Tapping Into Emotional Intelligence

By Nancy Ruby

Continuing our journey into the energy body and the system called Chakras, I invite you to explore SVADHISTHANA – THE SACRAL CHAKRA - the energetic hub for our emotions, sexuality, sensuality, pleasure, abundance and creativity. By nature, human beings are fi rst and foremost emotional creatures. We are motivated and activated by emotions. Emotions are the drivers of our behavior as they automatically tell us what is important or unimportant. A knot in the belly signals when we are worried, butterfl ies in the belly exhibit excitement. The lower belly, sacral area is where we harbor and release our deepest feelings. SVADISTHANA CHAKRA refl ects how we relate to ourselves and others, playing a fundamental role in relationships.

IN THE FLOW

If your second chakra is swirling freely, you experience your feelings and desires like red wine experiences chocolate - all harmony and smoothness. You’re not only very aware of your feelings, you share them openly, honestly, and with no apologies. Maybe you’re even a bit of an unabashed sensualist. A sunbeam on your shoulder feels like a lover’s soft kiss; a bath, an ecstatic immersion in heated soapy bliss. You love to stop and smell the roses, literally and fi guratively. You enjoy good food, yummy smelling scents, and anything that arouses your senses in a pleasurable way. You delight in your body. You dance, move, stretch, moan and wiggle when you feel like it. Your creativity fl ows easily and effortlessly, and you experience abundance in all areas of your life - which includes, but is also more than, monetary wealth.

NIAGARA FALLS OR THE SAHARA?

Feeling emotionally unavailable, cold, or disconnected? What about overly sensitive, hyperemotional, moody, or dramatic? If so, your second chakra is likely out of balance. What else? You might not trust your creative abilities, or worse, you might even, consciously or subconsciously, sabotage or “abort” your most creative ideas. An unstable second chakra often means co-dependency, the inability to maintain healthy boundaries, or a bit too much fl irty behavior. Or the inverse: sexual frigidity, confusion and shame, the inability to express your passion, desires or needs. With a murky second chakra you end up only skimming the surface of your true potential.

BALANCE YOUR SECOND CHAKRA

First off, your journal is your best friend. Use it to get those jumbled thoughts out of your head and on to paper as often as you can. While you do, pay attention to your emotional landscape. Notice when your emotions ebb and when they fl ow, and who or what is around when it happens. Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand, manage and use emotions in healthy ways, is a relatively new focus in psychology. Studies have shown that our emotional intelligence can be more important than our mental intelligence. Remember, as fl ighty and untrustworthy as emotions might sometimes seem, they can be invaluable guideposts. When your mind begins to feel like a whirling-dervish and you’re confused about a decision - pause, stop analyzing, and start paying attention to how you feel. Light? Heavy? Numb? Weary? Joyful? Excited? Fearful? When you tune into your true feelings, you can bypass all the mayhem of the mind that tends to plug up our intuitive knowing. If emotions are properly honored, they most always offer profound insight into the situation at hand. All of which is to say, our emotions are signifi cant messengers from our body rising to the surface. Take heed to listen and feel what’s most real.

INVITE PLEASURE

To nurture your second chakra, do something each day purely for pleasure - a luxurious nap, a pedicure, eating something that delights all your senses, taking in a beautiful sunset. Pay close attention to what’s happening in the moment. Deeply embrace your feelings. It is only by consciously and deliberately exploring your multi-layered, kaleidoscopic sensual, spiritual, and emotional self that you come to realize who you really are from the inside out.

Nancy Ruby runs YogaMotion Wellness Academy in Bozeman and describes herself as an educator, joyologist and lifestyle engineer. She has been sharing her teachings in yoga and wellness education for the past 40 years. Ruby currently specializes in supporting the health and wellbeing of Baby Boomers and beyond.