Are you feeling out of touch with your emotions, uninspired or demotivated? Or perhaps your emotions are running wild and you're having difficulty with boundaries in your relationships? Your sacral chakra may be out of balance. These well-being tips, yoga postures, and essential oils may help you realign your creative centre.
About the sacral chakra
The sacral chakra ("svadhistana" in Sanskrit) is the second of the seven chakras.
Located in the space between the public bone and the navel, and associated with the water element, the term 'go with the flow' perfectly captures the essence of the sacral chakra.
I’m going to help you tap into your sacral chakra and realign it with yoga, essential oils and more.
Is your sacral chakra out of balance?
When our sacral chakra is in balance, we feel free to blossom. Our intuition and creativity is heightened, our ability to maintain and nurture relationships comes easily, and we can process emotions in a healthy way.
But when it's out of balance, things look a little different.
You might experience some of the following physical and/or emotional symptoms:
Overly emotional or 'highly strung'
Lack of boundaries and tendency to form unhealthy attachments to others
Always seeking the next 'high' from external sources
Repressed emotions, feeling like 'nothing is good enough'
Lack of motivation and/or creative energy
Low mood and/or depression
Urinary or kidney problems
Hip, pelvic or lower back pain
Sexual and/or reproductive health issues
If you feel like your sacral chakra is out of whack, don't fret.
There are some simple tools both on and off the mat that we can use to bring it back into balance again, making us feel more creative and able to cope with the ebb and flow of our emotions, energy and the natural cycles around us.
How to rebalance your sacral chakra
Connect with the element of water
That could include anything from bringing yourself into physical contact with water through swimming, taking a long, soothing bath, or drinking more water, to spending more time near a body of water, like the ocean or a lake.
Get fluid with your yoga practice and focus on the hips
A fluid practice featuring asanas that flow effortlessly from one to the next can do wonders for realigning the sacral chakra, particularly if they're centered around the hips. Scroll down for my top three yoga poses.
Apply stimulating essential oils
When you're feeling uninspired or overwhelmed, you're looking for bright, uplifting essential oils like sandalwood and clary sage. I've listed some of my personal favourites below.
Wear orange
Orange is the colour associated with the sacral chakra so wearing orange when you're feeling off balance is a sure fire way to inspire your creative centre. If you don't have anything orange to wear, surround yourself with items that infused with an orange hue or simply visualising the colour orange.
Repeat affirmations
To raise the vibration of your sacral chakra, repeat the affirmations associated with it. Use these on-the-go when you're feeling either overwhelmed or uninspired (repeat them in your mind and focus on the meaning of each word) or repeat them during meditation or in yoga postures.
"I am comfortable in my body"
"Relationships are a joy"
"I allow my feelings to move through me and release the need to numb them"
"I am a creative being"
"I am radiant, beautiful and strong and enjoy a healthy and passionate life"
"I am in touch with my feelings"
"I am a creative being"
Chant 'VAM'
A bija ("seed") mantra is single syllable sound that is repeated aloud to stimulate the chakras. Similar to the way you might chant "OM" in a yoga class, reciting a bija mantra continuously raises the vibrational frequency of a the chakra to which it's associated helping to make you feel more balanced in mind and body.
The bija mantra for the root chakra is 'VAM' (pronounced "vaaaaam").
Sit in a cross legged position on the floor
Place your hands just below your navel
Chant 'VAM' aloud
Feel the vibration of the sound resonating under your palms and notice the effect the mantra has on your subtle body
Repeat the bija mantra until you feel more uplifted, energised and balanced
Yoga for your sacral chakra
As svadisthana is located in the sacral region of the body, yoga postures that focus on the hips are ideal for balancing this chakra.
Lotus/Half Lotus
Malasana
Janu sirsasana
Goddess Pose
Baddha Konasana
Aim to keep the practice fluid and set an intention to go with the flow. Allow creativity and sensation to percolate through you like ripples on the surface of a lake.
Here are my three go-to sacral chakra asanas.
