Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (21 page)

Financial security

Social status

Children

Creativity

The uterus and ovaries are the major organs in the second chakra. This area is both literally and figuratively creative space, out of which women can produce babies, relationships, money, careers, novels, insights, and other creative or artistic works. When our energy is not flowing smoothly in this area of the body, gynecological problems, such as fibroid tumors, can result.

When I think of the uterus as potential space, I also think of what we as women are usually expected to “store” in there. A slang term for the uterus is “the bag,” and as humans who have or have had a uterus, we are also the ones who carry all the stuff that others don’t want to carry. Women who are married and have children often notice that their children give them—not their husband—the half-eaten food, gum wrappers, and other garbage that they no longer want to carry. We have all heard older women referred to as “old bags.” When I was pregnant, nursing, and caring for small children, I felt like a “multiple-bag lady.”

Not only do women carry physical excess, we are also expected to carry emotional excess for others—usually for men, but not always. One sixty-year-old former patient of mine with three grown children was living alone with her husband, who had recently retired. She told me she was now chomping at the bit to do other things in her life that she had long wanted to do, such as traveling and writing. But her husband was not enthusiastic about her endeavors. He wasn’t sure what to do with his newly acquired freedom from work. My patient said, “But my husband still wants me to carry his anima—his moods, his enthusiasm, his fun. And when I let down and allow any of my own feelings to show, other than enthusiasm,
he
gets depressed.”
Anima,
a term coined by the famous psychologist Carl Jung, is a man’s inner feminine aspect, which often gets projected onto the women in his life when he is unwilling to feel his own emotions and work through them. What unconscious material do we store in our body centers that neither we nor anyone else really wants to carry around? When unresolved second-chakra-related issues surrounding relationships, creativity, and/or a sense of security exist, the pelvic area of the body as well as the lower back can become vulnerable to disease.

A number of second-chakra experiences can set the stage for illness. The studies of Gloria Bachmann, M.D., indicate that childhood sexual abuse is associated with eating disorders, obesity, and somatic complaints in the genitourinary system, as well as substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors.
⁹
Studies by Robert Reiter, M.D., and others have found that previous sexual abuse is a significant predisposing risk factor for chronic pelvic pain.
¹⁰

Whenever I see a woman with a uterine problem such as fibroid tumors—which are present in 40 percent of American women—I ask her to meditate upon her relationships, creativity, and sense of security. Is her creative energy being routed into any dead-end jobs or relationships? What is her fibroid telling her about these areas? Fibroids, endometriosis, diseases of the ovaries, and other pelvic disorders are manifestations of blocked energy in the pelvis. In a misogynist culture in which at least 18 percent of women are sexual abuse survivors and approximately one in five gets physically raped, it’s not hard to figure out how this happens.

During her annual exam, I found a small fibroid in Gina, a former patient who was thirty-eight years old at the time. I asked her to med itate on blocked energy in her pelvis, and she later told me, “When I got home and took some time with this question, I realized that when my brother died in an accident, I was furious with him for leaving. I was twenty-five and really couldn’t allow myself to feel that rage. So I just stuffed it in my pelvis. I hadn’t thought about that for years.” On a follow-up exam three months later, I found that her fibroid was gone. I believe that by expressing and experiencing the full impact of her anger for the first time, she changed the energy pattern in her pelvis and actually dematerialized the fibroid, transforming it from matter into energy. She told me, “I had a feeling that when I came in today, you’d say it was gone. I literally felt it let go.” I’ve seen other women decrease or eliminate their fibroids when they remembered and released old experiences.

Third Chakra: Self-Esteem and Personal Power

The foundation for a woman’s sense of herself, her self-esteem (third chakra), is formed by her sense of security and safety in the world (first chakra) combined with the quality of her relationships, especially in the areas of money, sex, and power (sec ond chakra). If we feel safe and secure and have supportive relationships that help us secure resources and power, we will be in a good position to achieve our goals in the outer world and to complete tasks that help us develop a sense of self-esteem and self-worth. Third-chakra strength or weakness is related to feelings of adequacy and competence in the world versus inferiority, and to our ability to assume responsibility for our lives and our choices versus the degree to which we relinquish this power to others. Self-esteem and vibrant third-chakra health is always enhanced by doing useful work that is recognized by society, not just by our immediate families. On the other hand, workaholism depletes the third chakra—and is a setup for overeating or other addictions. The ability to learn from both winning
and
losing creates health in this area. On the other hand, excessive competitiveness and needing to win all the time can weaken the third chakra. It is also affected by the balance one strikes between being aggressive and being defensive.

