THE CHAKRA DIET – Balance the Sacral Chakra and Lose Weight Too!

With Thanksgiving just around the corner and pumpkin pies in the making, it’s a good time to talk about the Sacral Chakra, and the orange foods that can be used to balance this center of sexual and creative energy.

Located at the lower abdomen, the second chakra, the Sacral Chakra, is the focal point of your emotions, governing how you relate to others and the flow of your feelings and creative expression. It vibrates with the energy of the color orange.

You may recognize some of these emotional or mental health issues commonly associated with the Sacral Chakra – sexual frigidity or promiscuity, confusion or addiction, co-dependency, being overly emotional or stoic, or feeling guilty.

Physical health issues include gynecological problems, urinary tract problems, stiffness or pain in the lower back.

Have food cravings? Body weight issues and sugar/carbohydrate cravings are commonly associated with this chakra. Cravings can result from unfelt or unexpressed emotions, as well as to the common condition candidiasis, better known as a yeast infection, also associated with this chakra. An overgrowth of yeast can often follow a course of antibiotics or birth control pills and can be centered just in the area of the Sacral Chakra (the female sex organs) or move systemically throughout the body. When you have this condition, you’ll feel like you have a gremlin inside that needs to be fed, you’ll feel tired, and lacking in passion for love and life in general.

When the Sacral Chakra is balanced, you’ll feel confident in social interactions, free to process your emotions, feel creative, and able to enjoy sex and other pleasurable activities, like a holiday feast, without guilt.

Foods, especially those that share colors with the chakras, carry vibrations that can activate or balance your chakras.

Sacral Chakra Healing Foods:

If you want to balance your Sacral Chakra, and reduce cravings that lead to overeating, replace processed foods and snacks that tend to be addictive, especially as most are loaded with sugar, GMOs, hormones, antibiotics and pesticides.  Instead, focus on filling, nutritious yet naturally sweet orange-colored snacks and organic whole foods, ranging from raw carrots and peppers (use them to dip in hummus or plain tahini) to yams and winter squash such as kabocha or pumpkin. Foods that are high in protein and essential fatty acids and help balance the Sacral Chakra include flax, hemp and sesame seeds, wild-caught salmon, tuna and shellfish. Fruits include oranges, peaches, apricots, mangoes and papayas.

Foods that are orange usually contain phytonutrients and Vitamin A, helping release toxins from the body, supporting the reproductive system and encouraging flow (creativity) on all levels.

Sacral Chakra Healing Activities: Swimming, dancing and healthy home cooking are all activities I recommend for Sacral Chakra balancing AND getting you back in the flow and to your ideal weight.

The Sacral Chakra is connected to the element of water and its flowing state. While the Root Chakra is all about grounding to Mother Earth, the Sacral Chakra is about reaching out to others in physical movement. Let go and let yourself splash around in the pool/ocean or move on the dance floor to your favorite music or with your favorite person. Let go and engage in pleasure and passion.

Tis the season for holiday feasts, and cooking whole foods can also increase your creativity – plan a colorful meal made with loving attention to healthy ingredients. Appreciate the beauty of the dishes you have created, breathe in their aroma, and chew them fully to savor their natural sweetness and assist in digestion. In truth, this is more satisfying than mindlessly stuffing down food to quench your pleasure center.

My Favorite Sweet Squash Pie: Sugar-, Dairy- and Gluten-Free

I find pies made with winter squashes such as kabocha, buttercup or butternut to be naturally much sweeter than pumpkin. My favorite is a very simple recipe learned during my training as a macrobiotic cook.

Squash Pie Filling: First cut the squash in quarters, seed it and either bake or steam until soft. Peel and mash 3 cups of the bright orange flesh. Dissolve 2 T. of kuzu or arrowroot in ½ cup cold water, then heat to thicken, stirring vigorously to prevent lumps. Puree the squash with the kuzu, 2-4 T. of maple syrup, and 1 tsp. of cinnamon and/or other desired spices such as nutmeg or cloves.

Nutty Oat Crust: You’ll need 1 1/3 cups oat flour (whiz rolled oats in the blender) and 2/3 cups brown rice flour. You can roast the flours to bring out their nutty taste by stirring in a skillet (cast iron ones work well). Mix in ¼ tsp. sea salt, ¼ cup chopped walnuts, 2 T. sesame or coconut oil with a fork, then add ½ to ¾ cup water (just enough to hold it together). Spread into a pie plate, then bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, then add the squash filling and bake for 25 minutes more. Cool and enjoy!

Please share your favorite recipe for Sacral Chakra balancing – it may be included in my upcoming book THE CHAKRA DIET!

