Manipura

Manipura

We arrive at the third chakra - Manipura.  The name of this chakra means "city of jewels".  It is located at the solar plexus and is represented with a 10 petaled lotus with a downward-oriented triangle in the center.  Manipura's seed sound is "Ram".  When I hear people talking about the "fire in one's belly", I think of this chakra.  The element here is indeed fire.  This is the center of energy, willpower, achievement, and confidence.  Additionally, it is known as a sort of psychic/intuitive center (again, remember the expression about "going with your gut"?) from which people will experience a vague sense of "knowing" something for seemingly no reason.  This energy is the source of that.

This chakra is a very interesting one for power exchange.  Not just for s-types, but for our D-types as well.  A weak, closed, or blocked chakra can lead to exhaustion, fear, silence, reservation, instability, and a lack of self-value/confidence.  Alternatively, an overactive third chakra can create the opposite problems - arrogance, over-shadowing others, a need to always be in charge, authoritarian behavior.... you get the idea.  A balanced chakra leads to a healthy sense of self-worth, the ability to succeed, the will to carry out our plans and reach our dreams, and a sense that we are able to wield our own personal power.

I think it is obvious why this chakra is important for both partners in almost any kind of power exchange relationship.  Even if the power exchange isn't overt, I think even in vanilla relationships where one partner "wears the pants" (regardless of their gender or sex), the notion of keeping this energy center in balance is vital for both partners.

For me personally, this chakra is a tough one to pin down.  I have a hard time balancing Manipura.  I seem to always oscillate from one end of the extreme to the next.  It makes being submissive difficult.  Sometimes the fire heats up so much I can't keep it in.  I'm arrogant beyond belief and so willful (read: stubborn) that I become irrational.  I get into a headspace where I feel that I simply cannot be put in my place because I am fucking invincible.  I get myself into a lot of trouble with Master during these periods.  They come fewer and farther between as the years go by, but they still come.  In some contexts, they're quite useful.  At work, at school, when some asshole is treating my friends like shit... that furnace heats up like you wouldn't believe and I go for it.  I am a strong person.  I had to be in order to survive my early years, but I am thankful for them because they allowed me to tap into this awesome personal power.

But then it's too much, sometimes.  And when I do realize that I've been burning up like a mad-man and that Master is truly displeased with me, it all folds in on itself.  The fire dies.  The arrogance leaves.  But I'm left with nothing (or at least that's how it feels).  No will of my own, no ability to do anything for myself, and then I feel worthless and feeble because I am so deeply dependent on him.  I lose the self-value and I dig myself deep into a hole.  Until I realize that I've been "made weak" and rebel again.  And then the coal pours into the furnace again and....

You see what I mean?  It's not always so chaotic.  I'm not always in a state of either total rebellion or a lack of personhood and agency.  Over the years, I have learned to better manage the fire within.  I keep it burning to keep myself going and I only use it to destroy when it's necessary (and trust that sometimes, it is very necessary - mostly outside of my relationship with Master).  But still, it can be hard to walk that fine line as a slave.  It is easy to lose your personhood.  Some people want that, I do not think ill of that if it's their desire.  Master has forbidden me from it.  I have been tasked with remaining all that is me and remaining beneath him.  It has been good for someone like me to turn to willingly be beneath him.  If I may quote:

‎"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame."


(Bonus points if you know what I quoted.  It is one of my favorites.)

Not that I am necessarily shameful, but humility has been good for me.  I need to do better with it, of course.  But even the progress I have made so far has been so, so healthy.  I am very rarely burnt up in my own fire these days, as I once was before.  For a long time, I feared that the fire inside would go out completely.  Sometimes, as I mentioned before, I put it out voluntarily because I can't see any other way to keep it under control.  But the real fear lies in wondering if - what if - one day I wake up, and I simply can't start the fire anymore?  What happens if he crushes it out of me?  What happens if I let him put it out?  I feared (and sometimes I still do fear) the loss of myself.  I fear that he would abandon me if this happened, no longer interested in the malleable, thoughtless creature he helped create.  But that's where the trust comes in - I have to believe that he is just as interested in keeping my fire alive as I am.

And I do believe that.  Even if sometimes it's hard to convince the "survival" oriented side of myself to see that.  Like many, I grew up constantly bombarded with attempts to put out my inner fire.  That's probably why it gets so huge now.  You can pour a bucket on a camp fire, but once it spreads, you're just shit out of luck.  Arrogance and even cruelty were my self-defense against that.  Now I must trust that turning down the heat doesn't mean the fire has to go out or that I will be any less myself.

I have already progressed in this manner, so it's hard for me to rationalize why this fear is still there on some level.  But I'm working on it.

How this plays out for my Master, or anyone else's Master, I don't know.  I can conjecture, but I have no way of knowing how they might stop themselves from burning up not only themselves, but those around them too.  If any Doms would like to comment on this or write on it themselves, please do.  I'd be interested to hear about it.  Thus, I will leave the Dominant point of view to the dominants.

I cannot serve without the will and strength to do so.

RAM.

*~zelda...