Bare Assed Naked Necessities

What if your body and your soul were never enemies?

Kristin Williams spent the first half of her life at war with her own skin. Seventeen pairs of Spanx. A mother's stack of magazines on the back of the toilet. A wedding rehearsal dinner in Tacoma that ended on a bathroom floor with a zipper, a butter knife, and the dawning realization that she had been lied to. About her body. About her worth. About what the divine actually wanted from her.

This book is the story of how she found her way back.

From a hot tub epiphany in Leavenworth to a sweat lodge in the Cascades, from a clothing-optional resort in Palm Springs to a fishing village on the Adriatic coast of Croatia, Kristin takes readers along on her bare-assed pilgrimage through nudist living, spiritual practice, and the slow, scandalous, deeply heretical-feeling realization that the body is not the obstacle to the spiritual life. The body is the doorway.

Inside these pages, you'll find practical tips on naked meditation, the sacred discipline of sunscreen, why your shapewear is spiritually blocking you, and how to recognize a Greg before you bring him home. You'll learn how to start a daily naked practice in five minutes a day, how to build the friendships that will hold your hand in the dark, and how to take a pilgrimage on a Saturday morning without leaving your zip code.

You'll also meet the women who built Kristin into the woman she is today. Tanya, the best friend who shows up at seven in the morning with a tote bag and asks no questions. Grace, the Orthodox Christian who drops theological grenades over coffee at Starbucks. Georgina, who knows when a bra was designed in a marketing meeting and not for your actual body. Susan Hasseltree, the instigator, whose contribution to the spiritual canon includes a now-legendary outdoor yoga class.

Whether you have ever taken your clothes off in front of strangers or not, whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual, or just deeply skeptical of everything you were raised to believe, this book invites you into a different way of seeing yourself. A way where the soul has a birthday suit. A way where the body is the temple, not the problem. A way where you are allowed, finally, to be the you that you actually are.

Pour yourself a glass of something. Take off whatever feels too tight, whether that is your jeans or your beliefs or both. The work of coming home to yourself starts here.