Manipura Solar Plexus Chakra: Seat of Personal Power

Introduction to Manipura Solar Plexus Chakra

As we ascend to Manipura, we move from developing relationships with others to a relationship with the self. The Manipura solar plexus chakra is the seat of personal power and sense of self-worth.

The Manipura solar plexus chakra is the source of ambition and willpower. It is sometimes too easy to succumb to the will of other people and forget about your own needs. You can lose touch with your truth.

A strong and harmonious Manipura helps to balance your inner requirements with the external burdens of those around you. Manipura aids you in staying true to yourself and saying ‘no’ when necessary.

The Sanskrit word Manipura translates into English as ‘city or fortress of jewels.’ I particularly love ‘fortress of jewels.’ It conjures up images of a radiant yellow rampart surrounding and protecting the exquisite shining jewels of your truth and personal power.

Manipura Solar Plexus Chakra Associations

• Sanskrit name: Manipura
• English name: Solar Plexus
• Etymology: Mani = jewel, pura = city, fortress
• Location: Upper abdomen, approximately two inches above the navel
• Color: Yellow
• Element: Fire
• Power word: Empowerment
• Physical associations: Pancreas, stomach, liver, gallbladder, spleen, adrenals, and small intestine
• Planet: Sun
• Animal: Ram – power, action, leadership
• Deity: Vishnu – preserver
• Lotus: Ten petals symbolizing the ten Prānas
• Keynote: E
• Solfeggio frequency: 528 Hz
• Nature sound: Fire
• Seed mantra: Ram
• Affirmation: I feel empowered, strong, and confident to be myself
• Crystals: Tiger’s eye, yellow jasper, citrine, yellow topaz, yellow calcite
• Essential oils: Bergamot, chamomile, lemon, helichrysum, grapefruit, ginger
• Mineral: Sulphur
• Metal: Iron
• Foods: Yellow bell pepper, honeydew melon, lemons, bananas, corn, yellow squash, turmeric, ginger, mustard

Manipura Solar Plexus Characteristics

The Manipura solar plexus chakra assists you in taking control of your life. When you have strength in this area, you take responsibility for all aspects of yourself. You make effective decisions and sound judgments.

You are secure in your personal identity and beliefs and are not easily swayed by other people’s opinions if they do not feel authentic. You have independence in your personal views and ethics, and the confidence and self-discipline to stand by them no matter what.

The element of the Manipura solar plexus chakra is fire. This relates to burning ambition, empowerment, and light in all its forms, including the sun. Your unique path is illuminated before you, and you have the confidence to go that way, even if it is the road less traveled.

The sun is essential to life, and its fire is transformative. Your desires for personal growth and spiritual development that form in your Svadhisthana chakra are brought to life with the energy of your Manipura. It holds the fires of transmutation of base developmental desires into golden growth opportunities.

Symptoms of an Unbalanced Solar Plexus Chakra

If the Manipura chakra is blocked, you may experience self-doubt, neediness, and low self-esteem. Willpower and motivation are generated in the Manipura solar plexus chakra. If you find that you cannot stick to something you want to do or lack the motivation to stay on track with your goals, you may need to balance your Manipura.

You deliberate over decisions for a long time, and you find it hard to make choices. This comes from not being confident in yourself and doubting your instincts and judgment. You do not take responsibility for your actions and find a way to blame outside circumstances or even other people.

Underactive Manipura

If you have a deficiency in Manipura energy, you will lack drive, energy, and motivation. You will often second guess yourself, which results in being indecisive and feeling ‘stuck.’ Confusion and a decrease in mental clarity can make you lose sight of your goals.

You do not have firm boundaries, and you allow other people to take advantage of you. You find it hard to say ‘no’ and end up sacrificing your own needs to serve the needs of others. This is fine when it is a conscious decision, balanced with your own requirements and goals. But when serving others comes from a lack of personal power instead of a heart-led conscious decision, it can damage your sense of self-worth.

Imposter syndrome can manifest from an underactive Manipura solar plexus chakra. That feeling of not being worthy or ‘good enough.’ Constantly comparing yourself with others and lacking the confidence to be yourself.

Overactive Manipura

If you have excess Manipura energy, you may become domineering, over-powering, and power-hungry. The need to control everything and everyone can dominate your relationships and even breach your integrity and ethical values, causing you to manipulate others. Low self-esteem can display as being overly judgemental and critical of others.

You may also become fiercely competitive as a way to ‘prove your worth.’ You can experience intolerance and an inability to see other people’s point of view, becoming ‘closed-minded’ and resistant to change.

Physical Symptoms of an Unbalanced Manipura

Physically, an unbalanced Manipura solar plexus chakra relates to issues with the stomach, indigestion, stomach ulcers, and IBS. It can also manifest as adrenal fatigue, liver problems, gall stones, mid-back pain, food allergies and intolerances, anxiety and panic attacks, OCD, and chronic fatigue.

Signs of a Balanced Solar Plexus Chakra

If you have balance in your Manipura solar plexus chakra, you will feel confident in your own abilities and beliefs. You will naturally set clear boundaries around your time and other essential parameters, and have the confidence to say ‘no’ when they are threatened.

Decision-making feels effortless, and you don’t feel the need to deliberate for ages over your choices. You trust your judgments and know that you have come to the right conclusions. Your focus is sharp, and your mental abilities are on point. You feel in control of your life – you are in the driving seat, and you get to choose the direction.

