“Stressed spelled backwards is “desserts”.
~Loretta Laroche
With chakras being so popular these days, you might have heard someone say, “My solar plexus is so stressed out!”, but what does that really mean and how do you de-stress your solar plexus chakra? Like Loretta Laroche I believe that our stress is actually a means by which we can de-stress and get to the dessert! After all, what is dessert unless you had to endure the less tasty dinner? But let’s get down to the solar plexus chakra and what de-stressing it looks like.
First off, what is your solar plexus chakra and where is it located? Your solar plexus chakra is an energetic wheel of light that, while invisible to your eyes, exists about 3-5 inches off of your body at the stomach area, specifically, in the soft space at the end of your breast bone, between your right and left rib cages. (If your solar plexus chakra is congested right now you’ll likely have a hard time taking a deep breath).
Why So Important?
The job of your solar plexus chakra is to breathe in clean life-force energy from the environment and send it to your cells & organs to fuel the healing functions of the body. In fact, we do a lot of expelling from the solar plexus at night. Ever notice how stuffy the bedroom is upon awakening? Thus, the custom of opening the windows and curtains to let in light and air; it’s an energetic cleansing.
Your solar plexus is like a turbine conducting life force in and out of your body, so when it’s congested with the energy of worry or fear, your midsection will feel heavy or achy. According to Holy Master Dwhal Khul, channeled through Alice Bailey who wrote for the Theosophical Society, all physical illness and emotional imbalance is due to a lack of this life force or an imbalance of this life force moving through the body. Thus, when you have a stomach ache, a panic attack or feel nauseous your solar plexus will be congested (or stressed). De-stressing your solar plexus chakra will also have a positive impact on your physical health too.
Key to Getting Unstuck
Because your solar plexus acts as a hub by which the earth energy in the lower chakras, gets transferred and transmuted into the upper chakras and the spiritual energy coming down from the crown chakra gets transferred and transmuted to the lower chakras, it’s important for your life’s momentum. It’s no wonder that when you feel stressed you have a hard time moving forward. All the energy that needs to be moving through to the different parts of your body, gets held up and slowed down, making you feel blocked.
Key to Building Resilience
Psychologically, your solar plexus chakra is connected to how you feel about yourself; it’s the chakra of esteem, confidence, taking care of self, self-acceptance, self determination & constancy of aim and effort. When it’s balanced it allows us to ‘taste the desserts’ in life and have more resilience. The degree that your esteem or confidence is compromised however, will impact your solar plexus causing it to be congested or feel heavy. So having a positive focus and self image among other things, will help you to de-stress your solar plexus chakra.
Since so many of our worries are about what something means about ourselves, our work, our safety, our capabilities, the solar plexus chakra has the potential to always be stressed out unless we take steps to do something about it.
Easy & Accessible Steps
So if you cannot see your solar plexus chakra, how do you know if you are working with it correctly? Because as you do the practices below, you’ll experience more lightness and ease; a sign that your solar plexus is expelling the heavy energy. You’ll also feel the difference of being able to breathe deeper & feel lighter in the abdominal area.
1. The easiest and most accessible way of moving energy through your body is breathing.
Breathing causes your chakras to become activated. When they are activated they both take in clean life force energy and expel used up life-force energy. It would be accurate to say that your chakras are breathing wheels of light (turbines) because they inhale and exhale much like your lungs take in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide.
Different breathing patterns cause different activation patterns in the chakras which impact your body differently. Some patterns are to empower and wake your body up for action and some are designed to downregulate your body (your nervous system), the way a lullaby puts a baby to sleep.
The breathing patterns I recommend for de-stressing the solar plexus chakra are:
1. Inhaling through the nose for a count of 7 and holding for a count of 1; then exhaling through the nose for a count of 7 and holding for a count of 1.
2. The second pattern is inhaling for a count of 6 and holding for 3; then exhaling for a count of 6 and holding for 3. That’s one cycle, but if you did 7-9 breathing cycles your solar plexus chakras (you have a back solar plexus chakra too) will easily release the congested energy in your body and in the abdominal area.
Make sure to inhale through the nose, as it stimulates important functions in the brain that downregulate your body. Breathing through the mouth isn’t the same.
2. Your locus of focus is where energy goes.
When you’re stressing in the solar plexus area, your mind will be anchored to thoughts of worry or doubt. The second technique is connected to adding a locus of focus which can maximize the quiet you achieve while breathing. It helps you to release the energy, instead of breathing while you are still worried about all the stressors.
I recommend focusing on the tip of your nose because it stimulates your pineal and pituitary glands which are in charge of releasing dopamine and other hormones that regulate your bodily functions. As you breathe you can also become aware of the air passing on your nostrils and the filling up of your lungs as your lower rib cage and abdomen expand and your upper chest relaxes.
Shallow breathing from the upper chest cavity will cause the solar plexus to become more congested, and you’ll be more stressed, so it’s important to do thoracic breathing and not breathe from the upper chest area.
3. Essential oils of lavender and peppermint.
I carry peppermint with me in my purse, it's so versatile. Dabbing a little on the body at the spot of your solar plexus will help with the expelling and de-stressing process. Adding it to a diffuser cleans the energy in the room too, not just your solar plexus. Inhaling it a few times before you do the breathing exercises or while you are doing the breathing exercises, facilitates a more effective expelling process, as well.
I hope you try these so you can get to “tasting more of the desserts” in life, instead of the staying stressed. Now when you hear someone say, “my solar plexus is so stressed out” you can have compassion for their plight and have a few suggestions you’ve used for yourself that helped with de-stressing and regaining balance. You can even tell them that stressed spelled backwards is desserts!
If you feel a need for more in-depth work that really clears out some emotional distress and can help you find clarity and direction, you can always book an intuitive reading session with me through the online reader’s portal. Until the next full moon, be in your peace, your passion and your power!
