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Chakras become unbalanced because of life stressors, habits, and much more. A traumatic event can also affect your chakras. The good news is you can work with each of these chakras to bring more balance and healing to your yoga practice.
This post outlines chakra imbalances, ways sexual trauma affects these areas, and how you can find balances with practices, scents, and physical objects. When you’re ready, I welcome you to join me in this deep dive into how you can balance your chakras after sexual trauma.
As with all holistic healing, it does not replace an entire care plan. I welcome you to explore support options to accompany your healing journey.
What are chakras?
Chakras are energy centers that flow through the subtle body. While there are many more chakras than typically depicted in a traditional yoga class, the seven I talk about in this post are the most well-known centers. These are based in Hinduism, and other philosophies have their own version of this system. An example is that in ancient Chinese medicine, we know them as the twelve meridians.
Each chakra has physical, physiological, and spiritual aspects that it governs. We understand where each chakra lives based on physical location, although chakras are not a physical object. It’s easiest to explain in location in our bodies based on the physical organs affected and other factors. An example of this is that our heart chakra is located near our heart center.
I welcome you to explore more about your chakras and yoga philosophy if you choose.
Should I work with Chakras After Sexual Trauma?
If you’re new to the chakras, it’s easy to dismiss them or avoid working with them altogether. For some people, chakra work is transformative, and for others it feels like nothing is happening. It all comes down to your preferences and if you choose to include chakras in your yoga practice.
It wasn’t until my yoga teacher training when I learned about chakras. Honestly, they never interested me and I was dreading the chakra chapter in my training. I promised myself I’d keep an open mind, and it turns out the chakras were much more interesting than I originally thought!
No matter what any yoga teacher says, including chakra work in your practice is your decision to make. Like my experience, it wasn’t until I practiced yoga for eight years that I even considered working with chakras. It’s all your practice.
How does sexual trauma affect your chakras?
Your chakras can become unbalanced from daily life, and an event like trauma can affect them greatly. While sexual trauma can affect any of your chakras, the chakras with the greatest impact are your root and sacral chakras. These govern your basic safety and sexuality. Even though these are the most common imbalances, everyone is unique and you may be different (and that’s okay).
If you have a deficiency is one chakra, another one might begin to have an excess. An example is if you are deficient in your throat chakra. You may not speak up or voice your boundaries, and this may cause an excess in another chakra. Maybe your solar plexus takes over and you begin overworking yourself.
This is a very simple example and doesn’t mean this is your scenario, but this is just an idea to get you started on how chakras operate and are intertwined. If one of your chakras has an imbalance, another one may have one as well.
This isn’t to discourage you or make you feel you need to find a perfect balance. It’s mainly to support your journey as you discover which ones have the most imbalance, and start there.
Balancing your chakras is a practice, and no one ever gets it 100% perfect. I invite you to remember this on your journey and to practice kindness toward yourself.
How to Balance Chakras After Sexual Trauma
I welcome you to join me as I explain your seven chakras, how sexual trauma can affect them, and exercises you can do to find balance. With any practice, everything is your choice and you can skip, opt out, or do anything to make this a more supportive, comforting practice for you.
As part of this list, I’ve included my favorite essential oils that meet these standards:
- Organic
- Undiluted
- Therapeutic grade
- Natural (no added perfumes or dyes)
I use the oils in this list for yoga practices, as natural cleaning ingredients, and for aromatherapy. They’re aligned with each chakra to create balance in your subtle body (and smell amazing, too!) If you have pets, I recommend you ask your veterinarian if they’re safe to use around your furry friends.
1. Root Chakra (Muladhara)
Your root chakra is your foundational chakra that governs your sense of basic safety, survival, and security.
Basic Information:
- Location: Base of your spine
- Color: Red
- Common Diseases: Obesity, hemorrhoids, constipation, chronic fatigue, foot problems, sexual dysfunction, reproductive issues.
- Signs Of Deficiency: Disconnected, underweight, fear and anxiety, lack of boundaries
- Signs of Excess: Overeating, greed, fatigue, fear of change, paranoia
- Signs Of Balance: Sense of security, safety and present and prosperous
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
Sexual trauma can affect your feelings of basic safety and survival. You may emotionally experience heightened fear and anxiety. Physically, this may manifest as lower back pain or the other physical symptoms listed above.