Namaste!

Becca Chopra, author of Chakra Secrets, The Chakra Diaries and Balance Your Chakras, Balance Your Life

www.thechakras.org

 

Connection of Psoas Muscle to Root and Sacral Chakras

The psoas muscle is connected energetically to the Sacral Chakra, which is associated with our sexuality and moving into relationship (dancing and swimming are two exercises in addition to yoga stretches that are recommended to strengthen this chakra). The psoas muscle also extends down to the Root Chakra which grounds us and makes us feel secure and safe in the world (squatting in the garden to pull weeds is one of my favorite stretches to both ground my Root Chakra and release my psoas muscle). In my morning yoga routine, I do reclined Cobbler’s Pose, gently pressing my thighs away from my hips as my spine extends and psoas tightness is released.

Here is a very detailed description of the psoas muscle which provides detailed information on how your yoga practice may be helping or actually hurting this “muscle of the soul” from BodyDivineYoga.wordpress.com:

The Psoas: Muscle of The Soul

by Danielle Prohom Olson

I was delighted when I first came across Liz Koch’s amazing work because it confirmed much of what I’d been intuiting on my own. I had begun to open and close my yoga practise with hip opening poses with the specific intention of releasing tension in my psoas and hip flexors. I’d breathe and imagine tension flowing out of constricted muscles to be released as energy into the torso.

It worked, I’d feel my body soften yet somehow grow stronger.

Reading Liz Koch I instantly realized what I was doing – by learning to relax my psoas I was literally energizing my deepest core by reconnecting with the powerful energy of the earth. According to Koch, the psoas is far more than a core stabilizing muscle; it is an organ of perception composed of bio-intelligent tissue and “literally embodies our deepest urge for survival, and more profoundly, our elemental desire to flourish.”

Well, I just had to learn more. Here is just a sprinkling of the research that Liz Koch and others have uncovered regarding the importance of the psoas to our health, vitality and emotional well-being.

The Psoas muscle (pronounced so-as) is the deepest muscle of the human body affecting our structural balance, muscular integrity, flexibility, strength, range of motion, joint mobility, and organ functioning.

Growing out of both sides of the spine, the psoas spans laterally from the 12th thoracic vertebrae (T12) to each of the 5 lumbar vertebrae. From there it flows down through the abdominal core, the pelvis, to attach to the top of the femur (thigh) bone.

The Psoas is the only ‘muscle’ to connect the spine to the legs.  It is responsible for holding us upright, and allows us to lift our legs in order to walk. A healthily functioning psoas stabilizes the spine and provides support through the trunk, forming a shelf for the vital organs of the abdominal core.

The psoas is connected to the diaphragm through connective tissue or fascia which affects both our breath and fear reflex. This is because the psoas is directly linked to the reptilian brain, the most ancient interior part of the brain stem and spinal cord.  As Koch writes “Long before the spoken word or the organizing capacity of the cortex developed, the reptilian brain, known for its survival instincts, maintained our essential core functioning.”

Koch believes that our fast paced modern lifestyle (which runs on the adrenaline of our sympathetic nervous system) chronically triggers and tightens the psoas – making it literally ready to run or fight. The psoas helps you to spring into action – or curl you up into a protective ball.

If we constantly contract the psoas to due to stress or tension , the muscle eventually begins to shorten leading to a host of painful conditions including low back pain, sacroiliac pain, sciatica, disc problems, spondylolysis, scoliosis, hip degeneration, knee pain, menstruation pain, infertility, and digestive problems.

A tight psoas not only creates structural problems, it constricts the organs, puts pressure on nerves, interferes with the movement of fluids, and impairs diaphragmatic breathing.

In fact, “The psoas is so intimately involved in such basic physical and emotional reactions, that a chronically tightened psoas continually signals your body that you’re in danger, eventually exhausting the adrenal glands and depleting the immune system.”

And according to Koch, this situation is exacerbated by many things in our modern lifestyle, from car seats to constrictive clothing, from chairs to shoes that distort our posture, curtail our natural movements and further constrict our psoas.

Koch believes the first step in cultivating a healthy psoas is to release unnecessary tension.  But “to work with the psoas is not to try to control the muscle, but to cultivate the awareness necessary for sensing its messages.  This involves making a conscious choice to become somatically aware.”

 A relaxed psoas is the mark of play and creative expression.  Instead of the contracted psoas, ready to run or fight, the relaxed and released psoas is ready instead to lengthen and open, to dance. In many yoga poses (like tree)  the thighs can’t fully rotate outward unless the psoas releases. A released psoas allows the front of the thighs to lengthen and the leg to move independently from the pelvis, enhancing and deepening the lift of the entire torso and heart.

