Aligning Your Chakras: Healing the Solar Plexus

Effective solar plexus treatment includes lots of physical activity, intentional nutrition, and a positive attitude that will help you glow from the inside, out!

About the Solar Plexus

In Sanskrit, the solar plexus, or manipura, literally translates to “city of jewels” - how cool is that?! This chakra is located right behind the rib cage, just a few inches above the belly button and glows golden yellow. The energy of our solar plexus is more masculine in nature, relating to the element of fire, which sounds a bit intense, but is truly cleansing to our energy.

If you think about it, science states that energy is never destroyed, only transformed. I like to think of this fire burning in our solar plexus as a master cleanser. It burns off all the yucky gunk and muck and ickiness inside, making room for clarity, purity, and power.

Graphic Courtesy of mosaicday.com

Solar Plexus Chakra Location in the Body

Our solar plexus governs our stomach area, including our liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and ab muscles. When imbalanced, we may experience all different kinds of digestive issues from constipation to improper nutrient absorption, poor functioning in the liver or colon.

Problems with this chakra could also manifest in the form of low energy and fatigue. If you’re having a hard time getting up off the couch, finding the motivation to work out or move your body, you may have a blocked solar plexus.

Solar Plexus Chakra in the Spiritual Body

From a spiritual perspective, the solar plexus is super cool, super interesting as it houses your ego. Now, in the spiritual world, the ego gets a really bad rap. You’ll hear people using terms like “ego-death” or “ego-driven” used in a negative context. However, the ego is really just here to keep us safe, at the end of the day.

The ego helps us feel fulfilled, confident, and purposeful, so if you have a solar plexus imbalance, you may feel the opposite of those things – stuck, powerless, small. A deficient solar plexus fosters a victim mentality that will continue making us feel this way. No bueno. We want to be the hero in our story, right?

The solar plexus is responsible for moving us forward in life. So if you’re looking for a raise at work or maybe hit a new PR at the gym, this is the area you’re going to want to focus on to help achieve those goals (or any goals really, for that matter).

But be careful. You don’t want to go too far into that masculine energy, because an overactive solar plexus can lead to rigidity in our lives, which can bring feelings of anger, aggression, or obsession. We want a nice, balanced flow through this area of our body where we have control over our decisions and well-being, but aren’t ruled by them.

Solar Plexus Treatment

Get Physical

I love to start with the body when working to align the solar plexus. Think of power poses like our warrior poses, mountain pose, lion pose. Yoga is great here (in case you haven’t noticed, I think yoga can help any problem in our lives), but really any physical exercise will be beneficial.

The point is to get our body moving, so that energy is flowing up and down through this energy center to really get it humming. Getting physical also creates endorphins in your body, which help to bring those positive feelings of power and self respect.

Breathwork

Breathwork is another great physical practice you can use to support the solar plexus. If you haven’t tried breathwork yet, I seriously recommend you give it a shot. You don’t have to start out doing 15 minutes or Wim Hof everyday, but energy goes where attention flows, and by intentionally sending our breath down into our solar plexus, we can consciously stir up the energy, while simultaneously lowering our levels of stress hormones that tend to collect in this part of the body.

I’ve linked one of my favorite breathwork/meditations for the solar plexus in the workbook that I highly recommend.

Affirmations

Affirmations are also super effective when working with the solar plexus because they quite literally are reminding us of our power. Combining positive “I can” affirmations with your daily meditation practice is a great place to start.

Maybe consider writing one down on a post-it note and sticking it on your bathroom mirror. The power of affirmations is really felt when you aren’t practicing. By giving yourself that reminder first thing in the morning when you are brushing your teeth, it will stick with you throughout your day. So maybe when you’re about to write an email that is no fun to send, your brain will click into that affirmation and say, “but wait, I’m powerful, or I can do hard things” and make that tasks easier by default.

The Look Good, Feel Good Phenomenon

Since the solar plexus is so important to our self confidence, I have found that “adornment” or just feeling pretty has helped a lot with feeling balanced in this area.

It may sound silly, but when we’re feeling ugly, lazy, unproductive, does it help to just sit around with our hair a mess, looking disheveled in our dirty pajamas? No. We feel better by getting our ass up off the couch and taking a shower.

It is not a bad thing to want to look good. Just be sure that you are doing it for yourself and not other people. When you feel good about your outsides, it becomes much easier to feel good from the inside.

Nutrition

Okay, so by now you’ve probably noticed a theme here when it comes to balancing your chakras with nutrition... And to best support your solar plexus, try to incorporate some yellow foods like bananas, lemons, and corn.

Complex carbs are also great for our solar plexus - AMEN! So feel free to incorporate rice, oats, and quinoa into your meals to give another little boost. I’ve also read that yellow curry is very supportive, as well!

Crystals

Because the two are so closely related, many of the stones that work well for our sacral chakra can also help to balance the solar plexus–like amber and citrine. Golden or yellow stones and crystals work great too, like calcite, lemon quartz, tiger’s eye, and yellow jasper.

Final Thoughts

Since the solar plexus chakra responds so well with physical healing modalities, this lesson may take you longer to complete the homework in the Solar Plexus 101 Workbook. However, if you are unable to even uninterested in taking this approach, feel free to focus on the journal prompts and guided meditations I have listed in the workbook. Either way, I’ll see y’all on the other side.

So Much Love,

Haley