The Third Chakra – Personal Power

Taken from Anatomy of the Spirit by Caroline Myss

Third chakra energy, the energy of the personal power chakra, becomes the dominant vibration in our development during puberty. It’s assists us further in the process of individuation, of forming a self ego and personality separate from our inherited identity. This energy centre also contains most issues related to the development of personal power in self-esteem.

The third chakra completes the physical trilogy of the human energy system. Like chakras one and two, it primarily relates to a physical form of power. We the first chakra resonates to group or tribal power and with the second chakra resonates to the flow of power between the self and others, the third chakra relates to our personal power in relation to the external world.

Location: the solar plexus

Energy connection to the physical body stomach, pancreas, adrenals, upper intestines, gall bladder, liver in the middle spine, located behind the solar plexus.

Energy connection to the emotional/mental body: the third chakra, often called the solar plexus, is our personal power centre, the magnetic core of the personality and ego. The illnesses that originate here are activated by issues related to self responsibility, self esteem, fear of rejection and an over sensitivity to criticism.

Symbolic perceptual connection: the third chakra mediates between the primarily external – which is characteristic of the first and second chakras – and the internalisation of consciousness. The first chakra has an external centre of gravity and is always located within a group mind the second chakra 2 has an external gravitational centre but focuses on relationships and their effect on us. In the third chakra however, the gravitational centre is partly internalised, as our focus shifts from how we relate to people around us to how we relate to and understand ourselves.

Sefirot/Sacrament connection : The sefirah of Nezah represents the divine quality of endurance and the sefira of Hod symbolises the majesty or integrity of the divine. In the chakra system these two qualities got partnered because with the kabbalistic tradition both represent the qualities we need in order to stand up as individuals. Thus Nezah and Hod are symbolically illustrated as the legs of the body. They are also considered the source of prophecy in the centre of symbolic site. The symbolic meaning of Nezah and Hod forms a powerful spiritual bond with the sacrament of confirmation. This sacrament represents the emergence of the conscious self, or that part of the human personality it is eternal and naturally aligned to the sacred.

Primary fears: fears of rejection, criticism, looking foolish and failing to meet one’s responsibilities; all fears related to physical appearance, such as fear of obesity, baldness or aging; Fears that others will discover our secrets.

Primary strengths: self esteem, self respect and self-discipline; ambition, the ability to generate action and the ability to handle the crisis; The courage to take risks; generosity ethics and strength of character.

Sacred truth: the sacred truth of the third chakra is honor oneself, a theme supported by the spiritual energies of the sephirot of Nezah (endurance) and Hod (majesty) and by the symbolic meaning of the sacrament of confirmation, as well as by the power inherent in the third chakra. The energies that come together in this chakra have but one spiritual goal: to help us mature in our self understanding, the relationship we have with ourselves, and how we stand on our own and take care of ourselves. The spiritual quality conferred by the sacrament of confirmation is self respect. This sacrament or symbolises the passage from childhood to adulthood. We all have faced or will face an experience that reveals to us our own internal strengths and weaknesses as separate from the influence of our elders. The spiritual quality inherent in the third chakra compels us to create an identity apart from our tribal self.

Development of self esteem

All three spiritual currents merge to form the intuitive voice of our solar plexus. Sweet develop a sense of self, intuitive voice becomes our natural and constant source of guidance.

How we feel about ourselves, whether we respect ourselves, determines the quality of our life, our capacity to succeed in business, relationships, healing and intuitive skills. Self understanding and acceptance, the bond we form with ourselves, is in many ways the most crucial spiritual challenge we face. In truth, if we do not like ourselves, we will be incapable of making healthy decisions. Instead, we will direct all of our personal power for decision making into the hands of someone else: someone whom we want to impress, or someone before whom we think we must weaken ourselves to gain physical security. People who have a low sense of self esteem attract relationships and occupational situations that reflect and reinforce this weakness.

One man told me that he had never expected to be loved in his marriage. He married for companionship alone, believing that love was something that happened to other people, but never to people like him. No one is born with healthy self-esteem. We must earn this quality in the process of living, as we face our challenges one at a time.

The third chakra in particular resonates to the boundaries of the physical body. Are we physically strong or weak? Able or handicapped? Beautiful or squad? Too tall or too short? From a spiritual perspective, any and all physical assets and limitations are illusory, mere life props. Yet a person’s acceptance of or resistance to them is critical to entering spiritual adulthood. From a spiritual perspective in fact, the entire physical world is nothing more than our classroom, but the challenge to each of us in this classroom is: given your particular body, environment and beliefs, will you make choices that enhance your spirit or those that drain your power into the physical illusion around you? Again and again, the challenges of the third chakra will cause you to evaluate your sense of power and self in relation to the external world.

