Choice and Relationships

Taken from Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss

Second chakra energies need to create life, to move the earth, to make an impression or contribution to the continuum of life. Creative energy, unlike inspiration, a 7th chakra quality, is essentially physical, of the earth or grounded. It is the sensation of being physically alive. Second chakra energy gives us our basic survival instincts and intuitions, as well as our desire to create music, art, poetry and architecture, and the curiosity to investigate nature in science and medicine. Our creative energy draws us into an internal dialogue with the polarities of the self, our conflicting inclinations, and it compels us to form external relationships to resolve these polarities.

Creative energy breaks us out of habitual patterns of behaviour, thoughts and relationships. Habit is a hell to which people cling in an attempt to stop the flow of change. But creative energy defies the repetition of habit. These two forces, repetition and creativity, or at odds with each other within the human psyche and impel us to invest and reshape the chaos of our world with personal meaning.

Second chakra energy is one of the primary resources we have for coping with the day-to-day events of our lives, providing creative solutions to mental, physical and spiritual problems or issues. Blocking this energy can give rise to impotence, infertility, vaginal infections, endometriosis and depression. Fierce with our spiritual maturation as if stating, i don’t wish to see anymore, i don’t wish to understand any deeper, i don’t wish to interact with the learning process of life. If allowed to flow, creative energy will continually act to reshape our lives and reveal more meaning for why things happen as they do than we could determine on our own.

A woman named Kate contacted me for a reading after her husband, a man in his early 30s, died in a car accident. She was left to support two children, with seemingly minimal options for coping with life, with neither formal education nor skills. Kate told me she simply had no energy left to go on living.

It was obvious to me and to Kate herself, that she was suffering from depression during the reading I noted that she had a benign ovarian cyst, about which she did not yet know. We spoke about the importance of releasing the past and finding a reason to move forward, but that challenge seemed overwhelming to Kate. I told her to see her physician for a check up regarding the cyst and also to do some small task that would represent her intention to rebuild her life. She was to visualize their task as bringing new energy into her life. That she would have a growth in her ovarian area was not surprising, because not only had she lost her mate, she had lost a way of life and was now confronting her ability even to survive physically and financially. Survival is a major issue of the second chakra.

The task Kate chose as symbolic of her new beginning was to plant flowers, which represented new life with each flower she planted she said, I am planting a new beginning for myself and my children. Each day she worked more consciously to bring her energy into the present. She refused to allow herself to dwell on the past life she had had with her husband. She also went for a physical and her physician confirmed that she had a benign ovarian cyst. She was in the immediate danger he said, but this list had to be checked periodically. Kate then added another task to her gardening as she weeded the garden she would say I am pulling the cyst out of my body.

Kate then began to get ideas about how to create an income for herself. She had always been good at domestic activities, such as cooking and sewing, but she had never considered earning a living from these skills. Then one day a friend called to say that she had just sprained her wrist and was unable to sew all the costumes that she had committed to make for a local theatre production. Would Kate take over the task?

Create accepted, went to the theatre, received instructions about the costumes and returned home with fabric and measurements. As she looked over the designs, she began to fiddle with them, noting wish she could make improvements. She found the person in charge of questions and suggested some changes, all of which met with approval. Her costumes were a success. Shortly afterward Kate’s phone began ringing with requests for her to assist in another theatre project and personal design work.

Katie since opened her own design shop and has a thriving business. Who ovarian cyst has dissolved. She has recommended to numerous people that when they feel themselves at a dead end and need to start over, they should plant flowers in a garden with the thought I’m new planting a creative idea for myself.

Kites story illustrates how creative energy can propel us along paths that we may never have anticipated and enhance the power of our positive choices. A creative idea has its own energy field and can generate the synchronistic involvement of people and circumstances required to carry the idea through to the next stage of life. Symbolically, Kate’s story also represents the presence of the spiritual energies of the sefira “Yesod, the need to create and the sacrament of communion, the magnetic force we radiate that draws help to us when we need help the most.

Because creative energy is so volatile however, and so powerful, one of our greatest challenges is to use it concisely. We most frequently utilize our creativity in the privacy of our thoughts, but creative energies are also present in our interactions with other people. We may for example, creatively change the details of stories we tell others to suit our own purposes; Or we may manipulate someone to get something we want. These are acts that use energy in negative ways. Gossip and manipulation drained power from the second chakra.

Negative X and negative thoughts originate in fear to the extent that the fear of betrayal by another person for instance, or of violation within a relationship, or of being taken advantage of financially has authority within us, it determines the extent to which we will behave in negative ways. Faith in anything, be it positive or negative, produces results. Putting faith in fear generates destructive results, beginning with a disintegration of our ability to relate confidently to the external world.

When we are motivated by fear we can easily be seduced by the false gods of sex power and money and all that they represent. Once seduced, we abdicate our control to the seductive authority; The dysfunctional personal relationship, the external source of money or security, the experience remembered long after it should have been put to rest, or the addiction to drugs or alcohol. Hypnotised by the voice of fear, one is unable to think or act with clarity, because one is contaminated with fears that short circuit creative energy and ideas, which gather their energy from the second chakra. Literally and symbolically, the second chakra is the birth canal. Although newborn ideas have their own energy field and will fight for survival, just as newborn infants do, few will often abort a new idea. Some people are afraid to give ideas, or relationships, the breathing room they need in order to thrive. You might feel threatened for instance, when an idea you have reaches a point where you need expertise other than your own for support. Or you may assume a position of ownership over an idea, meaning that because you birthed the idea, it’s yours and therefore you control everything and everyone attached to it. Both responses frequently result in energy suffocation, the smothering effect of a controlling fearful parent or partner.

