We hear over and over again about sex addiction in celebrities and politicians. At the same time, a majority of married women were recently surveyed and reported a lack of sexual activity. While there are many causes for sexual dysfunction, if you're over- or under-sexed, you might want to consider balancing your chakras.

The first or Root Chakra is linked to safety and security, and sexual function in men - the penis is governed by the Root Chakra, which deals with basic instincts. This chakra is situated at the base of the spine, and its main function is to keep us grounded and alive and is associated with physical sensation.

In women, their reproductive organs are in the sacral area, and the second or Sacral Chakra governs their love, passion, sexuality and creativity. This chakra is found in the pelvic area below the navel. Its main function is related to procreation and the giving and receiving of sexual pleasure and emotion.

If your energy is stuck at the Sacral Chakra, your sex and your love life will be stuck as well. Accumulated stress in the body, whether emotional or physical, erects barriers to the natural flow of our life energy. So, too much stress may equal no love or even any prospects for it.

Using yoga to balance the Sacral Chakra, you can practice the cobbler's pose to encourage life energy to flow throughout the pelvic area. Swimming, dancing, meditation and anything that encourages pleasure will also stimulate the Sacral Chakra, which is associated with the element of water, and the ebbing and flowing of bodily fluids, like the tides.

If you fantasize about sex all the time or have sex outside of a relationship, your energy may be swirling out of control in the Root or Sacral Chakra, causing havoc in your life. A lack of balance in these two chakras can be caused by a need for attention and nurturing that is never enough. Sometimes, we learn to resort to unusual ways of getting what we need. The sex addict is seeking attention in an unhealthy, distorted and possibly destructive way.

We all need love, nurturing and support, but need to find it first within ourselves with a healthy, balanced Root Chakra. After we develop a sense of self, we can continue at the Sacral Chakra to find our place within a healthy relationship.

I've been asked what chakra balancing techniques can be done to increase one's love life. If your Sacral Chakra is balanced, you will have more energy, passion and creativity, and your life will flow naturally toward love.

If your energy is stuck at the Sacral Chakra, your sex and your love life will be stuck as well. Accumulated stress in the body, whether emotional or physical, erects barriers to the natural flow of our life energy. So, too much stress may equal no love or even any prospects for it.

While the first or Base Chakra is linked to fortress-like solidity and stability, the second or Sacral Chakra is focused on flowing movement and filling your need to sip, bathe, luxuriate or douse in the vivacious, unpredictable and dynamic stream we call love. Swimming in the ocean's waves, or practicing the hypnotic hip swivels of oriental (belly) dancing or performing wu chi exercises may help you begin to experience the world of love that seems just beyond your heart's grasp.

Using yoga to balance the Sacral Chakra, you can practice the cobbler's pose to encourage life energy to flow throughout the pelvic area, the seat of this chakra. Or unleash and focus your creative spirits through painting or making music. Your skill level is not as important as just "doing it" and breaking down any barriers nesting in your body.

As an expression of our joy of living, whatever we create is beautiful, skillful, breathtaking and encouraging. In becoming more sensitive and responsive to what is going on in the world around us, we also further the grounding of our Root Chakra, allowing us to go boldly after what we seek in life, even a relationship that we can grow old with.

In addition to harboring pleasurable sensations, the Sacral Chakra can vacuum in and hold fast to pain and its attendant stress, damming up the free flow of energy and physically manifesting as infection and illness. We may be "going through the motions" in life, seeing the dust on the table and not the wondrous roses in the crystal vase. Our reactions to the world may vacillate widely from rage and aggression to breaking into tears at the slightest problem.

To aid in stress relief and balancing of the Sacral Chakra, place three clear quartz crystals, points facing outward, in a triangle just below your navel. Next, place three rose quartz stones in an arc above your pubic bone and relax for 4-5 minutes. Repeat as often as is needed for optimal energy flow.
Love and Namaste!
Becca

“The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.” ~ James Michener

Dreams bolster and enable our vision, imagination and insight, revealing that which has been hidden, out of focus or not understand. Just as Deborah, a wondrous character in The Chakra Diaries saw herself in a different light when an anonymous admirer wrote of her anointing his dreams and igniting his imagination, dreams can communicate to us from the inside out. Deborah was living almost entirely in the past, isolated from her spouse’s physical affections and questioning her self worth until her new friend’s verbiage and focus enabled her to reopen her heart to love and all of its many splendors.

Will Deborah end up in the arms of love? Will her husband realize his mistake at leaving her and beg for her in forgiveness? Will Deborah’s new friend enrich her life as she had hoped and dreamed?

Read the whole story in The Chakra Diaries to find out more about reigniting the sacral chakra, passion and love. Namaste.

If you are looking for love, a strong sense of self from a balanced solar plexus chakra will give you charisma and help you attract your soul mate.

I begin my days by stretching cat-like on my futon, toenails to fingernails, arching and undulating my spine, inviting my physical body to join my consciousness in greeting a new day ripe with opportunity. Once I arise from my rainbow-drenched mat, I ball my fears into a small soft, mentally biodegradable box and give it a hefty kick into the heavens. In the evenings, I repeat this fear-banishing exercise, using it as warm milk for my soul, its soporific effect smoothly easing me into a relaxed state so that I may begin my nightly visualizations.

