Following through on your desired change and achieving your goals require willpower, especially when you face challenges that require perseverance. Your Manipura, also known as Yellow Chakra or Solar Plexus Chakra, is the energy center governing and empowering your willpower.

Eye On the Prize

Willpower is an essential attribute.

Empowering Your Inner Compass

However, relying too much on your will and ignoring your inner compass can distract you from more authentic and meaningful options.

Trying to power through to a chosen objective is often misguided and can lead to disappointment, stress, and burnout.

Chakras and Navigating Change

Being mindful of the signs of Solar Plexus imbalance, either weakness or excess can alert you to misuse of your will and reorient you toward the unique best, balanced, and appropriate approach.

Yellow Chakra Meaning

The Yellow Chakra is the third energy center of the standard seven chakra system. (Seen in the illustration as the yellow circle above the red and orange circles.)

When the system is seen as a progression in human growth and development, this center evolves from the experience gained from Root and Sacral Chakras, which, respectively, focus on meeting basic physical needs and establishing primary human connections and bonds.

The Yellow Center further empowers the Self through the addition and continual growth of your mental processes including the creation of thoughts and beliefs and refinement of the mental layer of your aura.

It defines your ego and drives assessments of yourself compared to others and externally defined expectations. In this fashion, it determines the strength or weakness of your personal power, self-esteem, and self-image.

Manipura Meaning

The word Manipura means City of Jewels or Lustrous Gem in Sanskrit.

Its element is fire, a classic source of power. In the physical body, this power takes the form of heat and governs the digestion and uptake of food (nutrients). By extension, its nourishment undergirds all the other bodily systems.

Significance of the Manipura Chakra Location

Manipura’s location in the center of the seven chakras is significant in two ways. Due to its prominent role in digestion and cognition, this energy center is essential to the functioning and smooth integration of the gut-brain head-brain nexus.

When balanced, the Manipura facilitates the integration of information and wisdom from the body-brain (the subconscious, emotions, and inner sensing) and the physical or head-brain (cognition, processing, command, and control).

The second significant role relates to its placement within the chain of chakras running up the spin or the Central Light Column or Sushumna. First, it sits atop the lower two chakras, which are focused on the physical and earthbound aspects of being human. Second, it cradles the upper three chakras, which orient a person toward spirituality, universality, and unity. As such, the significance of the Third Chakra’s location marks another dimension of Manipura’s integrative role.

Power of Willpower

What Is Willpower

Combining the meaning of willpower from Cambridge University and Merriam-Webster yields the following willpower definition: ‘one’s ability to control one’s thoughts, actions, emotions, or urges to support a certain behavior or do something difficult.’

Most personal attributes are best expressed with some degree of moderation. The same can be said for chakras. An imbalance within one of the energy centers can be problematic. This imbalance can manifest as an excess or deficit in subtle energy. The best possible expression of any center and the whole system arises from balance.

Strong Willpower or Surplus Will

A strong will is associated with several attributes that help you master challenges. These include decisiveness, resolve, self-control, self-discipline, determination, and perseverance. When people think of having willpower or the will to change, they think of having effective power, self-control, and self-restraint.

However, a strong will can be excessive and detrimental. For one, it can thwart strategic, opportunistic, or beneficial flexibility.

An overactive will is often associated with an excessive inner critic. It can also cause self-fragmentation when your will denies or suppresses an inconvenient or contrary part of the self in pursuit of an objective or satisfaction of an obsession. Some additional signs are excessive perfectionism, impatience, competitiveness, impulsivity, and indulgence.

Generally, strong and overbearing willpower is associated with intense energy, hyper-focus, and constriction within the mind and body (physical and emotional).

Weak Willpower or Deficit Will

A weak will is generally said to be unfocused, scattered, depleted, and ineffective.

If your will is weak, you’re inclined to experience hesitancy, indecision, apathy, constant distraction, and procrastination. You might see yourself as a victim or a quitter. You could feel disorganized, powerless, or unworthy.

A weak will can lead to weak or lack of impulse control and one or more forms of addiction (e.g., over-eating, compulsive gambling, and excessive alcohol or drug consumption).

Willpower Empowerment

Because the Manipura or Yellow Center is the seat of your will, the chakra system is a helpful monitoring instrument of willpower strength and balance. The strength and balance of the Manipura are your guide.

Therefore, consider the attributes of the Yellow Center most closely associated with the will when aiming to empower or strengthen willpower.

Because chakras are subtle and encompass the full mind, body, and spirit, assessing them requires mindful self-reflection and courageous commitment to the information they reveal, not doubt and disbelief.

Signs of Manipura Chakra Imblance

Look for signs of Yellow Chakra imbalance to determine whether you’re pushing too hard or too little for what you want. In fact, rather than push, see if you can follow your inner signals.

Several signs of a weak, overactive, and balanced Yellow Chakra are as follows.

Signs of a Weak Yellow Chakra

1. Low self-image and self-esteem
2. Indecision, procrastination, defeatism, and helplessness
3. Control issues, especially to constrain or hold back self and situations
4. Chronically or easily fatigued
5. Personal and life stagnation
6. Eating disorders and weight gain
7. Irritable bowel – (cold or with constipation)

Signs of an Overactive Yellow Chakra

1. Chronic or frequent stress and anxiety
2. Perfectionism and judgmentalism
3. Impatience
4. Overbearing control, especially over others and situations
5. Anger and resentment
6. Overconfidence, self-aggrandizement, and excessive ego
7. Irritable bowel (with heat or diarrhea)

7 Signs of a Balanced Yellow Chakra

1. Presence
2. A calm and stable frame of mind and demeanor
3. Productive and effective force (personal power)
4. A healthy ego, self-image, and self-esteem
5. Confidence
6. Easeful management of thoughts and emotions
7. Healthy digestion

These lists provide an impression, not a diagnosis. The idea is for you to self-reflect on the status of your mind, body, and spirit and note how and when you express an imbalance in your Manipura. And, consider what you can do to heal the imbalance in your Solar Plexus and moderate your willpower.

All energy centers are part of broader systems, including your chakra system, physical bodily systems, the external world, and the universe. Cultivating awareness helps you follow natural trustworthy leads, rather than swim upstream, or never get your feet wet.

For More Information On The Manipura, See:

• The Yellow Chakra and Self-Image, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence, and Personal Power
• The Solar Plexus and Self-Discovery
• Essential Oils and Aromatherapy for Manipura Healing