The Purpose of the Body in Creative Expression & Spirituality: Sacral Energy

Welcome to the third segment of the Creative Awakening: Integrating Art & Spirituality series.

P.S. (Is there a pre-version of PS? Inquiring minds wanna know.) Check out my blog for the first two posts.

I brought my Emotions Wheel to this class. Just like the other classes, I wasn't sure what would come out of this class, but because I have so many self-connection tools in my toolbox, I figured I'd bring it.

It was an emotional day for me myself, as the following day was my ancestor's father's birthday. The story of my father and the healing I underwent to forgive his life and death is literally the topic of my upcoming book lol, but suffice it to say, I felt mixed emotions that day. I love teaching this class, I love the conversations we had, and I also knew that after teaching this class, I was going to have to sit with my emotions about my father.

Background

The way the classes have been unfolding, the topics that come to the surface are topics I've been contemplating myself, and this was no different... What's the purpose of being alive as a human being?

I've spent a lot of time searching for and questioning my purpose. Not just because I don't have many examples of women like me, those in pursuit of enlightenment and deep purpose— but also because I'm deeply curious about being on Earth at this time.

When you look at the state of the world, it's easy to feel totally disempowered. To think that the world sucks, that humans suck, that being here at this time sucks. But then I go and study the cosmos, Mother Nature, the evolution of civilization and humankind, and it makes me unable to decree that "everything sucks."

Using that as a thread of entry though, we started the conversation with how being in survival / fear mode can mask or unmask spirituality? Both sides were presented, as we discussed how being in survival mode can both make people feel like there is no higher power helping to navigate their reality, AND can also be a source of light and persistence when traveling those same tunnels.

I loved that both points were brought up, as the application of coexistence is one of the central tenets of Queen Mindset Leadership 👑. As we delved deeper into the discussion, we explored creative practices that could apply to each aspect of life as well as the purpose of the body in both spirituality and creativity.

Focus Point: The Conscious Sacral Chakra

The Sacral Chakra is the seat of creativity. In our first class, we talked about the relationship between thoughts, emotions, and feelings, emphasizing the strength of the connection between the three.

Whereas emotions are the electrical signals the brain sends the body as a result of internal or external events, feelings are the stories that our mind creates. When left unchecked, an emotion (whose sole purpose is to move us into action [e-motion]) can become a feeling, which becomes a mood.

Ever meet someone whose permanent state is negative, no matter what time of the day it is or what's happened? When we're in an unidentified trauma state, we are more likely to exist in these deep states of unchanging feeling.

The irony is that an emotion only lasts 60-90 seconds, so when it lasts longer than that, it's the mind telling an elaborate story of what happened. Further, our emotions are felt in our physical body, something that most of us haven't been taught how to connect with.

When you look at somatic or embodiment practices, that's what they refer to; they use the body as the mechanism of healing. The body then became the natural focus of our chat.

At a high level, here are the elements of the Sacral Chakra we explored:

• Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana): Sva means "self, Adisthana means "established, and Svadhisthana loosely translates to "dwelling in a place of the self
• Focus: Creativity, joy, & emotional openness
• Color: Orange
• Location: Below the navel, in the pubic bone
• Areas of Life Explored: Creative, Emotional 

The Discussion

The dominant thesis as we explore Art is that our lives are Art. As such, we're not just talking about creativity in the sense of what we create with a piece of work, but what we make with our lives. Just like we did in our first session, I asked everyone to rate themselves on their wheels of life. But this time instead of talking about how we feel about each area, I asked them to reflect on the practices in each area.

Wheel of Life Practices

• Money: How much time do you spend managing and expanding your money?
• Romance: How do you romance yourself and your relationships?
• Health & Fitness: What do you do to and with your body to keep it healthy?
• Occupation: What do you create in your career / business?
• Relationships: How do you audit and pour into your friendships and family relationships?
• Creativity: How do you invest in exploring and deepening your creativity?
• Spirituality: What type of daily, weekly, monthly practices do you have to connect to your Self?
• Emotions: How often are you connecting with your emotions?
• Mindset: How aware are you of your limiting beliefs and what do you to expand them?

At the end of this discussion, I asked the class if they could see how each of these areas of life was an expression of Spirituality (based on what we'd defined in week 2), and as such, were channels for Self-expression. The looks of agreement on everyone's face were brilliant.

Oftentimes, materialism and the appreciation of beauty are seen as opposing to spirituality. Which made me explore the idea of what was the purpose of consumption on Earth? If we were not meant to roam, to take care of our bodies, to value beauty, to create and consume materials, then why would they be on Earth? Here's what we came up with on what the purpose of existing in a body on this planet was.

Purpose of Human Beings Existing on Earth

• "your body is the whole point of you being here"
• To feel
• To experience ourselves
• To be in our bodies
• To evolve
• To create
• To be refined
• To access our intuition through our hearts and bodies
• To experience both chaos and structure

Our closing discussion was spent revisiting the Emotions Wheel. Each student approached the wheel and studied it, as we all sat with what it would be like to experience all our feelings AND express them. I then asked the question, which of these feelings are the most and least familiar?

Familiar and Unfamiliar Feelings

• Familiar: Fear / sadness, disgust, all of them, happiness, fear (mine)
• Unfamiliar: Anger, anger, all of them, anger, anger (mine)

It was interesting how all the women said anger was the least familiar. And yet anger serves such a powerful purpose. In Brené Brown's Atlas of the Heart, "anger is an action emotion — we want to do something when we feel it and when we're on the receiving end of it." It's something that we feel when "something gets in the way of a desired outcome or when we believe there's a violation of the way things should be."

Is it any surprise that those of us that have felt the most creatively blocked have not yet learned how to access, connect with, and express our anger in our lives (art)? 

Thankfully, that's not where we ended our class. To close off, I asked everyone to identify how they felt about our discussion that night. Introspective, peaceful, thoughtful, and wonder-filled were the responses.

And me? I felt full. Bittersweet to be celebrating my father's life and death the next day. But also lucky that I was able to experience him and this life, in order to be able to express it to others through my teachings.

Artistic Growth Challenge

For our closing commitments, I challenged the class to pay attention to the world around them. What's it like being them, what do they see and notice about the world? Often the things that piss us off, the things that instigate our anger, are indicative of where our purpose lies.

If we can learn to access and express this and our other emotions, we can become more embodied and more connected to our minute experiences and to those that experience us. Here's a recommended list of further reading to get you going on exploring this aspect of your creativity.

What's Next?

In the next class, we'll explore the Solar Plexus Chakra, the seat of confidence and inner power. Can you guess how I'll apply this concept to the exploration of Creativity and Spirituality? Stay tuned.

Dra. García out!