Yogis Uncovered | Meet Naomi
In this edition of Yogis Uncovered, we sat down with Naomi to chat about her adventurous life as a digital nomad, her deep-rooted love for nature, and how yoga has been a guiding force in her journey. She opened up about how she first fell in love with yoga straight out of high school, her experience with nude yoga, and the powerful connection between movement, mindfulness, and self-acceptance. Subscribe to watch her full interview!
“I think a lot of people assume that nudity is implicitly sexual, but everyone has a body and we were born naked… so we might as well embrace it while we can. You also don’t have to be beautiful to be naked. You should just love the skin that you’re in.”
Hi, I’m Naomi Wildman and I’m originally from Florida. I’ve been living as a nomad for the last five years, yet I have found myself back in Florida full-time.
What was it like growing up in Florida?
Growing up in Florida was a typical suburban life. We don’t have a ton of access to nature where I am. But as soon as I graduated high school I started exploring the rest of the country and really fell in love with nature, so that’s what I pursued in my adult life. When I first moved away from Florida I moved to Colorado because I love hiking in the mountains, and then when I started traveling internationally I lived in Costa Rica for a year. I lived in Thailand for a while, Mexico, Japan and Nepal. I did a hiking trip in New Zealand as well. Anywhere there are mountains, that’s where I want to go.
What has inspired you to pursue this nomad lifestyle?
Part of the reason why I’ve been traveling around the world is because I’m looking for where I want my home base to be. Florida is a great temporary home because that’s where my family is. But eventually I do want to find a place in the mountains that I can call my own, maybe back in Colorado. I think a piece of my heart is definitely living there.
What do you do for work?
I am a content creator and I’ve been doing that for almost four years now. Through being a content creator I’ve met a lot of really awesome people in this line of work. I met Steph and Bella who actually introduced me to True Naked Yoga.
How did you get into yoga?
I got into yoga the year I graduated high school. My dad had an old disk of a yoga tutorial that he was going to throw away. He gave it to me and I had honestly never even heard of yoga at that point but I thought I would pop it in the DVD player and try out the routine and immediately, I fell in love with it. I felt like this is exactly what I’ve been looking for my whole life because it’s a physical practice but it also helped me discover meditation, because it’s a very meditative practice as well. All I needed was that first experience for it to become a lifelong practice
What’s a fun fact about yourself that most people probably don’t know?
I speak some Spanish, I’m actually half Puerto Rican. I love sci-fi. I’m a huge Star Trek fan. Also, I lived in a van for four years. That was a fun time traveling around the United States, finding places to hike and camp. I was like, "I don’t want to leave here and the housing market is ridiculously expensive, so I’ll just live in a vehicle and live in a trailhead."
How did you become so comfortable being viewed in front of other people?
I was always a pretty free-spirited person. I was that baby at the beach that would always take her bikini off and run around naked in the water. I’ve always been that way. I had a really great experience working at a nudist hot spring resort in Colorado where I was exposed to a lot of [nude] people pretty often, but in a very therapeutic way. We’re in the sauna, we’re in the cold plunge, and everyone’s comfortable in their own skin. I feel like that was really good practice. I started doing life modeling where you’re just nude modeling for art classes and they draw you. Then I started doing nude content creation. Now I’m naked in front of the camera and it’s just a full evolution.
What are some misconceptions that people have about nudity?
I think a lot of people assume that nudity is implicitly sexual, but everyone has a body and we were born naked and we’re probably going to leave this earth the same way, so we might as well embrace it while we can. You also don’t have to be beautiful to be naked. You should just love the skin that you’re in.
What is it like doing nude yoga versus with clothes and do you have a preference?
With nude yoga, you can see your form a lot better. You can see your alignment and understand your body in a more intimate way. I do prefer doing yoga naked because if you get sweaty, you don’t have to worry about ruining your clothes. Less laundry.
What’s your favorite food?
Honestly, my favorite food is a sweet potato. I love sweet potatoes, they’re so versatile. You can boil them, mash them, and stick them in a stew. You can put them in a curry, fry them. I could eat sweet potatoes probably any day, every day, all day. I’ve been vegan for 11 years, almost as long as my yoga journey. I really feel like my diet and yoga go hand in hand.
What is your favorite self care practice?
Self care Sundays are serious business in my house. I like doing the sauna and then the cold plunge or maybe just taking a hot bath and a long Yin Yoga class to start the week.
Where can we follow you online?
You can find me on all of them, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, all of them at @naomithewildman.
*this interview has been edited for brevity and clarity