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Meditation is a powerful stress management tool, especially if you feel you are heading for a burnout.
Yet many times, our teachers don’t tell us about the danger of becoming spiritually fried or the changes in our sense of well-being caused by activating our Upper Chakras without proper balancing.
Way back in 1988 when I learned Transcendental Meditation, I didn’t know anything about grounding or centering practices. My teacher did not think it necessary to tell me about it either.
That part came from experiencing the side effects. Looking back, I am grateful for it.
I now know how to get the benefits of meditation without the bonus of going whacky. Sometimes too much of a good thing can be harmful.
In fact, the Muse for my blog post about things that can go wrong while meditating – When Meditation Goes Wrong (please click to read post) and what one should do in such a situation was a client who had signed up for a Mindfulness Meditation course. She experienced utter discomfort that required Chakra balancing.
In that blog post I provide 11 solutions that can be safely applied if there is discomfort following meditation. I highly recommend you’re reading it if you are exploring meditation as a tool for stress management.
Keeping our Chakras balanced is equally important as a tool for stress management. You get some simple exercises as well as a meditation that won’t send you out of whack in my ebook Stress Management with Chakra Balancing Exercises .
Got Extra Meditation Energy? Store It within Tan T’ien!
In this post, I am going to share a technique that is related to storing the spiritual energy generated by meditation for use as required.
You will learn how to send the energy into your lower Tan T’ien which corresponds to the yoga concept of Swadhisthana Chakra. It is believed to be the seat of prana that radiates outwards to the entire body.
Tan T’ien or Dantian is an energy center, an important focal point for the meditative and exercise techniques such as t’ai chi’uan, quigong, martial arts and other traditional Chinese medicine.
There are supposed to be 3 Tan T’ien in the human body. Of these, the lower Tan T’ien is particularly important as it is the focal point of breathing techniques as well as the centre of balance and gravity.
The lower Tan T’ien is considered to be the foundation of rooted standing, breathing, and body awareness in Quigong and Martial Arts. It is alluded to as the root of the Tree of Life.
The lower Tan T’ien is located an inch or two below your belly button, in your navel, few inches deep inside your body. It’s a place where all life energy is stored and transferred, being sent to areas of your body when it’s needed at the time.
I recommend releasing the excessive energy created during meditation or other spiritual practices that activate the Upper Chakras by blessing others or by sending the surplus energy back to the lower Tan T’ien area.
This way, you get the full benefit of meditation for stress management without creating further complications for yourself.
The Practice of Tan T’ien
Let us start by first locating your lower Tan T’ien.
For this, you need to stand up and bend your knees a bit. Then close your eyes, keep yourself relaxed and begin breathing with your diaphragm. Focus on the area of your navel and in a few seconds you will become aware of your lower Tan T’ien inside your body.
If that feels difficult, you can check this short YouTube Video and try this exercise.
To do the practice, place your right palm on the Tan T’ien area and then place your left palm on your right palm. With your eyes closed, breathe gently.
Intend the energy that is in excess or not needed elsewhere, to flow into lower Tan T’ien and remain there until required. Keep that intention for about a minute or two. Don’t over analyze about which energies to send there – your subconscious mind will do the needful.
Then after 1-2 minutes, make 5 gentle circles with your hands around the Tan T’ien area, clockwise and then counter- clockwise.
Voila, it is done!
This simple yet very potent and beneficial practice hardly takes a few minutes. Try it the next time you do a spiritual or energy practice and see the difference.
Do you use any grounding or centering practices that are similar in benefit? Please do share in the comments box below!
Additional Resource: Try The Karmic Ally Coaching Burnout Self Test
The self-assessment also has tips to provide you with immediate actions to control your stress levels.
The original version of this post was published on my blogger blog in May 2014 and has been revised for new information to help the reader.
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Insightful post, Vatsala. I will have to explore this technique. Thanks for re-introducing me to it.
My pleasure, Cindy. Enjoy the rediscovery!
Wow! I have been meditating for years but did not know about this. I will have to try it. Thank you so much for sharing this.
Delighted to have added a new technique to your meditation toolkit Barb.
Interesting technique. Thank you for sharing.
Welcome Heather!
Love this idea. My husband does this often in his QiGong practice and uses it to support his chronic illness. I find meditation to be very grounding in general, as I always ground into the earth before extending my awareness towards my higher chakras and beyond, but it is nice to have more techniques!
Thank you for sharing your feedback, Ana. It’s true that until one tries it, one wouldn’t believe that Tan T’ien works. I love to meditate too especially the times when I transcend into nothingness.
Thank you for this informative article on meditation. I consider my life to be a meditation where every pause, transition or moment is an opportunity to practice mindfulness and direct my energy intentionally. I also start my day with just a few minutes of mindfulness meditation to set the tone for the day. Blessings
Thank you for sharing your practice Debra. Being mindful brings us richer experiences as long as we remember to stay grounded.
Love this and lobe qui gong have a Robert Penn tape and inspired to get it out , powerful, thank you
Thanks Suzie. Enjoy the tape!
Dare I admit I do not have a practice of meditation. I’m intrigued by it but despite many attempts over the years, could not get into it. I love reading about it & chakras, now stored energy. Perhaps some day.
Meditation can take many forms, Roslyn. For my mother, her art work is her meditation and for another friend’s mother, it is gardening. Any practice that calms your mind is meditation. When the time is right you will explore and practice these forms of balance and take to it like fish to water. Do remember to come back and share your journey!
While reading this Vatsala, it feels to me like this lower Tan T’ien energy centre is related to the second chakra, the chakra of creativity and sexuality. I agree with you that living in the upper chakras too much certainly takes you out of your body and as I’ve learned, many people are not even conscious of being in their body, especially their legs which are directly related to our digestion. Although I am not a big meditator, for a lot of the reasons you mention, I do find certain things I do meditative and grounding at the same time. Gardening is one of them. For someone like me, six planets in air and already hovering slightly above the planet, I see how the best thing for me is to find activities that are meditative and that ground me in the process. I am much better than I used to be, however, it is a constant practice to stay aware and also balance my upper and lower chakra centres. Thanks for introducing us to this simple to implement practice!
I’m glad you liked this simple yet effective technique of storing excess meditation energy, Beverley. The second chakra’s name is Swadhisthana Chakra in Sanskrit. Staying grounded is essential and like yourself, I engage in many activities to make sure that my Root Chakra stays balanced. I can understand your feeling about the second chakra location. Quite often the energies of the different chakras balance each other when one or the other is out of sync. This is one of the explanations that I was offered by an expert when I lost my voice a few days after my father’s funeral. I thought the Heart Chakra would have been effected which it was but the manifestation was created in the Throat Chakra. As a creative, perhaps something similar is happening while you create using the energies of the Third or Manipura Chakra.
Interesting! I don’t know if I have noticed this before, but I am definitely going to try what you’ve suggested and maybe I’ll feel even better after I meditate!
I’d love to read about your discoveries Kimberly. Do drop by again let us know how it goes.
I love the idea of being able to store energy gained from meditation. The exercise is so simple too.I remember finding the information in your linked post, When Meditation Goes Wrong, really informative and this article just adds to the great advice.Thank you.
Always welcome, Tamuria. Enjoy your meditation and saving the extra energy for a time when you really need it. 🙂