It’s scary. This love thing. The sweet vulnerability of extension. The naked of ‘here I am’. The tentative reaching of outstretched arms. The wide open of hope.

We all get a little lost here. Wish we knew how to do it better. Wish it were cleaner and more gentle and a little easier to understand.

We welcome the head long rush of it just as we try to run away.

Teach me how to be loved.

We all say this over and over again, in different words or with the shift and sway of our bodies or in the silent spaces where words are left behind.

Teach me how to be loved.

Let me show you how to love me well. School me in the workings of your heart, in the language of your bones. Let my open palm memorize the shape of your face. Tell me the stories of your scars so I can trace them with the honor of understanding.

Do you see this fault line? It is where I was broken, over and over again, by the ones who came before you. Are you willing to take that in? My wide open eyes? My truth lives there, if you look for it. I have been loved by those who didn’t care to discover all that I am. Will you be the one to see me whole?

It gets tangled sometimes. The purity of beginnings become a hazy twist of expectations, the intermingling of past hurts and future fears. We are the product of all that has already been, and of all that we hope will one day become. We carry with us the bone memory of the loves that we have held and all that has been lost. We don’t ever come into love without the echo of our past singing it’s siren song.

Can we do this? Can we find in this love a gossamer thread of redemption to coax into a late night tangle of limbs and lazy Sunday mornings? Will you follow me into the interplay of light and shadow? Will you dance with me here, where the light and dark within me can mingle with the good and bad of you?

Teach me how to be loved. It is a relentless forgiveness that allows us to return here, again and again.    Past the tears and the leaving and the broken spaces. Back into the hope of more, the possibility of again.

We are made for this. For the sweet vulnerability of now, for the outreach past fear and into unknown. For the extension and unwrapping. Even for the fault lines and the bittersweet of no longer ours.

We are an ancient sort of resilient.  Made for the falling and the rising.  Made for rose colored glasses and honeyed lips and finding new home in another. Made for the burning down and rebuilding from ashes.  Made for the holy wonder of beginning again.

Teach me how to be loved.

Show me how to love you well. Our hearts speak fluent optimist even when we try to cloak the hopeful whispers in layers of pessimism masquerading as protection.

We are here to love. To speak our mother tongue to lovers who may stay or may go. To learn the body rhythms of forever and of just for now. We are here to open to the bliss and the risk and the possibility inherent in every beginning.

Teach me how to be loved.

Let me learn how to love you. Start now. I’m paying attention. I was made for this.

So were you.

The post Teach Me How To Be Loved appeared first on Jeanette LeBlanc.

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.

_________________________________________________________________________

* 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.

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Yes, baby, of course you are afraid. This is so much bigger than you. Your heart is pounding with the magnitude of this space you are in. There is so much risk. So much potential for it all to fall away; breath by imperceptible breath or in one fell swoop that knocks your entire life into oblivion.

Who wouldn’t be afraid?

This is one of those pivotal moments, isn’t it? One of those make or break points? So much hangs in the balance and everyone is looking to you for that all-important answer. And you are terrified. Dear god, you are fucking terrified.

I am too. We all are.

We have all got dragons to slay. Every last one of us. When we feel the heat of fiery breath we either want to do suit up and do battle or tuck our tail between our legs and run for the hills. Those are the natural responses. Ones that make sense based on a lifetime of conditioning.

That is not what is needed from you now.

Fight or flight are not the only options – they are just the only the options we know. The alternatives programmed into us by biology and history and a culture based on eternal escapism.

Not this time.

What is called for now – as you come face to face with this thing – is to sit still. Sit very, very still. Now close your eyes and take a deep breath. Hold it in and let it crystalize. Hold it in and feel it tingle right down to your toes. Hold it in and get comfortable with this space.

Now exhale. And let it all out.

Every last bit of it; just let it out. All your dreams. All your expectations. All your hopes and wishes and worries. All your intentions and plans. Your jealousy and insecurity and every single message of scarcity you have ever absorbed. Release your limiting programming and the belief that you are anything less than exactly what is needed. Release everything that is holding you back.

Release yourself.

Now go ahead, and let your tears fall. Let them fall until your shoulders shake and a tiny salt sea swirls down your face and neck. Let them fall until you want to scream. And then scream. Do it.  Scream and howl and get primal with this grief – because make no mistake, fear and grief are bosom buddies and wickedly vicious bedfellows. Lean into this. Curl your entire being around this and bring it home.

Bring it home, baby. Bring it home.

Now lift your head, square your shoulders and give your fear a name. Coax it into the light and examine it from all sides. Get familiar with it’s contours, it’s shadows, it’s heft and depth and form.  Take a step back and examine it from far away, and then get out a magnifying glass and get as close as possible. Listen to it’s voice and feel it’s heat.

You’ll want to run away. That’s okay. It’s expected. This is scary shit. But don’t go anywhere. Just stay. Right here.

This is the sweet spot. Trust me.

Now inhale again. And listen to me.

We are not going to run this time. We are not going to fight. Not because we don’t have the power to make those choices, but because we don’t need to. We do not need an escape route. We do not need a combat mission. We don’t need to repeat past patterns or old mistakes.

Why? It’s perfectly simple.

Because we are capable of expansion in every available direction.

Because we are far stronger than we have ever previously imagined. Because this time, we’re going to stay put and look this thing in the eye and be with it until the path becomes clear. We are going to welcome it and learn from it and make friends with it. Not a cautious acquaintance either.

Hell no. We are going to make love to this thing. Right now. Right here.

This is not a time to play safe and keep this particular dragon at a safe distance. We need to invite it in, give it a seat and perform the lap dance of our lives. Escapism has no place. There is no battle ground. This fear is a part of you, so get straight to loving it, baby. And just any sort of love won’t do – because this is one of those relationships where an empty roll in the hay won’t suffice.

Fear needs to know you’ll respect it in the morning.

It won’t just settle for respect and a perfunctory kiss goodbye. No, not fear. It wants you to bow down to it and worship it for the teacher it is. Give it reverence and honor it, because intimate knowledge of this thing will bring you more insight than you thought possible. You want to know the truth? Sitting with your fear and NOT acting will bring you closer to enlightenment than any fancy meditation retreat.

The not acting is the key.

When you act in response to fear it’s a moment-by-moment struggle just to keep from losing ground. You can forget about moving forward and just pray you can keep up. Acting from a place of fear makes us small; and when we play small nobody wins except the damn dragon.

The trick here is to engage in a tricky bit of transmutation. If you sit still enough – if you engage with the process, if you’re a steady enough lover –  then you have the power to alter the very properties of your fear until it morphs itself into something else entirely.

Something like Wisdom. Knowledge. Peace. Love.

Life altering metamorphosis. Swirling transcendent light. Mind blowing tantric love-fests. Groovy psychedelic highs. Everything-you’ve-ever-wanted-but-never-dreamed-possible.

And those things baby, are more than worth acting on. Once you’ve moved on to acting you can forget about the dragon, darling.

After all, he’s got nothing on you.

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