Im in the wind, Im in the water : Digambara mindset to feel comfortable with yourself

I. Prelude: A Moment with the Wind

You are coasting downhill on a quiet stretch of road. The sun is low—golden and forgiving. The wind meets your skin not like a force, but like a friend that’s always known you. There’s no urgency in your movement, no destination pressing in—only the hum of tires against earth, the loose rhythm of your breath, and the air wrapping itself around you, as if to remind you: you belong here. Not as someone’s daughter or someone’s partner, not as a label or role or title. Just as you.

In this fleeting moment, you are unburdened. Not because anything monumental changed, but because the noise of performance has paused. You are riding, breathing, feeling—not proving. The world isn’t asking anything of you, and you’re not offering anything other than your honest presence. You aren’t clothed in roles, thoughts, or appearances. You’re just in the wind.

These quiet, in-between moments—where identity dissolves into sensation—are not just peaceful; they are profoundly restorative. They offer something we often forget how to access: a sense of wholeness without effort. This is not an escape from life, but a brief return to our original self—the one that existed before we learned to wear so many layers, both seen and unseen.

We begin here because this isn’t a treatise on religion, asceticism, or nudity. It isn’t about doctrine, rebellion, or even wellness as it’s marketed to us. This is about something more elemental. More ancient. More intimate.
It’s about the quiet, radical act of remembering how to simply be—without hiding, without hardening, without needing to be anything else.
It’s about loosening the grip on what we think we should be, so we can feel what we actually are: a part of everything. A being made not to belong to anyone—but to belong to everything.

Let’s follow this feeling. Let’s take a breath. Let’s begin to uncover.

II. What Does It Mean to Be Sky-Clad?

In the Digambara tradition of Jainism, the term Digambara literally means “sky-clad.” It refers to monks who have renounced not only all possessions, but even clothing—choosing instead to live unclothed as a radical expression of complete detachment from the material world. To walk through life without physical coverings is seen not as vulnerability, but as the ultimate freedom—a way of living that sheds ego, ownership, and illusion. It is a disciplined and profound path, pursued only by those deeply committed to the Jain ideals of non-attachment, non-violence, and spiritual liberation.

But what if we step beyond the literal and enter the symbolic?
What if “sky-clad” is not simply about the absence of fabric—but about the absence of false coverings of another kind?

Let’s reimagine the word sky here not just as the atmosphere above, but as ether—the ancient fifth element, known in many traditions as the unseen force that holds all the others. Ether is space, stillness, potential. It is what breathes between things, what allows air to move, light to travel, sound to resonate. In this interpretation, to be sky-clad means to be clothed in ether itself—held by the infinite, by the spaciousness that asks for nothing and excludes nothing.

From this lens, being sky-clad isn’t about stripping down—it’s about unveiling.
Unveiling the soul from the layers it has accumulated:
– the ego that performs
– the identity that conforms
– the fear that protects
– the past that defines

To be sky-clad is to stand inwardly uncovered, not in front of others, but before existence itself. It is a state of radical ease, where you don’t need to wear anything to be worthy—not clothes, not titles, not behaviors. It is the feeling you touch when you’re alone in the woods, walking barefoot through morning dew, or when you’re lying on your back watching clouds move, and for a moment, nothing is missing.

And this state is available—not just to monks in remote caves—but to anyone willing to pause, to listen, and to uncover.
Not by discarding our lives, but by shedding the extra weight we carry in them.

To be sky-clad, then, is not to be exposed.
It’s to remember you are already covered—by the wind, the light, the breath of space, and the quiet truth of your own being.
It’s not about what you take off, but what you no longer need to wear.

III. Covered in What, Exactly?

If we are to understand what it means to “uncover” ourselves in the spirit of being sky-clad, we must first ask: what are we actually covered in?

Most of us go through life layered, not only in fabric but in identities, expectations, and silent contracts we’ve signed without realizing. These layers were often put on slowly, over time, shaped by praise, correction, trauma, and tradition. Though invisible, they can weigh heavier than any garment we wear.

🧠 Ego: The First Layer of Armor

The ego is not inherently bad—it’s our personality’s attempt to manage reality. But left unchecked, it becomes a hard shell. It makes us over-identify with our image, our achievements, our positions. It tells us we are what others think we are, and that our value lies in our performance.
We cover ourselves with ego because we believe we’ll be unsafe if we show up as we truly are: soft, unsure, or simply present.

