Working with the Solar Plexus Chakra - Part 1

Let’s move on to the solar plexus chakra. If you haven’t read the Base or sacral chakra entries, you might part 1 and part 2, and the sacral chakra articles here: part 1 and part 2.

like to work with these first. You can find the base chakra articles here:  

Working through the chakras, at the base, we found balance in nurturing our bodies, accepting ourselves, and finding safety and security in our lives. In the sacral chakra we worked on movement, action creativity and expanding out towards others, while maintaining healthy boundaries.

In the solar plexus we come to the area of intellect, logic, mental functioning, creativity, courage, confidence and will power. It is the final chakra of the lower three which relate to manifestation and working with the physical realms directly. The mind is the place where ideas form which we can then put into action with the energy of the sacral and base chakras. It is with the solar plexus that we work on clearing the mind of mental chatter, creatively forming new ideas, organising and planning, and having the courage and force of will to move into action. It is our control center and the seat of our sense of personal power, intelligence, confidence and mental strength.

The solar plexus chakra is our ability to think, plan, focus and empower. It is to “WILL”.

Overactive

If the solar plexus is overactive this can manifest as what we might call "egotism" or being a "control freak". When the will is very strong, the intellect is sharp with many ideas (sometimes too many) and the confidence is high, we get a very strong personality. Of course there is nothing wrong with these in themselves, it is when they are experienced to excess that they can create problems, possibly in the form of hurting others or not taking their needs into account; not trusting others' abilities or thinking we are "better" than others. This way of thinking can be damaging to relationships and cause power struggles, arguments and fractions. There is an overflowing of the need to control and a lack of trust in others. An excess of mental activity can also create a "monkey mind" where we are jumping around between too many ideas at once.

Underactive

If the solar plexus is underactive we feel lacking in self-confidence, will power and mental clarity. Our minds feel foggy and unsure, we feel uncreative with no new ideas and find planning and organising difficult. This then exacerbates our lack of confidence, courage and will power. We can feel very weak and small, introverted and embarrassed when this is the case. This can stop us moving into relationship with others out of fear, worry or doubt, and have us feeling stagnant and lacking the power to change. A lack of self confidence can also create dependency on others to make decisions as they are often seen as more capable than the self.

Balanced

When the solar plexus is balanced we have all the positive elements relating to the chakra, but not in excess. We feel confident and courageous, creative and clear headed. We have lots of ideas and enjoy mental activity. We are not afraid to speak our mind or present ideas to others, but we do so in a balanced and non-egotistical way, allowing others to contribute, and being able to trust in their abilities too. Here our control is centered within ourselves. We have strong self-control and will power but do not want to control others. We have self-confidence and are not dependent on others to make decisions for us. We are connected not only to our own will but also to divine Will, or the will of the universe.

Questions to ask:

Do I feel confident in my own abilities?

Am I able to put my trust in others? If yes, is it too easily?

Am I feeling creative with lots of new ideas?

Does my mind feel confused and fuzzy, or overactive and full of too many ideas at once?

What do I need to plan and organise right now?
How can I mentally work on projects I want to bring into manifestation?

In the first base chakra blog there was an exercise for a meditation to assess the energy of your chakras. You might like to do this meditation again to check in with your progress. Hopefully now your base and sacral chakra energy has improved and now you can pay attention to the solar plexus chakra to see if your intuitions about where you are at match the messages your subconscious mind will bring you through meditative imagery. Often our subconscious can surprise us and give us added insight into our chakra energy.

As I'm going through this process with you, I've also been sharing a little of what I have been doing to work with the chakras. I hope that my personal experience will resonate with you and help you to feel your own way through the energy. As I've said before, working through the chakras is something we can do again and again through our lives in order to refine the energy and constantly be in touch with where we need to adjust ourselves. It's a very positive and healing journey.

My progress so far.... For the base chakra I worked on letting go of my addictions. I've now quite successfully weaned myself off of sugar, caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes. Though I have had a couple of times when I have had a piece of cake at a birthday party or the odd glass of wine when I was on holiday. I found being on holiday was a real challenge, but now I'm back home I'm back to the healthy living again. For the sacral chakra I took up yoga in a big way and am continuing to practice it everyday, sometimes twice a day and the improvements have been really great all round. I feel so energised!

For the solar plexus chakra I have decided to work on my meditation and mindfulness, and also to take time to write in my journal every night to order my thoughts, get out new ideas and make plans. I've been reading some very interesting books and articles about meditation and have realised that even though I've been doing it for years, I still have a lot of refining to do! I'm going to be doing more breathing meditation, but also practicing an awareness of my mental activity - watching and listening to my mind in daily life to recognise my reactions to things and see if I am being controlling or self-defeating. Like many people, I tend to swing from one to another. It's something I really noticed while doing yoga. If I do a pose well I fill myself with over confidence and pride, and then when a pose is hard I feel like I am a failure. It's crazy, but just noticing that I do this at all is a huge step. It is very healing to just notice the state of our minds, without berating ourselves, just watch how we react and then we understand ourselves better.

Working with the solar plexus has been quite a journey for me. I realised a couple of years ago that I was often being a bit of a control freak. I am a terrible backseat driver and found it really hard to trust people when they were driving, and this kind of attitude made it really hard for me to let go and put my trust in others. I went on a vision quest this year and my main issue there was this feeling of wanting to control everything. I came to the realisation in the quest that the only thing I can really ever control is myself. I can choose to have self-control. There is nothing wrong with self-control! We can also control other things, such as when we are in leadership roles or have been asked to do something, but we need to have that authority. Taking control where we don't have the authority is where we can create damage. So that was a big lesson for me! I have always been overactive in the solar plexus and it is my strongest chakra. I've also found it good to push that energy into the heart chakra, but I'll talk about that in the Heart chakra blog :-)

In the next blog post I am going to get more into some other ideas about how you can work with your solar plexus chakra. In the meantime, you might like to have a look at the Pinterest board I have made for the solar plexus chakra which has a lot of ideas.