The Second Chakra—BELLY Chakra

hips, belly, butt

The second Chakra is about passion for life, and about the power of chi. This bright orange and water-element Chakra encourages the energy from the belly, which is both a reservoir and a creator of chi (energy).

saffron stories

This Chakra is associated with anything hips! Hip openers, close-ers, glutes or pelvis strengthen-ers. This energy field is where we store our emotions. When we practice hip poses sometimes we feel the sudden urge to cry, yell, or emote! 

Pigeon Pose– This restful pose helps open and release the hips, one side at a time. You can lay your chest over your thighs and lay your head on your hands to introvert yourself for deep emotional private release. To build on the Mula Bandha envision tying the draw-strings of sweat pants tight to get a root lift up past your hip bones.

 @erickuhhls

@robinmartinyoga

Think of the hips or pelvis as a bowl, like a soup bowl. The soup, let’s say it’s pumpkin (everyone loves pumpkin soup). Plus the colour associated with chakra 2 is orange ok so just roll with me here. That pumpkin soup is your vital energy, and it flows around like you’re stirring the soup, flowing to each cell and nourishing it from within. Yum. Now think of joy and pleasure as that soup. What are you doing with it?

Now let’s consider how this energetic pattern can affect our physical body. See the soup bowl tipping forward, yes tipping out that wholesome pumpkin soup. This is what happens to us too. Our hips tend to tilt forward, anterior pelvic tilt, which can move our spine into a lumbar lordosis or ‘duck bum’ type of shape where our belly and butt both poke out (yes lower back pain owww). Our hamstrings are longer and weaker, glute max does not fire as it should, our core is also weak, which means their opposing muscles are overworked, tight, shortened, a bit grumpy to be honest. Why does this all happen?? (Stay with me here, you’re doing ace)… because we are not valuing ourselves!! Our core is literally our core, us, our essence, our power centre. If we are not standing in our power, strong in our core, our centre of gravity is off somewhere else; forward of centre, or backward of centre. This is how muscles become imbalanced.

Where to start? Notice yourself. Step outside of your emotions, see yourself as another would see you, as I would see you (I see you, and you’re beautiful). Notice your habits. Notice your own reactions as other people tell you how lovely/sophisticated/sexy (whatever) you look today, or how much they admire and respect you, or when they thank you for simply being present, for caring, for listening. How do you choose to respond? Do your internal feelings match your external behaviours? Just simply start by ACCEPTING thanks, accepting joy, accepting gratitude from other people and from your environment. ALLOW yourself to drink in the soup and hold it in your soup bowl long enough to feel how beautiful it feels, to nourish yourself first before sending it off to anything or anyone else. Just like in an aeroplane emergency, we are asked to attend to our own oxygen masks before anyone else. We can find this concept difficult, but self-care is by no means selfish. Allow yourself to fill up on energy first. If we are tired and sick and sad, we are no good to anyone else anyway.

Two bodywork sessions stand out. In both cases, even a superficial look led me right to the energy blockages at the belly (and lower back) level. In both cases, the women thought the block was in their chest. In both cases, release and real relief is all about regaining and reveling in their presently (self-blocked) passion. Suddenly, the blocked chi would come back on line, the belly would expand, and the chi would flow. Deep feelings of passion and purpose arose. Metaphorically and actually, people began freely to dance their lives. It is no coincidence that another expression we have is 'belly-laugh.'

The sacrum, home to passion for life