What is a Chakra?
Chakra in English means wheel, disc or vortex. There are many chakras in the body but there are 7 main chakras. These wheels in your body help move your energy, or prana, up and down. These subtle energy centers are depicted in the front of your spine where bundles of nerves, or ganglia are located. They are based around the endocrine systems and hormones that balance your life.
These 7 main chakras guide you in your personal and spiritual growth. Anodea Judith says they are “a center of organization for receiving, assimilation, storing and expressing energy”. Your chakras connect the two polarities of your body and your consciousness. These energy centers can be used as a map to reconnect with your truest, most authentic self and the piece of the divine that is inside you.
The chakras are all interconnected and can get blocked. Childhood traumas, how you were raised, limited belief systems, as well as physical and emotional injuries can cause blockages of your energy in these centers. To deal with these conditions and stressors in your life you develop strategies to cope. When the energy isn’t expressed and released out of the body, you shut down.
Svadhisthana Chakra
Svadhisthana, or sacral chakra, is the 2nd chakra located just 3 cm above the 1st chakra, between the coccyx and the sacrum, and 2 inches below the navel. Svadhisthana means “one’s own place”. You have access to your own “place” by feeling into the sensations inside you. “Svad” means to taste sweet or to taste with enjoyment or pleasure. So, this chakra rules your emotions, sexuality, desires, pleasures, and sensations.
This chakra’s developmental stage is between 6 months to 2.5 years of age. During this time babies start to move by crawling and then walking. They begin to explore while using all their senses.
Water Element
The second chakra’s element is water. The first chakra, Muladhara, is the container to hold the water element in chakra 2. You move from Muladhara with stability and foundation into chakra 2 where you flow and let go. You begin to feel that fluidity which creates movement that stimulates your energy, or prana.
Svadhisthana’s bija mantra, or seed sound, is vam. It represents the vibration of water.
Feminine Energy
The sacral chakra is tied to more yin, or feminine energy, qualities like receptivity, emotions, and nurturance. The location of this chakra in women is where life begins, the womb, and the baby begins to grow.
Water also shares the feminine quality of receptivity. Water transforms to the shape of whatever container it is in. It is powerful and strong enough to slowly wear away and change things. Also, it follows the path of least resistance to flow freely.
Feminine energy is linked to lunar energy. The moon rules the ocean tides. It is said to have power over the dark and mysterious and can create change in the world.
Feel into Fluidity
The second chakra reminds us that it is okay to feel. That it is okay to feel whatever feelings may come up for us but to not get stuck in those feelings. Giving yourself permission to feel allows your energy to be released and tension to be relieved.
Polarities Move Energy
The second chakra is often called the sacral chakra due to its location in the body. The sacral plexus, the bundle of nerve ganglia in front of the spine, hooks into the sciatic nerve and is the center of motion for the body.
Moving from the first to second chakra, you move from singleness to duality. In yoga, you can work with polarities to direct your life’s energy, or prana. Think about in asana when you work with reaching from the crown of your head to the tailbone to create more spaciousness in your body for the energy to flow. The main task of the second chakra according to Anodea Judith is to keep your center while using polarities. This is the act of finding the structure and the sweetness or the containment and the freedom within a pose.
The polarities create movement. The upward and downward currents of our energy create the spin of the wheel, or chakras.
“Movement is an essential part of the life force-the essence of what separates life from death, the animate from the inanimate.”
Anodea Judith
As the chakra expands, it can help to move the energy up to the chakra above it or down to the chakra below it.
Move Emotions Out
According to Freud, pain causes you to contract and pleasure causes you to expand. When you are in pain, the body sends an alert and the limbic system wants to reduce the pain and increase pleasure. The limbic system is responsible for your emotional bonding and well-being.
When you are in pain and become restricted or in contraction, your emotions become stuck in your body and can cause chronic pain. To release the pain or tension, you must move the energy out of your body. The expansion you create and the movement of energy you create in your body can help trapped emotions to move up and out.
Deficiency in Svadhisthana Chakra
When a person is deficient, their energy is constricted and does not flow properly. This can lead to inflexibility and rigidity both in the body and the mind. For the second chakra in the body, it can look like stiffness in the hips, knees, and low back. There also becomes a disconnection between the mind and the body internally. Externally, the disconnection takes place between the outside world or with others and your inner self which can lead to introversion. There is also a limiting belief that develops due to a lack of desire and change. This belief there is only one way to do something. Typically, when someone is deficient in chakra 2, they have excess in chakra 6 which means they rely on their intellect more than their feelings.
Excess in Svadhisthana Chakra
Individuals who have an excess second chakra are highly emotional. They feel the most energy in drama fueled situations. Also, it can lead to looking outside yourself and to someone else to feel good. People who have this deficiency will be overindulgent and searching for excess stimulation. This can often lead to things like sexual addiction, overeating, and over drinking.
Balance in Svadhisthana Chakra
As you can see, denying your healthy pleasures and feelings can lead to relying on unhealthy pleasures like binge watching tv, overeating, overspending on things you don’t need, etc. You need to find balance and move the energy out of your body. If you are deficient, you should engage in more movement to change up and release your energy. If you are in excess, you need to work on containing your energy either by releasing emotions to relieve the pressure or by learning to tolerate an increase in sensation and excitement. A person with a balanced second chakra is a feeling person who is empathetic and compassionate.
On the Mat
To explore Svadhisthana in your yoga practice, take the time to slow down and feel into your poses. Give yourself permission to tune in and see what your body is asking for. Have some fun and play while you have this self-study time on the mat. Maybe in happy baby you rock back and forth with a smile on your face. Remember the fluidity of this water chakra and explore this as you flow from one posture to the next.
Find the polarities in your body. Lengthening from the crown of your head down to the tailbone. The more you can feel the line of energy from the two opposing points, the more energy you create to nourish you and the more energy can flow with ease in your body.
Much love & health,
Carrie
Resources:
Dale, C. (2021). Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Chakra: Your Definitive Source of Energy Center Knowledge for Health, Happiness, and Spiritual Evolution. Seventh Printing.
Judith, A. (1996). Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System as a Path to the Self.
Judith, A. (2020). Chakra Yoga. Seventh Printing.
Judith, A. (2022). Wheels of Life. Llewellyn Worldwide.