I do not do yoga.

As a massage therapist, I know it is kind of part of the gig.  But I can’t.

It freaks me out.  Holding poses for an extended period makes me panic.  Whether I am in a big anonymous class or in a tiny studio with just three other students and the most gentle instructor imaginable, it is always the same.  Open heart.  Teary eyes.  And a small voice crying out in the silence, “Are we done yet?  Are we done yet?”  I ignore her and…panic.  More tears.

People tell me this is good.  That it means I should do more yoga.  That I am working something out.  I ignore them and make a mental note never to discuss this topic.

Until now.  In a yoga studio.  Artist Date 64.

My friend, and clairvoyant genius, Debbie Taitel, is conducting a post-Valentine’s exploration of the 4^th Chakra, the energy center of the heart.

I think I am safe because it is a meditation workshop and not yoga.  And I meditate.  I have for 12 years.

But I am wrong.  The panic is there almost immediately.  Stifling.

Debbie first mentioned the workshop to me a couple of weeks ago, during one of our clairvoyant sessions.  As I watched my heart tentatively open to hope and the possibility of love for the first time in what seemed like a very long time – for an almost bachelor, a man from my childhood, living nearly 700 miles away. (Artist Date 62)

Last week I told him I “couldn’t do it.”  (Artist Date 63) Whatever “it” was.  Seemingly falling head over heels over head for one another.  He asked how realistic it was.  I didn’t care.  I wanted to find out about us.  He said he did too.  But when I sensed his wavering, come-here-go-away, and when the excitement in my stomach turned into a knot, I said “no.”  And we somewhat sadly settled on friendship.  At least for now.

I thought that with this grand gesture of self-love and adult decision-making, my feelings would go away.  I was mistaken.

He has been dancing in my head for a good portion of the day and I am surprised.

So it is a relief when Debbie asks us to invite anyone “grounding” through us to please leave for the duration of the workshop.  I ask, but he remains.  Or I keep him near.  I am not certain.  It is the pink elephant in the room I have been told to pay no attention to.

I am embarrassed.  Ashamed.  I assume the shift is easy for him.  But I do not know this.

I am consumed by the thought that I do not want to write about this.  Especially as he regularly reads my blog.  I feel vulnerable and uncomfortable.  I want to run.  Just like in yoga.

Debbie asks us to ground ourselves and I see a climber’s rope shoot out from my 1st Chakra into the earth, its metal claws digging into clay and dirt.  Debbie saw me do this once before – during one of our sessions.  She found it clever.  A good way to shake off the too many grounding through me.

But today it feels unstable.  I want an oak tree growing out of my ass, downward into the earth.   But this is what I have.

She asks us to create roses in our mind.  To fill them with past hurts.  Unrequited loves.  Loves we either did not or could not return.  And to destroy them.

I see the International Rose Test Garden in Portland.  My ex and I visited here one winter when he was interviewing for jobs.  The bushes are clipped.  Dead.

My eyes get teary and my nose flares.  I feel like I am on the verge of big, heaving sobs.  I see my ex husband.  My mother.  My father.  The first boy I took my clothes off with.

I see my first real boyfriend.  And J – perhaps the love of my life, me with a dick.  Mr. 700 Miles.

I feel Debbie lay a box of tissues on my thigh.  I am afraid to move.  That I will come totally unglued if I do and land on the floor, a throbbing puddle.  I feel white energy leave through my heart and it is over.

I destroy the rose, stripping it naked, petal by petal, while those around me engage in more violent scenarios – skeet shooting or blowing them up.

In the final meditation, safely shrouded in golden light, I loop my own energy over and over through my 4^th Chakra, my heart.  I feel nauseated.  A wave slams into my gut and through me.  If I were standing it would knock me over.

Debbie smiles.  This is the energy I put into the universe, she explains.  The kind that makes people “run for the hills.”  I nod, as do most of those around me.  It is the love energy, meant for me, mistakenly turned out and overwhelming others.

I think about the old idea I still carry around sometimes, that I am “too much.”   It is quickly displaced by the realization that I no longer feel like running.  Not from here.  This place or this pose.

Not from this love.  Not from myself.

Not too much.