What is a Chakra?
A chakra is a subtle body energy center. In the physical body, they are bundles of nerve ganglia that connect to certain areas in your body. They are said to rule our behaviors and emotions. The word chakra means “wheel” or “disc”. There are many chakras in the body but there are seven main chakras. Six sit in front of the spine starting at the base up to the mid brain with the seventh above the crown of the head.
Chakras can get blocked due to childhood traumas, the belief systems you grew up in, as well as physical and emotional injuries. When a chakra is blocked, energy cannot flow properly in the body. When your energy can flow freely through the chakras, they can be used as a road map to reconnect with yourself and to the piece of the divine inside you.
As you move up from Chakra 2, Svadhisthana, where you tapped into your wants and desires, you move to Chakra 3, Manipura. In this energy center, you can activate your will and take action to achieve your wants and desires.
Manipura Chakra
The Manipura Chakra is the power chakra. It represents confidence, purpose, choice, your personal power, and will. It is translated to ‘lustrous gem’ because it shines brightly like the sun. It is located at your solar plexus and radiates out 7 cm below and above your navel. In the physical body, the bundle of nerves, ganglia, are located at the solar plexus and control bodily functions and the digestive system.
Manipura is ruled by the sun. This solar energy is masculine, yang, and active.
The symbol for the third chakra is a ten petaled lotus within a downward pointing triangle. The blue petals represent the center of a hot flame which has the power to both destroy and construct. Its yellow color is for wisdom and intellect. It is said that if you meditate on this lotus, you will receive the power to create and destroy the world.
Follow Your Gut
The solar plexus is often called the “brain of the body”. You know the saying, “follow your gut”? This chakra is where you listen to your intuition and use your knowledge to help combine your thoughts and will in alignment. From this aligned place, you can transform and take action.
This chakra regulates and distributes metabolic energy in your body. The body burns food to create fuel. The digestive system is a benchmark for Manipura.
Fire Element
The element for the third chakra is fire. In Hindu theory, digestion is accomplished by heat. It says that both food and ideas are burned to make vital energy. Fire can destroy but also transform and make space for something new. The purpose of this chakra is to use your inner power, or tapas, for transformation. Tapas is your inner fire, your self-discipline, will and action. Your tapas is unique for you. This transformation can be personal or in the outside world. The power in Manipura sends your energy and helps it rise to the higher chakras above it.
Use Your Inner Fire
In Manipura chakra, you can use your energy as a source of transformation and change. Tapping into this energy source can help you remove old stories and limiting beliefs that hold you back. You can also help create new behaviors. You have the power to align your desires that you connected with from Chakra 2, Svadhisthana, and fuel them with your will in Chakra 3.
When you own your power, it isn’t about dominating and controlling. It is the power you gain from acknowledging and being with your feelings. Then, from this place of self-discipline decide how to exercise your will.
When a challenging season comes, you can use your power as a spark for change and growth. Seeing this challenge as an opportunity is harnessing your personal power. This will give you an opportunity to heal old wounds by first acknowledging them and feeling into them and then allowing the energy to move through and out.
Victim Mindset
If you are not balanced or have low self-esteem, you see power as something outside of yourself. You start blaming others and don’t take responsibility for your own choices. You may be looking to others to praise you or tell you what to do. When you wait for others for approval or to decide for you, you are allowing them to create your life’s story. Stop blaming and take back your power to be the author of your own story!
Let Go of the Outcome
Combining your goals and desires with your inner fire is empowering but it is important to not attach to the outcome. If you attach your worth and value to your success or failure, you will develop the belief that you are your achievements and failures. You will consistently be striving and doing which will eventually lead to burn out.
“I Choose To”
Words are powerful. How you speak out loud or to yourself has a certain energy that goes with it. This energy can be empowering or disempowering. When you say, “I have to” go to work, or “I have to” exercise, there is a very different energy attached to that than if you said, “I choose to”. Think or say instead, “I choose to” exercise so I can be healthy or “I choose to” go to work so I can make money to pay for my next vacation. When you actively choose, you align your will.
Your Ego is Necessary
Sometimes the ego has a bad connotation, but it’s necessary. You must have the balance of the light and the dark inside you. In Chakra 3, your ego helps you to create boundaries. The boundaries you set in your life help you create your own identity and help you from becoming easily manipulated. Again, balance is important. If you become stuck in the ego, you can get stuck in fear, guilt, shame, and control. When you think you know best, you aren’t open to learning new things and hearing new ideas.
Shame is the villian of Manipura. When you get stuck in the ego, you stop the fluid movement of energy from the lower chakras moving up and the upper chakras moving down. Your energy can’t move out to be released.
Deficiency in Manipura Chakra
Deficiency in the power chakra looks like low self-esteem, low self-confidence, unhappiness, and poor self-discipline. You often feel like a victim and place blame on others for your problems and ill circumstances. You can be passive and easily manipulated due to your lack of will and when you don’t create boundaries in your life and with relationships. You don’t own your inner fire or will. Without a strong Manipura chakra, you are afraid to change and transform so you cling to routine which gives you a sense of security. In your physical body, you may run cold.
Excess in Manipura Chakra
Excess in Chakra 3 is the constant need to be in control and to be right. Unfortunately, too much will can lead to being too aggressive, pushy, and stubborn. When you are excessive in Manipura, you are always doing and it’s hard to just relax and be in stillness. As a result of always doing, many people with a strong third chakra burn out.
Balance in Manipura Chakra
Anodea Judith says balance in this chakra is “When effort becomes effortless”. Balance is when you have control over your own will and can direct it intentionally to create your life’s purpose. You can create change and transformation with cooperation, intelligence, and decisiveness. You use your inner power not through being demanding or dominating to create change. Judith describes it as the “power to” do change instead of the “power over”.
On the Mat
To explore Manipura on your mat, use sequences with twists and core work. Play with the polarities of ease and structure and holding on and letting go to stimulate energy in your body. If you have excess energy in this chakra, do a fast flow or a physical release to get the excess energy out of your body. If you are deficient, use breathwork or grounding down through the legs to get the energy charging up and moving through the body.
Two great pranayama techniques for this energy center are Breath of Fire and Surya Bhedhana. Breath of Fire activates your solar plexus with the quick snap of the stomach back to the spine with each exhale. Surya Bhedhana uses your right nostril to inhale and exhale while blocking off the left nostril. The right nostril is masculine/sun energy(LINK) and stimulates the logical and analytical mind. This pranayama will increase heat and is good to do when you need a pick me up during the day.
I hope you enjoyed this exploration of the third Chakra, Manipura. I encourage you to explore how this energy feels in your practice.
Much love & health,
Carrie
Resources:
Judith, A. (1996). Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self.
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. (2020). Chakra Yoga. Seventh Printing.
Judith, A. (2022). Wheels of Life. Llewellyn Worldwide.