What Happens When the Sacral Chakra is Blocked

The second energy vortex of the spiritual body is called the sacral chakra or swadhistana in Sanskrit, which translates to “abode of the self.” It is where the sense of personal identification is born. The feeling of existence or “I” flows out of this chakra.

The sacral chakra is about movement and fluidity, as opposed to the root chakra, which is about solidity and groundedness. In other words, we move from the dense to a subtle aspect of consciousness. The sacral chakra is subtler than the root chakra and has water as its primary element.

It is located below the belly button and above the reproductive organs. Don’t fixate on the exact location, as it is not a part of the physical body but an energetic geometrical structure within the subtle body. Like other chakras, the sacral chakra is also regulated by the in-and-out flow of subtle energy known as prana. 

A sufficient prana flow indicates good chakra health. Unfortunately, we don’t have an instrument to measure this phenomenon physically. Therefore, we must rely upon psychosomatic symptoms to know if anything is wrong or if any blockage is happening.

In this age of information overload and fast-paced lifestyles, our root chakra strengthens us by grounding the mind. Grounding provides numerous benefits like better sleep, focused thinking, clarity, and revitalization of mind and body. 

The sacral chakra energy, due to its fluid nature, brings about flexibility, adaptability, emotional regulation, and enhanced creativity. Stubbornness and rigidity are two major obstacles to creative work. And these two also contribute to emotional stress that further leads to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as substance abuse and violent behavior.

Identity Confusion Leading to Interpersonal Relationship Conflicts

Confused identification is perhaps the root cause of relationship conflicts. When you are unaware of who you are, you get mixed up with people who do not align with your frequency. 

You may have created a specific image of yourself in your mind. You may think of yourself as an individual with selected preferences and likes and dislikes, but the reality may differ. 

I used to think of myself as an entrepreneur, so I pretended to be extroverted and outgoing. Based on that, I sought a similar company, which never worked for me. 

Identification forms the basis for an interactive experience with the world. In newborns, this sense of personal self-identification is weak; therefore, they cannot effectively communicate their needs except through crying, hoping that the caretakers understand. 

They don’t comprehend the concept of them being individuals. For them, the caretaker is an extension of themselves. With the awakening of the sacral chakra, they begin to form an identification – a psychological concept of who they are and how they are to survive and thrive in this world. 

However, people with blocked sacral chakra remain confused about their identity and purpose, which brings about friction and suffering in interpersonal relationships. They remain confused, conflicted, and emotionally vulnerable. They are easily taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. They get associated with the wrong people.

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Lacking Interest In Creative Pursuits

The sacral chakra connects to our subconscious, the storehouse of creative potential. However, many of us with blocked energy cannot tap into this vast reservoir of creativity, mainly because we remain trapped within our thinking mind, which keeps obsessing about an imaginary future.

Fear is what stops many people from pursuing creative tasks. The main concern is related to finances. How will I make a living? What about my debts? What about my future? 

We remain trapped in the unending ruminations desiring a happy life and sacrificing today for tomorrow. By the time tomorrow comes, we do not have the same vitality and enthusiasm we had earlier.

Human design is such that we need to be creative to be happy. Satisfaction and fulfillment come with creativity and not with chasing an arbitrary number in the bank account. You experience a rush of creative thoughts when your sacral energy gets unlocked. 

It feels like life has opened a new doorway to a place where there is unlimited happiness of abundance and no fear of scarcity. The mind expands, and new ideas flow. 

And utilizing the power of solar plexus, which we will cover subsequently, you gain the strength to pursue those creative ideas and create a new life for yourself—a life of freedom and joy.

People with blocked sacral energy remain trapped in their traditional ways. Afraid of uncertainty, they become conformists to authority and prevalent culture. The very thought of diverting from the conventional is troublesome for them.

They forget how creative they were as children, how they explored the world with fear. Do you recall how adventurous you were as a child? Sacral chakra brings back the lost innocence and curiosity.

You Cannot Experience Pleasure

The sacral chakra is the pleasure energy center we receive as a gift from the universe. The natural creativity in children proves that fact. However, as we grow and step into the world, we get conditioned and lose our creative abilities, including the ability to experience life’s pleasures.

We mistake pleasure for thrill and excitement, which are also a part of living, but an unconscious chase for re-experiencing pleasures prevents us from experiencing the innate peace that is our essence.

Pleasure includes small things like enjoying your morning coffee, dining with family, spending quality time with friends, taking a stroll in the garden, and so on. These pleasures are mostly free and easily available, but we are never really “present” to others. 

