Want to keep warm and have your skin thrive this winter season? Let’s see what trusty old Ayurveda has got to say about warm foods you should consume during the harsh winters! When the word winter comes to mind, the first thing which pops up is a hot cup of your favourite brew or your mother’s famous warm delicacy. Did you now that the food we eat is closely associated with the weather? Ritucharya is an ancient Ayurvedic practice and is comprised of two words, “Ritu” which means season and “charya” which means Regimen or discipline. Ritucharya consists of lifestyle and ayurvedic diet routine to cope with the bodily and mental impacts caused by seasonal changes as recommended by Ayurveda. Ritucharya is a powerful, health giving ayurvedic tool that helps us live according to the changes in season and make internal adjustments so that our doshas are in a state of balance. People do not know or ignore the suitable types of food stuffs to be followed in particular season, this ...
The sacral chakra is the second chakra. It is associated with the emotional body, sensuality, and creativity. Its element is water and as such, its energy is characterized by flow and flexibility. The function of the sacral chakra is directed by the principle of pleasure. Let’s have a look at this energy center’s basics, including its location, color, symbol, potential signs of imbalance, and what to do heal your sacral chakra.
Sacral chakra location
The most common location for the sacral chakra is about three inches below the navel, at the center of your lower belly. In the back, it’s located at the level of the lumbar vertebrae.
Other noteworthy locations described in different systems, expand its location to the genital area, especially at the level of ovaries for women and the testicles for men.
It is associated with the lymphatic system.
Behavioral characteristics of the sacral chakra
The sacral chakra is associated with the following psychological and behavioral functions:
- Emotions, feelings
- Relationships, relating
- Expression of sexuality, sensual pleasure
- Feeling the outer and inner worlds
- Creativity
- Fantasies
The sacral chakra is associated with the realm of emotions. It’s the center of our feelings and sensations. It’s particularly active in our sexuality and the expression of our sensual and sexual desires.
Motivated by pleasure, it’s the driving force for the enjoyment of life through the senses, whether it’s auditory, through taste, touch, or sight. Opening your sacral chakra allows you to “feel” the world around and in us. As such, it’s an important chakra at the foundation of our feeling of well-being.
The second chakra is instrumental in developing flexibility in our life. Associated with the water element, it’s characterized by movement and flow in our emotions and thoughts. It supports personal expansion and the formation of identity through relating to others and to the world.
Sacral chakra imbalance
When the sacral chakra is balanced, the relationship with the world and other people is centered around nurturing, pleasure, harmonious exchange.
Imbalance in the sacral chakra can manifest as:
- Dependency, co-dependency with other people or a substance that grants you easy access to pleasure
- Being ruled by your emotions
- The opposite: Feeling numb, out of touch with yourself and how you feel
- Overindulgence in fantasies, sexual obsessions
- Or the opposite: Lack of sexual desire or satisfaction
- Feeling stuck in a particular feeling or mood
Sacral chakra meaning
The second chakra is referred to as:
- Sacral chakra
- Svadhisthana
- Adhishthan
- Shaddala
The most common Sanskrit name for the sacral chakra is “Svadhisthana”, which means “your own place”.
Sacral chakra color
The sacral chakra is most commonly represented with the color orange. However, since it’s associated with the element of water, it could also take the color of very light blue or white in more rare occasions.
The orange of the second chakra is translucent and has a transparent quality.
Sacral chakra symbol
The symbol of the sacral chakra is composed of:
- A circle with six petals
- A moon crescent
The circle represents the elements of water. Typically, the moon crescent is colored in silver and represents the connection of the energy of the moon with water. These symbols point to the close relationship between the phases of the moon and the fluctuations in the water and the emotions.
Furthermore, the symbolism of the moon relates to the feminine menstrual cycle that takes the same number of days to complete and the connection of the sacral chakra with sexual organs and reproduction.
Why Heal Your Second Chakra?
A blockage in the second chakra can cause both physical and emotional distress if not healed. Chakras are points in the body that moderate energy, allowing it to flow freely and maintain health and vitality. Unfortunately, the chakras can develop blockages that limit that energy flow. Chakra healing aims at restoring balance and freeing any blockage or kink in your energy body that prevents it from functioning optimally.