As a result of their collective and individual histories, most women have low self-esteem. For centuries women haven’t been validated or valued except in their capacity as servers and pleasers of others. Our natural desire to create and achieve in the outer world has often been thwarted at an early age. Thus, as women have become individuals in their own right, their families often do not support them in becoming all they can be.

This is because families usually hold an unconscious tribal fear that their female members will abandon them to serve their own needs and live out their personal dreams without the family. We’ve all inherited the belief that a woman cannot develop herself fully without simultaneously sacrificing her ability to serve her family. And because we’ve been socialized to see the family as a woman’s primary job, we have dif ficulty expecting and getting the support we need. (This is especially true in the United States, where paid maternity leave—beyond a meager six weeks—is essentially nonexistent.)

Besides undertaking the classic struggle to balance our personal desires and our responsibilities, women often pace our self-esteem to our mate’s cycle. If a woman’s partner becomes highly successful, she may become depressed because she can’t keep pace with him (or her), or she may not back her partner’s new adventure into different thoughts or creative new territories for fear that he (or she) will leave her. On the other hand, when a mate is unsuccessful in the outside world and becomes depressed or abusive, this too affects the woman in her third chakra (and also the first and second). Conflicts such as these cause energy system dysfunction in the third chakra and can result in eating disorders (anorexia nervosa and bulimia) or physical illness in the stomach (ulcers), gallbladder, small intestine (irritable bowel), liver, and pan creas (diabetes).

Archetypes and the First Three Chakras

When a woman feels that she is being forced to participate in an activity she doesn’t like, her body, mind, and spirit are at risk for harm.
¹¹
When she unwittingly participates in a pattern of self-abuse and abuse from others, she is acting under the influence of what in vibrational medicine is called the rape archetype.

Archetypes are psychological and emotional patterns that influence us unconsciously until we become aware of their power. Archetypes are universal ideas, images, and patterns of thought that we all share in our subconscious. Though the concept of archetypes may at first seem elusive, these unconscious patterns of thought and behavior have a very real effect on our bodies and emotions.

To help you understand the concept of archetype more clearly, I’ll use an example—the mother archetype. A woman who is unconsciously operating under the influence of the mother archetype (as it currently exists in this culture) thinks obsessively about the needs of her children while forgoing her own. Even when her children are old enough to care for most of their physical needs themselves, the woman under the influence of the mother archetype focuses her thoughts on whether they’ve had enough to eat, whether they are happy, and whether they are warm enough or cool enough, ignoring or suppressing her own needs in order to do something for them. I know this one well. Up until very recently, I’ve felt bad about myself if my daughter asked for a tissue and I didn’t have one! This culturally encouraged behavior of worrying can become a damaging stereotype. Another example of an archetype is the hero. When we see the word
hero,
we instantly think of a person who is strong, bold, and brave. A hero is one who may fearlessly rescue others and neglect his or her own safety and needs because of a compulsion to save someone else. If unconscious, this kind of behavior, too, can be detrimental to health.

When we are unconsciously participating in archetypal patterns of behavior, we lose touch with our deepest selves and our inner needs. When a woman is not following her own heart’s desires and instead acts only to fulfill others’ needs, she may be under the influence of either the rape archetype, the prostitute archetype, or the mother arche type, depending upon the circumstances.

The rape and prostitute archetypes are very closely related. When a woman engages in sexual activity that she doesn’t really want but feels unable to do anything to prevent, she is under the influence of the rape archetype. The same archetype is present if she denies herself sexual pleasure because she feels that this is what her partner wants—and again feels unable to alter her situation. The rape archetype may occur when a woman participates in her own violation, such as having an abortion that her mate wants but that she doesn’t. A woman who resents her partner but stays in the relationship anyway for financial or other reasons is not acting from her individual strength but is under the spell of the prostitute archetype. Women often handle this archetype by blaming ourselves or by absorbing our own anger and rage, lest telling of these feelings result in being abandoned.