🎭 Roles: The Social Costumes

We wear roles like uniforms: daughter, son, partner, provider, healer, helper, achiever.
These identities help us function, but when we cling too tightly to them, they start to define our worth. We smile when we want to cry. We succeed when we long to rest. We make ourselves smaller or louder, more pleasing or more competent—according to the script we think we’re expected to follow.

These roles are stitched from expectation, and while they may help us navigate society, they often leave us wondering: Who am I when I’m not being anything for anyone?

🧍 Body Tension & Aesthetic Pressure: The Physical Layering

Our bodies, too, are not exempt. Cultural norms and aesthetic ideals ask us to tighten here, tone that, conceal this.
We suck in our stomachs. We correct our posture for approval. We adorn ourselves not for joy, but to meet a standard we never agreed to. Even rest becomes a place of tension—we may lie down, but not relax.

This physical covering goes beyond clothing—it becomes a choreography of self-policing. Even in solitude, many people find it difficult to be natural in their bodies. The freedom to simply exist without judgment becomes unfamiliar, even frightening.

👁️‍🗨️ Fear of Judgment: The Invisible Surveillance

This is the most insidious covering of all—the fear that someone is always watching, assessing, ranking.
It keeps us from singing freely, from stretching fully, from saying “I don’t know.”
Fear of judgment makes us spectators of our own lives. We edit ourselves before anyone else can.

This fear doesn’t only belong to the present moment. It’s built from childhood correction, societal norms, and collective conditioning. It’s the voice that whispers: You’re too much. You’re not enough. You should be better by now.
And so we wrap ourselves tighter.

When you think of clothing as metaphor, it’s easy to see that we often wear far more than we need to—not to warm ourselves, but to protect an image. These layers are not inherently wrong. They are understandable. Many were once necessary. But the invitation here is to notice them, and then ask:

Are these layers still serving me? Or are they concealing something sacred beneath?

To be sky-clad in spirit is not to strip everything at once.
It is to begin unfastening the seams, one thread at a time, until the soul underneath can breathe again.
It is to trust that what you are without the layers is not less—but more.

IV. Uncovering Without Feeling Exposed

To uncover yourself is not to put yourself on display. It’s not about stripping down in front of others or rejecting the world’s norms in a dramatic gesture. It’s about something far more intimate, far more restorative—a slow, quiet liberation from the inside out.

It’s the kind of uncovering that happens not in the public eye, but in the sacred privacy of your own awareness.
It’s not about being nude, but about being neutral and natural.
Free from tension. Free from performance. Free from the inner editor who’s always trying to fix, hide, or impress.

For many, the idea of uncovering—whether physical, emotional, or spiritual—can feel vulnerable, even unsafe. That’s valid. We live in a world that teaches us to equate exposure with danger, and self-protection with control. But when the intention is reconnection, not display—reverence, not rebellion—the act of uncovering becomes an act of self-trust.

Here are gentle, accessible ways to begin uncovering without feeling exposed:

🛁 1. Bathe Without Self-Judgment

Use bathing as a sacred reset. Let water meet your skin not as a task but as a welcoming ritual.
Stand under the stream and observe your body without commentary—no criticism, no correction, just presence.
Let the water wash not just your skin, but the inner tension you’ve been carrying—about appearance, worth, and being “seen right.”

If you’re moved to, try dim lighting, soft music, or even bathing by candlelight. Your own gaze is the one that matters here—and it can become softer, kinder, and more accepting over time.

💤 2. Sleep Without Layers (of Cloth or Thought)

Sleeping unclothed or with minimal covering—if done in a safe and comfortable space—can be a deeply grounding experience.
It’s not about sensuality—it’s about permission to be.
No shape to hold. No message to send. No outfit to validate who you are.

Even if physical undressing doesn’t feel right yet, consider releasing mental layers before bed:

Let go of who you were today
Let go of who you’re expected to be tomorrow
Let your body rest without commentary

You are whole, even when you’re not doing anything at all.

☀️ 3. Sunbathe, Lounge, or Journal in Solitude

Let yourself exist unstructured for a while. Sit by a window. Stretch out on the floor. Lay in the grass.
Journal while your back is warm from sunlight. Let the experience be slow and permission-filled.

You’re not here to optimize anything. Not to plan. Not to hustle.
Just to remember: Your body belongs to nature before it belongs to any narrative.