Chakras can become either over- or underactive, each leading to slightly different symptoms.
An overactive sacral chakra can cause:
- Emotional overreactions
- Excessive emotional attachment to people or objects; excessive neediness in relationships
- Codependency
- Muscle tension and abdominal cramps
An energy deficiency in the second chakra can cause:
- Fear of happiness or pleasure, self-sabotage
- Lack of creativity and authenticity
- Low libido
- Pessimism, depression
- Irregular menstrual cycle, urinary or bladder infections
- bladder infections
Common Symptoms Addressed By Sacral Chakra Healing
1. Getting lost in fantasies
A common symptom of second chakra imbalance is the tendency to get consumed in fantasies about life’s pleasures instead of enjoying them. For instance, you may lose yourself in sexual fantasies rather than connecting with an actual or potential partner or be obsessed with connecting sensually or sexually with every attractive person who crosses your path.
2. Excessive Indulging and Addictive Behavior
Getting into the habit of satisfying your desires by indulging could also indicate chakra imbalance, especially with regards to addictive behaviors, whether it’s with food, substances, television or games for instance. Knowing how to feel fulfilled and satisfied is part of sacral chakra healing.
3. Lack of fulfillment and insatiable desires
Deeply and honestly appreciating what you have and who you are is part of sacral chakra healing. Delighting yourself in the simple pleasures of life without getting overly attached to them is key in promoting a balanced second chakra.
Pay attention to feel the satisfaction not only in your mind in an intellectual way, but also deeply as a sensation in your body, so the desire and its fulfillment are anchored in a fully rounded experience. This contributes to satiation and healing balance.
4. Codependent Behavior
Healing the sacral chakra often means bringing relationships to balance and harmony. Relationships can carry strong emotional charges and tie into the second chakra easily. Unfortunately, family dynamics are often source of disturbances, especially with regards to the sacral chakra.
To balance and heal this chakra, it’s important to develop discrimination, especially with regards to energy drains from people and bad habits.
5. Negative and Destructive Emotions
Envy, jealousy, anger, rage are characteristics of an imbalanced second chakra. Of course, they are detrimental to our feeling of well-being and disempowering.
If you notice you have tendency to overreact when someone challenges you or has differing opinions by going to rage easily or intense frustration, pay attention to techniques to manage emotions with more awareness and balance.
6. Physical Health and the Sacral Chakra
From a physical health perspective, healing your second chakra can also help heal or prevent more serious problems such as infertility, ectopic pregnancies or multiple miscarriages, prostate and testicular diseases, endometriosis and ovarian cysts.
Tools And Techniques To Heal Your Second Chakra
A blockage of energy in the sacral chakra can be healed with regular practice designed to stimulate the chakra, which allows energy to flow into it and excess energy to dissipate. Chakra balancing can be helped along by a healer, but there are many things you can do on your own as well.
Meditation
Meditation is very useful for chakra cleansing and balancing. For example, a simple sacral chakra healing meditation consists in envisioning an orange lotus or orange crescent moon in the area of the second chakra in the pelvis area. Hold that image in your mind for a few minutes while breathing deeply.
Sacral Chakra Healing foods
Dietary changes can also help cleanse your second chakra. Oranges, melons, coconuts and other sweet fruits are good sacral chakra healing food. Cinnamon is also useful, as is drinking plenty of water.
Essential Oil For Chakra Healing
Sandalwood, patchouli, orange, rose and ylang-ylang essential oils can be used as aromatherapy for second chakra healing. These can be used alone, in meditation, and in conjunction with chakra crystals.
Using Chakra Healing Stones
Sacral chakra healing stones include citrine, carnelian, orange calcite, and other orange stones. Moonstone can also be used because of this chakra’s association with water and the moon.
Yoga poses to open the second chakra
Yoga for sacral chakra healing should focus on hip opening poses like Upavistha Konasana, or Open Angle Pose. Baddha Konasana, or Bound Angle Pose, is another simple but useful pose. Yoga practice for second chakra healing should be slow and relaxed rather than fast or overly challenging.
Water, a Second Chakra Element
Since the sacral chakra’s element is water, getting outside and relaxing near open water can help open your second chakra. Lakes, rivers, streams or the ocean are all useful. If possible, wade in or dangle your feet in the water to help the energy flow. Taking a bath or a shower can also contribute to balancing your chakra while providing the relaxation needed to keep your emotions flowing.
