Blocked Sacral Chakra Symptoms & Healing Techniques

Let’s talk about your pleasure center…..no I’m not talking sexual pleasure per se, I’m talking about Svadhisthana, your Sacral Chakra. This powerful energy center, located in the lower abdomen, is your source of sensuality, pleasure, creativity, fluidity, and joy.

So what do you think it would look like if you have a sacral chakra blockage? What would blocked sacral chakra symptoms feel like and how could you help remedy and prevent them? I’ve got all the answers you need.

Understanding the Sacral Chakra

The first chakra, root chakra, was all about creating a stable base, the ability to ground and create stability. The second chakra is all about the opposite. All about LETTING GO. Your ability to flow, be in the moment, to move and feel and be able to embrace change. I like to visualize a surfer surfing big waves when I think of this chakra. Because life is not static, it’s always moving and changing and we have to be able to embrace flow and “surf” the changes that happen in our life. That is what this chakra is all about. 

Here are some basics:

However, in western culture pleasure is often frowned upon and discipline is encouraged along with the need to achieve. That alone creates a recipe for blocked sacral chakra energy.

Your sacral chakra asks you what are your needs and desires? If you pursue pleasure and feel satisfied that’s good but if you pursue pleasure and then want more more more that’s addiction. Addiction issues are located within chakra related to a blurring of boundaries or lack of self control. If you know you have an addictive personality I would encourage you to work with your sacral chakra more in your personal practice.

The sacral chakra is associated with the need to be seen or acknowledged by the people in our life. The need to feel appreciated and/or be creative and express yourself, emotional well being. 

Physically

Physically the second chakra is located in the lower abdomen below the navel and above the sex and reproductive organs. It connects to the pelvis, hips, low back, and all of the elements within your body surrounding these areas (muscles, tendons, etc.). It connects with your core stabilizing muscles (e.g. transverse abdominis), your hips, low back(lumbar spine), bladder and kidneys. When you see imbalance or weakness in these areas it makes it hard to move, literally, you are stiff and rigid or maybe doubled over. The same goes for the second chakra. When it has imbalance you can’t really flow or move through life comfortably.

Emotionally

How much are you willing to feel? Because this is what the sacral chakra is all about. If you have a wide range of discomfort that you are comfortable with you can move through overwhelming feelings. When you have repressed emotions the body gets tight and less flexible and you wind up living more on the outside of the physical body rather than inside. When you block out pain you block out joy also.

You need to be able to sit with your emotions, FEEL what is moving through you so that you are more graceful and fluid. By being able to sit with your emotions and feel them, safely and not radically, you set yourself up for greater creative expression, emotional balance and joy.

Spiritually

If your second chakra is balanced then you have the ability to hold two opposing truths and not see them in conflict. For example, knowing you love someone so deeply and knowing the two of you love each other truly and have a powerful relationship but also knowing that you can’t sustain a relationship with each other for whatever reason. Being able to sit with uncertainty is a very powerful practice because if you sit with and acknowledge contradictory truths it allows this inner equilibrium to emerge. This is a core foundation for a strong spiritual practice. 

Blocked Sacral Chakra Symptoms

When looking at sacral chakra blockage symptoms it can get a little complex. You don’t want to only look at an underactive sacral chakra for blockage, because you could have overactive sacral chakra energy as well. You could have an overactive sacral chakra in one aspect of your life, such as having extreme emotional responses to situations, but a sacral chakra blockage in another aspect, like a severe fear of change. Your chakras are like flowers and there are multiple petals surrounding the center, so it really takes deep inner work and really knowing yourself to troubleshoot what might be going on.

I know, that might sound hard or overwhelming, but remember overwhelm is just like excitement, get EXCITED to learn more about yourself to help yourself heal. I promise you, that with consistency and the right guidance you’ll uncover amazing things about yourself.

If you want to break it down to start troubleshooting whether your sacral chakra is blocked(deficient) or overactive(excessive) of energy these could be some behavioral, emotional, and physical symptoms.

The biggest takeaway when talking about a blocked sacral chakra is the lack of DESIRE. Beyond sex and creativity, the DESIRE to achieve, the DESIRE for the joys life brings.

I see this a lot with the women in my Yoga for Self Mastery course. They are disassociated from their desire. Meaning, they don’t know what they truly want because they’ve been cut off from pleasure. This can be hard to figure out, I totally understand, I’ve been there myself. That is why I created Yoga for Self Mastery. To help women reconnect with their desire, their pleasure, and use that to move through life with more ease.

Sacral Chakra Healing Techniques

When your sacral chakra is in balance you are fluid, graceful, flowing and flexible. Not just physically but emotionally as well. Being in balance brings creative energy flow and healthy boundaries in your life. You have healthy emotional expression and understand what a healthy relationship is. You are sensible and not senseless. You know your desires and how to achieve them and you flow through the changes that come with ease. That sounds like a lovely existence doesn’t it? So let’s look at some ways to balance the sacral chakra.

