As a culture, we are currently stuck in the sacral energy center.
We have an almost extreme need to experience pleasure, we expect pleasure, and we wish for quick rewards, including the avoidance of both physical and emotional pain, which can numb deep pleasure.
In general terms, we are imbalanced in that we pay ample attention to things that are outside of ourselves instead of within ourselves. This also often leads to an unbalanced relationship with possessions. We want more. We put how we appear to others above how we feel about ourselves.
This need for quantity can show up with food, in the home, and through social media, which “ranks” our relationships in terms of likes. This overindulgence can tax our relationship with our body, our intellect, our experience of intimacy, our hormones, and our resources.
Too often we choose what we can hold instead of touch. This begins to starve our deeper relationships with our intuition and our feeling worthwhile. We do not trust ourselves as deeply, and we turn to the outside for our sense of value. This creates both loneliness and isolation. From that place, intuition cannot be heard in a healthy, creative way.
We can help to combat this by being still. Stillness and quiet actually increase the flow of healthy hormones, bringing balance to our life.
Stillness creates a bridge back to intimacy.
In order to come home to ourselves we need to take a clear and honest look at our relationships.
How can we have healthier relationships with ourselves, our body, our family, our friends, and our community?
And we need to nurture our intuition and creativity.
When we are physically healthy, we are more receptive, quieter, and we can more clearly hear our intuition when it comes to making everyday choices.
This includes things like being more intuitive in our eating and more mindful about what we buy (Is this good for me? For the planet?), intuitively choosing when to act in pleasure and sexual expression (Does my body feel relaxed and accepted here? Does my partner’s? Am I here in this moment for healthy reasons?), as well as what products to put on our face and body (Does this add to my total health? Are these products wasteful?).
All of these situations rely upon the creativity and relational energy that resides in our sacral chakra. We want to use our intuition to maintain this physical balance.
Allowing ourselves to stay present as we’re eating so that we’re fully satisfied and self-aware when we become full is a good practice in being present.
Give yourself the gift of fully chewing and savoring each bite, feeling that sense of nourishment spread through your body.
Even noticing the texture and flavor of your food as you eat calms the brain and brings you into the present moment where intuition resides.
We can look at this as a form of connecting to or building our relationship with food, but more importantly, we’re building a comfortable relationship with time and pleasure.
Experiencing presence in the current moment by mindfully eating – rather than doing a dozen other things at the same time – balances your attention, your brain, your digestion, your adrenals, and your intuitive relationship with yourself.
Using our intuition to develop more nourishing eating habits plays a key role in beginning to trust ourselves and our intuition on a basic level. We are actually hearing our body more and providing it with the calming, healthy support it needs.
Practicing creativity on a day-to-day basis is one of the best ways to come home to ourselves with the sacral chakra.
Creativity is action and movement, both of which are key for the sacral chakra. The sacral and third eye energy centers are intricately tied together through creativity, and the heart lies in between them, so the work we do in the earthly sacral chakra has a profound impact as we move up to and open our heart and our intuition.
We are all born as creative beings. What this means is different from one person to the next. Maybe you have a knack for gardening or for cooking, or maybe the muse moves you to paint, act, write, or sing. Creativity can be expressed in any number of ways, all of which are valid and true.
When we practice creativity on a consistent and sustained basis, the effects can be profound. We become more lighthearted and joyful, more naturally energized, and more present in the current moment. Our attention might become more focused on our internal life and self rather than on external noise, opinions, and cues. We begin to tune in a little easier, both to ourselves and to those desires that run through us.
We may begin to associate pleasure with fulfilling our true internal needs rather than on material, external ideas of what we need to be happy. We give ourselves the chance to be a more true and complete version of who we are.
When you are at home with yourself in the sacral chakra you recognize that you already possess everything you need to be the best and truest version of yourself.
While relationships enhance our life and are imperative to growth and balance, the relationship with our inner and outer self is the most important relationship in our life. Others cannot bestow true power, worth, agency, or belonging upon us. This comes from within.
Without this understanding we run the risk of choosing food, relationships or activities for unhealthy reasons, too often basing our decisions on needs that were not met during our younger years.
This is where the journal exercises in this course make an enormous difference, encouraging you to explore behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and experiences from your past that might adversely affect your present and future.
Only by doing the work of self reflection (with lots of compassion), can we truly come home to ourselves.
So, I’d like you to take your meditation time to write, to journal and reflect and go within, listening to and honoring your inner guide, the true teacher and wisdom inside of you.
First, I invite you to listen to this song as a reminder of the love you are…
(This is the live, rough version I believe performed in a yoga studio, with a lovely introduction by the singer)
(And here’s the polished recorded version)
You can either free write in your journal or explore the following prompts:
Do you have doubts or reservations about your deservedness based on the way you have experienced life in the past?
What beliefs do you have that hold you back from loving and listening to yourself? Where do those beliefs come from?
Finish this sentence, “I feel beautiful when…”
Wake Up Your Inner Wisdom Yoga Nidra
In this yoga nidra you are encouraged to ground into yourself by slowing down into the present moment and are given tools to transform your past into your present day wisdom, honoring your intuition and the sacred being that you are.
