Second Chakra

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Day Two - Second Chakra

 

" Lose your mind and come to your senses. " Fritz Perls

 

 

Name:::Svadhisthana (sweetness)

 

Element:::Water

 

Purposes:::Movement and Connection

 

Issues:::

 

Movement, Sensation, Emotions,

Sexuality, Desire, Need, Pleasure

 

Color::: Orange

 

Location:::Lower abdomen, sacral plexus

 

Orientation:::Self-gratification

 

Archetype:::Lover

 

Basic Rights:

To Feel and Have Pleasure

 

A culture that frowns upon emotional expression or

considers sensitivity a weakness infringes upon our

basic right to feel. " You have no right to be angry. "

" How can you express your emotions like that? You

should be ashamed of yourself! " " Boys don't cry. "

These kinds of injunctions infringe upon our right to feel.

Feeling is the way we obtain important information about

our wellbeing. When the right to feel is impaired, we

become out of touch with ourselves, numb, and discon-

nected. A corollary of this right is the right to want,

since if we cannot feel, it is very difficult to know what we

want. Our right to enjoy healthy sexuality is intimately

connected with our right to feel.

 

Affirmations:

 

" I deserve pleasure in my life. "

" I absorb information from my feelings. "

" I embrace and celebrate my sexuality. "

" My sexuality is sacred. "

" I move easily and effortlessly. "

" Life is pleasurable. "

 

Identity of Chakra Two:

 

Beneath the surface of the body churns the emotions.

The emotions are the clothing of our feelings. When we

experience a strong emotion, we feel our aliveness and

often identify with the feeling involved. Even our

language makes this identification: I am angry, I am

scared. (Other languages say, I have fear or anger.)

This is the identity that says, I feel therefore I am,

and whatever I feel is what I am. Some people identify

their main sense of self in this way.

 

The second chakra, then, is our emotional identity, and

its job is self-gratification. Emotion emerges from the

physical identity and yet brings in an added dimension.

We have to feel our bodies in order to feel our emotions

and learn to interpret their messages. Emotional

identity expands the experience of the body and gives

it dimension and texture, connecting us to the flow of

the world.

 

Demon of Chakra Two:

Guilt

 

Guilt curtails the free flow of movement, largely by taking

the pleasure out of it. If I feel guilty about what I am

doing, I do not fully enjoy it. I cannot fully sense the

experience if one part of me is frozen off, restricting or

trying to control what I am doing.

 

Guilt polarizes the personality. It divides light against

dark, good against bad. We are wonderful one day and

horrible the next, all because of something we did. The

brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The greater

the guilt, the more we try to emancipate ourselves by

flawless behavior. Flawless behavior inhibits the natural

flow of energy moving up from the lower chakras and

tends to polarize mind and body. A polarized personality

is characterized by either-or thinking. Without the

multiplicity of the rainbow, we find ourselves locked in

black-and-white choices.

 

There is, or course, a healthy place for guilt: as a feeling

that allows us to examine our behavior before, during, or

after our actions. When it's not distorted, guilt tells us

where the boundaries are and where we need to make

change. In its appropriate place as feedback, guilt is

not a demon but a guide. It is only when guilt becomes

excessive, habitual, internalized, and toxic that it dom-

inates the free flow of movement and the full sensate

experience of life that is so necessary to the second

chakra. Guilt is a teacher when it guides us, but a

demon when it binds us.

 

Swimming in the Waters of Difference

 

Diving in the Waters

 

As we enter the second chakra, we encounter the watery

realm of emotions and sexuality. Where we have worked

for grounding and stability in the first chakra, we now

cultivate feelings and movement; where we have been

concerned with survival and structure, we now focus on

sexuality and pleasure. Our associated element has

shifted from earth to water, from solid to liquid. In this

transmutation we encounter change.Through consistency,

consciousness finds meaning; through change it finds

stimulation and expansion.

 

If we think of the body as a vessel for the soul and spirit,

then the element of earth in chakra one provides support

and containment for the fluid essence of chakra two,

much like a cup holds water. Without appropriate

containment, water flows out and the cup runs dry. With

excessive containment, however, water cannot flow at

all and becomes stagnant and dull. Ideally, we want to

have a cup that is capable of filling, holding, and

emptying. The task of the first chakra was to build this

container. Now we look to its contents.

 

To find consistency within change is to embrace the

unfolding flow. Where we developed grounding, stability,

focus, and stillness in the first chakra, now our second

chakra challenge is just the opposite; to let go, flow,

move, feel, and yield. Only by moving does our

consciousness expand, and only through change is our

consciousness stimulated. Movement and change

stimulate awakening.

 

Movement overcomes the inertia of chakra one. Through

movement, we extend our field of perception, increasing

our sensory input. By moving the body, we build muscle

tissue, increase circulation, stimulate nerve endings, and

generally enhance our flexibility and aliveness. The flow

of pleasure and excitation through the nervous system

bathes the organism in sensation and awareness and

awakens the consciousness within. Movement becomes

its own pleasure.

 

By paying attention to the way we move, we can uncover

previously buried issues and feelings. In the first chakra,

the structural forms of the body gave us clues to

unconscious process. In the second chakra we observe

the way these forms move and make contact.

 

The senses are the essential link between the inner and

outer worlds. Only through the senses do we transcend

isolation and make connection to a larger sphere.

Sensate experience is simultaneously physical,

emotional, and spiritual. The senses are the gateway

between the internal and external world. Sight, sound,

touch, taste, and hearing give us a constantly changing

inner matrix of the world around us, through which we

form our basic belief systems, coping strategies, and

thought processes. The senses are the data input of our

overall system. They orient us in the world, allow us to

connect, give meaning to our experience. Through our

senses, we differentiate between pleasure and pain, we

expand or contract, move forward or backward, react or

enact.

 

When there is pain or emptiness, our senses shut down.

When this happens, we restrict information entering our

consciousness, and cut ourselves off from the world

around us. Senses are the only means we have of

experiencing connection.

 

The complex combination of sensation and feeling gives

us the emotional texture of experience. Senses, as the

language of feeling, form the basis of our values. How we

perceive something and how we feel about it are the ways

that we determine value. Without a sensual connection

to what is around us, we lose our sense of values and

distinctions.

 

From Eastern Body Western Mind by Anodea Judith

 

(Also can be found in our Group Files: Chakras KAS-1)

 

 

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