Koch believes that by cultivating a healthy psoas, we can rekindle our body’s vital energies by learning to reconnect with the life force of the universe. Within the Taoist tradition the psoas is spoken of as the seat or muscle of the soul, and surrounds the lower “Dan tien” a major energy center of body.  A flexible and strong psoas grounds us and allows subtle energies to flow through the bones, muscles and joints.

Koch writes “The psoas, by conducting energy, grounds us to the earth, just as a grounding wire prevents shocks and eliminates static on a radio. Freed and grounded, the spine can awaken”…“ As gravitational flows transfer weight through bones, tissue, and muscle, into the earth, the earth rebounds, flowing back up the legs and spine, energizing, coordinating and animating posture, movement and expression. It is an uninterrupted conversation between self, earth, and cosmos.”

So, it might be worth it, next time you practice, to tune in and pay attention to what your bio-intelligent psoas has to say.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries, Chakra Secrets, and Balance Your Chakras-Balance Your Life

www.thechakras.org

Chocolate Meditation Will Increase Your Pleasure

Happy Halloween! As you bite into your first piece of Halloween chocolate, use it as a lesson in savoring pleasure and savoring your life, which will strengthen your Sacral Chakra.

Use this meditation from my friend, Stewart Blackburn, the Shaman of Pleasure:

CHOCOLATE MEDITATION

Take a small piece of the chocolate, hold it in your hands and give thanks for it. Feel its shape and texture. Then smell it. Take your time and get as much sensory information from it as you can without putting it into your mouth. Note how you feel in anticipation of eating this chocolate.

Let each breath help you to relax into this experience. This is about being as thoroughly in your body as you can, present to all you perceive.

With great consciousness and flair put the chocolate into your mouth and focus your full attention on the sensations you experience in your mouth. Feel it melt and move around in your mouth. Be aware of the sweetness on your tongue, the creaminess in your mouth, and all of the delicious flavors present. Prolong the experience as much as you can while being aware of how it makes you feel emotionally. See how deeply you can enjoy this chocolate.

Now turn your attention to an awareness of the pleasure you are experiencing. Let the chocolate help you hold your attention on the source of the pleasure, but now your focus is on the pleasure itself. Let your experience of pleasure fill your whole body. With each breath let it expand beyond the limits of your body. Slowly, breath by breath, let your pleasure fill the whole room. Let your pleasure keep on expanding and expanding, all the way out into the universe. Allow yourself to totally enjoy the magnificence of your new expanded pleasure. Give yourself permission to hold this for as long as you want. And when you are ready for this to end, give thanks and reset yourself for new delights.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra

www.thechakras.org

Balance your Chakras – FREE KINDLE OF THE CHAKRA DIARIES TODAY!

Balance your Chakras, Balance your  Sex Life!

Do you want to spice up your sex life or feel more passionate, graceful and creative? Unblocking your Sacral or 2nd Chakra may be the key. It is an especially important chakra for women to keep in balance, connecting you to your passion and to the Divine Feminine.

There are seven major chakras in our energy field that each affect our emotional and physical health in a different way. Two characters in The Chakra Diaries have unbalanced Sacral Chakras – one, a woman in her forties, Deborah has lost her libido, the other, Sarah, a young woman, is both unsure of her sexual orientation and promiscuous. Chakra balancing brings them back to a space of confidence and creativity where they are better able to trust their feminine intuition and make true love connections.

Here’s a short excerpt from Deborah’s diary, in which her libido comes alive:

Alright, I was frustrated with the new software package and didn’t want to buzz my assistant again for help. So I retreated to my emails. There it was. The type should have been in bright orange…

     “Bon Jour, Blonde Goddess” read the subject line. Delete or open, that was the decision at my fingertips. Liking “goddess” rather than “dried up old crone,” I decided to open, hoping it wasn’t another offer for penile enlargement drugs at a discount. 

     The text didn’t disappoint. It described how the sender, whose return address was TantricOne, had dreamt of me the night before and had awoken in a tangle of sweaty sheets, his body having made a promise that his mind must fulfill. He knew how to write a love scene, describing in luscious detail how he had started kissing the tip of my perfect nose, pausing for the briefest caress at my full, sensuous lips down the slope of my silky white throat, into that heart throb of deep cleavage awaiting him between my bountiful breasts, skating the circle of creation that formed my navel, then tracing the contours of each heavenly hip bone before licking the smooth-downed valley of my stomach…. and then, he woke up.

