Understanding Chakras

Understanding The 7 Chakras

Just like the physical body, the human energy body is a multilayered, interdependent system that has a significant influence on several levels of your being — the mental, emotional, and spiritual. The main energy systems are called chakras. Chakra is the Sanskrit word for “wheel” or “disk,” which accurately represents the swirling vortexes of energy nestled throughout the body beginning at the base of the spine and moving upwards to the crown of the head. There are seven major concentrated chakras located throughout the energy body — Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Third Eye, and Crown. The chakras reside in areas that have vital organs, such as the brain, heart, and reproductive system.

Understanding the role and purpose of each chakra is a significant first step in establishing the harmonious flow of energy throughout your energetic body. The seven chakras are all inextricably linked to your embodied experience. To vitalize the body, the chakras must work connectedly and effectively. Proper circulation within individual chakras will influence the free flow of life force to the other energy centers.

In a healthy and balanced body, the seven chakras emit the perfect amount of energy to every part of your being. Any imbalances or blockages will materialize into physical, mental, or emotional ailments. These energetic imbalances and blockages stem from both internal and external triggers that cause energy to become stagnant in the body. By learning about the seven chakras, you can become more in tune with the natural energies circulating your body. With this knowledge, you can harness the personal and spiritual powers within and achieve balance between your mind, body, and spirit.

The Root Chakra – Muladhara

• Location: Base of the Spine
• Color: Red
• Element: Earth
• Positive emotion: Faith in life
• Negative emotion: Fear
• Healing crystals: Bloodstone, Red Jasper, Jet, Smoky Quartz, Ruby, Tourmaline

The root chakra provides the foundation for which we establish our basis in life. It is the breath energy that grounds and anchors the physical body into the Earth. The root is where our sense of security, safety, and stability originates.

People with first chakra wounding tend to experience disassociation from their physical form and feel disconnected from reality. Physical symptoms manifest themselves as immune system disorders, weight issues, lethargy, kidney dysfunctions, and hip, pelvic, and lower back pain.

On the emotional level, the deficiencies in the root chakra result in looming feelings of insecurity, fear, negativity, illusion, doubts, and cynicism. Imbalances in the first chakra will provoke constant worries about our basic needs, finances, health, and safety.

The primary lesson of the root chakra is to fully inhabit your physical embodiment and establish deep roots within your environment. By working towards grounding yourself in stronger perceptions of stability, safety, and security, you can help expand and balance the first chakra.

An important step in healing the root chakra is focusing on the physicality of ourselves and the world around us. Listen to the body’s needs — the need for movement, nourishment, and proper rest. Once we attune to the physical body, we must then re-center ourselves within our material environment and cultivate our own sources of support. Developing a harmonious connection with the natural environment allows us to foster our sense of safety and belonging in the world.

The Sacral Chakra – Swadhisthana

• Location: Lower Abdomen
• Color: Orange
• Element: Water
• Positive emotion: Satisfaction and pleasure
• Negative emotion: Guilt and shame
• Healing crystals: Citrine, Orange Calcite, Carnelian, Moonstone

The sacral chakra encapsulates our emotional characteristics and forms of expression. It governs the regulation, rhythm, and flow of our emotions and thoughts. It is at this chakra where we experience personal expansion and development through our relationships and interactions with others.

Individuals with a blocked or unbalanced sacral chakra tend to fixate on their personal emotions or become preoccupied with the reactions and responses of others. They lack flexibility and have difficultly adapting to changes in their life. Physical symptoms will materialize as urinary problems, infertility, frigidity, anemia, gall and kidney infections, prostate issues, and pelvic disease.

On the emotional level, imbalances in the sacral chakra will emerge as confusion, betrayal, overindulgence, obsessive behaviors, lack of desire, poor boundaries, and loss of imagination and creativity.

The sacral chakra teaches us that the world can be a nurturing, pleasurable, and creative place if we learn to embrace our position in it. We need to establish harmonious relationships with ourselves and others to grow and flourish, while also healing or releasing relationships that are no longer in alignment with our highest good.

