We live in these bodies, and they are with us always. Conveniently, they’re always close enough to be manipulated to improve our mood. Immediately. [THANK YOU, UNIVERSE!]
I got the idea of hacking my morning mood, first thing, from one of Pam Grout’s books, E-Cubed, which I heartily recommend.
This is the way morning dancing works for me. In fact, it just now worked while I was making coffee, and I haven’t finished my first cup of coffee yet. So I’m eager to share it.
This hack probably works best if you are a terrible dancer.
If you’re not a terrible dancer, do it anyway.
This hack probably does NOT work if you read it, and then just sit there, thinking about doing it.
Invent the courage to shake your ass while you’re making coffee and no one else is around. (If the cat looks at you weird, remind her that *she’s* the one who licks a felt mouse stuffed with catnip and then bounces off the furniture at three a.m.)
Find a song you used to dance to, or wished you could dance to, if you had only possessed a partner/a rudimentary sense of rhythm/the requisite self-confidence, back in the day. I personally recommend songs I can shake my ass to, funky stuff from the Seventies: “Play That Funky Music, White Boy,” “She’s a Brick House,” even certain stuff from the Stones is great: “Honky Tonk Women,” “Miss You.”
We’re going for maximum goofiness here. Because goofiness is therapeutic: It lifts your mood. It unbuckles that straitjacket of emo-shit-taking-yourself-too-seriously-to-allow yourself to have fun, or to take risks, or to experience joy.
You don’t need to take yourself seriously at all. Because you ARE serious. (*I* take you, and your as-yet untapped talents, and your happiness, and your mood, seriously. If you don’t believe me, message me, and I’ll tell you personally. I’m determined to be happy, and I want you to be happy, too. Because if I’m the only happy person here, I’ll have nobody to enjoy my life to the fullest with.) And I have the authority to say that you’re serious. I’m an English professor. So I ought to know.
Here’s me road-testing this mood hack this while I’m making coffee:
I have a pretty good memory for music in my head, so I leave the iPod where it is. I SING the parts I can remember of “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” while I make my coffee. Over and over.
I shake my ass while I do so.
I shake my ass with my whole body. Energetically.
I shake my ass, and I leave no particle of my body, the beloved vehicle of my soul, un-shaken.
I shake my ass to the right (easy), and then I try to shake my ass equally energetically to the left. This is much harder, it turns out, but I’m working on it.
I shake my ass rotationally, spinning around the wood-patterned vinyl of the kitchen.
I shake my ass all over every corner of the kitchen.
I fear no corner’s guardian dragon dust bunny, for I am the most fearsome dust bunny in the kitchen.
My ass is the sacred smudge bundle with which I banish the feelings of sadness. Sadness that I am not *required* to have. Sadness which would limit me from living to its fullest this life I have been given.
Therefore, I metaphorically smudge all four corners of the kitchen with the clarifying, sadness-away-shooing, smoke from my ass.
The inherent joy of this physical life, in the form of the spirit of goofiness, bubbles up in me, and it flows through me like an artesian well that will never run dry.
I cannot wait to share this discovery with you.
I pour myself a cup of coffee, grab my computer, and sit down with it on my lap. And type.
Now:
I want you to hack this hack.
I want you to outdo me.
I want you to begin this ass-shaking exercise more skeptically. And to execute it more thoroughly.
I want you to notice that, over the five minutes of your experiment with doing this exercise, you develop the courage to shake your ass, energetically and thoroughly, in front of the cat.
And I want you to add your own extra creative flourishes. I want your goofiness to go beyond mine. I want your goofiness to progress into the baroque. And then to develop into the realm of the surreal.
Give yourself extra points if:
- You are a truly terrible dancer.
- You sing the wrong lyrics. You earn extra bonus points if they’re funnier wrong. (If you’re dancing to disco, this bonus may be impossible to earn).
- You actually trip over something and almost fall.
- Extra bonus points if you do, literally, fall on your ass. Add this move to your personal repertoire. This move is now part of your morning choreography.
- You go so all-out that you spill your coffee, or your smoothie, or whatever.
- You do this exercise in the stall of a public restroom.
You will know you are finished with this rep of the exercise when you begin to giggle and you feel the urge to go begin your day. For good measure, wiggle your ass on the way to the shower. Wiggle it IN the shower.
If you’re able to do this exercise at a public bus stop, I want you to become my guru.
Think UP! 