Second Chakra - Open to Change

Chakra two’s location is in the lower abdominals, genitals, or womb. It encompasses the area between the navel and genitals, and all around. One of the malfunctions of this area is a stiff lower back and/or tight hips. Because I experience tightness in these two areas, I am working at releasing tension every day. This area relates to fluidity and its element is water.

This chakra is the center of sexuality, movement, emotions, and change. I feel most myself when I am in movement. I need change in my life or I feel lost; without a variety I become stiff and stale. So I need yoga to keep me flowing, thinking, and growing. The second chakra is geared toward pleasure that assists in our survival. I’ve spent plenty of time with pleasures that have made me depressed, angry, and ultimately took me in a direction that was horrible for my health. I like the concept of pleasure as a tool for personal growth. It was when I entered a serious relationship with Danielle that my life started to finally feel natural. As I began to grow with her, I no longer felt like I had to hide from myself. I am learning to accept myself. One outcome of the relationship’s pleasure is my surrender to a higher power. Growing up, I think we are taught to repress feelings of pleasure and sexuality; in my case, anxiety tends to get the best of me because of my upbringing and my fear of rejection. I am just now really focusing on nurturing myself so that I can nurture others.

Second chakra exercises that I practice are goddess pose, pelvic tilt, and pigeon pose. I think these poses, goddess pose in particular, promote a feeling of surrender as you practice. That sense of openness and vulnerability is there in these poses. I love to focus on this entire area (chakra one and two) because it’s a place I think about all the time. To strengthen, open, and release tension in these areas is important for my overall physical survival.

always my way my way my way my way my way

No I’m not that selfish. I’m listening to The Good Life and those were the lyrics.

In one week: Moving to Minnesota via new car with Danielle and Turtle. Please wish us grace in this transition.

I dislike ipods very much, mine always seems to be corrupted. Maybe I am just missing something.

Haven’t gotten too emotional about the move…yet. Perhaps when our house, which isn’t ours for much longer, is filled with boxes and nothing on the walls, the paint that was painted left for the next homeowner, the new kitchen counters and new kitchen floor left without more than a couple months use by us, the trees in the background will stay the same but we won’t be around. It is sad.

What is important in life? Is it a house? Is it a patio? A certain shade of orange that you choose to hang as curtains? Is it a phone call that has one of the most familiar and loved voices on the other end wanting to talk to you? Is it a new car? Is it a handful of favorite songs? Is it a dream you have? Is it planning goals? Is it your favorite time of year? Is it rain or shine?

As we move on, move forward, drive away from this house that we bought no more than 7 months ago, we’re leaving 3 stories of something we may think helps to define us. Does it? I always sort of defined myself by my hometown, the house I grew up in, the look of the backyard even, from an old bedroom window. The sound of the train as it comes and goes just blocks away. Being able to pass by certain things – a high school, a previous place of employment, a house that a good friend grew up in, a college, restaurants and bars where I drank and ate with friends.

Now that we will move away from here, I often question why we came back. We did used to live here, in West Chester. It’s where Danielle and I met, fell in love, began to create memories. It’s where we grew up in many ways and figured out how to make choices and learned from mistakes. It’s where I walked the uneven sidewalks many many times under the influence, and searched for myself in the nighttime of familiar territory. Is that what brought us back? Familiar roads, memories we wanted to get back, a more carefree time when we had less responsibility, less decisions, less stuff. For me, college was often an open road where I soared down, sometimes driving at full speed, sometimes letting this person or that person take the wheel, sometimes too indecisive to know what street to turn onto next, or too drunk to decipher between where I was, where I was supposed to be, and where I wanted to be.

We moved back here to get a fresh start? How can we do that when there’s not much that is fresh here for us. It is used, stomped on, memorized even. I guess we wanted to make it ours, for real this time, because back then we were never officially “together.” There are many wonderful things about moving here, except that it’s missing much of what we’re looking for in a place to live: diversity, younger crowd (not just 21 year olds), higher lgbt population, walking distance to lots of stuff, a CITY.

So we’ll be off next week. One week from today. We’ll drive and then maybe it’ll begin to feel real. We’ll be in temporary housing and then we’ll find a place to live. We’ll continue to live our lives the best that we can, not much different than any other person. I’ll look for teaching jobs, I’d love to write as well and flourish in some way with that, even if it’s just keeping up with a journal or blog. I’d like to get away from FB more and out into the world, have more at my fingertips, more yoga choices, a different way of life, a fresh place where I can meet someone and they have NO idea who I am, and I get to decide how to be again and again in each conversation, each new encounter.

I once wrote, and I think this was it:

I am change. I am like the ocean, always changing. If you don’t like change, you will hate me. I love me.

<3

Love After Love

The time will come
When, with elation,
You will greet yourself arriving
At your own door, in your own mirror,
And each will smile at each other's welcome,
And say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

-- Derek Walcott

I am like the ocean, changing all the time

"Can you endure silence?
Are you a night fighter?

Or more a child bored
with outgrown toys
trying to win at
tip-the-cat?

If you have any patience
left, we know what to do.

If you love sleep,
we'll tear you away.
If you change into a mountain,
we'll melt you.

