Dropped in the wilderness to face a stranger naked — sounds like a nightmare to most. But that’s the reality contestants in Discovery Channel’s “Naked and Afraid” sign up for.

Chico native Maria Corrales is featured in an episode of the country’s most-watched cable show, set to air April 16.

Now living in India doing service work, Corrales attended Chico State University and worked in Chico for 10 years, where she opened a massage therapy practice. After the show was filmed in Australia, she had a shift in perspective.

“I decided to treat my life like an experiment,” she said. “That’s really what life is. I’m just trying and seeing what happens.”

Family and friends say she already had an adventurous spirit and travel bug, having spent time in South Africa and Costa Rica, where she worked with baboons on a wildlife reserve.

“I’m very comfortable living in nature without a lot of comfort,” she said.

The journey began with a client telling her about their “crazy” brother who lived in the middle of the woods without electricity. Corrales thought that sounded awesome. She’d had a longtime fantasy of camping far away from civilization with bare essentials, bare naked, she said.

Fifteen minutes later, she had a message from a friend, telling her she should go on this show called “Naked and Afraid.”

Corrales didn’t know what it was at the time. So she looked into it.

“It was meant to be,” she said. “I spent a lot of time exploring if I wanted to do it and why. Motivation is critical. Finally I decided to play with my life and to trust.”

Her friend Makaela Bogowitz helped her contact past contestants to find out what their experiences were like.

She applied and went through months of interviews and displaying her skills before officially getting the gig. Then together, they began to get Corrales ready, including endeavors like going shoeless for six months, even on hikes in Bidwell Park. She took high-intensity exercise classes and survivalist courses, preparing for the better part of a year.

“I think Maria all the time is viewing the next crazy thing,” Bogowitz said. “Everything she comes up with is insane but since it’s coming from Maria, I’m like, ‘OK, this is the next adventure.’”

One of the survivalist courses she took was in Utah where a group spent a week in the desert hunting and gathering.

“I wanted to expose myself to similar circumstances, to be familiar with my mind, to see what happens when I’m hungry,” Corrales said.

Most people were not surprised when she shared she was doing the show. Her dad, Gregory Corrales, didn’t know what it was at the time, but he was supportive. Now he’s a fan. Corrales is a retired policeman who lives in San Francisco.

“She’s always had an adventurous spirit so I wasn’t surprised,” Corrales said. “She’s tenacious, physically fit and mentally strong.”

Maria was grateful her parents were immediately supportive.

“I was so touched by my dad and stepmom’s support,” she said. “They didn’t push me one way or the other.”

Corrales said she wasn’t that uncomfortable with the idea of being naked and the video crew was very professional. Participants’ body parts are blurred out later for television.

But, being filmed in front of strangers buck naked wasn’t, like, totally weird?

“You get over it really quickly. You know it’s coming and you do it,” she said. “You’ve got work to do. You don’t have time to indulge in the awkwardness of being naked.”

The partners on the show really do meet each other for the first time when they’re dropped at the location, as is seen on screen, she said. It’s kind of like a “first date,” she said — but yes, everything is out there.

“Thrown together with someone you’ve never met, you’re trying to be on your best behavior,” Corrales said. “You both want it go well.”

She isn’t allowed to speak about anything that happened on the show before it airs but described their partnership as “cooperative.”

“We’re different people but we both wanted to do the best we could,” Corrales said. “It’s entirely unique. It’s like no other relationship with any human being I’ve had. It’s incredibly intimate — we’re dependent on each other for survival.”

Going into the show, she didn’t have one biggest fear, she said. There were endless uncertainties.

“The decision to trust trumped any fear I had,” Corrales said. “Even if I ended up being publicly humiliated on TV, I knew that experience (would be) for me in some way.”

She performed better than she thought, which she credits to her Buddhist practice, she said, and walked away from the experience feeling more confident and comfortable with life’s unknowns.

“If I only did the things I felt ready for, I would be extremely limited,” she said. “If we’re willing to get out of our own way and risk vulnerability, then we begin to really see what we’re capable of.”

You can follow along with Maria’s adventures on Instagram @persimmonbymaria and on Facebook @MariaCorrales21.

Reach reporter Risa Johnson at 896-7763.