1. Seated Hip Spirals
A few rounds of seated hip spirals allow you to explore the fluidity of your spine and hips, encouraging you to observe the presence of sensations of ’tightness’ or ‘dryness’ in the joints.
If comfortable closing your eyes, do. I always feel it allows us to connect more deeply to the physical sensations taking place in the body. How does it feel if move in a circular way? What about side to side, forward and back?
Let yourself be moved by enquiry and wonder, the doorway to creativity. There is no right or wrong way to move here so take the time to investigate and reconnect.
Moving in this way increases the synovial fluid through your joints so the movements become smoother, like a balm being massaged through the joints.
2. Pigeon Pose [Eka Pada Rajakapotasana]
Start on all fours or table top.
Bring your right knee towards your right wrist. Depending on your body, you may find the knee feels comfortable just behind the wrist or you may be able to bring it forward to the edge of the wrist with your shin more or less in line with the top your mat. Whichever position you choose, there should be no sensation whatsoever in the knee.
Slide your left leg out behind you. You may choose to tuck your toes under or relax the foot, whichever is most comfortable.
Keep your hips level. If you feel like you're collapsing your right hip towards the floor and notice yourself tipping to one side, support yourself with some blocks, books, pillows, blankets under the hip.
Support yourself with your hands on the floor, prop yourself up on your forearms, or drape your front body over the floor on an exhale. Choose whichever feels most comfortable, depending on the strength of sensation in the right hip.
Stay for 10 breaths or up to 5 minutes. Check in with your breathing. Is it steady, is it relaxed? Try exhaling though the mouth with a slow trickle of breath and imagine directing the exhale to the sensations in the hip as though the breath is thawing out any iciness.
Repeat on the other side.
3. Head-to-Knee Forward Bend [Janu Sirsasana]
Begin seated with your legs extended. You might consider using a folded blanket or block to lift our of your lower back should you feel tight in the hips or back body.
Bend your right knee and bring the foot towards the inner edge of your left thigh. If the knee is elevated off the ground, place some padding under the knee for extra support.
Engage the left leg by pressing the back of the thigh and calf down into the earth and draw the toes towards your face. If there's a tendency to hyperextend in the knee joints or there's any discomfort in the back of the knee, place a rolled up towel underneath it.
Inhale and lengthen through your spine to the top of your head. Exhale and gently rotate your head and spine in the direction of your extended leg.
On your next exhale, begin to fold forward from your hips rather than your waist, sending the chest forwards towards your left foot. Keep your elbows soft so there is no temptation to drag the body further than it wishes.
Stay, settle, breathe, relax, let go. Imagine you're a wave rolling onto the shore and back out again. With each inhale there's a slight lifting of the body away from the leg, with each exhale a pulsing back towards the extended leg. The instant you relax and surrender is the moment the body exhales and releases a little more.
On an inhale, ease the body back up to where you began. Take a moment.
Extend the right leg and repeat on the left side.
Essential oils for your sacral chakra
When it comes to essential oils for sacral chakra balancing, we're looking for stimulating, uplifting scents that encourage creative, sensual expression but also relax us mentally and/or energetically so that we aren't so bound by life's strains. Here are my personal favourites but other recommended essential oils for svadhisthana include cardamom, patchouli, rose and ylang ylang.
Because svadhistana is associated with the water element, adding these essential oils to your bath will offer an extra-potent effect when it comes to balancing your sacral chakra!
Sandalwood
Believed to promote self-esteem and contentment, Sandalwood is perhaps the essential oils that best sums up the qualities of a well-rounded oil for the sacral chakra. It stimulates both sensual and spiritual love and also helps to regulate hormones and the reproductive system.
Clary Sage
Clary Sage is calming, balancing and inspiring. It stimulates intuition and enhances the dream world whilst keeping you tethered to your body. It's also wonderful for the female reproductive system.
Orange and Neroli
These citrus-based oils remind us to seek out joy and embrace the playful qualities in our lives . They exude a childlike exuberance that we can often lose touch with when the sacral chakra is blocked or closed. Blend with jasmine to enhance openness to the sweetness of life.
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