🕯 4. Meditate Under the Sky or by Candlelight

The sky is the most forgiving presence. It doesn’t judge, doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask you to be different.
Sit beneath it. Look up. Breathe.
Allow your thoughts to drift like clouds, your skin to breathe without pressure, your body to be held by space.

If you can’t access open sky, light a candle and let it flicker in a darkened room. Focus on stillness—not as a goal, but as a space where nothing is required of you.

To uncover is to reclaim comfort in your natural form, in your unfiltered presence. It is not a performance. It is not a demand.
It is a quiet remembering that you do not need to cover yourself to be complete.
The earth does not cover the mountains. The rivers do not apologize for their curves. The wind does not seek permission to touch the trees. And you, too, are part of that same sacred, unapologetic rhythm.

Let yourself meet yourself again—gently, honestly, and uncovered, in the way that only you can define.

VI. Body as Nature: Learning from Innocence

Before we were told to worry about posture, weight, hair, or complexion—before mirrors were loaded with meaning and clothes with messaging—we knew how to just be in our bodies. We were born without shame, without comparison, and without the need to fix ourselves. Our bodies weren’t problems to solve. They were instruments of sensation, vessels for movement, rest, touch, and joy.

And this truth is still alive—in nature, and in all beings who live close to it.

🐾 Look to the Animals

Watch a cat stretch upon waking. It doesn’t look in the mirror first. It doesn’t check angles. It simply extends its limbs in complete trust, because the body wants to move. A dog rolls in the grass without caring who’s watching. A bird fluffs its feathers not to impress, but to regulate itself and feel good.

Animals don’t carry shame in their bodies. They listen, respond, and rest. Their form is never a performance. It’s simply life expressing itself.

👶 Observe the Innocence of Children

Babies grab their feet, poke their bellies, and giggle at their own fingers—not from vanity, but from delightful discovery.
Young children run, climb, and roll with a sense of ownership and ease in their bodies. They don’t think of how they look doing it. They simply live inside their body, rather than judging it from the outside.

Somewhere along the way, most of us were taught to shift from inhabiting our body to watching it, editing it, compensating for it. But deep within, that early comfort still lives—waiting to be reawakened.

🌳 Let the Plants Remind You

Look at a tree leaning toward the sun. It grows asymmetrically if it must. It blooms imperfectly, loses leaves without apology. It does not strive to be “presentable.” It is what it is—fully, unselfconsciously alive.
Even a weed growing through a crack in the pavement doesn’t apologize for its placement. It simply follows the call of light.

🌿 Relearning Self-Comfort

To come home to the body is not to return to a younger version of yourself.
It’s to relearn the language of innocence—where comfort comes not from how you look, but from how fully you can feel.

Try this:

Stretch like a cat upon waking, without checking how it looks
Place your palm over your belly and just breathe
Walk barefoot, letting your body choose its rhythm
Sit in the sunlight and let yourself be warmed—no explanation, no agenda

Your body is not a burden to manage, nor a project to complete. It’s a living system, full of nature’s wisdom—your own personal Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Ether. It adjusts, adapts, regenerates, feels, and speaks to you constantly.

You don’t need to earn comfort in your body.
You simply need to remember that comfort was your first language.

And like the cat, the baby, the tree—it’s still there, quietly inviting you to stretch, sway, breathe, and just be.

VII. Healing Body Image and Autonomy with Gentleness

In a world that constantly scrutinizes, categorizes, and commodifies bodies, feeling at ease in your own skin is not always simple. For many, the journey toward body autonomy and self-image is entangled with complex layers of trauma, dysphoria, chronic illness, cultural pressures, or the quiet exhaustion of trying to meet ever-shifting standards.

So it’s important to begin here—with compassion.
Not every body feels safe to inhabit, and not every person has been given the right or space to feel at home within themselves. Healing, then, must be gentle, not imposed. It must honor each person’s unique threshold, pace, and past.

Rather than aiming to suddenly love your body, what if the first goal was simply to treat it like something that belongs to you again?
Not something broken or flawed. Not something to overcome. But something to slowly return to, like a familiar room with the lights turned low—quiet, safe, and yours.

