Four years before I could be naked

You know I like sharing moments where it feels like God meddles in things just enough to create a story worth telling. Well here is one for you.

About four years ago, I had broken up with my long-term boyfriend - a man who had an incredible impact on who I am today. He was my first big, real love. He was also the portal to my becoming. It was not an easy relationship. There was addiction and co-dependence and a whole cocktail of dysfunctional patterns sitting above a true love and appreciation for one another. Ultimately, our relationship served its purpose for both of us and it ended in February 2022. I’ve written about some of that process below.

The Day the Music Died

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Apr 1

I’ve thought about the moments on the awakening journey where the illusion shatters. Someone recently referred to it as the spell breaking. The moment the spell breaks, is not fun. It is not easy, or pleasant or joyful. The moment the spell breaks is the moment you see - with sober eyes, heart and spirit. The moment t…

When we finally broke up, I broke open. Like, feeling the terror of dying and then realizing you won’t and all there is is God type broke open. I cried pretty much every day for 4 months. I let myself unravel into a puddle and simultaneously opened to the size and magic of life in a way my soul had always known was possible.

See, I had wound myself pretty tightly around this man for the 4.5 years we were together, on and off - contorting myself in many ways in order to keep the connection stable. I tried to be his mother and his muse. I ran that classic “just maybe if I love him enough…” script that so many women write directly from their father wounds. I held on to threads because ultimately I was terrified of meeting myself without him.

And then I did. And 6 weeks after the cord really broke between us, he met someone new. She was pretty and sweet and from the very limited amount I knew about her, she seemed like a softer, easier option. She thought he was amazing (he was) and she had not spent the last 4.5 years in the chaotic tangle of his addiction. It also feels important to note he got sober from alcohol 2 months before we broke up. Now, we could all do an analysis on everything, including what was going on with him, but I do not want to. The point here is to take you into the spot I was in at the time - broken open, absolutely gutted, angry and proud of myself for honouring the desire that had ultimately led us to breaking up because we both soberly acknowledged he could not meet it.

Unwinding from the fact he found someone else was probably one of the hardest parts of the break-up but also was so deeply needed. It was the very reflection of my own wounding around being chosen and valuable and I was being asked to meet it head on. It also made him unavailable in the aftermath of the break up in such a way that I had to hold myself like I’d never done before. It was necessary.

So, now that you have some context, I take you to June 2022 - about 3.5 months after the break up and a month after learning about her. I was just coming up from the bottom of the bucket, starting to feel a wee bit like a woman again, but still fragile and still very raw from the rejection. One of my closest friends, Dr. Brittney Ellers has been asked to be a nude model for a casual weekly life drawing gathering and she invited me and a couple gals to come along - both to draw and experience the process, and for a bit of support as she dropped her robe and offered her nakedness to many eyes. I was an instant yes. I love drawing (although I do it very infrequently) and supporting my woman in honouring the muse nature of her womanly figure is totally my jam, as I’m sure you would all imagine.

So, on a Wednesday night at 6:30, I showed up and I drew. I watched her pose, ass naked, letting her body be inspiration for others, including myself. She was beautiful. And the entire room was reverent. I felt something stir in me. The desire to offer myself in that way. To be seen and expressed through the eyes of others.

Now, after many years of listening to the nudges I get, I have learned that when I have these stirrings, these desires, they will inevitably happen. One of the major areas these kinds of visions play out is with men. Every single experience I’ve had with a man since my break up has had an aspect of a sacred desire that has arrived inside of me at one time or another. When they arrive, they feel like future memories, and I’ve learned that I need not do anything in order for them to happen. Often, they will play out years later.

