Alright, here’s the deal: you have to move your hips.

I’m not normally one to give advice, especially not without being asked, especially not on the Internet, and especially not on a blog that’s normally so…

You have to move your hips. You have to move your hips. You have to move your hips.

Does your back hurt? Move your hips.

Do your shoulders hurt? Move your hips.

Are you stuck in a dark emotional cycle? Move your hips.

Is your spirit something you don’t experience? Move your hips.

Our hips are the home of our emotions, they hold up our entire physical body, and they are seat of our creative spark, what many would argue is the seed of divinity within us.

If you have experienced physical, sexual, romantic, emotional, intimate trauma and abuse, your hips will physically hold onto that pain, which will keep your nervous system experiencing it over and over and over again, and if your body is sending you signals that you’re still in danger, your thoughts will race, you will feel emotionally unsettled, and experiencing what is beautiful and sublime about life will feel impossible.

I’m not a doctor. I’m not a mental health professional. I am someone who has been through some shit.

I could not begin to move through the aftermath of my experiences until I released the visceral, physical pain symptoms from my hips, and I would not have been able to heal, at all, from any of it, if I hadn’t trusted my intuition when it whispered to me:

Move those hips, baby. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

No matter who you are, no matter your gender or its expression, no matter what stage of life you are in, you can, and you must, move your hips. Find a yoga practice, take a dance class, give yourself a massage, do anything that calls to you as a possibility for your healing, and trust that your hips are holding onto all of your pain because they are strong. Because your hips are strong, they can heal. And they will. Please, please, please, give them the chance. They will carry you.

The movements of joy are accessible to you when you open up. Release, breathe, hold, move.

I believe in your hips. I believe in you.

Move love. That’s all you have to do.