| Current mood: |  anxious |
Several years ago, I found a book called "Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self". As often happens, the book called to me and I bought it. However, the book didn't call to me to actually read it yet so I put it on my bookshelf where it has happily resided ever since.
A few months ago, the book started calling to me again but it wasn't really saying anything specific. So I got it out and put it in the bathroom and when I was taking a bath would periodically browse through it. The more I browsed the more sure I was that it was a good thing but I wasn't quite ready to start reading it yet.
This week it was time to start reading it. I started reading the introduction section. I especially liked the section where it talked about the human biocomputer and made the connection that chakra literally translates to wheel or disk. It compared the chakras to program disks in our body that store information and programs that we use to run our life with. It was a good analogy and I don't do it justice here.
I wasn't rushing through. . . just picking up and reading the book a small section at a time. Two nights ago I got to the section on The Seven Rights. Each chakra represents a different fundamental right. I decided to not read the entire section but to gradually read about each chakra and use it as an affirmation. Although I recognize the utility of affirmations and frequently advocate their use, I have never felt comfortable using them for myself. Somehow they felt artificial to me. This time it seemed different and a good way to begin. So I read the first section.
"Chakra One: the right to be here. To find solidity in the first chakra, we must have an instinctual sense of our right to be here." It goes on to talk about the corollary to this: the right to have, especially to have what we need to survive.
When I first read it, I accepted it at a surface level: that I have a right to be here, in my home, in my room. Also that I have a right to have my needs met here. This is really important. I've really been struggling with feeling like I belong in this physical place. It's very hard for me to ask for what I need in terms of environment and space. So it's pretty big to realize that I have a right to that.
Since then I've barely slept and what sleep I have had has been very light. It wasn't until early this morning that I realized that my sleeplessness had to do with this section. I could feel the anxiety bubbling inside of me. I knew I wasn't going to get anymore sleep so I went in to take a bath. Finally after relaxing in the bath for a while, I started crying and was finally able to say, "I have a right to be alive."
I'm not sure where to take this now. I'm still feeling a lot of anxiety and I still can't talk about it. I know this is something really huge and fundamental.
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