Healing sacral chakra wounds is often embedded in being compassionate and understanding of ourselves, allowing self-expression, and accepting our thoughts and emotions as they are occurring. Through this realization, we can begin to move from restrictions and limitations into lives of greater adaptability and fluidity.

The Solar Plexus – Manipura

• Location: Center of the torso
• Color: Yellow
• Element: Fire
• Positive emotion: Self-reliance
• Negative emotion: Anger
• Healing crystals: Tiger’s Eye, Amber, Citrine, Sunstone, Yellow Calcite

The solar plexus chakra serves as the center that harmonizes and balances our inner essence with the outer world. Energetically, it fuels our journey towards greater self-discovery and inner knowing. The third chakra is primarily associated with self-esteem, inner drive, responsibility, confidence, personal power, and self-worth.

Disturbances in the third chakra often evoke inappropriate and unhealthy forms of self-expression — anger, frustration, resentment, and tantrums. Physical imbalances result in indigestion, diabetes, ulcers, acid reflux, constipation, toxicity, parasites, colitis, and nausea.

On the emotional level, the deficiencies in the solar plexus chakra manifest themselves as low self-esteem, lack of willpower, nervousness, indecision, aggression, constant criticism, and stubbornness. When there are imbalances in this chakra, we will feel a lack of control over our thoughts, emotional responses, and reality.

Healing solar plexus wounds involves self-actualization and determination. It requires a great deal of introspection and reflection to become self-aware of our unique gifts and life purpose. To balance the third chakra, we must feel empowered by our personal truths and inspire others to do the same.

The solar plexus chakra asks us to fully embody our authenticity and project that uniqueness, confidence, capability, and power out into the world. It is about discovering our sense of purpose in life and making choices that align with our highest truths. The third chakra reminds us that we are worthy of experiencing fulfillment and satisfaction in all that we do.

Heart Chakra – Anahata

• Location: Centre of the chest
• Color: Green
• Element: Air
• Positive emotion:Unconditional love
• Negative emotion: Grief
• Healing crystals: Rose Quartz, Emerald, Rhodochrosite, Green Aventurine, Malachite, Jade

The heart chakra facilitates the powerful transmission and harmonious exchange of energy with everything around us. It is the central powerhouse of our energetic being, interlinking and balancing the earth and spiritual faculties. The heart is where we develop love, compassion, empathy, and acceptance for ourselves and others.

Since the heart chakra bridges the human self with the spiritual dimensions, fourth chakra dysfunction can result in extreme physical and emotional distress and disconnect. Physical symptoms will manifest in heart disease, heart palpitations, high/low blood pressure, lung infection, difficulty breathing, and autoimmune disease.

On the emotional level, a blockage in the heart may emerge as jealousy, codependency, unworthiness, lack of empathy, loneliness, excessive isolation, lack of forgiveness, fear of intimacy, passivity, and harsh judgment of others.

The heart chakra is motivated by the energy of unconditional love. It asks that we uproot, examine, and extinguish suppressed traumas and emotions so that we can bring wholeness and deep healing into our lives. When we offer ourselves and others endearment and forgiveness, we begin unifying with this powerful universal force.

Balancing the heart chakra resides in the cultivation of self-love. Our connection to self sets the foundation for all external relationships we hold. When we approach our core with tenderness, kindness, consideration, and sensitivity, we inadvertently exert these very frequencies into our interactions with others.

The Throat Chakra – Vishuddha

• Location: Throat
• Color:Blue
• Element: Ether or sound
• Positive emotion:Freedom
• Negative emotion: Frustration
• Healing crystals: Aquamarine, Turquoise, Blue Lace Agate, Angelite, Blue Apatite, Amazonite

The throat chakra serves as the center for refined self-expression through thought, sound, speech, feeling, and vision. It is driven by the principle of authentic embodiment and communication. The throat allows us to express our inner truths purely, cultivate our originality, and listen deeply to others.

Disturbances in the fifth chakra will emerge when individuals are detached from their truth, purpose in life, and creative expression. Physical symptoms manifest themselves as asthma, thyroid imbalances, sore throat, clenched jaw, neck stiffness, shoulder problems, vocal cord issues, and swollen glands.