Here are small, sensory-rooted practices designed not to fix, but to reconnect—gently, gradually, and with full respect for your boundaries:

🫧 Apply Oil with Care

After a bath or before sleep, warm a bit of natural oil between your palms—coconut, sesame, almond, whatever feels comforting. Slowly apply it to your arms, legs, belly, or chest in circular motions.
Let it be a quiet ritual of acknowledgment: this is my body, still here, still trying.
You don’t need to like how it looks. Just offer it the care you would give a plant recovering from harsh weather.

🕯️ Gently Stretch in Candlelight

Light a candle. Dim the room. Let your body move slowly, organically—not as exercise, but as expression. Reach, sway, curl, unfold. There is no choreography. There is no audience.
Let the flame remind you that you are alive, and that your body has its own tempo. Let your breath lead. Let gravity guide you back to yourself.

🌬 Breathe Deeply with One Hand on Your Heart

Sit or lie down somewhere quiet. Place one hand gently over your heart. Close your eyes. Breathe in slowly, then exhale even more slowly. Feel the rise and fall—not just of your chest, but of your right to exist without justification.
With each breath, affirm:
I am here.
I am enough.
I am safe in this moment.

Even if only for a few seconds, let that be your truth.

🌌 Whisper Kind Truths to Yourself While Looking at the Sky

Step outside. Or sit near a window. Look up at the sky—day or night. Feel the vastness of it. Let it remind you that you are part of something too big to measure by mirrors or metrics.
In that space, softly say something true and kind to yourself:

You’ve made it through more than anyone knows.
You are not too much or too little. You are becoming.
You don’t need to look like anything. You just need to feel like yourself.

These moments may seem small, but they are acts of reclamation.
They say to the body: You’re not an object. You’re a home.
They say to the spirit: You are allowed to return here, without judgment, without rush.

Healing body image doesn’t require performance. It requires presence.
And autonomy doesn’t always look loud—it can be found in quiet choices, like breathing deeper, touching gently, or simply not apologizing for taking up space.

Let the journey back to yourself be soft. Let it be yours. Let it be enough.

VIII. Becoming Ether: From Identity to Essence

There is a stillness so vast, so quiet, that it doesn’t ask anything of you—not your résumé, not your smile, not your effort to be understood. It simply holds you. This is ether—the element of spaciousness, silence, and essence. It’s not something you chase; it’s something you remember.

Ether is the element beyond the others. It is the space in which all things move, the canvas that holds light and shadow alike. In spiritual traditions across the world, ether is described as the source field—a field of being rather than doing, of isness rather than identity.

When we tune into this etheric quality, we realize:
We are not the clothes we wear.
Not the names we’ve been given.
Not even the thoughts we think.

We are the witnessing presence underneath it all.
When we embrace this, even briefly, we experience a deep, surprising relief. We don’t have to “be” anything. We already are.

To approach this spacious awareness in everyday life, try reflecting on the following:

🧭 Where do I feel most covered or contracted?

Are there specific roles (professional, familial, social) where I feel like I’m constantly “holding in” who I am?
Is there a place in my body—jaw, belly, shoulders—where I carry tightness when I enter those roles?
What belief am I clinging to in those moments (e.g., I must be strong, I must impress, I must be perfect)?

This question helps you identify what you’re wearing emotionally—so you can begin to loosen it.

🌌 What moments make me feel “part of everything”?

Is it when I’m lying under the stars?
Swimming in open water?
Dancing alone?
Reading poetry? Praying? Gardening?

These are not escapes—they are portals to essence. Your body remembers what connection feels like. Seek those conditions more often. They are your medicine.

🌿 Can I be more in my body without performing for anyone—even myself?

What happens when I let go of the mirror, the metric, the mental checklist?
Can I move, rest, or create without curating the moment for internal or external applause?
Can I let go of being “good at relaxing” and just…relax?

This question invites you back to the raw and rhythmic honesty of being alive, unedited.

To become ether is not to disappear, but to expand.
To live less from identity and more from essence is to recognize:
I am not the shape I take.
I am the space in which all shapes come and go.
I am not the mask. I am the presence beneath it.

When you touch this truth—if only for a second—you may not have words for it.
You may only feel the breath deepen, the muscles soften, and the subtle, sacred sense that:
You are part of everything. And everything is part of you.

IX. Whispers of Ether: Micro-Practices for Remembering

Sometimes, we forget—not because we’re careless, but because the world is loud. It fills our senses with noise, urgency, expectations, and roles to uphold. In that noise, we drift from ourselves. We reach for fixes, improvements, or distractions. But the truth is: we don’t need more. We need stillness. We need space. We need to remember.

