try baptising yourself

Go to the ocean, or a lake, or a river. Take off all your clothes and all your jewellery. Take off everything. And walk into the water. Find a place deep enough that you can immerse yourself totally. Submerge yourself in the water. Leave no part of yourself above the water. And hold yourself there in the water, underwater, for a few seconds.

Feel the water washing you; not only washing your body, but washing away your troubles. Allow it to clean you; to take away the things you feel shameful of, the things you feel guilty about. Allow it to take your worries, your anxieties. Allow all this to be washed away from you.

And then, when you are ready, come back to the surface. And allow it to be a rebirth. Feel yourself born again, new: so clean you feel empty, of yourself even.

This is the power of water –to cleanse us deeply; not only the surface of our skin, not only the physical body; but water can cleanse our spirit too. And through this we can return to our natural state of dignity, of purity, of wholeness.

So try baptising yourself.