Consider for instance, the 3rd chakra challenges of a person in a wheelchair. The fact that the physical world is an illusion does not mean that the wheelchair does not exist or that her physical problem is not real. Rather, it means that nothing in the physical world can contain or limit the power of the human spirit. The woman may never regain the use of her legs, but she still has the power to decide whether being in a wheelchair will handicap her spirit. If she chooses to make the best of life in a wheelchair, she does far more than make a healthy psychological decision; She makes a spiritual decision that engages the full energies of the Sefirot of Nezah and Hod.

I’m using woman named Ruth while I was conducting a week long workshop in Mexico. Ruth was staying at the same hotel, she was not part of my workshop. She was wheelchair banned due to crippling arthritis, a case about as extreme as I’ve ever seen.

One morning I got up and characteristically early and went out to the patio with a cup of coffee to make notes for my lecture that day. I noticed Ruth sitting by herself, listening to classical music with an old tape recorder. I had met her the day before, but this morning I couldn’t stop staring at her, although I didn’t think she noticed because she had her back to me. I was wondering how she coped with her terribly crippled body, which had also become abuse because of her inability to move. Suddenly she turned her head, smiled and said, you’re wondering how I managed to live in this body aren’t you?

I was so stunned that I couldn’t cover my tricks. You caught me Ruth I said that’s exactly what I was thinking.

Well, come on over here and I’ll tell you.

As I pulled my chair up to hers, the 75 year old woman said to me you like new age music?

I nodded and she said, good. I’ll put this tape on while I tell you about myself.

With Kitaro playing in the background, this remarkable Jewish woman told me her story. I was widowed when I was 38 years old, left with two daughters to support and few ways to do it. I became the most manipulative person you could ever imagine. I never start anything, but I came close to it.

When my older daughter was 22, she joined a Buddhist community. I raised my girls in a traditional Jewish household in New York City and she enters A Buddhist community! Every time she came over to visit me I asked her, how could you do this to me? After all I’ve given up for you, how could you? We must have had that conversation 100 times. Then one day she looked at me and asked me, mum, Omar clothes dirty? Am I in clean in some way? Am I doing anything at all that offends you?

I said, you must be on drugs. That’s it, they’ve got you on drugs. She responded yes I’ve tried drugs. So you know what I said to her then? I said, get me some, and she did. She brought me some LSD. I was 55 years old and I dropped acid.

I nearly fell out of my chair. I could hardly picture her attacking LSD.

She continued, do you believe in angels? Yes of course, I said.

Good, because that’s what happened to me next. I took the LSD and I had an out of body experience. I found myself floating about above my body, lighter than air itself. And I met this lovely being who said she was my Angel. She complained to me, Ruthie, Ruthie, do you know how difficult it is to be your Angel?

I said I’d never thought about it and my Angel said, let me show you what you look like to me. And then she pointed to my double, only my double was completely tied up in thousands of rubber bands. My Angel said, better you look to me. Each one of those rubber bands is a fear that is controlling you. You have so many fears that you can never hear me trying to talk to you, to tell you that I’ve got everything under control.

Then my Angel said, he has a pair of scissors. Why don’t you cut all those rubber bands and free yourself? And that just what I did. I clipped every single one of them and with each one I cut, I felt this unbelievable surge of energy come into my body. Then my Angel said, now don’t you feel better? I told her that I felt lighter than air and happier than I had ever felt in my life. I couldn’t stop laughing. My Angel said, you’re going to have to get back into your body now, but before you do, I have to show you something.

She showed me the future and I saw myself full of arthritis. She couldn’t tell me why I would have to endure this condition, just that I would have to. But she said she would beat me every step of the way. Then she put me back into my body. I talked my daughter everything that had happened and both of us laughed almost continually for two months. She and I have been close ever since that experience. When this arthritic condition began 10 years ago, I thought, Oh well, this isn’t being crippled. I was far more crippled when I couldn’t walk: I was always so afraid of being alone, of taking care of myself, that I wanted to keep my daughters near me so I would never have to take care of myself. But after that experience I never felt afraid again. I believe that my physical condition is a way to remind me never to have fear. Now I talk to my Angel every day and I still laugh more each day now than I ever did before.

I wish I could take Ruth with me wherever I go so she could tell her story to my workshop participants. To me, Ruth and her Angel are twins. Her story represents the choice to believe let the non physical world of divine energy has more authority than the physical world of form and matter. This choice caused what might have been a handicap gradually to become a source of inspiration. Her limitations became an asset. This is the influence of the sefirot of Nezah and Hod, our spiritual legs.