Second Day - Chakra Two - Orange

[Guest guest]

I felt strongly prompted today,by the Spirit, to repost the Chakra

articles. I wasn't going to this time, but...lol! They are

in our files " The Seven Chakras " if anyone wants to review

Chakra One. Just for your review and enjoyment. You don't

have to read them.

 

Love, dhyana

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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:::

 

Se+uality, Emotions, Movement, Sensation,

Desire, Need, Pleasure

 

Goals:::

 

Fluidity, pleasure, healthy se+uality, feeling

 

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 se+uality 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 se+uality. "

" My se+uality is sacred. "

" I move easily and effortlessly. "

" Life is pleasurable. "

 

Identity of Chakra Two:

 

Beneath the surface of the body churn 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. ...a sensate exploration of the world.

 

Demon of Chakra Two:

Guilt

 

Guilt undermines the natural flow of emotional and

se+ual energy through the body, and inhibits us from

reaching out, diminishing emotional and se+ual

connections with others.

 

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

 

" The myth of going under water, of being drowned and born

again, has been passed down through history in different

cultures as the myth of baptism--the being immersed in

the river to be drowned, to die, in order to be born again.

This is a daring leap into non-being with the prospect of

achieving new being. " Rollo May

 

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

se+uality 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.

 

Letting Go To Movement

 

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.

 

Sensation

 

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.

 

Emotions

 

Emotions are instinctual reactions to sensory data.

If the senses bring in raw information, feelings are

the unconscious reaction to this information, and

emotions are the way we organize our feelings. Without

consciousness, emotions govern our reactions. We may

get angry, fall in or out of love, feel depressed or afraid,

but these emotions generally arise from the depths of our

psyche quite of their own accord. We may choose the

way we respond to these emotions, but the feelings

have a life of their own.

 

I believe that ultimately, emotions have a spiritual function

as the language of the soul. This language is spoken

through the body. We can think of sensations as the words,

feelings as the sentences, and emotions as the paragraphs.

These building blocks are the primary levels of our

experience through which our story unfolds, giving us

meaning. Meaning integrates our systems, our felt sense

of experiencing the world.

 

Se+uality

 

Se+uality is the ultimate expression of the many issues

associated with the second chakra: movement, sensation,

pleasure, desire, emotions, and polarity. It is the resolution

of difference, the union of opposites, and the connecting

experience that transcends isolation and forms the

foundation for the next chakra level: power. It is the grounds

for much of our growth, as it brings us into contact with

others who are by nature different from us.

 

Se+uality is the incorporation of Eros, the basic force of

attraction. Eros is an ancient god, the connecting force that

unites and delights, bridges and soothes. This is accomplished

through a constantly moving flow of dynamic energy that is

created and enhanced by two energy systems meeting one

another. In Hindu mythology, Eros is the god Kama, the

originator of all the gods, the binding power of allurement that

holds the universe together. To deny Eros is to court

disintegration and destruction.

 

To embrace Eros is to have the capacity for surrender,

to be able to flow with the biological nature of the

instinctual/emotional body. To dance with Eros is to dance

with the life force in the liberating current of the lower

chakras. Se+uality is the ecstatic expression of that force.

 

Se+uality has been massively misunderstood by our culture.

The wounds of mismanaged se+uality are deep and pervasive,

affecting the natural flow of excitation through the body. Guilt,

as demon of the second chakra, is a direct antidote to pleasure

and self-esteem. Guilt has been poured through the se+ual gates

from which Eros flows with such force that for many this portal

no longer opens. Thus an essential gateway to pleasure and

transformation becomes locked. Se+uality is rejected and sent to

the realm of the shadow, where it takes on its demonic form of

dissociation and perpetration, desperately seeking connection at

any cost.

 

To reclaim the second chakra is to reclaim our right to feel and

our right to healthy se+uality. It is the reclamation of the force

of Eros as it flows through all aspects of life. This does not mean

that this energy always culminates in the se+ual act. Eros is alive

and well in every aspect of our existence--the smell of food cooking

in the kitchen, the colors of a sunset, eating ice cream on a hot day.

Eros needs to be an honored part of our experience, honored for the

powerful god that he is.

 

Balanced Characteristics

 

A balanced second chakra has the capacity for se+ual satisfaction,

physical pleasure, general enjoyment of life, comfort with intimacy,

and the ability to accept movement and change gracefully,

including graceful physical movements. There is steadiness and

clarity in emotional states. One can feel deeply without excessive

histrionics. Balance involves the ability to nurture self and others

while still maintaining healthy se+ual and emotional boundaries.

 

From Eastern Body Western Mind by Anodea Judith