Years ago, I worked with an eighty-plus year-old client through my intuitive healing practice. His life changed in stellar ways, all because we focused on his second or sacral chakra. I will call him Ralph.

Our interactions occurred over four years. During that time, Ralph transformed his life, even with a death sentence hanging over his head. Of course, you can shift your world from dull to dazzling without that motivation. In fact, I'll be providing you with five steps to do just that.

Ralph entered my office on a bright spring day. He had recently received a cancer diagnosis. Though it was relatively slow-moving, Ralph took it as a wake-up call. He wanted me to help him shape-change his life. We focused on engaging his second chakra, the energy center of emotions, creativity, and innovation.

Ralph reinvented his life, one of the primary promises afforded through the second chakra. He finished the bachelor's degree he had started through the Veterans Administration Program decades ago, but swung his major from business administration to the fine arts. He underwent emotional therapy to forgive his parents for physical and mental abuse. After a year of that deep dive, he met a woman at his senior home, whom he married.

Together, they relished two sets of cooking classes in Paris. They took up walk-jogging. And when Ralph died, his wife came in for a session. She thanked me for his life-altering journey with the gift of orange tennis shoes.

Orange is the snazzy color of the second chakra.

Incidentally, orange is also the most optimistic of all colors, guaranteed to bring cheeriness to any situation. By making changes with your second chakra as your guide, you'll just plain end up happier.

We all have a life area we'd like to propel from flat to fantastic. It doesn't matter what age we are. Where are we seeking more ease? Freedom? Expressiveness? Financial acumen? Sensual appreciation of the good things in life, from food to…you know what? You can color outside of the lines that are serving as a straightjacket by undertaking five easy steps in concert with your inventive second chakra.

Before I walk you through these undertakings, I'll offer a few words about this abdomen-based energy center.

Like all chakras, your sacral chakra governs a specific region of the body and a related set of physiological functions. Anchored in your sacral vertebrae, it manages the energy of your small intestines, ovaries, and testes. Its psychological relationship with emotions is cemented through its association with the enteric nervous system, also called the gut brain. These 200-600 million neurons hold programs determining your emotional responses in life and largely determine the health of your immune and digestive system. You can see why the power for creating change is so powerfully linked to your sacral chakra.

When moving through these five steps of reinvention, undergo them at a pace that is comfortable for you. They will take you a few weeks to complete if undertaken in a row, although you can return to any step as a standalone when seeking additional evolution.

1. Cleanse and Activate. I'm going to lead you through a short, intuitive process designed to assist you in cleansing and turning on your second chakra. Before you can become clear about your inner desires, much less be empowered to manifest them, you must let go of others' emotions, free your own repressed feelings, and learn how to innovate based on joy.

Joy is a diamond with many facets. Sure, you are joyful if feeling ecstatic or blissful, but joyous feelings also include satisfaction, contentment, relief, bonding, appreciation, gratitude, and the like. Joy is a brilliant yardstick for making decisions; if a choice or activity will most likely lead to some form of joy, you should consider it a "go."

This guided practice can be undergone daily, weekly, or any time you sense that an emotional issue stands in the way of your most high-flying life.

Settle into a quiet space and breathe deeply. Acknowledge that you'll participate in this process as your own higher self, or the spirit that you have always been and will be. Request to link with your spiritual allies and whatever you call the Greater Spirit.

Know that there are universal beams of energy constantly ready for healing and manifesting. I call these streams of grace, grace equating to love in motion. Request that these are provided to you from the Greater Spirit. They will perform any physical, psychological, and spiritual task necessary to enliven your second chakra and life. As an aside, you can call upon these any time, day or night, no matter your need.

With the assistance of guidance, bring your focus to the very center of your second chakra in the middle of your abdomen. Request that the streams of grace create a safe space within this inner sanctum and settle into it. Now allow your own spirit to activate your intuitive faculties, thus allowing you to psychically sense, see, feel, know, and hear from a truthful place. You will now evaluate the current state of your second chakra.

