Day 9 of Finding Your Flow meditation focuses on activating happiness. Deepak encourages us to use the power of our chakras, the energy centers of the body, to really open the flow in our lives.
Happiness is connected to our second chakra, which is located a few inches below our belly button and resonates with the color orange. This chakra helps us cultivate our sense of play, delight, bliss, and creativity. This is also where we hold the energy of our dreams and desires.
For us souls@work, our workplaces are a hotbed for all these things. We often have dreams and desires for our careers. Our work often requires us to be creative or innovative. And if we have great jobs, we can even experience delight and bliss at work.
But if you have a crappy job or a horrible boss, you may find that it is difficult to feel happy or playful. That is because our chakras are connected and they affect each other. To get to happiness and creativity, you first have to have a sense of safety. When in fear, it is very difficult to feel any other emotion or access the creative or playful part of yourself.
Lots of studies have shown this too. Workplaces that struggle with innovation often have cultures that are based on fear. When fear is present, creativity cannot grow. Dr. Brené Brown’s research is all about how creativity requires vulnerability, which she details in her best-selling book, Daring Greatly.
So remember to first get connected to your root chakra. Feeling grounded in the universal energy and the safety of being connected to that infinite wisdom can go a long way to opening your second chakra.
Once you feel safe, it gets easier to start to notice what makes you happy, and what you desire or dream about. This has certainly been true for me. I grew up in abusive home and I was not a child who was playful because I was always scanning for danger. As I grew older and moved away from home, I first had to experience safety for a while and then do some healing work before I started to feel happiness.
To this day, I have to cultivate that in myself and I am particularly sensitive to feeling “unsafe”, which is why meditation and my spirituality are so key for me. They help me get back that sense of safety and then I can really soar from there.
As you go to work, notice the things that make you feel happy or playful or creative. And notice what diminishes those feelings. Do more of the first and when you feel the latter, use your second chakra and dial up the universal energy and flow. Our chakras give us the ability to have much more control of our experience anywhere, including work.
Namaste.