When your Manipura is open, you have a strong sense of self-esteem. You feel confident in groups of people and know the value that you bring. You can listen to other people’s opinions and respect them without doubting your own. Your sense of personal ethics is strong, and you stand up for your beliefs. You act with integrity and honor.

How to Open Your Manipura Chakra

There are various ways to balance chakras. If you feel particularly drawn to one method, then that is the technique you should choose. Or, you might wish to use a combination of the many ways to balance your Manipura, including sound, color, food, crystals, mantra, yoga, meditation, and energy healing.

Let’s look at our top three main ways to address an unbalanced Manipura solar plexus chakra. These techniques are easy to practice at home. With any of these practices, you can elevate the results by using crystals, colors (clothing and scarves are nice), and essential oils that are associated with Manipura. See the list above for these.

Meditation and Visualization

As stated in the preceding article regarding the Svadhisthana chakra, meditation and visualization are fantastic tools for chakra balancing. You can directly affect your entire energy system using meditation and the power of conscious breath and thought. Your breath is your link between your mind and your prana (vital life-force energy).

Get yourself comfortable, close your eyes, and ground yourself with a few deep conscious breaths. Visualize your solar plexus chakra glowing brilliant sunshine yellow. As it grows brighter, see it transforming into a circle of fire, burning strong and bright. This is your fire of personal power and motivation, powering your actions, and purifying doubt into trust. Watch your inner fire burning brightly, fuelled by your breath. Whenever you are finished, seal the fire inside your Manipura and know that whenever you feel the need for empowerment, you can blow on your inner fires with your exhalation, stoking them up and burning away self-doubt.

Alternatively, try this guided visualization to balance your Manipura solar plexus chakra.

Pranayama

Kapalabhati is an excellent practice for stoking your internal fires. Also known as ‘breath of fire,’ this yogic pranayama exercise builds heat in the body and releases blocked energy.

To practice, come into a comfortable seated position, either cross-legged or sitting on a chair with both feet on the ground. Ensure that your spine is straight. Take a deep breath in and place your hands on your abdomen. To practice Kapalabhati, you need to snap your abdominal muscles sharply inward to push the breath out of your nose. Then immediately release the muscles and allow the breath to flow in quickly and naturally on the rebound.

The focus is on the force of the exhalation; the inhalation happens as a reaction to that. You are not ‘drawing’ the breath in; it enters spontaneously as a result of you releasing your abdominal muscles. You then snap them back in immediately and repeat this continuously for the desired length of practice. Beginners can start with one minute and build up from there. You will notice that your body temperature increases dramatically when you practice Kapalabhati pranayama, so make sure you have some water nearby to drink and a fresh air source. Check out a guided practice here.

Sound and Singing Bowls

One of our top ways to work with chakras is through sound and mantras. Energy is simply frequency, just like sound and light (color). The soundwaves produced from instruments and your own voice can recalibrate your chakra energy, literally ‘retuning’ your energetic frequency.

Singing bowls are excellent for chakra clearing and balancing. The best bowl for reharmonizing an unbalanced solar plexus chakra resonates at Solfeggio frequency 417 Hz. If you have a Manipura singing bowl, run the stick around the rim’s outer edge to play the bowl and make it sing. Once you have built up some sound energy, sit and allow the sound waves to resonate through your being.

You may also like to place the bowl on the solar plexus chakra area and play it so that the vibrations directly enter this point. Try listening to a Manipura sound bath like this one if you do not have a singing bowl of your own.

Mantra Chanting 

The seed mantra for Manipura is ‘Ram.’ When you chant a mantra (rather than just listening to it), the sound vibrations reverberate inside your body and auric field, retuning your chakras from within.

To balance your solar plexus chakra, try chanting the mantra ‘Ram.’ Put some soft ambient music on (if you like) and take some slow deep breaths to center yourself. When you are ready, allow the mantra to come in a way that feels natural and pleasing. There is no right or wrong way to practice mantra chanting; do what feels right for you.

If you are not used to mantra practice, it can sometimes feel strange. However, when you have experienced the transformative effects of this heart-led therapeutic practice, you will start to feel braver.

Mantra chanting stills the mind, reorganizes the energy field, and facilitates deeper spiritual connection and awareness. Mantras are ancient cosmic sounds – they connect us to the universe in a most profound way. If you would like to try chanting with a recording, try this YouTube ‘Ram’ mantra practice.

Yoga for Manipura 

You may feel more comfortable working with energetic shifts through physical exercises. Yoga is a fantastic way to facilitate physical energy manipulation. It works so well because it is a physical, mental, spiritual, and energetic practice.

To open your Manipura solar plexus chakra, the perfect yoga routine is Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations). Flow through these poses and see this video for a guided Surya Namaskar practice.

Surya Namaskar A

• Tadasana (Mountain pose)
• Uttanasana (Forward fold)
• Chaturanga Dandasana (Low plank pose)
• Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward facing dog)
• Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward facing dog pose)
• Uttanasana (Forward fold)
• Tadasana (Mountain pose)

Conclusion

In this comprehensive guide, you have learned the signs of a balanced and unbalanced Manipura solar plexus chakra, and some easy ways to open this chakra. We hope you found this information useful and interesting.

As always, we recommend putting your new knowledge into action. This is the only way you will see results. Remember, we are here to help you throughout every step of your spiritual journey, so please do leave a comment below if you have any questions, and we will be delighted to help.