There’s a moment in class, usually during hip openers, when someone’s face changes.
Not pain exactly. More like… recognition. As though something they’ve been carrying for a very long time has suddenly made itself known. Sometimes there are tears. Sometimes just a long, slow exhale. Sometimes they laugh and say, “Well, that’s interesting.”
The hips hold things. We all know this by now. But what we don’t always talk about is what they’re holding.
The sacral chakra lives here, just below your navel. And it governs something we get very complicated about as we get older: pleasure. Creativity. The capacity to feel things fully and let them move through.
What Svadhisthana Actually Means
Svadhisthana translates as “one’s own place” or “sweetness.” It sits in your lower abdomen, around the pelvis and reproductive organs and it’s associated with water – the element that flows, adapts and refuses to be contained.
For women navigating perimenopause and menopause, this chakra can feel particularly loaded.
Our bodies are changing in ways that affect desire, creativity, emotional steadiness. Hormones that used to regulate mood and energy are doing their own thing now. We’re grieving what was while trying to accept what is. And somewhere in all of that, we’re supposed to stay connected to pleasure? To spontaneity? To the part of us that still wants things?
It can feel like asking too much.
But here’s what I’ve noticed – when we disconnect from the sacral chakra – when we decide that pleasure, creativity and emotional flow are luxuries we can’t afford – everything gets harder. Stiffer. More effortful.
The water stops moving. And stagnant water doesn’t nourish anything.
When Flow Becomes Stuck
An underactive sacral chakra often shows up as numbness. Not dramatic suffering, just… flatness. The things that used to bring you joy don’t quite land anymore. Creativity feels like something other people have. Physical pleasure – whether that’s sex, dancing, a really good meal – registers as “nice” but doesn’t light you up the way it used to.
You might notice emotional rigidity too. Difficulty adapting. A sense that you’ve forgotten how to play, how to be spontaneous, how to want something just because you want it.
When the sacral chakra is overactive, you might swing the other way. Emotional volatility that feels exhausting. Addiction to intensity – drama, chaos, anything to feel something. Using pleasure to avoid rather than to nourish. Boundaries that shift too easily because you’re trying to please everyone.
Neither extreme serves you. Both are just your energy system trying to tell you something about what needs attention.
What Balance Actually Feels Like
When Svadhisthana is balanced, you can feel things without being consumed by them.
Emotions move through – sadness, joy, frustration, delight – and you trust they’ll pass. You don’t need to fix them or perform them or push them down. They’re just weather. You let them rain.
There’s a suppleness to your days. You can adapt when plans change. You can sit with uncertainty without immediately rushing to control it. You remember that you’re allowed to want things – not everything, not urgently, but genuinely. A quiet evening. A long bath. Time to paint or write or garden or whatever makes you feel like yourself.
Your creative energy returns. Not necessarily in grand gestures, but in small moments. The way you arrange flowers. The recipe you improvise. The solution to a problem that arrives while you’re in the shower because you finally stopped thinking so hard.
And pleasure – the kind that isn’t performance or obligation – becomes possible again. Your body, even if it’s different now, can still be a source of enjoyment. Not in spite of the changes, but as part of them.
I’ve watched students rediscover this. It’s subtle. They mention trying something new – a pottery class, a book club, swimming in the sea. They talk about laughing more. Crying when they need to. Saying no without guilt because they’ve said yes to something they actually want.
The water is moving again.
Working With Sacral Energy in Practice
Hip openers are the obvious place to start. Kapotasana (Pigeon pose), Baddha Konasana (Butterfly/Bound Angle pose), low lunges with the hips sinking down. But here’s what matters more than the shape of the pose: how long you stay.
Quick flows won’t do it. You need time. Time for the hips to release. Time for whatever’s been stored there to surface. Time to breathe through the discomfort and find the space underneath.
This isn’t about forcing flexibility. It’s about creating space for things to move.
I also love gentle spinal waves – Marjaryasana-Bitilasana (Cat-Cow) done slowly, feeling each vertebra articulate. Your spine is meant to undulate like water. Most of us have forgotten how. We’ve locked it down to get through the day. This practice reminds your body: you’re allowed to move fluidly. You’re allowed to soften.
Utkata Konasana (Goddess pose) – wide-legged, hips open, arms flowing – lets you embody the energy of the sacral chakra. Strong and open at the same time. Grounded but not rigid. There’s a power in it that doesn’t require hardness.
If your energy is low, try dynamic movement. Dancing, even just for a few minutes in your kitchen. Your body knows how to move expressively if you let it. Put on music that makes you want to sway. Let your hips circle. Let yourself look silly. That’s the point.
If your energy is scattered, try restorative poses. Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Supported Bridge pose) with a block under your sacrum. Viparita Karani (Legs up the wall). Stillness that lets the water settle rather than churn.
Off the Mat
Water itself helps. Baths, if you have access to them. Swimming. Standing under the shower and actually feeling the water on your skin rather than just getting clean and getting out.
Drink water consciously. Not as a wellness task to tick off, but because your body is made of it. Because staying hydrated changes how you feel. Because small acts of care accumulate.
Create something with your hands. It doesn’t have to be art. Bake bread. Tend plants. Rearrange furniture. Your sacral chakra wants you to make things, to shape the world around you in small ways that feel good.
Wear orange if it appeals to you – the colour associated with this chakra. Or surround yourself with it. Oranges on the counter. A scarf. Flowers. Sometimes the visual reminder is enough to shift something.
Dance to music you loved when you were younger. Not for exercise. Just because it feels good to move your hips and remember what it was like to do things purely for pleasure.
And this one might be the hardest: give yourself permission to want what you want. Not what you think you should want. Not what would be practical or responsible or selfless. What you actually want. Even if it’s small. Even if it seems frivolous.
Your desires matter. They’re information. They’re energy. They’re yours.
What This Really Means
The sacral chakra is asking you to soften.
Not collapse. Not give up. Soften.
To let emotions move instead of damming them up. To let pleasure in, even when your body is different and life is complicated and you’ve got a hundred reasons to stay numb. To trust that creativity – your unique way of engaging with the world – hasn’t left you just because you’re busy or tired or older than you used to be.
For those of us who’ve spent decades being strong, reliable, the one who holds it together… this is vulnerable work.
Allowing the water to flow means accepting that you can’t control everything. That some days you’ll cry for no good reason. That you might want things that don’t make sense. That pleasure and creativity aren’t rewards for getting everything else done – they’re part of being alive.
The beautiful thing about Svadhisthana is that water always finds a way. Even when blocked, even when frozen, eventually it moves. You don’t have to force it. You just have to stop preventing it.
Let yourself feel. Let yourself want. Let yourself create, even if it’s messy.
If you’d like to work with the chakras more deeply, The Chakra System is a dedicated course exploring each energy centre in turn – a lovely way to bring this understanding into your own practice.
Next in the series The Solar Plexus Chakra ~ Manipura