     OK, that was me paraphrasing a two-page dreamscape from a master writer. Me, the owner of the dead second chakra, now had small drops of sweat pooling in my deep cleavage, tingles in the area below my smooth, flat stomach, and a shortness of breath that could only mean I was turned on or having my first hot flash.

      My assistant came in, looking over my shoulder in her nosy way, to remind me of my 10 am meeting, and I pressed “delete” before her eyes could focus on the sultry text on the screen.
Located at the lower abdomen, right at the cervix, the Sacral Chakra governs how we relate to others and the flow of our feelings and expression in art, music, dance and living. It is the seat of our sexuality, the pleasure chakra that turns us on and is considered by many to be the doorway into creation itself.

When this chakra is balanced, you can embrace creativity with open arms, whether it is expressed through dance, yoga, swimming, sex, singing praises to the Divine, painting to celebrate self-awareness, or cooking for your inner goddess.

THE CHAKRA DIARIES, FREE ON KINDLE TODAY

The Chakra Diaries, novel life stories of people encountering the emotional, physical and spiritual problems associated with chakra imbalances, moves from tragedy to triumph as they balance their lives. To share their stories and chakra wisdom, you can download The Chakra Diaries, free on Kindle today, July 5, at http://amzn.to/FPcLzQ.

For more information on chakras and a free MP3 download of Chakra Meditations from The Chakra Diaries, see http://www.thechakras.org.

Namaste!
Becca Chopra

Romancing the Glow – Harnessing your Sexual Urges

Dear Becca,

I suffered through the holidays with all of its gaiety and gatherings of smiling couples vibrating with love, flush with brandy, eggnog and champagne and behind-the-scenes flirtation. I too felt a glow yet mine was an emptiness, a space to be filled – in my chest, between my ears and yes, even between my legs too. True, my body pillow doesn’t snore or leave wet spots or drink milk from the carton but I am more than ready for my Shakti to rise up to meet her Shiva and to take him for a twirl, everyday hopefully. Your book, The Chakra Diaries made me so hot between the covers. At least some of your participants must have liberated their kundalini energy to surge up through their chakras to their Crown.
Can you give me some suggestions on how to transform my earthly, sexual urges into a vibration that weakens my knees as no man has?

Elusive Ecstasy

Dear E E,

Thanks so much for writing. Stay tuned for my answer.
Namaste. Becca

Dreams Confused with Reality?

“The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.” ~ James Michener

Dreams bolster and enable our vision, imagination and insight, revealing that which has been hidden, out of focus or not understand. Just as Deborah, a wondrous character in The Chakra Diaries saw herself in a different light when an anonymous admirer wrote of her anointing his dreams and igniting his imagination, dreams can communicate to us from the inside out. Deborah was living almost entirely in the past, isolated from her spouse’s physical affections and questioning her self worth until her new friend’s verbiage and focus enabled her to reopen her heart to love and all of its many splendors.

Will Deborah end up in the arms of love? Will her husband realize his mistake at leaving her and beg for her in forgiveness? Will Deborah’s new friend enrich her life as she had hoped and dreamed?

Read the whole story in The Chakra Diaries to find out more about reigniting the sacral chakra, passion and love. Namaste.

Mirror, Mirror On the Wall – Step Three – Solar Plexus Chakra

I begin my days by stretching cat-like on my futon, toenails to fingernails, arching and undulating my spine, inviting my physical body to join my consciousness in greeting a new day ripe with opportunity. Once I arise from my rainbow-drenched mat, I ball my fears into a small soft, mentally biodegradable box and give it a hefty kick into the heavens. In the evenings, I repeat this fear-banishing exercise, using it as warm milk for my soul, its soporific effect smoothly easing me into a relaxed state so that I may begin my nightly visualizations.

At some point during the morning, usually after my first cup of green tea, I affirm to the Becca in the mirror that even though I take risks in both love and life, I give myself permission to fail (or perhaps to alter my thinking or attitude so that “failures” morph into positive learning experiences.) Just yesterday, one of my chakra workshop participants was wringing her hands and likening her lack of a physical love life to that of a nun. I chuckled at her purloined quote that “Men are like parking spaces, the good ones are either taken, or are too far away.”

One of the males in the group suggested that Ms. Frustrated first take a hard, honest look in her mirror and assess (even writing down what she is offering to the world), those qualities seen and unseen that might or might not be attracting potential mates into her life. He reminded her to be realistic, but not to sell herself short and remarked that, for instance, he was attracted to her intellect and humor but often put off by her critical comments lightly veiled as wit. I urged her to practice enhancing the attributes on her “alluring” list and to discard or re-purpose the unwanted, much as I figuratively boot mine away.

