been feeling a little bit off and I realized that yoga is something that really helps me to connect to myself. It's a whole mind, body, spirit thing, and I feel more connected to me when I'm doing that, and so I started it back up again.

Speaker 1: 1:33

I had done a yoga practice for a while, but I'd kind of I've gotten away from it, and so I decided to start it up again and going with the. I'm willing to believe that I unconditionally love and accept myself. I do yoga with Adrienne from home on YouTube and I'm doing the 30 day flow, and I was on day nine, which was called release, and I decided that I was going to do it naked, and one of the reasons for that is because I am focused on unconditionally loving and accepting myself. I have been in a space, I'd done a bunch of traveling in April and May, and so my nutrition was kind of off and I'd gained some weight back and I had lost like 50 pounds five almost five years ago and I just haven't felt very good in my body and haven't been able to, for some reason, get myself back on track with my nutrition, and so I haven't been feeling very good about my body. So that brought me to naked yoga. So I took off my clothes and rolled out my mat and put my diffuser on and really just dropped into myself and as I was going through the practice called release you know, when you're naked, you can't hide anything from yourself, right? And that allowed me to see every dimple in my thighs and my knees, every stretch mark on my body, every bit of visible fat on my body, every flabby part of my body, every bit of cellulite on my body. I was there with myself, fully and completely, and I thanked my body. Thank you for always loving me, thank you for always supporting me, thank you for always communicating with me, even when I chose not to listen. Thank you for never giving up on me. So I did that for day nine and then I was going to do a podcast episode about it because I feel like it's important.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Like most of I don't know about you, but several people I know struggle with self-image and their bodies and body dysmorphia is really an issue. When people lose weight, they don't, like you, can, literally look in a mirror and not see truly what you actually look like after you've lost weight. So connecting with myself in that way was really powerful and so I did it again. I did it again on day 10 for Align and then I did it again on day 11 for Soul, and it really allowed me to connect with myself and I continued to thank my body self and I continued to thank my body.

Speaker 1: 4:55

You'll often hear me talk about how our bodies communicate with us, whether we want them to or not, and truly unconditionally loving and accepting ourselves and connecting and listening to all the ways that our bodies communicate with us is really impactful on learning to unconditionally love and accept yourself. So when you can look at yourself in the mirror and not just look at certain parts of you, but look at your whole body and thank it and love it, and maybe you can't go straight to love. Maybe that's a stretch, but maybe look at parts of you that you would like, and eventually you'll be able to see your whole body. I also moved my full length mirror into my bathroom, and so that's hanging on the back of my door now, and I'm really trying to allow myself to love and appreciate all parts of me. Before I had I now understand that that was more my perception than necessarily that was my truth, not what was actually true.

Speaker 1: 6:24

So then, when I had gained some weight back, I started to get in my head about it, and I think this has been a really beautiful opportunity for me to learn to fully and completely love myself in all of my bits and pieces, every single part of me, and so I don't know, naked yoga just seemed like the thing to do. It just kind of came to me. I was like I should try a naked yoga, and I'm really glad that I did. It's not always easy to find parts of us that we like or love, and so when you can do things for yourself with yourself and view yourself fully and completely and accept yourself where you're at, I truly believe that that will help to release so many things that weigh you down. I've definitely noticed a difference this week and I haven't continued to do my yoga naked, but I'm really thankful for that practice and that realization.

Speaker 1: 7:46

That practice and that realization and I had written some notes right after I did it and that was what came to me was thank you for always loving me, thank you for always supporting me, thank you for always communicating with me, even when I choose not to listen. Thank you for never giving up on me. I'm not going to say that I now 100%, fully and completely unconditionally love and accept myself, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that it has absolutely helped to move me a little bit closer to that. And I say to myself every day what if I'm willing to believe I unconditionally love and accept myself? The other thing I did was I put my scale away. I actually did that a couple of weeks ago. I think scales are important to have as a tool to like check in, but I was like obsessing over getting on the scale every single day and I can tell you that did not help me move towards unconditionally loving and accepting myself. We can have a whole other conversation about scales and everything, but not today. Today we're just talking about naked yoga and taking those small steps toward unconditionally loving and accepting ourselves.

Speaker 1: 9:13

If you find yourself struggling with body image, body dysmorphia, or just feeling like you can't or feeling like you don't love all parts of you, including every part of your body, maybe you don't want to try naked yoga, and that's totally cool. It's not necessarily for everybody. But what if you take a couple minutes every day and look at yourself in the mirror and if you find that to be difficult, you know, just try it. Try it once. If it feels uncomfortable, do it again the next day and maybe smile. Maybe smile back at you Because you are beautiful inside and out, regardless of your size. When we can improve, the relationship that we have with ourself truly does impact all of our relationships. Our inner world, our inner environment, impacts everything outside of us, and so when we can show ourselves compassion and love and nurture ourselves, all it does is spread out that beauty into the people around us. I hope you found that helpful and I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day. Much love.