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Sensuality & Sexuality:
Second Chakra

by Julie Tallard Johnson

Editor's Note: While this article addresses teenagers, its contents can be "enlightening" and healing for adults as well.

This chakra is located below your navel and above the genitals. It is often called the body chakra because it is where you connect with the physical body through your senses. The second chakra is the chakra of sensuality, sexuality, and pleasure. It is also the chakra of emotions. From this chakra you are able to tune into others emotionally. When it is unblocked, this chakra allows for the free flow of your emotional, sensual, and creative energy throughout your body. It is through our feelings and our senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing) that we feel and interact with the world around us. Without a clear connection to your senses, you may have a "numbness" in your body and difficulty interpreting (understanding) your environment.

In our culture we are often taught to repress our natural pleasure states. We are not supposed to be emotional in public, and we are not to exhibit too much pleasure or energy at school. Often, adults in our culture are uncomfortable with teenagers coming into their own sexual energies. Because of these cultural attitudes, to "be good" and "behave" can often translate into shutting down and denying some of your important senses.

When basic pleasures are denied, such as your healthy sexuality, emotional expression, and sensual curiosity, you may find yourself choosing substitute "pleasures" such as drugs, drinking, video games, television, and overeating. You may also resort to negative behaviors including avoiding responsibility, blaming others for your troubles, and sexually acting out. Because substitute pleasures are not truly fulfilling, you find yourself having to keep doing them again and again. It's like eating one marshmallow when what you really crave is a big fresh strawberry sundae. Anodea Judith, author of Eastern Body, Western Mind, sums it up nicely: "Healthy pleasure brings satisfaction; addictive pleasure brings a craving for more." This is a time to explore healthy ways to be a sensual, feeling individual.

Sexual energy is a sacred, vital, and intimate energy that connects us to someone else in a very special way. Sexual energy flows through everything that is alive. In the springtime we can see this energy come alive in animal and plant life.

Discovering your sexual energy in your teen years is part of claiming and opening the second chakra. This does not necessarily mean having sex (although it can). It does mean feeling your sexuality and your sensuality as a vital and sacred part of your humanness. It includes enjoying the scent of someone's cologne, the touch of a friend, the taste of your favorite food, the feel of tears on your cheek, the sound of a really good laugh, and the stunning colors of autumn leaves.

Healthy expression of your sexual energy may mean simply enjoying the way your body heats up when you think about or stand near a particular person. When you value and find real pleasure in your sexuality, you won't need to get caught up in substitute pleasures. Be very conscious of how you use this energy and whom you choose to share it with. Honor it as the sacred energy that it is. If you choose to be sexual with someone, be conscious about the reasons for your choice, and be realistic about what you can expect from that shift in your relationship.

TARA'S STORY

Tara was only fourteen when she was overheard in study hall saying she was "giving boys blow jobs at the party on Saturday." The nurse at the school was asked to talk with her. She asked Tara, "What were your reasons for doing this, and what did you want from it?" Tara told the nurse that she did it because she was "curious" and had heard that others did it. Then she had bragged about it because she thought other kids might think she was cool.

The nurse explained some basics to Tara -- for instance, the fact that you can get transmittable diseases, some of them fatal, through oral sex (because it is an exchange of mucus). She asked Tara to think about the idea that each time we have sex with someone we give part of ourselves to this person, and if we do this all through our high school years, how much of ourselves will be left? The nurse asked her to think about how she will feel when this boy ignores her or when she sees him flirting with another girl. And then she asked Tara how she had felt when she was casually having oral sex with a boy. Tara couldn't actually recall feeling anything -- she said she was pretty numb and was just "doing it. " At age fourteen, Tara was already giving herself away and shutting down from her precious sensual body.

Both the boys and the girl in this situation gave vital energy away. They were not treating the sexual interaction as sacred, and were treating each other as objects. The energy body knows when it is being treated carelessly. Such an experience leaves scars on the Rainbow Body, and drains vital energy.

The affirmations for the second chakra are:

I have a right to feel and have pleasure.
My sexuality is sacred.

1. The color of this chakra is orange.
   
   
2. The Bach Flower remedies for this chakra are Larch, Sweet pea, and Pomegranate. You can blend all three together or use just one.
   
   
3. Stones to help heal the second chakra are obsidian and black tourmaline. Obsidian is volcanic glass. It is another grounding and protective stone. Because it holds stabilizing energies, helping balance and protect you emotionally, it is a good stone for anyone who has been emotionally or otherwise abused. Many shamanic traditions use black obsidian in healing ceremonies to help in the removal of a disease from the body. The healer takes the obsidian to the wound, visually brings the illness outside the body, and transforms it into white light.
   
   
4. The element of this chakra is water.

Medicine from the Natural World

Find a clean, moving body of water such as a river, stream, or creek. If it is warm enough, sit in the moving water and let it flow over you. If you choose a river, make sure you can sit in the water without having to fight the current. If the weather is too cold to get in the water, simply sit next to a body of moving water, and listen to the movement of the water.

Healing Meditation for the Second Chakra

Notice (or imagine) the water moving around you ... notice how this feels. Allow this movement of water to remind you that you too are like water ... moving, changing, strong yet fluid . . . Allow all the senses to awaken to the flow of the water ... Let it carry away anything that is ready to leave you, such as negative thoughts, depression, worries, addictions . . . let the water baptize you in its powerful medicine. Allow as much time as possible for this?at least fifteen minutes. Let the water awaken your sensations and pleasures.

Imagine it moving through you ... and around you, carrying away your worries and bathing you in its pleasures and powers.

If you have been sexually abused, Myron Eshowsky, a shamanic healer from North America, recommends that in addition to therapy (psychotherapy, massage therapy) you find a way to "bathe in the earth." You can do this by burying your lower torso (from your belly button down) in the sand or in the earth. Dig a hole in the sand or dirt and cover up your bare legs and stomach with the earth. (If you have access to a safe, private place, doing this unclothed would be ideal.)

Ask that the healing properties of the earth absorb the pain and trauma from your body. Imagine that the earth is taking away all the pain and abuse, while your sexual and reproductive organs are getting renewed. Rest there for about five minutes and let the natural and spontaneous healing properties of the earth heal you.

This article was excerpted from:

Teen Psychic
by Julie Tallard Johnson.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Bindu Books, a division of Inner Traditions Intl. ©2003. http://www.innertraditions.com

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About the Author

JULIE TALLARD JOHNSON is the author of The Thundering Years and I Ching for Teens. She is a psychotherapist and mentor of teens and young adults. She lives in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Visit her website at www.julietallardjohnson.com.

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