Manipura: Solar Plexus Chakra Meditation For Healing and Balancing [VIDEO]

Personal power!

Flawless digestion!

Transformative willpower!

If you’re starting a manipura chakra journey, you’ll want to focus on affirmations that awaken your zest for life.

They’ll give you an awesome idea of what’s in store for you if you tap into the chakra healing power of your solar plexus area.

Located just above the muladhara chakra (base chakra) and svadisthana chakra (sacral chakra), and just below anahata chakra (heart chakra), your manipura chakra is a powerhouse in the truest sense of the word.

Why is the Third Chakra Important?

When viewing chakra healing as a holistic system, it can be helpful to remember that energy flows up the spine. When our chakras are open and free of blockages, kundalini energy is free to move through the central column of the spine, allowing all aspects of our body-mind system to be integrated.

Follow kundalini energy as it moves from muladhara chakra (base) to crown chakra. In muladhara chakra, our prana is gathered and supported; all our potential is stored in this base energy center.

As it moves upward through the sacral chakra, our energy starts to take shape and formation, just as Beyoncé instructs her ladies.

With Beyoncé cracking the whip, our chakra energy moves out of its chaotic nascent state in the root chakra and becomes something that’s actually usable.

By the time this upward flow of awesomeness reaches your solar plexus region, it is ready for a serious dose of intention.

Intention.

If you’ve ever started your yoga practice by setting one, you’ll know just how powerful these can be.

In chakra manipura, your vital energy gets assigned an intention, and it gets. put. to. work.

It helps you create the life you want by putting your head down and getting sh*t done. It helps you put your loftiest goals in motion, and start actualizing everything you’ve dreamed up for yourself.

What does a Manipura Chakra Blockage Feel Like?

Unfortunately, all this actualizing and accomplishing cannot happen when there are blockages in solar plexus chakra energy.

The main indicators of a sluggish manipura are digestive disorders and a disproportionate dose of inertia.

If you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, if your To Do list only seems to grow in one direction, or if you experience digestive issues such as constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, or difficulty absorbing nutrients (super fun), you may want to turn your attention to your navel chakra.

You may be asking, what the heck does pooping have to do with my manipura chakra?? and it’s your lucky day because I will tell you.

For thousands of years, yogis have paid attention to the connection between our gut and our brain. In more recent years, Western medicine has shown that 90% of our body’s serotonin levels (also called “the happy hormone”) is produced in your digestive system.

In other words, our digestion needs to be functioning properly in order for our minds to be feeling giddy.

Yogis refer to our power of digestion as fire, or agni. This is fire that transforms your kale salad into a happy commute, your next big idea, or a feeling of gratitude.

If you have ever gotten a stomach ache before a big presentation, or felt your core muscles power you through the final stretches of a butt-kicking workout, you’ve experienced the mind-body connection of your navel chakra in full force.

On the flip side, an overactive manipura chakra is still an imbalance to be dealt with. Folks with an excess of solar plexus energy can come across as aggressive, ego-crazed bulldozers who are too focused on chomping their way toward their goals.

If this sounds like you, or you want to overcome digestive disorders, lack of self-confidence, or difficulty accomplishing your aims, get your chakra healing game on with the methods below.

Methods of Solar Plexus Chakra Healing

Chakra Yoga

Here’s a bit of happy news for the manipura junkies out there: most yoga classes taught in the West already have an embedded focus on this energy center, whether intended or not.

Why?

Because sweat sells.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that yoga studio owners find it easier to fill core-strengthening, bikini-season-readying, sweaty hot vinyasa flow classes than something like, say, silent meditation.

While this unavoidable truth has its ups and downs, it does mean one thing: you won’t have to search long and hard for a yoga practice that activates your solar plexus.

To keep this existing tendency in check, balance out your healing practice with plenty of calming rest and contemplation. Never skip savasana at the end of class, and give yourself a hearty dose of restorative yoga poses such as child’s pose, happy baby pose, and seated meditation.

Yoga Pose 1. Supine Breath Work

Lie on your back comfortably, either with knees bent and resting on one another or with soles of the feet touching and knees opened up wide like a book.

Bring your right hand to your belly and your left hand to your heart. Relax your shoulders down away from your ears and bring your awareness to your breath.

As you breathe, feel your belly and chest gently rise and fall, changing shape as you invite air into your lungs and expel it.

As your muscles start to relax, aim to expand your belly and chest as much as you possibly can each time you fill up with air.

Notice how it feels to be completely full and completely empty, and repeat the cycle for 3-5 minutes.

Yoga Pose 2. Boat Pose

Navasana boat pose is one of the best yoga poses for building strength in your core to support your spine and everyday life.

Sitting on your butt, begin by drawing your belly button inwards toward your spine and sending your collarbones wide and away from your ears.

Keeping the spine as long as you can, lean your torso backwards until you feel your power chakra start to turn on, working your stomach muscles and keeping your rib cage lifted away from your hips.

Keep your feet on the floor, or challenge your abdomen further by lifting your feet up. Hold for 3-5 breaths.

Yoga Pose 3. Half Lord of the Fishes Pose

Traditionally, Half Lord of the Fishes pose is used to open the throat chakra but many try healing the solar plexus chakra by twisting digestive problems away. Get things moving by sitting up tall and bending both knees. Bring your right foot to the outside of your left hip and your left foot to the outside of your right thigh.

As you inhale, straighten your spine as much as you can, lifting your upper abdomen up off your hips. As you exhale, wrap an arm around your left knee and use the gentle traction to encourage your spine into a gentle twist, taking your left hand behind you for support.

Hold for 3-5 breaths and repeat on the other side.

Yoga Pose 4. Triangle Pose (Trikonasana)

Triangle pose generates firey energy in Manipura chakra and is a great posture for building focus and determination. To get into the posture, stand with your feet more than shoulder-width apart and turn your front foot to point forward toward the top of the mat.

Stretch your arms outward, parallel to your mat. Tuck your tailbone so that your spine is straight as if a string is pulling you from the top of the head.

If needed, slightly bend the front knee. Slightly bend at your hips and move your torso forward, using your front hand to pull your body toward the front of the mat while maintaining square hips toward the side of the mat. Place your right hand either next to your foot or gently on your shin. Raise your back hand up toward the sky and turn your gaze to look to the top hand.

Hold for a few breaths, up to a few minutes.

Solar Plexus Chakra Meditation

To tap into the powerful chakra meaning of Manipura, you can either try this guided meditation to clear a solar plexus chakra blockage or try standing tall, ideally in the sun and close your eyes.

With your arms by your sides, take a few moments to turn your attention inward. When your breathing is steady and unhurried, notice the ground beneath your feet and the space above your head.

Breathing in, slowly draw your arms up to the sky; visualize a bright yellow flame igniting in the core of your abdomen. As you exhale, lower your arms in one fluid motion.

Continue this flow, feeling the chakra color grow bigger and more vibrant with every inhale. As you connect with the

The earth beneath you and the astral world above you, feel the perfect equilibrium in which you exist.

When the shining yellow light has engulfed your entire body, keep your arms overhead and breathe, embracing a strong sense of your personal power and dosing yourself generously with healthy self-esteem.

Chanting

Seed vibration (bija mantra): Ram (Remember: it’s pronounced like the liquid found in a pina colada)

You can chant the mantra Ram, or try one of these powerhouse affirmations:

I am strong and courageous.
My power stems from within.
I can do anything.

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