So, when literally the next day after this evening, I saw on the host’s IG stories that their model for the next week dropped out and they were looking for someone to volunteer, I was like, WHOA. I felt this huge surge of energy come into my body and I immediately responded, me! She was a very quick yes and all of a sudden things were under way. I reached out to my women and invited them to come. I KNEW I needed some feminine back up there. As soon as this became real, I felt myself sorta take off into the ethers because there was so much energy moving through. It started to hit me that it was kind of a big deal for me. My soul was like “uh duhhh, you’re made for this,” but my woman was a little shaky. I was still quite raw and to be seen at this level felt like a lot.

And then one by one, my ladies responded, saying they were unavailable that night. And I started to contemplate whether I could even do it without them. In an attempt to work with my circumstances, I reached out to the organizer to ask her if the next week was available instead. She said she had a model booked but I could reach out to her directly and see if she wanted to switch. I did, but couldn’t get a hold of her. All of a sudden, what felt like a smooth, easy Yes, started to feel a bit hard. There was a forcing coming in to try and arrange it just right. Then host then told me another woman had volunteered for the upcoming week so if I didn’t feel it fully, I could wait. I was heading back home to Canada for the summer 2 weeks later and when I felt into it, I realized it would probably be better timing in the fall when I came back. And so, I gave up my spot.

I planned to just show up and draw that night instead since I had enjoyed it so much. But as that Wednesday came around, I had no internal desire to go. This is something else I’ve come to really honour over the years. Even if my mind thinks something will be fun or good for me, or even if I’ve wanted to do it at one point, if when the time comes, I don’t feel an internal opening, I must honour that. Only good comes from doing so. And so, that night, I went to the beach alone to take care of myself.

Flash forward to the next morning and I open up my IG (as I do way too frequently these days) and I see the account has some stories posted. “Oh look at last night, looks like it was beautiful.” “Oh there are accounts tagged, let’s see.” “Oh, that’s HIS GIRLFRIEND’S handle.” “Omg she was there?!?!” “OH MY GOD SHE ALMOST FUCKING DREW ME NUDE.”

See, her and I had never met. We had never crossed paths. We did not hang in the same circles. And there she was sitting in THE EXACT same spot I had been the week before, drawing the body of the woman at the front.

When I say, a FLURRY of thoughts and emotions flooded through my body….

One of them being, oh how I fucking wish that bitch had sat in front of me, drawing my naked body, thinking about all the times her boyfriend had seen it, licked it, fucked it. I would have looked her in the eye and become the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

And honestly, had I been faced with that situation, that is probably the only thought line that would have kept me from combusting on the spot. I would have gone there. I would have accessed the deep primal force of who I am as a woman, and I would have let that energy crack me open and root me down.

But the reality was, there was a very real version of me who was still heartbroken, exposed and would have had to look the woman who he chose, in the eye, while undressed on every level. I would have had no one else as I stood up there with hundreds of eyes on me in that moment. No one understanding what would have been unfolding in silence. I would have been alone - and I was not ready.

There was a very kind hand of protection that was on my side in that moment. Even if part of me really wished I had been tossed into the fire. A hand that said “you don’t need it to be this harsh. there is a more gentle way.” I have learned to trust that hand with every ounce of my being. To surrender myself to the current that knows more than I.

And that very same current brought me to sitting naked on Zoom, in front of a friend and colleague just a few short months ago, as she drew my curves and my essence in the way that it was truly meant be drawn. Not from spite or vindication, but from the generous offering of my form. From the surrender to the erotic current that animates my body. From the listening to guidance from someone who can sense something within me before I can.

Emma Maltby has a way of bringing alive more than just a pretty body. She sees and feels beyond it - deep into the truth of what we often keep hidden yet deeply want witnessed. To work with her was like butter. I flowed freely and openly with a focus on my own experience rather than performing for her. I surrendered to her guidance when she saw something I could not yet see, and to witness myself through her expression was a beautiful gift.

To offer myself as her muse for what has now become a longer and deeper process she offers to others is an absolute honour. And so, I invite you to read her side of the story - her step forward into the Substack world, offering. her medicine to others who are ready.

Thank you.