I believe this is the most important chakra to work on because if you don’t feel a general sense of safety, it’ll be difficult to find relaxation and work on any other chakra. I welcome you to take all the time you need on your root chakra.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Lam (I am)
- Yoga Poses: Tree, Warrior III, Child’s pose, mountain pose, standing forward fold
- Essential Oils: Australian Sandalwood and patchouli, both from Amazon
- I prefer Australian sandalwood compared to Indian. Indian sandalwood is becoming more difficult to source, while Australian is farmed and prevents endangering the local environment. While I’ve never purchased Indian sandalwood, I’ve heard it’s similar in scent, except that Australian is more earthy.
- Stones: Red jasper, smoky quartz
2. Sacral Chakra (Svadhisthana)
This chakra is the center of our emotions, creativity, and sensuality. This is why many yoga students experience emotional releases with hip opening yoga poses, because it’s activating your sacral chakra. This is also responsible for emotional connections and attachments.
Basic Information:
- Location: Navel, between two hip bones
- Color: Orange
- Common Diseases: Reproductive and urinary complications, menstruation, sexual dysfunction, low back pain, sciatica, decreased pleasure
- Signs of Deficiency: Fear, poor boundaries, lack of desire or creativity
- Signs of Excess: Addictions, obsessiveness, codependent, irresponsibility
- Signs Of Balance: Friendly, vitality, sensuality, compassion, sexual expression, bonding
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
This is impacted by sexual trauma, since this is our sexual center. Most people assume this chakra is only associated with sexuality, but it’s also the center for our emotions and creativity.
I welcome you to take as much time as you need with this chakra. If you’re a sexual trauma survivor, working on this area can awaken powerful emotions. I only recommend working with this chakra if you have a strong support team or member that you can reach out to during this work, or to take as much time as you need.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Vam (I feel)
- Breathwork: Left Nostril Breathing
- Yoga poses: Hero Pose, Low lunge, Forward Fold, Goddess Pose, Reverse Warrior
- Essential oil: Ylang Ylang, Amazon
- Stone: Tiger’s Eye
3. Solar Plexus (Manipura)
This chakra is your center of willpower, self-esteem, and power. Your work ethic is also tied to your solar plexus chakra.
Basic Information:
- Location: Abdomen
- Color: Yellow
- Common diseases: Digestive upset, diabetes, stomach ulcers, eating disorders, heartburn.
- Signs of Deficiency: Low self-esteem and confidence, unhappiness, lack of boundaries, self-discipline, and poor digestion
- Signs of Excess: Controlling, aggressive, stubborn, competitive
- Signs Of balance: Assertive boundaries, cooperation, healthy productivity, healthy work-life balance
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
Sexual trauma occurs when someone oversteps your boundaries. It’s important in your healing to establish healthy boundaries around your healing and choices. (Important: This does not mean a lack of boundaries caused your trauma.)
Creating healthy boundaries with work, life, relationships, and yourself is vital to self-care on your healing journey. I understand how difficult this can be, as sometimes you might think you’re over aggressive with your boundaries if you are not used to this work.
It gets easier the more you work with this, and other services like therapy can support you if you’re facing confusion about setting clear, healthy, assertive boundaries.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Ram (I do)
- Breathwork: Right nostril breathing (not recommended if you also experience anxiety)
- Yoga poses: Downward facing dog, boat pose, any warrior variation, side plank, upward facing dog
- Essential Oils: Lemon, Amazon
- Stone: Amber
4. Heart Chakra (Anahata)
The center of our subtle energy system, this is the place of love and relationships, and divides our more physically focused chakras into our more spiritual chakras. This is the bridge into the spiritual because when we follow our hearts, it’s based on intuition or spiritual guidance more than a physical need.
Basic Information:
- Location: Heart region
- Color: Green, pink
- Common Diseases: Heart or lung diseases, asthma, pneumonia, upper back and shoulder troubles
- Signs of Deficiency: Loneliness, low empathy or self-love, indifference
- Signs Of Excess: Jealousy, codependent, self-centered
- Signs of Balance: Wholeness and feelings of acceptance
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
A deficiency in this chakra is also associated with an inability to forgive. Trauma-informed yoga teachers will never include forgiveness practices that ask you to forgive the person who caused your trauma. This is more focused on self forgiveness. Your definition of forgiveness, or if you include these practices, is entirely your choice.
