What Happens When You Unexpectedly See a Naked Man

Also called: The Guilt That Wasn't, and The Things We Think We Should Do

Please smash the ❤️if you like naked men!

I was very young when a naked stranger ran across the hallway. I stood, frozen to the spot, in the snazzy yellow nightgown my mom made for me, the one with white buttons and a ribbon around the collar. My little self probably quivered with nerves and confusion because those quivery times are the ones that are etched in our brain, aren’t they?

I was in a place I already didn’t want to be – a stranger’s house. To be clear, the naked man and his wife were not strangers to my parents, we were there visiting which is why I found myself in the middle of the night, standing in the dim, unfamiliar hallway, wondering where my Mom and Dad were sleeping.

This is Part Two in The Guilt Series where I’m exploring what guilt is and is not. (You can read part one here.) I’m looking at how carrying a sense of guilt can affect our life and what we can do about it (all from the perspective of a curious layperson because I’m not a therapist.) In this essay I’m talking about a sensation that, for some, is almost constant - the sense of guilt when we feel like we should do something. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but for sensitive folks it turns out to be huge. I hope you join me, and heads up that if you choose to get a paid subscription there are two more parts to this series and you’ll get access to all of it as well as everything else on my site. xoxo D