Second Chakra - Sacral

Sanskrit Name; Meaning : Svadhisthana; Sweetness
Location : Abdomen, sexual organs, lower back and hips
Affirmation: “I feel.”
Center: Creativity, Sensuality, Emotion
Element : Water^[1]

If we were to think about the physical body as being the cup and base of the physical experience, it is the second chakra that gives it a watery flow that can make it both turbulent and peaceful. Emotions, with exception of rage, all emanate from this place. As does your feelings of creativity, lust, sexuality, and pleasure centers. Emotions have regularly been likened in traditions to that place of feeling and flow, just like the ebb and flow, coming and going of emotions.

Also consider that this flow of emotions in the physical world allows there to be that flow. Because things are constantly changing states, and your emotions can always be in flux, water is the element to associate with this chakra. From an unorthodox position, you can also think of the flow of life that happens with the creativity centers for the sexual organs and reproduction. As unspoken as it may be: sex feels good! So this is the power center that erupts during that fun-filled frolic in the sheets.

If the second chakra could only be described by a single word, it would be creativity… the ability to create something from nothing.^[2]

Just like you might expect when dealing with the physical reproductive organs of creativity, issues in this chakra center could be things along the lines of sexual dysfunction, impotence, or menstrual difficulties can happen with issues in this chakra. There can also be issues around movement, emotionality, desire, and pleasure.^[3]

Emotional instability and lack-of-balance issues can also find themselves emerging from this chakra. While emotions may not be considered a physical aspect to most, we all feel our emotions in our bodies in some location or another. There has also been evidence that you can think yourself into feeling particular ways if you can wholly embody a specific moment in time. This is where trauma-release therapy and hypnotherapy may find a good foothold.

The spiritual side of this center identifies in both the physical in the form of pleasure and in the spiritual in the form of emotional trance-like states. Tantra practice is a perfect embodiment of this energy center. Sexual tantric practice is said to bring “trance-like states” to it’s pracrtitioners. There’s also the idea that the orgasm itself can connect one directly to energy and the one-ness of spirit. Orgasm is a trancelike state, the purpose of sexuality is the expansion and empowerment of one’s partner through an exchange of energy. Often what is conscious in one partner lies hidden in the other. The partner’s energy has the power to ignite in us those aspects of ourselves previously unexplored. The beauty and function of sexual intimacy is in encompassing the “opposite,” in becoming more than we are alone. Sexuality allows every living being to know that there is “other” and that mergence with that other is possible; that all of us can attain, even briefly, One Mind.^[4]

Don’t get it wrong, though! Pleasure and divinity can be found also in that feeling of “awe” from when you look down at Mother Nature from a high point, get out with nature, watch a child laugh and smile, or even experience some of the greatest tragedies of grief and loss; emotionality is also found in grief and sorrow as much as pleasure and ecstasy.

[1] Judith, A. (2006). Introduction: Sacred Centers of the Self. In Eastern body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra system as a Path to the Self (pp. 10-11). essay, Alchemy.
[2]Jelusich, R. (2004). Second Chakra - The Creationist. In Eye of the Lotus: Psychology of the Chakras (pp. 50). essay, Lotus.
[3]Judith, A. (2006). Chakra Two: Swimming in the Waters of Difference. In Eastern body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra system as a Path to the Self (pp. 104-105). essay, Alchemy.
[4]Bruyere, R. L. (1994). Orgasm: Empowerment and Mergence. Wheels of Light: Chakras, Auras and the Healing Energy of the Body (pp. 172). essay, Simon & Schuster.