Apologies in advance: tedious self-exposition on the topic of being chakrally blocked forthcoming

For the past couple of months, every time I get a little bit tired, I start feeling a little tickle in my throat. And then I cough this weak, sad little hack and I start to wonder if I'm catching cold. But then I sleep and I'm usually feeling cough-free the next morning. However, I went to bed with this cough after an emotional Friday night and have awoken with it wriggling in my gullet every day since. I don't feel sick. I just have a hairball. An irksome hairball.

I am a firm, firm, FIRM believer in the (more Eastern than Western, I guess) philosophy that there is an energetic emotional component to every physical malady. I've also studied a little bit about the 7 chakras. It's taken me a good many years to own up to the emotional cause behind my recurrent UTIs. I haven't wanted to admit it. But the 2nd, the sacral, chakra doesn't lie. If I am ambivalent about a lover, he is sure to plant a porcupine in my privates. If I am feeling some sexual guilt, a round of Cipro is sure to follow. And if I distrust his affections? You can find me in the cranberry juice aisle very shortly thereafter. At this point, however, my urinary tract has gotten so sensitive that I feel the pricklies creeping in when I'm merely dehydrated. In fact, I feel uncomfortable there even before I get thirsty. So sexually pervaded is my thinking, I guess, that my 2nd chakra is working overtime. My much-espoused libertinism is in direct conflict with the messages I'm receiving from my body and I know that means I've still got some work to do with regard to my not-quite-thrifty-enough sexual expenditures. But one thing at a time.

Today, I have cough. I know good and well that if I'm feeling like there's something stuck in my throat literally, there's probably something stuck in my throat metaphorically. The throat is home to the 5th chakra. It's dominion is all that is communication-related-- on both the giving and the receiving ends.

Sometimes a cough can mean that you aren't listening. It can also mean that you are lying, as lying impedes real connective communication. It can mean that you are lying to an entity outside of yourself. Or it can mean that you are in some sort of denial. I've been wracking my brain all day, trying to figure out if I'm being dishonest with someone-- or myself-- somehow. I can't, at the moment, think of outstanding untruths. So I went a'googling to find something that might support my theory that this weird cough was due to a blockage in my 5th chakra. Lo and behold, I found this essay by intuitive healer, Julie Kokesch that says this: "Some of the manifestations of a 5th chakra blockage would be poor communication, inability to express oneself and difficulty hearing. This can also look like a lack of boundary setting and not being able to ask for what you want. [bolding mine]" Aha!

Someone recently asked me if I felt undeserving when I confessed that I have a substantial anxiety surrounding asking people for things. I've thought about that a little and decided that, no, in fact, the opposite is more likely to be true. I'm not entitled, necessarily, but I do feel deserving of, perhaps, more happiness than I'm currently feeling. I mean, I'm a responsible person, a smart person and an empathetic person. I have an above-average ass and, when properly motivated, I can perform at well above average levels in bed. All of those things together make me pretty fucking kick-ass. Hell, yes, I'm deserving. And yet I am keenly, acutely aware that no one is so beholden to me as to actually feel any obligation to fulfill my wishes were they to be expressed.

Here's my daddy issue (every girl's got at least one, right?): growing up, I always felt like the only way I ever won my dad's approval was by not needing him. The less money, time and attention I needed, the more I felt he loved me. The fact that I didn't chirp and sing or bop around the house like my brother did made me the favorable point of comparison in his eyes. I could entertain myself-- and do so quietly. Very early on, my self-sufficiency was praised and so I developed it and honed it to a spitshine. But kids are, by definition, needy. And sometimes I DID need money, time and attention. When I did, my god, I felt like I was imposing on him.

In retrospect, it seems VERY likely that I perceived the tension between my dad and I with my limited and skewed kid-goggles. All things considered, both of my parents are pretty devoted. But it was tough, even anyway. And even now, I HATE having to ask to borrow his car when I'm home, just knowing he'll throw me this look like it's the biggest inconvenience EVER. (To be fair, though, I should say that my dad and I get along famously now that I don't ask him for money anymore. I can't even begin to tell you, fair readers, how cute it is when he calls me out of the blue just because he urgently needs to tell me stories about his dog. I never quite expected him to miss me the way he does.)

But anyway, as an adult, I pride myself on being low-maintenance. From the outside, I might not appear so, as I generally try to throw up the well-groomed glamour of someone slightly spoiled. In other words, I pay a lot of money for haircuts and lipgloss and strappy sandals. But it's MY money. Also, I don't need to hang out with other humans for every second of my day. Beyond my natural loner-ish tendencies, I'm pretty good at entertaining myself. I don't need constant reassurances that I'm good enough or worthy or whatever, either (constant reassurances that I'm pretty enough are something else entirely, though). And with the exception of frequent requests to have my libido tended, past partners have often expressed surprise at how little I've asked of them.

Self-reliance is all fine and dandy, but sometimes even the most independent among us get lonely. And loneliness, I've discovered, is the only real problem I've got for which I need to ask for someone else's help in order to remedy it. And as I said, no matter how needful or deserving I think I am, I know good and well that asking sweetly won't necessarily precipitate someone helping me out with said problem-- not unless that someone else is substantially motivated by their own volition. In fact, experience has shown me that, sure, you probably won't get what you want without asking... but you probably won't get it even if you do. So, Marjorie, what gives with all the defeatism? I'm not sure, but it doesn't feel like pessimism so much as it feels like simple deductive reasoning.

But I have this cough. And the cough is telling me that I need to ask for what I want. But I can't ask people. Because I am prideful. Or I am a chickenshit. Or I am not so convinced of my inherent kick-assedness as I purport to be. Or because it doesn't even matter why I can't ask. So, I'm gonna ask the universe instead.

That's right. I'm sending out the Bunny Signal again. Universe, I'm stewing in my own juices here, and I'm starting to choke on them. I gotta have a sounding board and some freakin' company. It has been four years since I was last in love and I have done all the healing I can on my own. It's time, I'm telling you. It's time.

You hear me, Universe? I'm asking. And I'm coughing. And now that this request has gone out, I don't want to be coughing in the morning. You hear me? Do you?