What is your overall assessment of this vital energy center? Does it seem bright and shiny, or muddy and murky, or in-between? Let guidance help you gauge the presence of stuck emotions. Intuitively determine which percentage are composed of your own repressed feelings, and which percentage belong to others. The second chakra often serves as a sponge for the feelings and issues of others, thereby inhibiting your own self-awareness and emotional expression.

Psychically check the hues located in your second chakra. Ultimately, you want to perceive a bright orange coloration. Dark hues indicate depressive issues or an overfocus on the past. Weak hues suggest anxiety from a lack of self-empowerment.

Sit within the center of this chakra for a few more minutes and discuss matters with yourself. Are you ready to clean this amazing chakra? To let go of issues not your own and allow your own beautiful feelings to arise? Then request that healing streams of grace emanate from the middle chamber of this chakra and beam outward, pushing out anything you're ready to let go of and filling you with dreamsicle-orange. Any other needed streams will be provided from outside of you. Participate in this waterfall of love while experiencing a release and filling in of orange-joy.

When you feel fully purified and content, breathe deeply, and return to your everyday life.

2. Dream Your Dreams. Nested within your sacral chakra are your soul's dreams, those that can lead to joy. Over the next few days, your assignment will be to delve into these desires.

Obtain a journal and writing instrument. You will be carrying these with you for a few days to record your observations. When you're ready for your odyssey, undergo the following short meditation.

Settle into a comfortable place and relax. Bring your focus to the sacred centrum of your second chakra while affirming your own spiritual essence, your spiritual allies, and the Greater Spirit. Request that your own soul will share the longings secreted in your sacral chakra over the next few days, or whatever time frame you prefer.

Know that your intuition will help you recognize your soul messages in any number of ways: night or daydreams, everyday musings, friendly conversations, and even through environmental signs. The latter could consist of messages from natural beings but even words on billboards or heard over the radio.

Continue with this excursion until you've reached your pre-set ending and then review all your notes. Summarize them in broad categories, such as, "Financial," "Relational," "Productive," "Self-Care," "Travel," or whatever strikes your fancy. Then congratulate yourself and your second chakra for your spiritual accomplishment.

3. Craft a Color Board. It's time to splash those sacred sacral ideas onto a craft board so you can view them in all their divine dreaminess.

Buy a large poster board and a bunch of color markers, pencils, pens, or paints. You might also gather magazines so you can cut images out of them, or post-it notes to write or scribble on. Then look over your journal list of ambitions and hopes. Spend as much time necessary to inscribe them on your poster board. Doodle, paint, write, glue on images, or do whatever you want to portray your desires in a novel way. It's arts and crafts all over again, a specialty of the creative second chakra.

4. Design Your Time. Your second chakra self is totally able to be practical as well as innovative, but a Muggle experience doesn't need to be boring. You can gather paper and writing instruments or an online or hand-held calendar; then again, you can buy a new poster board and lots of glue, glitter, and magical colored markers. You're basically going to create a schematic (read that as calendar) for action.

Centering in your second chakra, review the products of your last two actions steps and then select one or two priorities. This is your second chakra manifesting list. Now sketch out the steps you will need to take to actualize your desires. Set deadlines and due dates according to which actions will best lead to some version of joy.

Remember that joy is a multi-colored rainbow. You don't have to love every single task, but you should enjoy the outcome of it. Have you set an objective such as running a 5K race? Think of the relief of running that first kilometer as practice. That's joy.

5. Keep Creating. Every week or so, go back to your supercool calendar and decide if you need to update your ideas and tasks. Remain fluid by reminding yourself that joy is your second chakra compass. When you're well on your way—or complete—with one or two of your soul dreams, move to another. Remember that the treasure chest of your sacral centrum holds a lifetime worth of orangey desires.