Another workshop attendee who lost her lover to the thrills and spills of life, creating her own “private hell on earth,” said that simple positive thinking had helped her endure. Instead of grinding her teeth and stomping her feet at the “overwhelming” frustrations and mental plaque built up from being a modern woman, Ms. Optimism had hung a carrot on a stick in her kitchen, reminding her to concentrate on the rewards at the end of her journey, and not the countless, arduous steps in between. She ended her tale and gave our hearts wings when she said to stay tuned – that she knew meaningful, lasting love was on the horizon even though she has not yet even seen the boat it is sailing on.

If you are looking for love, a strong sense of self from a balanced solar plexus chakra will give you charisma and help you attract your soul mate. Good luck in love in the New Year.
Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

Finding Love at the End of the Rainbow – Step Two – Sacral Chakra

“Sex is emotion in motion,” said Mae West and she was an expert on that subject. If stress causes blockages of energy in the body, your sex and your love life will be out of whack. Accumulated stress in the body, whether emotional or physical, erects barriers to the natural flow of our life energy. So, too much stress may equal no love or even any prospects for it. Love doctors have for centuries recognized that moving in spontaneous and free-form ways not only demands flexibility but also the ability to change focus and let go of memories, trauma and pain.

Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has been quoted as saying that “Love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy in the world.” In opposition to the Base Chakra’s links to fortress-like solidity and stability, the Sacral Chakra focuses on flowing movement and filling your need to sip, bathe, luxuriate or douse in the vivacious, unpredictable and dynamic stream we call love. Practicing the hypnotic hip swivels of oriental (belly) dancing or performing wu chi exercises may help you begin to experience the world of love that seems just beyond your heart’s grasp.

An imbalance of your Sacral Chakra may also manifest as an inappropriate focus on something or somebody that is inappropriate or unrealistic. Perhaps that new guy in the office does have a killer smile, great hair and a body worth giving up chocolate for, but he comes forth anointed with a ring finger wrapped in gold. We might practice the cobbler’s pose to encourage our life energy to flow throughout our sacral chakra or unleash and focus our creative spirits through painting or making music. Our skill level at this art is not an important measure but the fact that we are “doing it” and by doing so are diverting our essence around any barriers nesting in our bodies. As an expression of our joy of living, whatever we create is beautiful, skillful, breathtaking and encouraging. In becoming more sensitive and responsive to what is going on in the world around us, we also further the grounding that we fostered in our root chakra, allowing us to go boldly after what we seek in life, even a relationship that we can grow old with.

In addition to harboring pleasurable sensations, the sacral chakra can vacuum in and hold fast to pain and its attendant stress, damming up the free flow of energy and physically manifesting as infection and illness. We may be “going through the motions” in life, seeing the dust on the table and not the wondrous roses in the crystal vase. Our reactions to the world may vacillate widely from rage and aggression to breaking into tears at the slightest problem.

To aid in stress relief, esteemed authors and teachers Sue and Simon Lilly suggest placing three clear quartz crystals, points facing outward, in a triangle just below your navel. Next, place three rose quartz stones in an arc above your pubic bone and relax for 4-5 minutes. Repeat as often as is needed for optimal energy flow.

Namaste and Keep Focused on Love!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

Healthy Foods to Balance Your Chakras

Becca says chocolate on Valentine's Day will help open your Third Eye Chakra, for greater intuition and psychic power.

Foods, especially that share colors with the chakras, carry vibrations that can activate or balance your chakras.

Root Chakra Healing Foods: Animal protein, root vegetables, edible and medicinal mushrooms, red-colored foods (apples, pomegranates, etc.)

Sacral Chakra Healing Foods: Fats and oils, fish (especially wild-caught salmon), tropical fruits, seeds, nuts, orange-colored foods (oranges, tangerines, carrots, etc.)

Solar Plexus Chakra Healing Foods: Carbohydrates (complex), whole grains, legumes, yellow-colored foods (yellow sweet peppers, yellow lentils, corn, etc.)

Heart Chakra Healing Foods: Green leafy vegetables, sprouts, raw foods, any green-colored foods or drinks like green tea

Throat Chakra Healing Foods: Seaweed, fruit, and liquids like juices, soups, sauces

Third Eye Chakra Healing Foods: Caffeine, chocolate, spices, wine, purple-red foods (purple potatoes, red onions, blackberries, blueberries, purple grapes, etc.)

Crown Chakra Healing Foods: Since the crown chakra is more “spirit” than “matter,” it is not nourished with physical foods in the same way that they feed other chakras, but is usually healed by fasting and on the sustenance that comes from sunlight, air, and love.

by Becca Chopra, author of “The Chakra Diaries.” Read a free sample chapter at http://www.TheChakras.org