I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham

I wish my thoughts were as poetic and rhythmic as Green Eggs and Ham, but mostly what I do not like is just that I do not like the way I am feeling these days.  I am completely unsettled, working on the stuff that has lain dormant mostly, erupting only sometimes, causing deep discomfort whenever it has.

I am reminded, minute-by-minute, of the work needing to be done in the second chakra - this energy center which I have forced into uncomfortable submission for my own purposes eons ago.

"The Sacral chakra is about feeling and sexuality. When it is open, your feelings flow freely, and are expressed without you being over-emotional. You are open to intimacy and you can be passionate and lively. If...the Sacral chakra is under-active, you're not very open to people."

All the people and things that made me shut down so completely, all that I needed protection from, are long gone.  But the deep, deep habit of shutting myself off from others lingers awkwardly and pointlessly and insidiously, assaulting me without warming, bathing me in anxiety that exists no where else in my entire life.

I am fully grown-up in so many ways, able to be effective and useful and purposeful, but when it comes to intimacy, the merest hint takes my breath away.  This isn't just about sexuality here.  This is about the places people connect.  And when I say it takes my breath away, I mean literally.  I've suffered from asthma since I was very young, my breath having been taken away by another, and never returned.

There is nothing scary hiding away other than the ghosts of my own fears, memories I don't even have, having been banished before they could fully form.  But they swirl around me from time-to-time, keeping me from seeing the people right in front of me, keeping me from listening and paying attention to anything but them, so distracting that I might as well be alone.

My crown chakra, the place of spiritual connection, is wide open and glowing.  It is the place through which I have received all my sustenance, through which G*d speaks to me and I listen.  It is a place of glory and power and whatever grace I manage, I manage through here.

But it is not nearly enough.  And trying to make it sufficient means forcing every person, every relationship in my life, into a very narrow spiritual interaction, which is only a little satisfying on both ends.  Even when it's a lot satisfying, it's not complete. 

I've worked very hard for a long time to make it complete, finally overcome by my own inability to make it so.  And I willingly gave it up, this Sisyphean attempt to make something so that never could be.  But this has never translated into some easy way into being more open, more connected, more comfortable with others.

In fact, without the clear boundaries of a spiritual connection, I'm less certain than ever before what my relationships are about.  Hence this incredible discomfort, the need for some solitude until I stop feeling so sick all the time from the intensity.

I do not know of a resolution other than to simply keep working on myself, warming up and slowing down and feeling more and judging less.  But it's hard and I do it badly.  At least for now.