Solar Plexus Chakra: How I Took the Wheel Back

Count how many times you say "I have to" before breakfast.

I have to get up. I have to pack the lunches. I have to answer that email. I have to be nice to that person.

If your whole day sounds like orders from someone you've never met, this one is for you.

From about 21 until about 29, I lived in resistance. I forced myself to go to a job I really did not love. I forced myself to go to the gym and do workouts I really didn't want to do. It was all force, force, force.

I was a high school teacher in my twenties, and I wasn't really respected as one. My principal didn't know my name. I'm a small person, so at assemblies I often got mistaken for a student. I spent a lot of time masking how I really felt at work.

Then I lost my health.

I developed Graves' disease and had to have my thyroid radiated. After that my thyroid hormone dropped so low I was nearly comatose, sleeping 15 to 18 hours a day. It affected me mentally, and I went on antidepressants for the first time in my life. It was a horrific period. I was so ill.

And it forced me to stop.

Lying there, I saw something I'd missed for eight years. Nobody told me I had to be a teacher. Nobody told me I had to go to the gym. I had decided they were rules I had to follow.

"I have to" was never true. I made those rules, so I could make better ones.

So I chose rules that suited me. I studied equine assisted therapies, holistic counselling and creative arts therapies, things that really resonated with me. I still think I'm a teacher in some sense. Just not in a classroom, answering to admin.

The lustrous gem

In the chakra system, that shift has an address.

The Solar Plexus sits between your navel and the base of your ribs. In Sanskrit it's Manipura, which means "lustrous gem". Its element is fire. It's where your will lives: your energy, your courage, and the whole business of turning what you know into what you do.

If the Root asks am I safe? and the Sacral asks is it okay to feel?, the Solar Plexus asks the question that changes everything:

Whose life is this, and who's steering?

In the framework I work with, this chakra's window is eighteen months to three years old. Yes, the terrible twos. Everything is no and I do it myself and mine. It looks like defiance. It's actually construction: a self being built, one refused vegetable and one stubborn wrong-shoe morning at a time.

When a small person's will gets crushed or mocked at that age, the fire doesn't go out. It banks down. What's left behind is shame and doubt, and a grown woman who waits for permission.

One thing before we go on. Power isn't force. Force pushes against people and leaves you tense and braced. I did eight years of that. Power moves toward a life, and it leaves you clear and warm.

Do this with me now

Think of one thing you "have to" do today. Say it out loud, the way you'd normally say it.

Now say it again, like this: "I choose to, because..." and finish the sentence.

I have to go to work becomes I choose to go to work, because it buys the life I'm building.

I have to have this conversation becomes I choose to have it, because the relationship matters more than the discomfort.

Same facts, different spine. Did you feel it?

This week, pick one

• Do the thing you've been putting off. The phone call, the booking, the drawer. Not because the task matters, but because your body records it: my will works when I use it.

• Find your part. Write down one thing you keep complaining about. Then write your part in it: your attitude, your actions, the things you haven't done. This isn't about blame. Anything you have a part in is something you can move.

• Choose from your values. Pick the five values that make something in your chest sit up. Do one thing this week that comes straight from them.

• Name it at night. Before bed, say what you decided today. "I decided that. I did that." Self-trust is built from proof, not affirmations.

• Burn the old rule. Write down the sentence that's been running your life from the back seat. Read it out loud once. Then burn it, safely, with a candle and a fireproof bowl or the sink.

What changed for me

When I started saying "I choose to", I always gave a reason that belonged to someone else. I choose to do this because I love my daughter. I choose to do this because I value my lifestyle.

The irony is what happened next. Gradually, the choice became more mine.

Now I say no to groups. I say no, I don't want to do that thing, I'm going to stay home with my kid, because I actually love being with my kid. I don't want to get a babysitter. I can't be bothered. I want to spend my nights building my business and doing my meditation.

I've switched off the news as well. My feeds are full of lovely, wholesome things, and when the bad news pops up I scroll straight past it. I refuse to let it rule my emotions.

I don't need all the outside noise. I've made room for myself.

"But I really do have to"

You might be thinking: Anna, I'm a single mum. The kids need feeding whether I choose it or not.

True. I'm not pretending the lunches pack themselves. But "I choose to feed my kids, because I love them" is a different sentence to live inside than "I have to make dinner again". The job is the same. Who's steering isn't.

And if someone once made your decisions for you, or punished you for having a will at all, taking charge can feel dangerous. Once, it was.

So start smaller than feels meaningful. One choice a week. A preference stated to a safe person. A decision made entirely alone, and kept. Let your body gather the evidence, at its own pace, that deciding is survivable now.

The fire doesn't need to roar to change your life. It needs to be yours.

It doesn't wait for permission. Neither should you.

If 5pm is your hardest hour, I've made a free guide for exactly that time of day. Sanity at Sundown: 7 Ways to Stop the Sundown Meltdown is seven small practices you can do with your kids right there. Get it here.

Anna writes from Yabberup, in the South West of Western Australia, where she lives with her daughter, the horses and the rest of the animals.

If today is more than a hard day, Lifeline is on 13 11 14, any time.