5 Key Steps For In-Depth Healing Of The Sacral Chakra
1. Sacral Chakra Healing And Overcoming The Challenge of Grasping
One of the main challenge for healing the sacral chakra is about maintaining balance. One can be easily taken by second chakra passions and sensations. But can you fully recognize and appreciate the experience in the moment?
It’s sometimes difficult to fully welcome the pleasure of life’s experiences and sensations and maintain balance. The attraction to the source or cause of experience has a strong pull and one may have tendency to grasp the source of pleasure. This form of attachment might get in the way of a “healthy” flow and turn into insatiable, obsessive or hoarding behavior. To heal that type of imbalance, it becomes important to stay conscious or aware as one engages in the experience.
2. Sacral Chakra Healing and Severing Draining Emotional Ties
Often, people play on emotions to manipulate each other. Second chakra drains can come from imbalanced family dynamics or power plays at work or example. In relationships, a lot is communicated through emotions – happiness, sadness, joy, disappointment, etc.
When emotions are not fully expressed or expressed indirectly, such as in passive aggressive behaviors, the field might become obscured and the second chakra comes out of balance.
3. Healing Shame in the Second Chakra
Some of us might also feel shame and guilt around pleasure due to strict education, contradictory values, or a traumatic experience. Repressed sexuality can lead to serious imbalances in the second chakra, whether it “shuts down” or becomes overactive.
The energy of your second chakra can be shut down or blocked as a result of sexual repression, whether this movement of contraction has been influenced by the actions of someone in your life or is self-imposed. Chakra healing is important to restore a healthy image of sexuality and pleasure.
Working on trust around sex and sensuality with your partner or sharing your concerns with a trusted friend or professional could be helpful. Going step by step, starting with small experiences of pleasure might pave the way to healing big wounds.
4. Restoring a Balanced Enjoyment of Life’s Pleasures
Healing the shame or guilt in the second chakra helps refine your appreciation of the simple of life, as well as less ordinary experiences. Instead of numbing yourself by either blocking or saturating your experience with overwhelming sensations and emotions, you may enjoy the pleasure provided in the moment in full awareness.
5. Laws of Attraction and The Sacral Chakra
The 2nd chakra magnetizes by the force of emotions, but also its energy that is half way between the survival preoccupations of the first or root chakra and the expression of will of the third or solar plexus chakra. Ideas and visions, when dressed up in human emotions and can come to life more easily. As such, the second chakra magnetizes experiences based on its state and the direction provided by the other chakras. Attraction and repulsions are strongly linked to the sacral chakra.
Healing the second chakra therefore consists in being more mindful of one’s thoughts and intentions, as well as being more aware of the types of emotions arising at specific moments.
Questions To Guide Your Chakra Healing
Self-inquiry is a useful tool to heal the sacral chakra. By understanding our emotions and reactions, we can better defuse the unconscious programming ruling our actions. This allows to choose how we react and see our emotions as useful indicators rather than being ruled by them.
Ask yourself the following questions to assess your second chakra:
- What is attractive to you? What repels you? How does it guide the way you live your life?
- How attractive do you feel?
- Are you confident about your self-image? Or do you doubt yourself often?
- Do you feel ruled by your emotions? Or are you emotionally aware and conscious?
- Are you often indulging in life’s little pleasures to the point of losing balance (turning the quest for pleasure into an insatiable obsession)? Or do you enjoy each experiences through a healthy moderation and self-discipline ?
- Can you balance passion and personal discipline?
- Do you feel expressed in your passion for life?
- Are you feeling alive most of the time? Or does life feel dull?
References & Quotes
“The skill of learning how to enter into the sensation of enjoyment is required.
To experience pleasure is one thing, but to recognize the experience as enjoyable and then enter into the felt sense of appreciation of the moment-now that is an art.” Source: David Pond. Chakras for Beginners: A Guide to Balancing Your Chakra Energies.
“Through work on the Svādhishthāna Chakra we are able to bring our basic instincts under control, transform them and ultimately transcend them.” Source: Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda. The Hidden Power in Humans – Chakras and Kundalini. International Sri Deep Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship.
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