I’ve never been one for making resolutions. I just do it, or don’t do it. But we were sitting around the table last night discussing our resolve and my kids came up with some good ones: eat more, talk like a robot, exercise on the balance ball. OK…. I need one too! And I have decided that I resolve to be naked more. Yep. I’m 35 and somehow revelling in the joy of nudity has slipped out of my life.

Self-consciousness has crept in over the years and with it a defensive posture, a discomfort with myself, walls and masks and the dreaded self-loathing.

And I know I am not the only one. I see my ability to delight in another’s body, the way I love every inch of my long-term lover, the way I snuggle babies and look with no judgement on my family and friends–I accept them, I admire them, I overlook their flaws. Cause who cares,right? Love turns a soft light on the faces of our beloveds. I resolve to turn that light of adoration on my own body.

There is a power in revealing ourselves as we are, in an honest look at our armpits and asscracks that cannot be reached with clothes on. This does indeed become a metaphor for all of our masking, all of our walls, all of our repressions and delusions. Because I want to get physically naked but emotionally naked too. Our body is not all that we are. But it cannot be ignored forever, we cannot think our way out of this. We have to feel it.

To be comfortable in one’s own skin is a gift we can give to ourselves-and an example we can set for others too. To stand nude in a non-defensive posture, proudly, sensually, fully inhabiting my body and banishing worry about wrinkles and errant hairs and “rough elbows” whatever the hell that means…loving my muscles and letting go of my ideals of perfection..that is my resolution and my gift to myself.

I shall be welcoming this year naked in every sense of the word, open to all that is ahead.