Svadhisthana: Your Sacred Sacrum
stock image by FLY:D
I have seen a consistent pattern in my own life and in my Reiki practice of the importance of grounding, particularly at this time of year. In the winter, we go inward, we root down for security and nourishment, for deeper inner understanding, so that we can bloom in the spring, moving up and out from our deeply anchored root.
As we move toward the end of “official” winter, we can start to bring our attention to the place above our anchor, to our sacral chakra, which is located in the belly, just below the bellybutton. As spring gets closer, we start to shift upward and outward, into this center of emotion and connection. While the root connects us to our origins and to our body in a primal way, the sacrum connects us outward to other relationships. This chakra’s color is orange. It is represented by a six-petaled lotus with two concentric circles inside of it. The circles touch at the top, forming a crescent at the bottom. This crescent represents the moon, connecting this chakra to cycles, to the element of water, and to movement.
From our sacrum come our creative impulses and our expansion into the world. A balanced sacrum gives us our strong personal identity in our community and informs how we play in a positive, affirming, healthy way. An imbalanced sacrum can lead to addiction and substance abuse, poor relationships with money and sex, and an unhealthy ego that sells yourself short and results in your pretending you are something you are not or in making choices from a place of fear, particularly of fear of abandonment. We build from the bottom up because your strong and balanced root helps you to feel safe in the world so that you can feel safe in your body and show up in a healthy way through the energetic center of your sacrum.
To work with this rich sacral energy, you can sit in meditation with your focus on this area of your body, deep in your belly, just below your navel. Imagine that this chakra is a glowing ball of orange light that gets bigger and brighter with each breath. Try chanting the seed sound for Svadhisthana, which is VAM (pronounced /vahm/), with each out-breath. Sit with your attention on this ball of light and feel the warmth that it radiates through the whole of your body. Sit with what this feels like: notice if there are any changes or shifts as the energy spreads. Notice how you feel both physically and emotionally. See what comes up for you.
stock photo by Tiny Rituals
If you want to support this energy, you can use carnelian, a beautiful orangey-red stone that supports all the best qualities that your sacrum brings to your life when balanced. Warm and nurturing orange calcite and inspiring amber also resonate strongly with this chakra and can help you support the balance in this center. You can wear these stones next to your skin (as jewelry or tucked inside your clothing), carry them in a pocket, or place them in a room to have access to their support all day long. You can also hold them as you meditate to focus your energy in your sacrum.
To clear out energies that may be negatively impacting this chakra, move your body in a way that brings you joy, write out the negative feelings that may be holding you back from stepping into your passionate path, or do yoga. Triangle pose (Trikonasana) and dancer pose (Natarajasana) will support the flow of this energy center. Try diffusing or wearing sandalwood, jasmine, or ylang-ylang. Be creative to jump-start this chakra: write, dance, paint, build, or do anything that’s generative that brings you joy and allows you to express yourself creatively.
The sacrum is the center of passion of all kinds: sexual passion, most obviously, but also your passion for life. As you meditate and journal during the next month, consider the following questions as a guide to help you frame your thoughts around the sacral chakra:
What are your talents? How are you working with them?
How are you expressing yourself creatively and in an authentic way?
How are you giving birth to the life you want to be living?
How are you creating relationships that inspire you and fill you up?
How are you making choices from your place of personal power rather than your need to make everyone else happy?
What thoughts do you notice that are self-judgmental (especially of your body)?
For the next week, take some time to check in with your sacrum. Send it love and use that connection to send love to your body and to yourself. Think about the questions above and your responses—even if you don’t make any changes. Notice what you discover. Think about how shifts might change the way you feel—you don’t need to decide to change anything until and unless you’re ready, but giving yourself permission to think about what that would look and feel like is an important first step to helping your sacrum passionately inspire your life and to reassure you that you are safe in your body and that it is perfect just as it is, and so are you.
Come back next week to get in touch with your third chakra, the beautiful yellow solar plexus chakra.