If you become an ocean,
we'll drain you.

THIS IS HOW A HUMAN BEING CAN CHANGE:

There's a worm addicted to eating grape leaves.
Suddenly, he wakes up,
call it grace, whatever, something wakes him,
and he's no longer a worm.

He's the entire vineyard,
and the orchard too,
the fruit, the trunks,
a growing wisdom and joy
that doesn't need
to devour."

Rumi

Funny

it’s funny that when i am feeling good, when i can sit down without pain, i end up looking for jobs in my “other” field: writing and editing. i search for FT positions in this field. it’s so rare, this feeling of No Pain. it kind of hits me out of no where – i notice there’s a little something different, something is…missing? oh wait, i am sitting at the computer and my back feels NOTHING, an awesome experience.

most of my days are spent figuring out how to get comfortable and not be in pain. i plan on what i need to do physically to feel better. once i do that (yoga, walking, exercise, rest, etc) i feel better for a little while. and sometimes i don’t even feel that much better, it’s kind of like i put a band aid on it, so the sting might be gone but there is a wound underneath that is still present. it gets pretty damn exhausting waiting to feel better. i feel i am usually in that state of waiting. i know that i need to figure out new strategies in this battle…meditation? acupuncture? yoga therapy? massage? it’s just a lack of funds, so i do what i can on my own, which works for me most of the time.

i’ll never be totally without pain (except for a few moments ago! but alas, it’s come back, just barely, but there it is). will i ever be without pain for more than a day? i wonder. do i accept the pain? it’s difficult to accept that the pain is not “me,” because it affects everything i do, and can make me in the worst mood imaginable. there are many times i’ve experienced deep depression and anxiety, to the point where i feel like i am suffocating and desperate for relief from this way of living.

so will a full-time editing/writing job make me feel more complete? probably not. sometimes i just wish i could make the salary i used to and go to happy hours and dress up for work and feel important. eh, i guess that is overrated. so for now i’ll go take a yoga class this morning and get this week started.

get a massage!

i've updated my website. please visit!

now offering thai yoga bodywork...mmm, give it a try you won't regret it. so good for you!

i organized my yoga/massage room in my house, it is now clean and organized. what a nice feeling.

ouchies

I wake up in the morning. I sit up slowly, sit on the edge of the bed. I feel stiffness in my lower back. Other areas feel sore from exercise the day before but this pales in comparison. It doesn't register. Only now, thinking away from the situation, do I feel these other little aches. It's the lower back region that immediately grabs me and forces me to stare at it.

I feel people who live with chronic pain are very misunderstood. They might be taken for being selfish, narcissistic even, instead of simply in a great deal of pain. Feeling pain every single day is a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. I've been thinking lately how chronic pain has made for a great deal of depression in my life. Feelings of helplessness, loneliness, unworthiness, and oftentimes feeling suicidal because there is no "end" in sight. Many times desperate attempts have been made to feel relief: a back crack, a neck crack, an alcoholic beverage, sleep, mindless eating, over-exercising, crying and feeling sorry for myself. Most of these actions were taken when I still worked behind a desk, sitting for very long periods of time, which ultimately led to the deepest pain I've ever experienced on a regular basis. There are days now when I feel angry because I don't make a lot of money, and I feel helpless as I remember that I actually can not go back to what I used to do for money: work at a desk 9-5.

Why does this make me feel helpless? The thought process usually goes something like this: I am frustrated because I want to make more money, there is a moment where I ask myself why I feel this way? And this (evil) part of me usually steps in to say, obviously, that this isn't the point - the point is that because of my back I can not work a 9-5 job, even if I wanted to. This makes me feel helpless...and pissed off. At what? My back, the situation, the people who don't take this issue seriously, the overeating I did yesterday because I just didn't care, the car I drive because I have to sit in it, all the people who just don't get it because they don't feel pain on a daily basis, you get the picture.

Do I sound sorry for myself? I kind of am. It's been a long, long time I've been feeling this way. It's become habit. Nowadays I realize this, and then continue to beat myself up for feeling this way - obviously not the solution. Just another mess. I try to be aware that I'm ok, in fact I'm more than ok, it takes a lot for me not to jump on the pity train and go far far away. It's as if being on that train is sort of what helps me to understand. I wish some other people were on the train with me.

I do have people in my life to talk to, but I'd like someone who really gets it, who identifies with the very real issue of chronic pain and the debilitating effects it can cause on a life.

In this moment I am irritated because my back hurts bad as I sit here and write this. I took a yoga class this morning, felt fine immediately following, and now the pain is back.

I know that people can feel quite unsettled when they hear other people complain. I don't want to complain, I want to share, to relate to someone, someone to relate to me. I think I just need to verbalize some deep-set feelings within, I'm not sure people take chronic pain seriously. Our society wants you to just get better. To shut up, and just deal with it. They believe a sickness is temporary, there's a medicine to fix it, a surgery to fix it, right? So strange, this situation to be in, so frustrating. It makes me feel...aloof, alone. Maybe I am unique.

I guess I'll leave it with a quote that runs through my mind almost every day by Ani Difranco:
"Would you prefer the easy way? No? Well ok then don't cry."