We remain lost in contemplating future happiness, far away from the present moment’s joy. “If I had more money, I would be happier.” “If I get that project, I’ll be successful.” “I have to do this,” “I have to do that,” and the thinking mind goes on like that forever.

How alert and receptive are you when you are with another person, like your spouse, children, or friends? Balancing sacral chakra will not rain gold and silver or jack up your stock prices. It makes you aware and receptive to the joy of the moment.

A guaranteed approach to living a miserable life is the idea of “sacrificing your today for a better tomorrow.” People who believe that end up sacrificing their entire lives because there’s no tomorrow. 

The problem is that we want instant success in everything. This unconscious chase of the thinking mind to get immediate success, fame, admiration, and an obsession with the hustle culture brings pain and suffering.

Allowing things to be as they are and moving forward at your natural place awakens your pleasure center. We grow slowly but enjoy the process. We learn to see life in totality for “what it is” rather than how our ego-mind projects it.

Low Self-Esteem

Low self-esteem closely ties to misidentification. When you don’t assess yourself honestly, you create a perception about yourself based on present knowledge, and you further create a future projection.

However, because of your false assumption about present-self, you find a big disconnect with other people. You experience confusion and rejection.  

You carry the burden of expectations and responsibilities handed over by society. 

Maybe you had a knack for art, but someone, somewhere down the line, told you that you would make more money in the medical profession. And you decided to forgo art to please people around you. It’s not your fault. That’s how life unfolds for most of us. 

You may be a doctor, engineer, data scientist, lawyer, or whatever, but you’re unhappy. You don’t get along with your peers. You try hard to gain their acceptance but face rejection frequently. You don’t talk about it and keep the emotions buried underneath, which causes more problems.

People with low self-esteem exhibit passive-aggressive behavior where they mock people in the guise of a joke. They are self-critical and also criticize others. They fear approaching people thinking they are better than us. They unknowingly seek validation from others – social media is a living proof of this. Hostility, aggression, embarrassment, loneliness, and substance abuse are common in people with low self-esteem.

Poor self-esteem causes insecurity that leads to jealousy and resentment. Such people feel the need to control others compulsively. They do it to calm their anxiety and feel better about themselves. This behavior usually hurts the person on the receiving end, and the relationship eventually breaks.

With the energetic alignment in the sacral chakra, we realize our true identity. We experience a sense of acceptance of what life has given us. The need to change for others or conform to traditional beliefs disappears, along with low self-esteem, as there is no desired future projection of any image.

Stubbornness and Rigidity

I can cite my own example for this one. Well, I can cite personal examples for all the abovementioned issues, but we’ll stick with this for now. I was an extremely stubborn person who was hell-bent on achieving success as an entrepreneur in the IT sector.

I was told to dream big and hustle to achieve my goals. I spent years trying many things that eventually failed, and now that I look back, I virtually repeated myself every time. The same stubbornness and rigidity caused me to fail every time. 

Despite knowing what I was doing was not working, I was unwilling to change my ways. I was reluctant to listen to practical advice and come to terms with reality. I wanted to be the Bill Gates (I was the 90’s kid, so Mark Zuckerberg was not yet on the scene) of India.

My mind messed up my sacral chakra so bad that I started experiencing recurring headaches and lower back spasms every year. There was no structural abnormality, but the spasms were debilitating. I could not even take a bath during those days.

Dysfunctional sacral chakra makes us rigid. After a particular point, rigidity manifests as recurring pain in the body. Adaptability and flexibility are the keys to balanced sacral energy. A classic indication is muscle stiffness in lower body regions like legs and hips.

While exercises like stretching and strengthening stiff body parts help, the pain comes back till the psychological component of the ailment is not addressed.

That’s why the sacral chakra is represented by the water element. Water is flexible. It finds ways around obstacles by meandering. It assumes the shape of the container.

How To Open The Sacral Chakra?

There’s a lot of information out there that explains how to open the sacral chakra. Most of it is a regurgitation of the same redundant information. Practice yoga poses, use essential oils, wear crystals and stones, affirmations, and so on. You can get all that information in my chakra e-book/worksheets download.

While all those things help, there’s much more to chakra healing than wearing branded crystals. There’s nothing to be done other than watching your mind with a non-judgment awareness. With awareness comes acceptance, which dispels unconsciousness. 

You don’t need to force a change on yourself through a particular practice. Allow the awareness to manifest, and undesirable traits and tendencies will drop on their own.

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