Pretend I’m an ancient guru. Yes, it’s a stretch, but humor me for a minute. You’ve got a good imagination, and you probably owe me a favor or two. Come on….put aside your skepticism. I’ll even help you out.
I’m sitting high on a rugged mountain top and you just climbed the whole damn thing to see me. You are covered in sweat and your legs are all scratched from those damn @#$%^ prickly bushes that lined the trail. Short-shorts were a bad idea. You worked your ass off to get here, and it was one hell of a climb.
But I’m guru-fabulous like nothing you’ve ever seen before. I’m all wrinkled skin and wise eyes and radiating thousand year old wisdom. Plus, I’m wearing a freaking insane pair of red stilettos and a dress you’d kill to get your hands on*. I’ve got a rockin’ body for an old girl. Don’t even try to pretend you didn’t notice.
You are in awe. It’s a damn good thing—because a healthy dose of awe is the price of admission on my mountain top, baby. But still, you doubt. You think, “She’d better damn well make this worthwhile”.
I gaze at you—with all my thousand year old guru-fab wisdom—and you listen. You listen because I’m an ancient sage in drag queen stilettos, and you know I’ve gotta be speaking the truth.
I say only four words:
“Let yourself be moved.”
You want to live with a wide open heart? Let yourself be moved.
You want to break through old patterns and discover yourself anew? Let yourself be moved.
You want to fall in love? Heal a broken heart? Make right a deep injustice? Smash through paradigms? Pick yourself up and dust yourself off? Change the freaking world?
Let yourself be moved.
We live most of our lives with our guard way up. Well-built walls protect us from threats, both real and imagined. We are splintered and patched and numb to the core, but we keep our game face on, always. We nurture our skepticism and our cynicism and that tiny kernel of innate distrust until they are larger and harder and more powerful than we ever wanted them to be.
We give the bad more power than the good. Even when we don’t intend to.
This life? It can be hard. On your knees, sobbing for mercy, crazy-fucking-hard. But we all have moments of brilliance. Experiences that wake us up to the sheer beauty of the universe and chip away at our cynicism and distrust. Interactions that feed our souls, open our hearts and convince us that just possibly-maybe-perhaps life really is inherently good. And those moments, my sweet friends, only occur under certain circumstances. When we are safe, or brave, or distracted, or bad-ass-crazy-enough to lower the veils, dismantle the walls, and blast the hell through that numbness into a place of deep feeling.
{And I mean deep people. Brilliance never settles for superficial}.
Brilliance only happens when we let ourselves be moved.
But there is a catch. One little guru-fab caveat that I’ll let you in on because I totally think you’re ready:
Brilliance rarely feels entirely gentle. Yes, it can be transcendent and awe-inspiring and all kinds of fabulous. But it can also be utterly terrifying.
Brilliance exists so far outside of our everyday detachment that it can rock our world. Talk about being moved—brilliance of the life-altering variety can feel like a whirlwind around-the-world-in-80-days mind trip. It can bring up all sort of baggage we didn’t know we were lugging around and test us in ways we never anticipated.
Insecurity? Scarcity? Limiting beliefs? Debilitating jealousy?
Yes, yes and yes-yes-yes.
How about all of the above + a dose of paranoia, all wrapped up in a two-for-one order of heart pounding fear? Hells yeah. Sign me up.
And the only way through that whole mess?
Let yourself be moved some more.
Caveat Number Two: Sir Newton was on to something when he formulated that pesky little law of inertia. Dear ole’ Newty scored major points on his science quiz with this little gem:
If you ain’t been a-movin’- you ain’t so likely to be moved.
It’s going to take a little practice at first; a nudge in the right direction or a giant push toward your desire. You want change? Start seeking out change-makers and soak up their intensity. You want to get over a broken heart? Start by actively falling in love with yourself. You need to stop standing still? Polish up your dancing shoes and start with a slow shimmy.
You want to be moved?
Get off your ass and get moving.
Refuse to remain stagnant. Stop accepting the status quo. Don’t let society dictate how you feel or live or love. Not one more day of allowing your past or your family or your community to choose your life for you. Reject the idea that you must settle for ‘breathing just a little, and calling it a life’. No longer feel limited by protective walls or numbness or that tiny voice that tells you to play-it-cool-don’t-hope-too-much-feel-too-much-want-too-much-love-too-much*.
That nagging little voice? It’s gotta go.
Just let yourself be moved, dammit.
Read poetry until your body tingles. Go to an art gallery and stare at a painting until you can feel the artist’s brush strokes on your body. Gather your girlfriends and laugh until you cry. Then cry until you laugh again. March in a protest and be swept away by the power of the crowd and the madness of inequality. Give till it makes you uncomfortable. Listen to a symphony and let your heart swell to bursting with the power of the music. Lock eyes with someone who makes you feel that ZING. TUG. WHOOSH in your gut and just go with it; to hell with taking it slow.
Watch your kiddos play or fight or dream or make art and feel your own inner child break free. Jump out of a plane and contemplate your own mortality. Read your poetry for a crowd even if your whole body is shaking. Look a homeless woman in the eye and ask her how she is doing; feel her answer deep in your bones. Take a giant leap outside your comfort zone and experience every last bit of the panic that greets you. Let the abundance of life penetrate you deep, until you lose count of the infinite number of ways the universe can move you.
Sit with your fear and your insecurity and your jealousy and your paranoia and let them push you past that place that holds you back. Past the numbness. Past the complacency. Past truths fed to you by people who hold you with a limited view. Nurture your genius, your beauty, your inherently trusting nature. Feel your own courage. Fall in love. Create a safe space for someone marvelous to fall in love with you. Dance with fire. Get loud during sex. Shake your fabulous booty while you do the dishes. Make friends with your roaring goddess power.
Above all else?
Stop. Holding. Back.
Let yourself be moved until you catch a glimpse of your limitless, full of potential soul. Hold it within you like the priceless thing that it is and bring it forth as your gift to the world. Dust off your divine spirit and get down with your groovy self. Make friends with your heart, and go down on your knees to thank it for serving you well.
Fuck inhibitions. If your body wants to make love in the rain; do it. If your spirit wants to sing Beyoncé in the grocery store; let her. If your soul tells you to body paint a giant canvas in rainbow colors; go and make some supersized art. If your heart wants to fall in love every single day; give it the freedom to run free and seduce the world. Get juicy, get wild, get wanton and lusty. Get turned on by life. Really turned on.
Feel everything. Deeply.
Let yourself be moved.
Let yourself be moved until you are opened wide. Wider. Even wider than you ever thought possible. So wide that you’re swimming in brilliance. So wide it does not feel safe. Because safety was never the goal (we were just tricked into believing that it was).
Let yourself be moved until you are ready to love more, feel deeper, change things.
Let yourself be moved until you radiate your own guru-fab energy.
Let yourself be moved until every day begins with a tingle of anticipation that starts in your baby toe and rolls through your body and out into the universe.
Let yourself be moved until you are ready to move mountains with the brilliance of your soul.
But not my mountain. It stays where it is. After all, I’m a thousand-year-old-red-stiletto-wearing-guru. And what I say, totally goes.
Let yourself be moved.
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* Dude, who the hell said gurus have to be frumpy? This is my story.
**For heaven’s sake; please, please, please love too much. At least every now and then. Honestly, I’ll settle for every second Tuesday when the date happens to fall on an odd number and your lucky panties are clean. Whatever it takes, as long as you agree to love too much once in a while. It’s good for you. Trust me.