Of all the chakras, your Svadhisthana or Orange Chakra is the primary energy center influencing the development of your internal awareness, sense of self, and self-worth. This is not surprising given that it governs your emotions and the emotional layer of your aura. It’s also the power center of your subtle life-force energy and overall chakra system.

As such, Svadhisthana is central to a balanced emotional life and a strong sense of self. Thus, it indirectly contributes to the health of two additional important self-assessments, your self-esteem and personal power, which depend on your sense of self. Both align most closely with Solar Plexus Chakra or Yellow Chakra.

Other names for this energy center are the Sacral Chakra, the 2nd Chakra, the Navel Chakra, and the Navel Center.

Orange Chakra Meaning

The Orange Chakra, or Svadhistana in Sanskrit, is the second energy center in the standard seven chakra system. (For more on the chakra system itself, see my blog post What Are the Chakras.)

Many people emphasize this chakra’s association with sexuality and passion. As an embodied practitioner, I highlight its connection to introspection or inner awareness and your ability to sense life experiences. This center is strongly connected to the emotions, the emotional aura layer (or the emotional body). It feeds into and expresses the subconscious. This contrasts or more appropriately supplements how you think about experiences which is more the realm of the Solar Plexus.

The Second Center is also the seat of your clairsentience, one of your six innate psychic senses (e.g., claircognizance, clairvoyance, and clairaudience) that contributes to your embodied cognition. Clairsentience along with your other clairesenses are fundamental tools of spiritual and alternative healers.

Svadhisthana Location

The Svadhisthana is situated in the middle of the human body along the spin and the Sushumna (Central Light Column) beneath the navel or belly button. (The diagram shows the seven chakras located along the Sushumna. The Orange Chakra is the second one from the bottom.)

The exact spot of the chakra varies according to the length of the torso. The longer the torso, the greater the distance. Short-waisted people can locate it quite close to their navel, just a few finger-widths below.

Personal Development and Svadhisthana

The chakra series, starting from the Root Chakra and running through the Crown, represents a person’s growth and development from birth through adulthood. At birth, a person is a sensory-motor being who experiences and interprets life outside the womb through sensing and movement. All additional learning builds upon these two capacities. And, they remain active and influential throughout life.

While the 1st Chakra (the Root) focuses on satisfying basic needs and security, the 2nd Chakra orients individuality, emotional bonding, sensory refinement, and the development of self-worth and an emergent sense of self.

At this stage, your focus or attention shifts from strictly satisfying basic needs to seeking fulfillment of personal desires, passions, and creative impulses. As individualism emerges, you begin to form rudimentary relationships with other people, other living beings (pets and creatures of nature), places, and things.

Svadhisthana seen as a personal development stage, is the energy center critically dependent on healthy and supportive child rearing to form a well-balanced, self-aware, and self-actualizing adult. Traumas and other early childhood development issues often manifest in Orange Chakra dysfunction such as a blockage or hypo- or hyperactivity and energy flow. Such disturbances plague and distort self-evaluation.

Parts of the Physical Body Related to the 2nd Chakra

Each chakra governs particular parts and functions of the physical body. However, the influence of each energy center can be far-reaching given the interconnectedness of the body and its functions.

The Orange Chakra is associated with sexual organs and glands such as the ovaries, womb, testicles, and prostate. It also governs the bladder, kidneys, and sacral nerve plexus. Hence, it plays a vital role in your sexuality and creativity.

Svadhisthana shares responsibility for the circulatory system with the Heart Center and Throat Chakra.

All About the Second Chakra

Svadhisthana Color

The color of Svadhistana is orange, which is often associated with joyful emotions, dynamism, and vitality.

A color that derives from red and yellow, orange bridges and balances the character of the two colors. Hence it’s also powerful, fiery, and grounding.

Sacral Chakra Planet

The Sacral Center Planet is the moon, even though the moon is not truly a planet, but rather the Earth’s satellite. However, the association is fitting because the Moon influences emotions as well. Moreover, Both the Moon and Svadhisthana align with the subconscious.

Sacral Chakra Element

Water is the element of the Sacral energy center, which is fitting because water tends to represent emotions. Both are constantly flowing and transforming and are essential for mind, body, and spirit regulation. Water and tides are also associated with the Moon, another force for change.

Because water is a primary component of blood, lymph, urine, and other bodily fluids, the Orange Chakra influences these elements as well and codetermines with several other chakras their quality and function.

Orange Chakra Symbol – Mandala

The Orange Chakra mandala can be depicted in various ways. However, it’s always orange and encircled with six lotus petals orange. The center symbol resembles a typeset letter “a.” The version presented here includes a small crescent moon above the symbol indicating the chakra’s relation to the Moon.

The circle represents both feminine energy and wholeness. The form of a circle provides no beginning or end. This wholeness is again present in the center’s connection with sensing captures the wholeness of experience rather than words, concepts, and linear depictions.

Svadhisthana Sound (Bija)

The sound associated with a chakra is called the bija. The specific sound improves energy flows related to the corresponding area and tones the chakra. Each chakra has its distinct single-syllable bija. The sacral bija is the sound is Vam.

5 Ways to Promote 2nd Chakra Healing

1.  Orange or 2nd Chakra Stones

Healing crystals pair well with chakras, specific stones work better with specific chakras. The best and most versatile Sacral Chakra crystals include Carnelian, Orange Calcite, Sunstone, Tiger Eye, and Red-Orange Jasper.

In general, these crystals can clear and unblock the Sacral Chakra, and rebalance the flow of energy within the energy center. In addition, these Second Chakra stones can address related physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual issues. For example, Carnelian regulates women’s menstrual cramps and men’s impotency.

2.  SvadhisthanaToning

Tone the Svadhisthana by chanting and humming its bija Vam

3.  2nd Chakra Essential Oils

Essential oils have vibrational qualities. As such certain oils can address specific energy center dysfunction or enhance another modality such as Reiki, Integrated Energy Therapy, or sound healing.

Sandalwood (Santalum album), Neroli (Citrus aurantium), Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum), and Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin) are quintessential Sacral Chakra essential oils.

More generally, White Sage (Salvia apiana) clears toxic energy. Juniper Berry (Juniperus communis) does so as well. The latter also repels negative energy. These essential oils work with the entire chakra system and all energy bodies.

4.  Yoga for the 2nd Chakra

Yoga poses for the 2nd Chakra engage the hips and pelvic floor. Examples include Goddess pose, wide-legged forward bends, low lunges, and simply sitting cross-legged. Hip circles and scissor kicks open the pelvic area and increase the flow of energy.

5.  Chakra Therapy

Chakra therapy is energy healing that directly engages or treats the chakra system or individual centers. It can involve vibrational healing such as drumming, rattling, singing bowls, tuning forks, or sound in other ways. Many energy healing modalities employ particular practices to treat the chakras.