Yoga Asanas

Because the second chakra is located around the hip area, hip opening postures are amazing for a balanced sacral chakra. As you know, Svadhisthana is all about feeling, and you probably also know that when you do hip openers they cause A LOT of feelings both physically and emotionally. Are you seeing those connections now? So focus on postures that bring strength and release to that low back and hip area.

Here are some sacral chakra yoga poses.

• Cat Pose / Cow Pose
• Warrior II
• Wide legged forward fold
• Bound Angle
• Pigeon pose
• Goddess pose

Try this FREE sacral chakra yoga class I put together for your sacral chakra:

Pranayama (Breathwork)

What better way to balance the chakra ruled by the water element than with ocean breath! Ujjayi breath, also known as ocean breath or Darth Vader breath, is the perfect pranayama for an imbalanced sacral chakra. 

This is one of my absolute favorite breathing techniques. It’s widely taught in vinyasa and ashtanga yoga because it regulates the inflow and outflow of breath and enables smooth movement transitions. I’ll sometimes use ujjayi if I’m feeling cold, or if my body feels stagnant and stiff because it will get me moving more fluidly. 

Here’s how: Yoga Breathing Techniques: How to do Ujjayi Pranayama | My 3 Tips

There are so many other pranayama techniques to choose from; go through the list and see if one resonates with you.

Affirmations

You can find a full list of sacral chakra affirmations, even some for pregnancy, but here are a handful that I really like.

• I attract like-minded people who will celebrate and support me.
• I hold the power to manifest my dream life.
• I allow my life to be a free flow of joy, creativity, and expression.
• I give myself permission to prioritize pleasure and emotional healing.
• I honor my feelings and emotions, but I know they do not rule me.

Visualization & Meditation

One thing that helps me is to visualize my chakra center. Come to a comfortable seat, readying for meditation. Close your eyes and breath. Once you feel settled, imagine a glowing orange disc along the spine just above and between your hip bones. How does it look? Is it bright or dull? Spinning or sitting still? Moving too quickly or a bit lethargic? Notice these things and then start to bring life force energy into that center. Encourage it to move gracefully and shine bright. This is just one way to visualize and bring balance, but there are many different sacral chakra meditation techniques.

Check out this meditation and give it a try: Sacral Chakra Meditation: 15 Minutes Guided Meditation For The Water Chakra | Chakra Challenge

Energy Healing

Working with an energy healer is a FANTASTIC way to move your body toward balance. There are Reiki practitioners that specialize in working with the chakras or chakra specific healers. You can even incorporate stones or crystals into your massage therapy or even just to wear around during your day to promote energetic healing. 

Stones for the sacral chakra include:

• Amber – promotes romantic and sensual energy. Stimulates natural healing abilities.
• Citrine – improves clarity, creativity, and stamina
• Orange Carnelian – boosts confidence, creativity, and passion, helps to overcome fear
• Tigers Eye – increases focus and clears mental blocks

Prevention and Maintenance

If you’re starting to feel an imbalance in one chakra it’s a good idea to look at the chakra beneath. Check in with your root chakra and make sure you’re doing all the activities to keep that in balance first (sleeping, eating, self care). Because if you aren’t doing those activities of course you aren’t going to be able to sit with your feelings or move fluidly. Remember, yes we can isolate each chakra and discuss its attributes but these energy centers work together as a whole. 

That said, if you’re looking just at the sacral chakra and how to maintain balance try these methods:

1. Sit with yourself – and FEEL!!! Feel the emotions rolling through your body and mind. Identify them, and allow them to surface so they can move through you. Remember, emotions are energy in motion, meaning they want to move through and out, so don’t hold them in.
2. Move fluidly – the second chakra is ruled by water, so add fluid movement into your day. Whether that is turning on some music and dancing while you cook or clean, or pausing from your work and moving through some spinal rotations in your chair. Just connect and listen to your body, it’ll tell you how it wants to move.
3. Nourish properly – think orange foods for the orange chakra! Add carrots, mangos, oranges, sweet potatoes, etc. to nourish that sacral energy center.
4. Mindfulness and Self Reflection – again, sit with yourself. Truly alone with yourself, no distractions, and reflect on your needs. Discover what it is that you TRULY desire, connect with your body and those desires so you can learn how to give yourself what you really need in order to surf the waves in the ocean of life.
5. Create a plan – something like the SUKHA training plan within Uplifted would be a great practice to build and maintain sacral chakra health.

A lot of this information and more can be found in my 300-hr training with the AMAZING Anodea Judith and in her book Eastern Body Western Mind.

Final Thoughts

Society encourages us to shove personal needs to the side in favor of achievement. When you reclaim your needs you are taking responsibility for your own fulfillment and that’s really important, to be able to fill your own cup. When you take the time to fill your cup and fulfill your needs you can show up better in your relationships. I encourage you to explore what fills your cup and where you are denying needs that are very important to your core and true essence. What are your true desires? Because you need the desire to have willpower and that leads you in the direction to fulfillment.