Hormonal warfare

Tags

Anxiety, Desire, Eye contact, Happiness, Hormones, Intimacy, Positive, Red wine, Senses, Sensual, Sex, Spring, Tapas, Waking up

I’m like a little seed, dusty and dry but full of potential. A seed that’s been sitting in the garden shed in the dark for a very long time. Waiting. With no reason to think there was a way out from that unnatural yet safe place I’ve sheltered in, weathering the storm of recovery.

Perhaps the change of season has something to do with it?

For rather suddenly I feel exceptionally alive! It’s Spring, not yet Summer. But the weather is becoming reliably warmer and more beautiful. There’s a flavour to the air. A warm caress on the breeze. Cascading blossoms of every colour to take in with the eyes and nose.

It’s almost like I’ve never used my senses to engage with the world before. Not properly. Not like this. I can feel every hair follicle on my head. No situation is without intense sensory involvement.

Could it be… could I be… finding some happiness? Possibly really waking up after this seemingly endless numb-out?

There are difficulties still, but they take center stage less and less.

However there’s one issue that currently looms larger than any other.

Sex. Intimacy. Or the lack thereof. I posted about this topic a few months back.

Once again comes into view. The first trigger was the boy who’s recently been paying me some attention in a coy kind of way.

That situation created a lot of anxiety for me. I didn’t know how to respond at all. Especially if someone’s not being up front. I can barely hold a decent conversation with the guy, as sweet as he is. I guess that means it’s simply not right anyway. Surely if it was, it would be much easier. That doesn’t stop the anxiety running ten to the dozen though!

And I’ve just begun to realise how often I go out of my way to avoid eye contact with men I don’t know.

In that respect it was tough starting my new job, in which I have to deal with new people every day at the moment. New clients to talk to regularly. Some of them are men. It’s been a swift learning curve though, so I’m grateful for that.

And yet… gawd, there are periods each day where I’m totally and completely overwhelmed by my desire to be, erm, getting it on!!

I have the hormones of a teenager.

Except for one very minor blip, there’s been nothing on the radar at all in the last three years. So I’m apparently stuck in this way a little… because I can’t wilfully lift out of this issue with the same effort I’ve applied in almost every other area of my recovery.

I’m afraid of getting what I want, and I want it badly… but I also don’t know how to get there. And if I do get there, I’m not sure if I’ll feel safe and secure.

Amusingly, I think all that sexual energy is being sublimated into other areas of my life. I nearly lost it completely over dinner with friends on Friday night. Granted, we were eating some of the most delicious tapas I’ve had in years. I was also drinking some pretty spectacular red wine… it was very intense and sensual.

I’m just grateful for the mercies of meditation practice that help redistribute the rest of that energy!

~Svasti