On the emotional level, the deficiencies in the throat chakra may result in an inability to express emotions, suppressing opinions and beliefs, negative inner dialogue, mood swings, telling lies, constant complaining, interrupting others, and gossiping. When there are imbalances present in this chakra, our thought process and verbal expression will be impeded by external responses — we will often modify our words, opinions, and intentions to conform to collective thought.

The primary lesson of the throat chakra is to embody our true essence. Its emphasis is on projecting and expressing our highest truth into the world. To balance the throat chakra, we must attune to the vibrational power that resides within our authentic expression. Manifestation derives from the throat chakra — when we emit energies of truth, honesty, originality, and integrity, we attract an aligned reality for ourselves.

The Third Eye Chakra – Ajna

• Location: Between the eyebrows
• Color: Indigo
• Element: Light
• Positive emotion: Sense of insight, Divine timing
• Negative emotion: Misunderstanding
• Healing crystals: Amethyst, Lapis Lazuli, Moldavite, Moonstone, Iolite, Labradorite, Sodalite, Blue Tiger’s Eye

The third eye chakra acts as a gateway into our divine intuitive perceptions and inner knowingness. It is driven by the principles of openness and receptiveness and facilitates our capacity for reasoning and understanding. The sixth chakra is associated with elevated spiritual development, psychic powers, clear vision, the dream realm, and heightened self-awareness.

People with sixth chakra wounding tend to remain situated in lower levels of conscious existence and have difficulties sensing the more subtle aspects of reality. Third eye imbalances can manifest physically as headaches and migraines, neurological diseases, vision problems, sinusitis, sleep disorders, hearing loss, seizures, and sciatica.

On the emotional level, deficiencies in the third eye chakra materialize as depression, poor intuition, anxiety, paranoia, volatility, delusions, and skepticism. Individuals with sixth chakra imbalances often find themselves preoccupied with trivial matters and are unable to connect with higher states of meaningful existence.

The primary lesson of the third eye chakra is to establish a harmonious balance between logic and intuition. It teaches us how to intersect the rational mind with the spiritual self to develop a sense of wholeness and connectedness in our lives.

To find balance in the third eye chakra, we must surrender to different forms of perception. We must see beyond external distractions and illusions in order to cultivate deeper spiritual awareness within.

People with a wounded sixth chakra may benefit from specific crystals associated with healing the third eye. Using crystals and gemstones in the purple, indigo and violet colour palette are useful helpers in the quest to awaken, open use the third eye. Of the various crystals related to your third eye, Lapis Lazuli is the one which will do the most to help open it.

The Crown Chakra – Sahasrara

• Location: Top of the head
• Color: Violet or white
• Element: Cosmos
• Positive emotion: Interconnectedness
• Negative emotion: Ignorance
• Healing crystals: Clear Quartz, Moonstone, Lepidolite, Sugilite, Selenite, Howlite

The crown chakra acts as the portal to our divine and spiritual nature. It is the center of enlightenment and cosmic affinity that connects us to dynamic thought, oneness, and immersive states of consciousness. The seventh chakra is associated with mental strength, higher spiritual wisdom, self-mastery, transcendence, and divine energy.

Individuals with crown chakra wounding tend to be disconnected from their higher self, source energy, and reality. Physical symptoms materialize as extreme exhaustion, epilepsy, cerebrum, poor sleep patterns, skin rashes, and light sensitivity.

On the emotional level, imbalances in the crown chakra will emerge as depression, confusion, ignorance, gullibility, lack of self-understanding, dissociation, narrow-mindedness, ego-centeredness, hopelessness, loss of identity, and arrogance. When we have imbalances in this chakra, we might find ourselves in a state of constant disillusionment, completely unaware of the grandness and interconnectedness within us.

The primary lesson of the crown chakra is the mastery of our highest states of potential and being. We must recognize that cosmic consciousness resides within our bodies and it can be harnessed to manifest transcendental experiences here on earth.

To balance the crown chakra we must unite with the pure cosmic energy of the universe through spiritual practices like prayer, scriptures, rhythms, mindfulness, meditation, dream analysis, journaling, visualization, and breathing techniques. Through this process of refinement and spiritual development, we begin to reach higher evolution, divinity, and enlightenment.