At some point during the morning, usually after my first cup of green tea, I affirm to the Becca in the mirror that even though I take risks in both love and life, I give myself permission to fail (or perhaps to alter my thinking or attitude so that “failures” morph into positive learning experiences.) Just yesterday, one of my chakra workshop participants was wringing her hands and likening her lack of a physical love life to that of a nun. I chuckled at her purloined quote that “Men are like parking spaces, the good ones are either taken, or are too far away.”

One of the males in the group suggested that Ms. Frustrated first take a hard, honest look in her mirror and assess (even writing down what she is offering to the world), those qualities seen and unseen that might or might not be attracting potential mates into her life. He reminded her to be realistic, but not to sell herself short and remarked that, for instance, he was attracted to her intellect and humor but often put off by her critical comments lightly veiled as wit. I urged her to practice enhancing the attributes on her “alluring” list and to discard or re-purpose the unwanted, much as I figuratively boot mine away.

Another workshop attendee who lost her lover to the thrills and spills of life, creating her own “private hell on earth,” said that simple positive thinking had helped her endure. Instead of grinding her teeth and stomping her feet at the “overwhelming” frustrations and mental plaque built up from being a modern woman, Ms. Optimism had hung a carrot on a stick in her kitchen, reminding her to concentrate on the rewards at the end of her journey, and not the countless, arduous steps in between. She ended her tale and gave our hearts wings when she said to stay tuned – that she knew meaningful, lasting love was on the horizon even though she has not yet even seen the boat it is sailing on.

Good luck in love in the New Year. Namaste!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

"Sex is emotion in motion," said Mae West and she was was an expert on that subject. If stress causes blockages of energy in the body, your sex and your love life will be out of whack. Accumulated stress in the body, whether emotional or physical, erects barriers to the natural flow of our life energy. So, too much stress may equal no love or even any prospects for it. Love doctors have for centuries recognized that moving in spontaneous and free-form ways not only demands flexibility but also the ability to change focus and let go of memories, trauma and pain.

Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin has been quoted as saying that “Love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy in the world.” In opposition to the Base Chakra’s links to fortress-like solidity and stability, the Sacral Chakra focuses on flowing movement and filling your need to sip, bathe, luxuriate or douse in the vivacious, unpredictable and dynamic stream we call love. Practicing the hypnotic hip swivels of oriental (belly) dancing or performing wu chi exercises may help you begin to experience the world of love that seems just beyond your heart’s grasp.

An imbalance of your Sacral Chakra may also manifest as an inappropriate focus on something or somebody that is inappropriate or unrealistic. Perhaps that new guy in the office does have a killer smile, great hair and a body worth giving up chocolate for, but he comes forth anointed with a ring finger wrapped in gold. We might practice the cobbler’s pose to encourage our life energy to flow throughout our sacral chakra or unleash and focus our creative spirits through painting or making music. Our skill level at this art is not an important measure but the fact that we are “doing it” and by doing so are diverting our essence around any barriers nesting in our bodies. As an expression of our joy of living, whatever we create is beautiful, skillful, breathtaking and encouraging. In becoming more sensitive and responsive to what is going on in the world around us, we also further the grounding that we fostered in our root chakra, allowing us to go boldly after what we seek in life, even a relationship that we can grow old with.

In addition to harboring pleasurable sensations, the sacral chakra can vacuum in and hold fast to pain and its attendant stress, damming up the free flow of energy and physically manifesting as infection and illness. We may be “going through the motions” in life, seeing the dust on the table and not the wondrous roses in the crystal vase. Our reactions to the world may vacillate widely from rage and aggression to breaking into tears at the slightest problem.

To aid in stress relief, esteemed authors and teachers Sue and Simon Lilly suggest placing three clear quartz crystals, points facing outward, in a triangle just below your navel. Next, place three rose quartz stones in an arc above your pubic bone and relax for 4-5 minutes. Repeat as often as is needed for optimal energy flow.

Namaste and Keep Focused on Love!
Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries

Dear Searcher:
It's best to start at the beginning, balancing yourself so that you will be the perfect mate for the one you seek.

As the seat of passion, the base chakra builds a white-hot fire under our excitement, hones our instincts to a razor’s edge and dips our lover in irresistible aromas and hues that scratch our itch. Although fantasizing about our lover may fan the flames of wanton desire and fill our Blackberrys with salacious text messages, too much can create an inability to settle and a hyperactivity of the mind. Enter the grounding of the base chakra, otherwise known as the point at which the ladder to heaven rests.

Ironically if our base chakras are imbalanced, we may have a hard time accepting love or pleasure. There may actually be a large gap between what we could have, and what we allow ourselves to have.

As Saraha Doha has said, “…there are no other temples as blissful as our own bodies.”  We must make a pilgrimage to them, enter and come to know them. Our bodies await our acceptance, our validation, our love and deepest understanding.

Let us build our path to meaningful love brick by brick, forging ourselves into a lightning rod of spiritual growth and development by eating a diet replete with protein, avoiding heavily processed foods and those made with simple sugars. Let us stabilize and anchor by practicing the warrior pose, dance and drum to strengthen our bodies and spirits and nurture a regimen of daily meditation to release any excess activity from our ever-inquiring minds and wondrous bodies.

May we go boldly forward on our journey with resolute focus and unwavering faith. We will rid our minds of disbelief that love does not have our name on the list for as William Shakespeare has been quoted, “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win.”

The stories in The Chakra Diaries start with Estrella's story, where she balances her root chakra. Like all the characters, her love life is a mess until she achieves balance. But, succeed they do, and you can too!

Namaste! Becca Chopra, author of The Chakra Diaries