These practices are not for escaping life. They are for returning to what’s real beneath it all. Each one is brief, simple, and quiet—like ether itself. Small, consistent reminders that you are already held, already whole.

🌌 1. One-Minute Sky Gaze

Wherever you are, pause. Look up.
Find a patch of sky—blue, gray, or starry, it doesn’t matter. Let your gaze soften. Don’t analyze. Don’t reach. Just receive.
Let your thoughts expand into the openness above you. Let your chest rise with the breath of something bigger than yourself.
No one’s asking anything of you. The sky is just there. And so are you.

The sky does not care what you wear, what you’ve done, or what you’ve failed to do. It simply reflects your existence back to you—vast, open, and unjudged.

🌬 2. Sit by an Open Window and Feel the Breeze

Choose a quiet moment. Open a window. Sit near it with no intention other than to feel.
Notice how the breeze touches your skin. How your breath syncs with the air’s rhythm. Let it move across your face, through your hair, over your hands.
This is not about thinking. It’s about sensing. The wind asks nothing of you. It only reminds you that you are porous, part of the world, and free to move.

Even if life feels tight, there’s always one place in you that can expand. Let the wind find it.

🌑 3. Lie in the Dark and Focus on the Space Around Your Body

Turn off the lights. Lie down flat on your back. Let your body be fully supported.
Close your eyes and bring your attention to the space just outside your body—the area around your hands, your legs, your chest.
Don’t try to picture anything. Just feel into the emptiness that surrounds you. Let yourself be held by it.

In this stillness, you are not a name, a task, a burden, or a body.
You are a presence. Soft. Aware. Resting in the arms of space itself.

🫁 4. Breathe with the Mantra: “I belong to no one, and everything belongs to me.”

Inhale gently through your nose.
As you exhale, mentally whisper:
“I belong to no one…”
Inhale again.
Exhale slowly:
“…and everything belongs to me.”

Let this mantra sink beyond language. Let it echo into the deepest parts of your being—where no expectation, no title, no shame can follow.
You are not possessed. You are not owned. You are not defined.
And yet—you are deeply, endlessly connected to all that is.

This is not detachment from life—it is intimacy with the universe. Not isolation, but integration.

Each of these practices is a soft reminder:
You don’t have to earn belonging.
You don’t have to be “enough” in order to feel peace.
You are already within the ether—and it is already within you.

All it takes is a moment of stillness and sincerity to remember.

X. Conclusion: The Sky Has No Judgment

To be sky-clad is not to be exposed. It is to be embraced—not by society, not by any person’s approval, but by existence itself.

The sky does not judge your shape. The wind does not weigh your worth. The water does not ask you to be healed before it holds you. These elements, ancient and eternal, simply receive you. And in receiving them, you return to what has always been true:

You are not separate from nature—you are nature.
You are not broken—you are becoming.
You are already one with the wind, the water, and the vastness of this moment.

When we remember this—not in theory, but through quiet, personal experience—healing stops feeling like a project. It begins to feel like a natural unfolding.
You breathe deeper. You soften without collapse.
You stop trying to be more, and finally feel that being here is enough.

Let these words from the title now land not as metaphor, but as a lived truth:

“I’m in the wind, I’m in the water.”

You are. You always were.
Let that awareness be your reset.
Your return.
Your real self.

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📚 Resources for Further Research:

Explore these perspectives to deepen your connection with the ideas in this piece:

Articles & Blogs:

“The Five Great Elements in Ayurveda” – www.ayurveda.com
“The Ether Element and Its Role in Spiritual Practice” – www.spiritofchange.org
“Digambara Tradition in Jainism: A Study of Renunciation” – www.jainworld.com

Podcasts & Audio Talks:

On Being with Krista Tippett – www.onbeing.org
Sounds True: Insights at the Edge – www.soundstrue.com
“Elemental Healing Practices” – Search in Insight Timer app

Books:

The Body Is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer

Documentaries & Videos:

InnSæi: The Power of Intuition – Netflix
My Octopus Teacher – Netflix
“Listening to Nature for Well-Being” – YouTube: Nature & Therapy channels

Practices & Movements:

Earthing/Grounding Resources – www.earthinginstitute.net
Somatic Movement & Embodiment – www.somaticmovementcenter.com
Nature-based Rituals & Ceremonies – www.schooloflostborders.org