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Second Chakra/Svadisthana

We are climbing the rainbow now!  If you want to review the first chakra, go HERE!

Svadisthana chakra is the second chakra. Picture a warm orange glowing orb of light within your pelvis.  Your sacrum and lower abdomen, about two finger widths below your belly button is the abode of the second chakra.  And, it means ‘one’s own abode’.  It also has a root vibration in it, svad, which means to ‘taste sweet’.  This is our pleasure center, and so much more!

Named “sweetness”, svadisthana chakra embodies the element of water. It is the essence of flow and grace.  It is motion and locomotion.  Think about when a baby starts to sit up and then crawl! Things really get moving!  So, yes, dancing, walking, and ANY kind of movement is great for the second chakra!  Or, think of fish, dolphins, whales, and sea creatures, for they are the animals related to the second chakra.

And, just as water can change forms, so too can we.  Change is a component of the second chakra.   Whether we create the change or changes come up unexpectedly. How do you feel you handle change?  Change your clothes when you want?  Change your mind ever?  Have you ever had a “change of heart” around something?  

This is our power house of emotions.  As we start to “dance” thru life, we are going to feel a lot of sensations arise.  The right to feel ALL these emotions is the right of the second chakra.  We might feel emotions physically, energetically, mentally, and we can notice them within our self as well as others.  You hold the power to be able to become aware of how another feels, even without speaking.  Clairsentience is an aspect associated with svadisthana chakra.  Meaning, we all have the ability to empathize. 

And, this ability to feel others feelings is also where we might get blocked within the second chakra.   Have you ever done something that made you feel great, only to realize that it had a negative impact on someone else?  And then you felt the emotion of guilt?  Guilt is the shadow side of the second chakra, and I was considering this idea the other day.  What happens when we *need* to do something that we know will cause another to feel badly?  One of THE HARDEST decisions in my LIFE caused one of my dearest friends to become very angry with me for months. However, I knew I needed to make the decision for myself.  We are dear friends again, and have been for MANY years, but it was one of the MOST difficult moments in my life. As I consider scenarios like this, I consider the whole system of the chakras.  If you are in a position like this, or different, but are feeling guilty, I invite you to ground within yourself. Work with first and second chakras together. And/or work with the heart chakra and second chakra.  Heart example, forgiveness.  Can you forgive yourself?  Can you forgive another?  Perhaps in forgiving, life will open up again, flowing in the ways that invite you to move freely within your self and being able to dance with the divinely created choreography of life meant just for you!  The right to have pleasure is another right of the second chakra.

*In that last story I touched on another principle of the second chakra, needs.  Our needs and our desires are components that we must to listen to in order to support healthy second chakra energies.  Do you freely support your desires, or do you feel you aren’t deserving enough to nourish them?  Some will create an excess of energy in their second chakra by way of always diving into things that always give them pleasure, and often having poor boundaries.  These people also tend to invade others boundaries.  And others, yet, will deny all pleasures for themselves, having very rigid boundaries, and often these people have lack of desire, passions, or excitement in life. When was the last time you did something for yourself that gives you pleasure?  And, did you do it without holding guilt with you?  You assignment, should you choose to accept it, is do one thing this week that brings you pleasure AND do it without guilt!  DO you want to read for an hour or go dancing?  Do you want to eat your favorite dish at your favorite restaurant?  Do you want to say no?  Do you want to say yes?  What do you desire?  Maybe that’s what your homework becomes…sitting with your body relaxed, mind cleared, and heart open, and listen to what you really desire in your life right now.  Its ok if that desire is a big dream, its ok if that desire is to take a nap.  I’m curious as to how you are feeding your desires. OH! HAHA, how are your “feeding” your desires, that just came out while typing. Ever heard of ‘guilty pleasures’?  People often think if sweets as guilty pleasures. Real life story, our Girl Scout Cookies arrived this week. YES! I did eat some, without guilt, and yes, I had some boundaries with eating them.  I didn’t eat so much that I got sick. I ate just enough for me. How do you support balance in your second chakra so it’s energy can flow with ease?  Mindfulness can be a great tool here.  

Lets stay with the cookies for a minute (no problem on my end! lol).  The second chakra component of the dance of polarities can be applied here.  Anodea Judith writes, “We have to develop our ability to feel in order to discern the subtle nuances between polarities.  When feelings are numb, we can only discern the obvious differences, the more blatant black-and-white choices.”  Mine was seeing that there were choices beyond not having any cookies at all, and eating all the cookies at once.  I ate a few, and really enjoyed them, and put the rest away for another day.  

Now, before we go further, my intuition is telling me to write one last piece around guilt.  “There is, of course, a healthy place for guilt: as a feeling that allows us to examine our behaviors before, during, or after our actions.  When its not distorted, guilt tells us where the boundaries are and where we need to make change.”  “Guilt is a teacher when it guides us, but a demon when it binds us.” -Anodea Judith, Ph.D.  

Affirmations that I felt come up within me this week around second chakra:
“I move with ease and grace.”
“I am creative.”  
“I handle change thru supporting my needs.”
“I swim with change.”
“I open to all my emotions.”
“I feel deeply and care deeply.”
“I am a sexual being.”
“I can be my own sexual.”* 
*From Anodea Judith, author of many chakra books.

Yes, second chakra is where the sex organs reside.  It is the place of the sacral plexus.  It is home of procreation.  But, as I said in one class this week, “Whether or not you can or cannot have an actual human child grow within your womb, you are pregnant with ideas.”  You can ‘birth’ your dreams into reality.  You have the power to grow, shape, and form your vibration, your life, and your desires how you wish.  You are ‘pregnant’ with the very wisdom of life force, prana. A good friend gave me a t-shirt they had made when I was actually pregnant with child.  It said, “Pregnant with Prana.”  Thanks Amy M.!  We are ALL pregnant with prana!

Ideas for working with second chakra that I was considering:
-Dance.
-Explore your sensuality.
-Consider how was pleasure regarded in your family?  Did you vacation?  What was the work ethic in your family? Etc.
-Drink water, cause we are made up mostly of it!
-Hold a moonstone 
-Bathe in the moonlight
-Go be with a body of water, a river, the ocean, a stream, even a puddle.
-Bathe in your own shower.  Baptize yourself there.
-Do something that gives you great pleasure.
-Do hip circles, or triangle pose, or pelvic rocks.
-Chant “VAM”, pronounced ‘vum’, to bring energy into your second chakra.
-Chant the long vowel sound of “ooooo”, as in ‘hoop’, to release energy or blockages from second chakra.  And, yes, go hula hoop!

Andoea Judith writes, “To open the second chakra is to drink with delight in the sweet waters of pleasure.”

She also writes, and I love this quote that I used in class, “I believe that ultimately, emotions have a spiritual function as the language of the soul.  This language is spoken through the body. … If we run from these emotions (something that is culturally supported) we run from the very gateway to our transformation.  
  Once on our quest, emotions help unravel the story of our soul’s journey.  Feelings emerge from the unconscious, form the instinctual core of the body, and move up form the lower chakras to enter consciousness. … Just as releasing emotions free the body, the converse is also true; we can free emotions by consciously moving the body.”

Breathe and Belive.