Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign welcome to Deep in your yoga practice. I am Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. Today we're continuing our chakra series with the second energy center, the sacral chakra, or swatisthana, the seat of pleasure, of flow and creative life force.
[00:00:30] The last chakra episode I went into the root chakra, which is the chakra of grounding, of stability and of safety. And these energy centers really build from the ground up. So I definitely recommend going back and listening to that, because once we feel rooted in ourselves, we begin to access this sense of flow. And that's where the sacral chakra comes in. So what is the sacral chakra? And in Sanskrit it's Svaristhana, which means one's own dwelling place. It's located in the low belly and pelvis, just below the navel. The element it's associated with is water, its color is orange, and its sound or seed mantra is vam v a M. And it's associated with the reproductive organs, the hips, the low back, the pelvis and the womb. It's also associated with different emotions and qualities. So. So it's associated with flow and movement, with sensuality and pleasure, with creativity and inspiration, with emotional expression, as well as with intimacy and healthy boundaries.
[00:01:41] So with these energy centers, they might express as balanced or imbalanced within our beings. So a balanced sacral chakra may look and feel like emotional fluidity. So. So not over attaching to any ideas, but being able to listen and go with the flow with a healthy connection to pleasure. So being able to savor life and to feel pleasure, connection to your senses without a sense of guilt, it might be creativity flowing freely within you. So being able to get out of your own way and just create without judgment. Same with the ability to play and have fun. So with when it's in balance, we have this ability to play and dance and create and express almost in the way that a child would. So without fear of judgment and without self consciousness, but expressing simply for the sake of expression itself. And we might feel a deep connection to our own body and to the sensuality of that. Sometimes we might feel imbalanced in this center. So if we're feeling deficiencies, it might express as numbness of rigidity, of shame around sexuality, of creative blocks, maybe a fear of pleasure and a disconnection from the body.
[00:03:03] If it is excessive, we might feel codependency in our relationships, maybe emotional overreactions, maybe an addiction to pleasure, a lack of boundaries, and we might manipulate others or be manipulated more easily.
[00:03:21] So we want to try and balance the center and find that beautiful, creative, expressive place that is free from ego, where we can get out of our own way and enjoy and express and find pleasure without agenda and without guilt or shame. So we might tap into this chakra on the mat through different things. One would be hip openers. So think baddha konasana or recline cobbler's pose, pigeon pose, which is a favorite for so many. Maybe frog pose, maybe not as much of a favorite for some, but those are all great ways to open up through the area of the hips. We might find more fluid movement in our asana. So moving with the breath through things like cat and cow, or dancing warrior, maybe through circular spinal motions or flows that move in a circular motion around the mat. Maybe by exploring both pelvic stability and mobility. So we might find postures like bridge pose, like cobra or even melasana, where we can stabilize through this area and thus create more mobility. We also might find it through embodied flow, through intuitive or wave, like vinyasa sequencing. So again, we might move in a circular wave around the mat. Maybe we're moving a lot from side to side and you might feel this fluid water like motion in your body. Other modalities, we might balance the sacral chakra through our belly breathing by awareness of the pelvic floor. So in yoga, we use mulabanda, so we have this ability to stabilize through the pelvic floor with mulabanda and to soften through the pelvic floor as well. We need both of these for a healthy pelvic floor. And also through creative sequencing and maybe music that invokes this sense of creativity and of pleasure and of movement. We can also tap into this off of the mat in everyday life. This might be through creative practices. So through dancing and painting and singing, journaling, decorating, maybe cooking, whatever your creativity wants to be expressed through. Maybe it's through pleasure rituals, like taking a bath, wearing something beautiful, adorning yourself, eating something delicious and really savoring it.
[00:05:46] Maybe it's through emotional flow, feeling your emotions, maybe journaling about them or talking through them with somebody you trust, rather than suppressing them. And maybe by tuning your awareness inward and noticing the somatics of these feelings. So how does your body express these feelings? What does it feel like within when you're having these feelings? It's very important to be able to connect with that, because then we connect more deeply with ourselves. We also might find more healthy boundaries in intimacy, whether that's through a new partner. And it doesn't have to be a sexual partner, but anyone we're intimate with or some kind of long term relationship. How can we keep the conversation open? How can we establish what we need and what we don't want and communicate that in a clear and positive way? And you might ask yourself, as you're working through these different techniques, what brings me joy and pleasure? Where am I holding shame around self expression and how do I relate to my own sensuality? And you might be met with more questions and know that that's okay. As we're working with these different centers, it can bring about this deep sense of self inquiry which is healthy and good. There are other yogic connections to the sacral chakra. One is through the goddess archetype of Shakti. And Shakti is this primal feminine energy. So it's this sensual, wild energy of creation.
[00:07:17] So it's that which animates everything in the universe.
[00:07:21] It's divine, feminine in motion. It's also related to the embracing of cycles. So sacral chakra is very much associated with the moon and its cycles and the cycles that exist within us as well. Whether there are hormonal cycles from day to day or month to month, maybe the different seasons, maybe even birth and life and death and rebirth. All of these different ways that cycles express through life and through nature are connected with this part of ourselves. And they remind us that we're not disconnected from what's around us or immune to the different cycles of life. Even though life can really ask us to go in this very linear direction. But instead we're meant to be a little more wild, a little more free, a little more bound to, to these cycles of life and that it's healthy and it's good. So you might connect with the sacral chakra this week. Maybe you can find a hip opening, slow flow class to take and really connect with that part of yourself, allowing for movement and freedom and expression to come through. Maybe you're using the journaling prompts I gave you above to journal on pleasure and shame and how you're feeling around those concepts. Maybe you dance to a playlist that invokes fun and sensuality and dance and movement. And maybe you can find a daily affirmation. I'll offer one. I live in flow. I honor my body's wisdom. I am a creative, emotional and sensual being. So before we close, I'll remind you that I have a book called Embody your Inner A Guided Journey to Radical Wholeness. And we spend a week with each chakra and break it down into different components and explore a component every day.
[00:09:12] So week two is focused on the Sacral chakra. So if you want to dive into more inquiries and find some really cool somatic embodiment practices, those are all within that. I'll link it in the show notes. And also know that our 300 hour yoga teacher training dives a lot more deeply into each chakra and we have a chance to tap into it and express it through our own practice, through our teaching and through the way that we live our lives and run our businesses. So if you are interested I'd love for you to join me in that or feel free to reach out, we can chat about it. Otherwise we love incorporating chakras into our classes at True Love Yoga. It's one of our teachers favorite themes I think. So it's impossible I think to take very many classes here without bumping into one of these teachings. So to close know that this isn't about fixing your chakra, it's really just about getting curious for finding this deep sense of inner connection and restoring some balance within yourself. And know that next time we'll be talking about the Solar Plexus chakra here in the next few weeks. If you love these episodes, please let me know if there are any other energetics in yoga that you'd love for me to talk about that you want to learn about more, please feel free to reach out. Otherwise I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. Om Shanti Om Peace.
