“Clothing optional hot springs…”

I read this statement in the brochure for the Esalen Institute. I read this after I’d registered for one of their highly acclaimed professional workshops. I was intrigued yet felt a bit uncomfortable. Later when mentioning to friends my plan to visit Esalen a few commented, “you’ve got to try the hot springs.”

I recalled this months later while deciding whether to pack a swimsuit. Having never been to a place with clothing-optional anything, the swimsuit seemed a must. It’s that small yet powerful piece of cloth that protects one from feeling totally exposed.

I was already having a hard time preparing to leave behind other forms of “protection” like my to-do list, technology, and the comfort of daily routine. Here I was going to an idyllic meditation workshop for healers to focus on self-care on the cliffs of the Pacific Ocean, yet I was afraid to be without the security blanket of modern technology.

It took a couple days to settle into Esalen. Bunk bed rooms, cramped bathroom, not knowing anyone, feeling like the new kid at school in the dining lodge.  Then there was the biggest discomfort of all: days of sitting meditation.

I have always been a moving meditation sort of gal. This includes repetitive-motion endurance and adrenaline sports and a yoga practice that gravitates to the more physical variety.  I even stretch a bit while listening from my therapy chair. Sitting meditation meant finding stillness in more ways than one. It meant confronting the very thing Western society (with its many distractions and encouragement of doing, doing, doing) helped shelter me from: observing, reflecting, contemplating, analyzing, seeking, projecting, ruminating, wondering, past, future, past again…all to ultimately let those thoughts be observed, to drift away like a cloud, and to come back to simply being.

This got me thinking about the hot springs. And the swimsuit. And the ways in which I take cover to protect myself from my fears. These protective walls come in the form of swimsuits and to-do-lists, in judgements and opinions, in the “shoulds,” in the rigid perceptions, self-comparisons, in the striving to be a people-pleaser or perhaps a nonconformist. I became curious about what limits us ALL from being authentic and keeping it real. What would happen if we all abandoned our swimsuits, if we all shed the layers?

Meditation at Esalen Institute showed me the way.

I call myself a “recovering Type A.”  For my people in particular, seated meditation is like the wrecking ball which demolishes our skyscraper of perceived identity. The mind and ego build a fortress to protect itself from sadness, stress, pressure, fear, vulnerabilities and so forth. We defend against what IS because we learned it’s painful at times. Beginning in youth we built a firm, stone building within the mind to protect ourselves. Meditation has the power to dismantle our notions of what protects us – like the voice which says you’re a victim or others are to blame. Or that everything would be better if you lived somewhere with warmer weather, a different job, made more money, or had a more loving partner…

Meditation first makes you aware of the fortress you created with your “story” of reality, then knocks it down like a wrecking ball. The forklift arrives to take away the debris and there you are with yourself, excavated. You are revealed and exposed to yourself. Feelings of shame, anger, regret, fear, disgust, and panic may ensue.  Yet it begins a process of dissolving the darkness to reveal the light. Oddly, there can be a sensation of calm because you are finally in the present moment and taking responsibility. You start to see the grace of things and start to have gratitude. You feel tender. You feel more compassion for yourself. You feel honest to what is.

And ultimately this is empowering. Because now you know that it comes back to you. You get to decide to follow your in & out breath the next time you’re stuck in traffic. You get to speak from your heart rather than be invisible. You get to choose to be around those who see your light. You get to make choices that break free from old patterns which perpetuated your suffering. Meditation helped me realize there was little to hide behind. Any facade of having it “all figured out” as a psychologist, a yoga teacher, or a woman limited me from just. being. real.

Pema Chodron states in The Places That Scare You, “We don’t really want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience…. [in meditation] we clearly see the barriers we set up to shield us from naked experience. Although we still associate the walls we’ve erected with safety and comfort we also begin to feel them as a restriction.”

Which leads me back to the hot springs. The oh so purifying hot springs. On the cliffs of Big Sur California at my meditation workshop I decided it was time to let go of any facade I’d clung to in the past. Brazenly at the baths I peeled away a layer and dropped my towel.  Alone under a full moon, I surrendered and sunk into the steaming hot water and listened to waves crash against the shore. I realized the sheer discomfort of meditation was meant to get me to this place, this moment of simply being exposed and being real.

Today, may you also peel away a layer and brazenly expose the real you.