This chakra may also be affected by sexual trauma because it governs self-love and depression. You are still worthy of loving yourself after a traumatic experience. I know this is always easier said than done (I still have my fair share of setbacks), but working on this chakra can support strengthening the bond you have with yourself.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Yam (I love)
- Yoga poses: Cobra, Sphinx, Upward facing dog, gentle heart openers in warrior or standing postures, cat/cow
- Essential Oils: Geranium, Amazon
- Stones: Green jade, moonstone
5. Throat Chakra (Vishuddha)
This chakra governs your speech and expression center. You may also heal guilt in this region.
Basic Information:
- Location: Base of your throat
- Color: Blue
- Common Diseases: Asthma, bronchitis, mouth ulcers, thyroid issues, sore throat, TMJ, and issues regarding your head, neck, ears, and mouth.
- Signs of Deficiency: Grinding teeth, fear of speaking, unable to speak your truth
- Signs Of Excess: Over talking, gossiping, stuttering, compulsive behaviors
- Sings of Balance: Creative and expressive, listens and communicates
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
You may find it difficult to speak about your trauma after it occurred. This is not so much a chakra imbalance as how your body reacts during trauma. Your speech center shuts down during trauma, making it difficult to articulate your experience.
Your throat chakra governs how you speak your truth and voice your boundaries. Sexual trauma survivors are often afraid to speak about their experience for a variety of reasons.
It could be fear of retaliation, of the abuser, how other people will react, and other factors. I’d like to note that yoga is not a replacement for licensed therapy services, and these may better serve you for discussing details about your trauma.
You have the choice to include throat chakra exercises to accompany a current care plan. This may support you if you are currently in therapy and wish to speak more openly about your trauma. This is always your choice, and you don’t need to include this work if it doesn’t support your healing journey.
You could also work on this chakra for other reasons not related to your trauma. Maybe you wish to speak up more or you realize you gossip more than you’d like. Everything in your yoga practice doesn’t need to be centered on trauma healing.
Sometimes, I’ll do yoga just because I want to reach a physical goal (like doing the splits). It’s okay to set aside certain types of practices to focus on other areas you’d like to work on instead.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Ham (I speak)
- Breathwork: Lion’s Breath
- Yoga Poses: Child’s Pose, cat/cow, cobra, bridge pose, downward facing dog
- Essential oils: Chamomile, lavender, both from Amazon
- I prefer Roman chamomile, but German chamomile is also a nice choice. These two are very similar but Roman chamomile is has a milder scent.
- Stones: Lapis lazuli, aquamarine
6. Third Eye Chakra (Ajna)
This chakra enters the more spiritual realm, but you may have noticed your Ajna chakra in action when you experienced intuition or “seeing” beyond what is in front of you.
Basic Information:
- Location: Third Eye, (in between and slightly above your eyebrows)
- Color: Violet/ Indigo
- Common diseases: Poor eyesight, deafness, nightmares, seizures, depression, hormonal imbalances, dizziness, migraines
- Signs of Deficiency: Denial of current situations, memory loss, anxiety, unhappiness
- Signs Of Excess: Fantasizing, hallucinations, nightmares, obsessiveness, difficulty concentrating
- Signs of Balance: Strong intuition and a healthy balance of understanding the present and using imagination.
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
Survivors may feel like they can’t trust their intuition. This can easily lead to self-blame because you may feel like your intuition failed you.
Having strong intuition doesn’t mean you predict everything 100% of the time. This can also become confusing if you’re hypervigilant, and now everything feels unsafe. How do you differentiate between trauma symptoms and your true intuition?
I recommend working for the bottom up when working with your chakras for trauma healing. This means that you start at your root chakra, and work your way up the list as I’ve listed them in this post. Intuition work becomes much easier when you arrive in a place of safety.
Certain forms of therapy (like CBT) can also help you distinguish between triggers and actual threats. You are always welcome to explore options in addition to yoga on your healing journey.
There isn’t anything wrong with your intuition because you didn’t know your trauma was going to happen. Intuition does not mean predicting the future.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Om (I see)
- Yoga Poses: Child’s Pose, Crocodile Pose, Legs up The Wall, Downward Facing Dog, Humble Warrior
- Essential Oils: Rosemary, Clary Sage, both from Amazon
- Stones: Obsidian, Moonstone
7. Crown Chakra (Sahasrara)
This chakra doesn’t exist on your body, but slightly above your head and is resembled by a thousand-petaled lotus. Some may argue this chakra sits at the top of your crown, so I welcome you to choose the version that feels more natural to you.