A man named John attended one of my workshops because he wanted to discover intuitively a new direction for his career. He had always been expected, he said, to start his own video production company. As he approached his 40th birthday, he felt that the time was now or never. You found two partners and together they launched what they all hoped would become a successful operation. Together the three of them developed a business plan and set out to find investors. During the planning or dream time of the project, all went well among the three partners. They thrived on their energy and ambitions and felt that they were mocked for success, a belief that became even stronger when they secured five different investors.

Yet the infusion of capital unexpectedly set them against one another. Instead of propelling them into the next creative stage of development, the money changed John’s attitude. He began to imply subtly that all their ideas were largely produced by his creativity and that therefore he should really be in charge of the next phase of decisions. John’s competition with his partners derailed their creative impetus and six months later, a good portion of their initial investment capital spent, they had still failed to produce one video project. The three of them were financially forced to terminate their partnership and declare bankruptcy. John blamed his partners for the failure convinced that they were jealous of his talent.

Inherent in the second chakras potential to create is also the potential for conflict. The sacred truth and theme of the second chakra honour one another, contain enormous spiritual power and the solution to the management of this spiritual challenge. When we act in alignment with this truth, we bring out the best in ourselves and in others. Symbolically, the energies of the sefira of Yesod and the sacrament of communion are meant to be used in to honour another human being, whether by intuiting the right thing to say to someone or by acknowledging the equal importance of the other person in a union. Creation is a form of communication, you’re noting the laugh generating energies of people toward a common goal. Creativity is frequently referred to as sowing seeds, which is yet another metaphor representing the phallus energy of the sefira of Yesod.

John was unable to acknowledge the fact that his business partners also had talent, creative ideas and ambition. Instead of respecting and working with them, he felt threatened by them. When I did a private reading for him, hoping to help him understand the source of his fear, I received the impression that his biggest fear was impotence and that he associated sexual impotence and financial and creative impotence with shared authority. At the same time he was attracted to the idea of creating with other people’s. While this kind of conflict could be resolved in therapy, John resisted the suggestion. He said that in his opinion, every business should have only one leader and that his problem would be resolved if he were to find a group of talented people who understood that. Therapy said John, would not change how he felt about the dynamics of running a business; Therefore, therapy would have no value. Until John became motivated to challenge his own beliefs, he would continue to lead ventures that would fail. Indeed, he left the workshop determined to find another team of people to lead.

Energy and physical abortions that result from fear have emotional and often physical consequences. Women who have abortions because their husbands reject them or the child or because they are terrified that they will be unable to provide a home for the child may have disorders of the reproductive system; Fibroids for instance. In one incident, Norm Shealy called me in to consult on a patient who had severe vaginal bleeding with no known physical cause. As I evaluated her energy, I noted that she’d had two abortions, neither of which she wanted. I asked norm, did she tell you about her two abortions? Norm asked the patient about her feelings about her abortions, which she had not mentioned during his medical evaluation. She broke down emotionally and outpoured the grief and guilt that had burdened her for years. These traumas were the energy cause of the bleeding.

The woman whom I’ve met who have had an abortion but choice have not reported feeling traumatised by their experience. Rather they feeling that the time was not right for them to become a mother or to have another child and the fact that they knew they had the right to make the decision played a significant role in their ability to live comfortably with their choice. One woman told me that prior to having an abortion, she conducted a ceremony, sending a message to the spirit of the child she was carrying. She communicated to the child that she could not provide a stable environment. She felt convinced that the message was received because, following the abortion, she had a dream in which she meets a spirit who said to her all is well.

Energy abortions, the aborting of an idea or project, occur with far greater frequency than physical abortions and men and women both experience them. Just as future abortions can cause enormous emotional and physical scars, so too can energy abortions leave their imprint. In both men and women energy abortions contribute to physical problems, among them infertility. Many career women who are extremely involved in the birthing of their careers have difficulty becoming pregnant. Some men in the same position also experience prostate problems and difficulty with sexual potency.

One man recalled how he had invested a great deal of his time, energy and money in planning a new business since he didn’t have enough money to start it on his own, he sought financial backing from several acquaintances. On the strength of their assured support, he said about making plans. After several months of hammering out details, he approached his partners for the money they had promised. They all backed out. His creation never came into being, and he was deeply hurt. He said he couldn’t give birth to the idea. For years he carried the death of his plan in his body like an abortion. Eventually he developed a malignant tumour in his: from which, years later, he died. His need to give birth to life, which is equal in the male and female psyches, caused him to suffer this energy abortion.

Another man told me his wife once had an abortion without telling him because she felt the decision was hers alone. When he found out, he carried the energy of that abortion, be anger and guilt, in his system. As a result, he became impotent: his body refused to produce laugh again.