I can’t say I’ve ever had a master plan when it comes to writing books. I can’t even tell you I’ve known I was writing a book when I started writing. I usually have a clue that I’m writing a book when I’ve suddenly written several pages on something that had to come out of me.
And honestly, that’s why and how I write when I write. Usually there is a thought or an idea that just won’t leave me alone. It keeps popping up in my head and it keeps drilling down into deeper thoughts. This thought or idea then begins teaching me things or connecting dots in my mind, helping me to see bigger and bigger pictures or stories of what it is trying to tell me.
When I write a book it is not as much about me sharing information with others, though I do want to do that - if it’s useful and helpful information, but it’s about me trying to get the idea out of me. I’ve learned over time when these thoughts keep coming, I need to write them out so that the thoughts can pass through me and leave me, or so that they can lead me to the rest of the message.
It took me three years to write Be Naked. Not because I had so much information to get out of me (I write short books!), but I let life, or Covid, or whatever else was happening in the world distract me. To be honest, the Covid Years kind of punched me in the gut somehow. Not because of Covid itself, but there were just many strings of events that happened in that time frame that kept kicking me in the teeth and I just didn’t feel like writing.
And so, for three years, the thoughts stayed with me: “Who told you that you were naked?” That question never really left me. It waited for me, patiently. And then, it tried another approach. Instead of coming to me from the inside out, it came at me from the outside in.
I went to visit a friend I had not seen in a while. I had stopped writing, and been ignoring the messages that were trying to come out of me. And while I was visiting with my friend, he said “I feel like there is something you’re supposed to finish that you have been ignoring.” It was out of the blue and completely unexpected. Yet I knew what he was talking about.
So, I started writing, letting the message work its way further into me so it could find its way out of me. What I had set aside for over two years was still there waiting for me to flow with it. It felt good to write again. It felt good to learn again.
It’s funny. The message was trying to help me. I could not see that I was hiding behind my circumstances. I was allowing myself to be wounded. I felt vulnerable. I felt naked. And, I was afraid.
But that was the point, the message, that had started the whole thing: “Who told you that you were naked?” Or, to phrase it another way, “Why are you afraid?” This message came to me before I even knew I needed it, three years before. It knew. And it waited. I am so grateful it did.
So, I quit hiding and I started writing. Before I knew it, Be Naked was a book.
Is it something you need to read? I don’t know. I don’t know that it will help you. But it might. If you’ve been hiding from who you really are, who you really want to be, this book, this message, might be for you. If you’ve been ignoring the messages your body is trying to tell you, the messages Something beyond you is trying to tell you, this book might be for you. Or, if you just want to learn how to quiet the world, restore your breath and your connection with yourself, then you may find this book very helpful. I can only tell you that it has helped me. But, I can also tell you, the message, the idea that never left me, has also probably been pecking at you for a while in one way or another.
If you’re curious, just Be Naked.
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