Week Three - Svadhisthana Chakra, Flow Centre

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all well and enjoying this beautiful sunshine! I am craving the light today, so I will keep this letter short and sweet. Thank you so much to each of you who made it for practice with me last Sunday, where we explored the root chakra and took time to breathe, ground, and release. This Sunday we will be journeying up the spine towards the second chakra, which in sanskrit is called Svadhisthana Chakra. I'd love to see you there! I currently have three drop in spaces available in the Hatha Flow at 5pm this Sunday, and two spaces available in the Soft Stretch at 6:30pm. Send me a little message if you'd like me to save you a spot in either :) 

For the Hatha practice you can expect to flow with an ocean breath, strengthen the legs and core, and find connection to your 'felt sense'. Intuition. Awareness. This practice will be fantastic if you're looking to mindfully build your alignment and strength via gentle repetition and vinyasa. Allow your mind to slow and settle into the rhythm of your movement. Yes! 

For the Soft Stretch practice you can expect a guided meditation to help connect you to the present moment, with a gentle flow in the shoulders and arms to help calm the mind and anchor you to your breath. We will explore gentle mobility and movement on the mat for the first half of practice, before transitioning smoothly into a relaxation sequence that will allow your body time to rest, restore, and feel. 

Keep reading for insights into the sacral chakra :) Our theme for this week!

Sometimes translated as the seat of the self, svadhisthana chakra is the energy centre of soft desires, emotions, creativity, and fluidity. A subtle body centre, it sits in the low belly, in the seat of the pelvis, and is physically connected to this area of reproductive organs, kidneys, and the bladder...which means it is linked to sensuality, creating new life (new ideas), birth, manifestation, and emotional connection. 

As this sacral centre sits almost directly above the root centre that we explored last week, muladhara chakra, it is worth noting how inextricably linked they are to each other. Once again, I am reminded just how powerful the chakra system can be for understanding our psychology and physiology in deeper and more intuitive ways. I'll invite you to think of a time that you felt a full body yes to something. Maybe it was a feeling of yes to an opportunity, or an invitation, perhaps to a new relationship...something that you felt no doubt or hesitation about. You felt unapologetically excited, full of positive anticipation, and yet strangely calm and grounded in your certainty that this was what you wanted. If you can, think of a free flowing moment like this, and know that this was a moment where your svadhisthana chakra was likely balanced. You felt open. Allowing. Excited. Ready for a new beginning. Ready to enjoy.

Now, if you're still with me, try to imagine a moment where you felt a more tentative yes to something. Maybe you felt a yes that quickly turned into a no. Maybe there was a rush of excitement at the thought of a new opportunity, but your sense of joy was quickly clouded over by doubt or hesitation. You thought: but what if I get it and then I lose it? What if I get what I want, but I don't feel safe with it? What if it doesn't work out? What if I get hurt? 

These common fears and anxieties are connected to the root chakra; our psycho-emotional centre of safety, security, and stability. This is an example of how our chakras relate to each other. The first moment, the big beautiful YES, demonstrated an open svadhisthana chakra with a strong and grounded muladhara chakra - a deep knowing of one's support systems, security, and a trust in the unknown, allowing positive anticipation to flow more easily. The second moment demonstrated how not having this grounded foundation in your root centre can alter the flow of energy in your svadhisthana chakra; causing feelings of disappointment, dissatisfaction, and even envy. 

I could speak so much more on this. Svadhisthana chakra is fascinating when it is 'blocked', because you can walk around the world saying no to everything, feeling stuck, stagnant, and lonely. But svadhisthana chakra is also fascinating when it is over-stimulated, because you can find yourself dancing around the world in a chaotic spiral of needing to sustain constant pleasure - and you can get lost in that, too. 

I did promise to keep this one short though! I hope you found some food for thought here. I can't wait to see you this Sunday for practice together :)

The spirit is so near that you can’t see it! But reach for it…don’t be a jar, full of water, whose rim is always dry.

Don’t be a rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.

Rumi

Le grá,

Macha