This is the culmination of all the chakras and can help you achieve spiritual enlightenment when balanced.
Basic Information:
- Location: Above your crown
- Color: White, violet, gold
- Common Diseases: Depression, chronic exhaustion, headaches, migraines, dizziness, schizophrenia, psychosis, insomnia
- Signs of Deficiency: Lack of purpose, joy, trust, selfishness
- Signs Of Excess: Feeling superior, always living in your head, hysteria, addiction to spirituality
- Signs of Balance: Self-trust, selflessness, inner peace, able to live in the present moment
How it’s affected after sexual trauma:
You may experience worry and chronic fatigue after a traumatic event. These imbalances can also cause depression and a loss of a sense of purpose. I recommend working on your other chakras before diving into this one, as it can cause confusion and become a setback in your spiritual journey if your other chakras aren’t balanced.
It may feel like an impossible feat to feel totally at peace after trauma, so I welcome you to take your time as you navigate your chakras. Even yoga philosophy explains that enlightenment isn’t a state you reach and remain in forever. It’s a liberation that comes and goes.
How to find balance:
- Meditation Affirmation: Breath sound (I know) You can also focus on grounding here if you don’t prefer to use your breath in practices.
- Yoga Poses: Crocodile Pose, any pose you’re comfortable for meditation and/or breathwork, Savasana
- Essential Oils: Frankincense, Amazon
- I recommend Frankincense Carterii (better for grief and emotional blockages) compared to Serrata (body aches and pains).
- Stones: Black opal, clear quartz
How Chakra Work Supports Trauma healing
This next section isn’t to make you think this is exactly what will happen if you work with your chakras. I welcome you to view this as inspiration to see if chakra work is a practice that may interest you.
This section is primarily my personal experience with working with both my chakras and therapy.
It’s interesting because I always thought Eastern ways of healing and Western were two worlds that I had to choose between. Instead, I combined both and it’s been amazing for my progress. I invite you to read how working with chakras has supported my journey.
- I stopped judging myself. You may read some of the common chakra imbalances and feel you’re doing something wrong. Or, your therapist might notice you’ve repeated a certain behavior and feel totally called out. I used to feel this way until I noticed I could use this information to narrow that week’s focus. I’d do the work my therapist assigned and also included chakra work. This allowed me to remove judgment because I knew strategies to find balance.
- I knew exactly what I needed to bring to my next therapy session. Because I’ve been practicing yoga for years, I’m in tune with my body and can pinpoint exactly where I’m holding tension. This can be valuable when working with chakras, because these energy centers govern more than just your physical sensations. If I was clenching my jaw all week, feeling jaw pain, I knew this aligned with my throat chakra. I could dive straight into my session knowing there was something I wasn’t bringing to the surface, or a truth I didn’t want to acknowledge.
- I had more than one healing strategy to work with. Before I included yoga in my trauma healing, I felt like I was ticking down the hours until my next therapy appointment. I didn’t know how to manage my symptoms until the next session. Working with yoga and chakras allowed me to feel in control and work with a healing practice I resonated with.
Working with chakras is a personal choice and I welcome you to only work with them if it feels comfortable for you.
Overview
This was a lengthy post, so thank you for making it this far! What I’ve discovered with chakras is that you can cater them to work for you. If you want to focus on trauma healing, you can. If you’d rather focus on becoming a better partner, friend, work on your relationship with yourself, you can cater your focus to each of those areas.
If you’re working on chakras specifically for sexual trauma symptoms, I welcome you to take as much time as you need. The first two chakras are often the ones most affected by sexual trauma, so it’s okay if you spend a considerable amount of time on each of these before moving on. You may find you need to address these even after you’ve moved on from them.
Just like healing, chakra work isn’t as simple as perfecting it then never needing to work on it again. It’s a constant practice, and that’s okay. It gives you the opportunity for more growth and overtime you may find yourself more in tune with your chakras and what needs balance.
This is a monumental victory because you replace a judgmental mindset with a healing, compassionate one. Thank you for spending this time with me, and I wish you the best on your journey and chakra healing.
Take Care.
