Month: November 2012

6 Ways to Balance Your Sacral Chakra

6 Ways to Balance Your Sacral Chakra
By Jennifer White
Have you ever met someone who radiates warmth and sincere friendliness without coming on too strongly or seeming clingy? You’ve likely just encountered someone with a balanced sacral chakra. This person is open to the world around them. They have energy, compassion, grounded intuition, emotional stability and a zest for life. On the other hand, though, an out of whack sacral chakra can cause many problems.

Your sacral chakra is located in your lower abdomen, about one to two inches below your naval. When out of balance symptoms include—but aren’t limited to—attachment issues, sexually-related guilt, timidity, emotional volatility, hypersensitivity, and trust issues. A person can act both completely disconnected and cold towards others if this chakra is under-active or needy and emotionally dependent if the chakra is over-active. This chakra is your most important emotional center and because of this, at one time or another, most of us will experience an imbalance here. So let’s look at six simple ways to balance your sacral chakra.

1. Hip-opening yoga postures. If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you’ve likely heard a teacher say at least once that we store emotional and physical tension in our hips—hence yoga’s many hip-opening postures. This directly connects to your sacral chakra. If you doubt at all the validity of this, notice where you grip or clench your muscles the next time you’re in a stressful situation. It’s likely your throat area (another emotional center) and your hips and lower abdomen. Remember also that your hips move in many directions— even though many people think of hip-openers as external rotation only. While it’s ideal to do a few postures that stretch your hips through their full range of motion, holding one pose and focusing on completely letting go is a great place to start. My personal favorite is cow pose, but bound angle is another ideal asana to hold and breathe into.

2. Dance like no one’s watching. Dancing is one of the best—and easiest—ways to open your sacral chakra. So close the door, turn on your favorite music, and move. For double the cleansing effects, get out with friends as you move your hips to your favorite rhythm.

3. Tone up. While learning to let go of unnecessary muscular gripping and tension is ideal for chakra health throughout your body, it’s also important to take care of your body and keep your muscles strong and healthy. One of the main reasons to have a physical yoga practice is to make the body a fit—no pun intended—vehicle for the spirit and to prepare your body for seated meditation (another reason for hip-opening postures), and the lower abdominals are frequently an area that people let go. Some of my favorites for strong lower abs are boat pose (really hug the knees in towards the chest), pendant pose and yogic leg lifts.

4. Visualize orange. Orange is the sacral chakra’s color. Imagine a bright, healing orange glow filling up your entire lower abdomen—keeping in mind that we’re three dimensional. I have SI joint problems and often focus specifically on this region, so feel free to send your breath—and the color orange—to any particular area of disease or tension.

5. Balance your other chakras. A severe imbalance in one chakra almost always means imbalances in other chakras as well. (They work as a system.) Your throat chakra in particular has strong connections to your sacral chakra. The next time you practice your deep hip-opening posture of choice, notice if you feel a release in your throat area as well (double pigeon/fire log pose is wonderful for this). You can also try working a pose like bridge that allows you to connect with many of your chakras at one time; flowing slowly in and out of the posture as you connect your breath and movement.

6. Let go. You’ll see me write this a lot in my blogs, but learning to let go—of unhealthy emotions, people, and memories—is so important. When we learn to let go of the baggage that we don’t need to carry, we create space and energy for new and better opportunities.

In life, it’s all too easy to become emotionally closed off or overly dependent on the people around us. Learning to trust our intuition, yet not be ruled by our emotions, is something that—like many worthwhile things—takes practice. I hope these tips for sacral chakra balancing inspire you on your journey to be your best—and healthiest—self.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-5332/6-Ways-to-Balance-Your-Sacral-Chakra.html